Lysergic acid diethylamide was labeled a "problem child" by the man who discovered its hallucinogenic properties in 1943: as it turns 75, the drug known as LSD may now be changing its image.

France's health minister on Sunday announced a new investigation into the births of several babies with upper limb defects in various parts of the country in recent years, saying it was "unacceptable" no cause had been found.

Cam Battley is a top executive at one of Canada's biggest marijuana companies, but he isn't sticking around to savor the country's historic pot legalization.

He's off to Germany on Friday and Australia next week — a sign of what a leader Canada has become in the global pot industry, and of the reverberations its decision to legalize could have internationally.

Nearly a century of marijuana prohibition came to an end Wednesday as Canada became the first major Western nation to legalize and regulate its sale and recreational use.

As Canada prepares on Wednesday to become only the second country in the world to legalize the use of marijuana, experts in Uruguay say its pioneering move three years ago helped to reduce drug trafficking in the South American nation.

While the public initially rejected the project first introduced by iconic leftist president Jose Mujica, who was in power from 2010-2015, attitudes have gradually changed, with the population now largely supportive of the move.

Canada will end its pot prohibition Wednesday with the goals of curbing the black market and use by youth, amid concerns around the public health and safety merits of legalization.

Canada on Friday will become the second country in the world to legalize cannabis -- with the provinces left to work out the details of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's landmark measure.

Lithuania's parliament on Thursday passed a law that will allow doctors to prescribe marijuana-based medicine in the Baltic EU state.

The lawmakers voted 90-0 with three abstentions in favour of the legislation that will now go to President Dalia Grybauskaite to be signed into law.

The French health watchdog Wednesday urged the government to outlaw sunlamps and sunbeds because of the "proven" risk of skin cancer, in line with similar bans already in place in Australia and Brazil.

"We recommend banning all activities linked to artificial tanning, along with ultraviolet sunlamps sold for esthetic purposes, especially those sold on the private market," Olivier Merckel, an expert at the Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES), told AFP.

An elderly Spanish doctor escaped punishment on Monday in the country's first "stolen babies" trial, despite a court finding him guilty of taking a newborn baby from her mother for illegal adoption under the Franco dictatorship.