Disinformation » Drugs

Smart Drugs To Make Your Brain Function Better

majestic — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:33:25 +0000

The intrepid Ari Levaux tests so-called “smart” nootropic drugs so that you don’t have to (including Joe Rogan’s Alpha Brain), for The Atlantic:

Hunters will go to great lengths to gain an edge over their prey. You never know where the margin between success and failure may lie, so you wake up extra early, say a prayer, spray bottled deer piss on your boots, and do whatever else you think might increase your odds. My schedule recently got more demanding thanks to a new baby. With less time to kill and another mouth to feed, I’ve had to step up my game.

Hunting can be physically demanding but, assuming that you’re prepared, it’s mostly mental. Staying sharp is how opportunities are created. I ordered a bottle of nootropic pills, in case it might help.

Nootropic (new-tro-pik) is the term for supplements, also known as smart drugs, that improve brain function. They can be food substances like phenethylamine and L-Theanine, found in chocolate and green tea, respectively. Nootropics also include extracted and purified components of medicinal plants, as well as substances synthesized from chemical precursors, such as piracetam, the world’s first official nootropic (piracetam was created in 1964 in Belgium by a team of scientists whose leader, Dr. Corneliu E. Giurgea, coined the term). Since then piracetam has been widely used as a cognitive enhancer and to treat neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Some people consider stimulants to be a form of nootropic, while others distinguish them from the likes of caffeine, and Adderall — of which there’s currently a nationwide shortage. Most legal users of this attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) drug are children; it’s prescribed sparingly in adults for fear of abuse. The FDA caused the shortage by halting delivery to drug manufacturers of the drug’s active ingredient, an amphetamine, for months, arguing that enough Adderall had already been produced to satisfy all legal demand. The agency argued that abusers of Adderall are responsible for the shortage. That’s a group that includes students and professionals using Adderall to help boost productivity during stressful times.

I chose the nootropic pills I ordered, a formulation called Alpha Brain, mainly because their ingredients are extracted rather than synthesized. I swallowed some the day they arrived, and waited to become mentally sharp. I wanted fireworks bright enough to eliminate all doubt about whether they worked.

Nothing happened until I was falling asleep, when I became distinctly aware that I was falling asleep. I monitored the entire process and remained lucid, with a measure of free will, as I dreamed, and woke up surprisingly refreshed. While I remembered many of my dreams, some of which were quite long, I couldn’t recall how my underpants ended up around my ankles…

[continues in The Atlantic]

Yet Again, YouTubers Ask Obama About Drug Reform

DeepCough — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 21:37:40 +0000

Isn’t it funny how a Democrat refuses to listen to the people who put him in power? From Alternet:

“We need to rethink and decriminalize our marijuana laws.”

Can you guess which 2012 presidential candidate said the above statement? You’d be forgiven for thinking Ron Paul, or even Gary Johnson, since both have publicly advocated for reforming our country’s drug laws. You’d be forgiven for guessing anyone but Barack Obama, based on his actions during the past few years, but it was. It may be hard to believe, but President Obama is the same person who once called for reforming our marijuana laws, and deemed the drug war an “utter failure” during his 2004 campaign for the US Senate. Despite previous calls for reform, on Monday night, when faced with over 70,000 individuals urging him to address the issue of marijuana prohibition, Obama’s only response was his silence. NORML and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition posted two of the most popular questions submitted to the White House’s recent Q&A on YouTube, alongside hundreds of others on the topic of marijuana law reform, but Obama offered no response or acknowledgement.

This recent attempt at citizen engagement, entitled “Your Interview With the President,” was launched to coincide with the State of the Union Address. The concept was simple. Anyone could submit a text or video question through the White House YouTube channel, before the public voted on them over the course of the week. The highest rated questions would be selected for Obama to address. On Tuesday, January 24th, NORML submitted a question of our own, which inquired:

“With over 850,000 Americans arrested in 2010, for marijuana charges alone, and tens of billions of tax dollars being spent locking up non-violent marijuana users, isn’t it time we regulate and tax marijuana?”

The question exploded in popularity and received more than 4,000 votes in the first several hours, making it the 2nd highest rated question. Much to our surprise, that evening the question was removed from the YouTube channel and flagged as “inappropriate.” In response, an upset contingent of citizens flooded the page with marijuana law reform questions…

[continues at Alternet]

It Is Time To Legalize All Drugs

Amir Alwani — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 03:27:04 +0000

Cannabis female flowers. Photo: Acdx (CC)

I have a right to ingest/smoke whatever I want and to explore the contents of “my own mind” in the process, so long as I am not hurting anyone else, even if it kills me. This is a human right, albeit one that few people think of.

Imagine if you had the right to have a shed in your backyard but you didn’t have a right to explore the contents of that shed. That would be a little insulting, wouldn’t it?

Those who want to limit our mental exploration are to be held highly suspect. Those same people, for instance, often advocate that perfectly normal and healthy individuals go on 7 psychotropic pharmaceuticals at the same time. Limiting access to information is usually a form of domination.

We don’t truly have access to our own minds right now. Some of us do, but there is a huge effort to dumb all of us down and re-engineering us. Fluoride in our water supply destroying our third eye (pineal gland) is just one of many examples of this.

Decriminalization of pot is a sad effort to appease control freaks. I see no reason to demand anything short of full-on legalization (of all drugs).

The nanny-state should get off of our backs. Waving its finger, the state pretends it’s looking out for our best interest but half the time it’s dealing the very drugs that it’s punishing people for possessing.

Drugs are prohibited in order to instill a monopoly (e.g. coke/heroin) and/or to mold a society’s consciousness (e.g. magic mushrooms, LSD, DMT).

State-owned education and the mainstream media are the mouthpieces of the government and that is bad enough but we should now (or sometime soon) also deal with the reality that social engineers have prohibited specific substances precisely because those substances have, for thousands of years (in many cases), helped people become more self-aware, helped people discover that the ego is an illusion and that the true self knows no borders.

Whether this discovery happens rapidly via a deep introspective journey fomented by a heroic dose of magic mushrooms or whether a slower but slightly similar process unfolds over time with the aid of the occasional toke of a flower that allows one to relax and decompress, the name of the game is self-discovery and elites seem to passionately hate this game.

While this is technically an insane and sinister state of affairs – and, of course, those guilty should be held accountable – I personally think we need to clean up our act a little bit and look in the mirror, especially with respect to how we treat each other and how we dominate the other creatures that inhabit this planet. Otherwise we will have simply learned nothing, can easily be shown to be inconsistent and at that point we cannot expect to be taken seriously.

Misguided Rage

If you are one of those people who puts their blind trust in a government, you might find yourself at a soccer riot, filled with rage, fighting with someone over a ball going into a net, ignoring the true culprits behind the shaping of your depressing life, all just because you listened when they (government/society) told you “we know what’s best for you” and because you had not yet made the decision to face the reality that you had no sound reason to believe them (I’m not saying it’s an easy decision, I’m just saying it’s a decision… one that you likely can still make).

The pharmaceutical industry makes more money when people are ignorant of the fact that marijuana & hemp can replace a lot of the “traditional” drugs out there (and indeed, hemp does represent a massive threat to the oil industry as well) but at the end of the day elites are really giving each other high fives over the fact that they’ve more-or-less successfully banned one of the most awesome things in the world.

Pot is illegal because pot is absolutely amazing and has the ability to dramatically improve many different aspects of your life in a variety of different ways.

It’s great that people are fighting so hard for patients to be able to get effective medicine, but where does that put those of us who just want to have a good time with that same medicine? And wouldn’t those who want their medicine also benefit from the efforts of those who want total freedom to enjoy that which is harmless?

Do I have to sit here and wish I get cancer or some other serious ailment just so I can one day finally enjoy smoking a joint in peace? This is absurd.

Comedian Doug Stanhope eloquently echoes my initial point, that the real problem is one of individual rights:

“If you’re gonna have a pro-drug argument, start the argument where it starts: I have the right to do what ever the hell I want to my own body, if it kills me slowly, happy for me, f*ck you, “clack clack” (miming a pump-action shotgun) stop me!”

When I came across the headline, “Snoop Dogg’s marijuana drug bust highlights idiocy of the failed War on Drugs,” I was happy that Natural News was reporting on such a blatant attack on individual rights. I mean Snoop did have a medical marijuana license, when all is said and done, and these mixed messages about pot are getting ridiculous. When I finally had time to actually read the article a week later, however, I was shocked and amazed.

As a disclaimer, I will say that I have been an enormous fan of Natural News for years (and probably will continue to be). In the past I’ve even sent the editor, Mike Adams, a letter of gratitude for putting Natural News on the map.

I’m grateful to be able to upload some of my videos on Natural News’s video section as well and I’m going to continue to have Natural News’ RSS feed on the Potent News website because I value a lot of the other content that Natural News reports on with regard to cancer-cures, food freedom, the highly detrimental effects of vaccines, other health issues, the growing police state, etc., but I want to make it known that I now find myself very confused by Mike Adams’ take on marijuana and drug laws in general.

I do have a lot of respect for Mike Adams but this issue is one that has deeply affected my life in a number of ways and so I will not hesitate to be blunt.

A Drug Court For Pot?

The article states,

Ideally, marijuana possession should be de-criminalized to free up law enforcement resources for more important tasks (and to take the ego out of the DEA, which is a rogue government ~~agency~~ gang that openly violates state law).

Barring that, the next best option is to pass state laws that put marijuana possession under the jurisdiction of a drug court, not a criminal court. In fact, this idea of approaching drug possession from a health care point of view (rather than a criminal point of view) works for all street drugs: meth, heroin, cocaine, etc.

Later the article elaborates on the drug court:

Drug problems needed to be treated in a “drug court” where court options include:

• Mandatory drug detox treatment.

• Mandatory drug counseling.

• Nutritional support programs for detox and overcoming drug addiction.

• Paying of relatively small fines, similar to traffic tickets.

• Regular drug testing for a limited period of time to determine compliance.

My first thought is, “are you joking?”

My second thought is, “why not make all drugs legal?”

This probably only sounds radical to those who have a residue of a holier-than-thou attitude whereby they think they know what’s best for everyone. To me, a drug court for pot sounds radical.

Freedom is an all-or-nothing thing. You can’t be a half-slave.

As many people have pointed out, decriminalization is a flimsy concept. I almost find the concept offensive. It’s saying you can have “small amounts”. What a tease! There is no dignity in decriminalization and it only delays the inevitable.

Also, I don’t know if Mike Adams forgot, but it’s worth mentioning that marijuana is not only “far less harmful” than alcohol, as he put it, but marijuana is also a medicine that treats over 100 conditions (1,2). I don’t say that as an argument for legalization. This is simply something which Natural News has covered before but which is apparently irrelevant now (although, to be fair, he didn’t write the specific Natural News article I’m thinking of).

Personally, I think it would have been ideal if Mike Adams mentioned operation Fast and Furious (which he has covered before), as globalist-funded coke gangs spilling into the US with guns given to them by the ATF and the White House would definitely be relevant to a discussion of the root causes of drug-culture.

The current marijuana situation is a joke. The whole drug war is a joke. They ship the narcotics in and then bust us for using them. There’s no bargaining with these people. If you give them an inch, they’ll take a mile.

This whole thing is a very complex issue and deserves a lot of attention. We are at a particular stage in our evolution. Our relationship to each other and our relationship to the world is reflected accordingly. We cannot reasonably hope to reclaim our humanity while simultaneously allowing others to use every excuse they can come up with to dictate the parameters of our behavior and mental exploration. We do not need to be treated like infants.

Let’s pause for a moment to examine one thing. When you spend your time with friends and family, you start to sound like them. We all know that.

Similarly, we are trapped, so to speak, in a Matrix-like world that is constructed by unseen cockroaches, and so those cockroaches have rubbed off on us.

I mean, it seems like the powers-that-be think they know what’s best for everyone and everything. It follows that we’ll mimic their dominating ways when exposed to the constructed reality they have manufactured for us (at least a bit, in some ways, I mean they’re not our “friends” but you catch my drift).

It’s not all bad. Conversely, the evil scumbags must also have the good people rub off on them. It’s only a matter of time before the nanny-state gains a bit of sanity and we all understand where we’re all coming from.

Rewind

While doing more research, I found an earlier Natural News article about Willie Nelson’s arrest for pot, where Mike Adams advocated legalization (and taxation… I don’t understand why we should tax this… maybe I’m missing something but I’m going to ignore this for now).

Legalization seems to be a much more sound position but I don’t know why a little more than a year later Mike Adams became content demanding the above mentioned de-criminalization / drug court (which I feel represents a compromise).

In this article on the Willie Nelson bust, Mike writes,

For the record, I’m not a marijuana smoker, and I would never encourage any individual to take up such a habit unless they had a legitimate medical need for pain relief. However, I am totally against the continued persecution of individuals who buy, possess or consume this medicinal herb. They harm no one but themselves, and smoking marijuana produces side effects that are far milder than drinking alcohol.

I find the “harm no one but themselves” part to be a little pompous. Personally, I would recommend that everyone try it at least once. There, I said it. I’m also not the only person who’s said it.

Legendary comedian Bill Hicks has joked that marijuana should not only be legalized but should also be mandatory (fast-forward to 3:45):

Comedian Kat Williams also gets the message across very succinctly:

It helps me make visual art and music, it helps me write articles, and above all, it helps me be more patient and understanding with people. Perhaps as a result of a combination of all of these things, it helps me be more self-aware and allows me to not waste my energy fighting other peoples’ battles.

Influential writer Alan Watts was largely responsible for popularizing Zen in the west and he has said that a lot of the problems in life occur simply from not thinking things through all the way to the end.

Marijuana helps many people slow down and not panic so much, to the point that we can actually think for once. State-owned education seeks to accomplish the opposite of this and that’s an important thing to keep in mind. Your government wants you in the dark about substances that make you less afraid.

Mike Adams goes on to write things which are indeed 100% accurate but which nevertheless don’t capture the whole picture:

Why is marijuana criminalized in America? The answer is simply that marijuana prohibition is the cornerstone of the American police state. Keeping this herb illegal keeps millions of people employed in law enforcement who otherwise wouldn’t have jobs. It keeps the prison industry strong and gives cops a reason to search vehicles.

It even gives law enforcement officers yet another excuse to hold “terrorism drills.” Seriously: A recent terrorism drill in Northern California imagined pot heads taking over Shasta Dam and blowing up vehicles (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle…). These cops must have a lot of free time on their hands to dream up these wild (and highly improbable) scenarios. But keeping marijuana criminalized allows them to spend more taxpayer money running these useless drills that, after all, keep them all well paid.

At the same time, it causes billions of dollars a year to flow into the underground black market economy — money that would otherwise be used to raise tax revenues for states. (http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy…)

Yes, these are all true reasons. In fact, even in Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, back in April of 2011, police threw a flash-bang grenade into a guy’s son’s bedroom window (for suspicion of some pot and a weapon) and the guy even turned out to be the wrong guy. The cops were at the wrong house. If that man’s son was asleep in that bed he could have been killed.

I agree that police do need an excuse to push people around these days but they’re not just picking some random excuse. It’s not just a happy coincidence that this particular excuse has to do with a drug which, as I mentioned before, helps people make art and write (books, plays, films, documentaries, reports, articles, etc.), helps them think/meditate, and helps to dissolve the ego. Did I mention it helps people love each other? Is that a medicinal benefit?

A Mountain of Laws

It’s worth noting that I was surprised to even find out that there was a time when people could drive cars without a “driver’s license” (and then I was surprised at the fact that I was surprised). Many years ago when I visited France I was shocked to see that their laws are such that they allowed 16 year old kids to purchase alcohol at the corner store. They allowed you to drink in a car as long as you were a passenger and not the driver. They also allowed people to drink outside on the streets.

In Canada, the laws were a lot less lenient and yet I saw more car accidents, more teenagers getting drunk for the sake of getting drunk, more drinkers making fools of themselves on the streets, etc.

We must get rid of this idea that we have some sort of right to put a law on everything, every human activity. Simply saying, “It’s for the greater good”, is not sufficient. Those who purport this overreach often say they’re doing so for our best interest but any sensible person has witnessed the pattern that has emanated from the tentacles of the machine/cabal driving this accelerating global tyranny and it is an ugly pattern.

In fact, when one reads the writings of influential elites like Edward Bernays, one gets the overwhelming impression that he’s trying to convince everyone that if they didn’t allow society to be run by “men we’ve never heard of” tragedy would follow. Compartmentalization is the kind of thing that allows a disgusting Brave New World like ours to run smoothly.

Of course, by running smoothly I mean that we remain seemingly eternally ignorant of our true nature and of what/who we really are, our astronomical potential for true progress, and we get closer and closer to assimilating the traits of those who dominate us, we continue to allow our energy to be drained and our lifeblood to be sucked out of us, until we no longer recognize ourselves. That’s what “running smoothly” really is to people like Edward Bernays.

I’d like to think that now, in 2012, we’re past this naive attitude and can see the organic nature of our existence.

Not everybody is a good drinker but laws aren’t the solution to that. I don’t know if there is a “top-down” solution to that kind of problem. I have a strong hunch that things like that come down to personal responsibility. You can’t make a law, for example, saying “everybody is allowed to drink… except Jeff… Jeff sucks at drinking so he’s not allowed”.

Imagine if that’s what the law actually said. That would be insane.

Why? Because Jeff is not the only bad drinker and you can’t keep track of all the bad drinkers. Even if you could keep track of them, wouldn’t you have better things to do with your time? It doesn’t matter if Jeff’s a bad drinker. It doesn’t matter if everybody’s a bad drinker. The law isn’t there to make everybody perfect in every way.

Adding laws shouldn’t be a pastime. It shouldn’t be something you do for fun. In fact, history tells us that it’s best to have as few laws as possible.

You are not their God. You don’t own them. The only reasonable thing to do is to let everybody drink despite the fact that a few people might ruin that freedom for the rest. And historically, that’s what has happened. If a person can’t control himself, no nanny-state is going to teach him to control himself by controlling him for him. I’m not saying, “abolish the drinking and driving laws” or anything like that, but can anybody remember how well the prohibition of alcohol worked? How well do you think people would have taken to alcohol being regulated by a special drug court?

A baby is not going to learn how to walk if you don’t give him/her a chance to walk.

With all this in mind, however, even though we have not shed this naive attitude, I will remind all of you that it is not a hindrance that few people think of this, for indeed times of great change are often ushered in by an irate minority. Remember that.

Cocaine = Speed = Ritalin = Coffee

: Wikimedia Image

Another thought I had after reading the suggestion to have a drug court regulating pot is that I can’t count how many people I’ve seen lose a big chunk of their humanity simply from ingesting coffee all the time.

An argument that is sometimes given for the prohibition of these “harder” drugs is that people end up stealing to support their habit. First of all, caffeine is a drug. If coffee or cigarettes were very expensive, perhaps we’d see many more segments of the population stealing to support those habits as well (and indeed as the economy turns to crap, people will start to steal food from each other… is that any reason to outlaw food?)

The real reason that truly destructive narcotics like cocaine are illegal in the first place has nothing to do with the fact that cocaine may lead to destructive behaviour and nothing to do with any possible altruism on the part of your government. The reason harder (and more useless) drugs like cocaine are illegal is, again, to impose a monopoly on the narcotics.

Drug dealers generally don’t like that they might go to jail, but I’d be willing to bet that at least some of them love the cash they get to keep when they successfully stay out of jail and they might also love the price inflation that occurs when one of their “peers” (who they didn’t know, maybe) gets locked up.

Mike Adams was indeed accurate in raising the point that there is little difference between drugs like Ritalin vs. cocaine or meth. I can personally attest to this as six years ago I was doing cocaine every week for 3 months (or what was likely cocaine that dealers diluted with “incense powder”, baking soda, or other cocaine-looking things — another reason to legalize all drugs). I also had the opportunity to snort a line of Ritalin in those days and rest assured, the Ritalin high feels almost identical to the cocaine high. That’s right, folks. Most of these ignorant parents are basically giving their 9 year old kids cocaine in the form of Ritalin.

This happening all while the parents are completely oblivious that the coffee they drink every day produces the same effects/feelings as cocaine as well. People treat coffee like it’s water.

I’ve heard of people trying to “sober up”, after a night of drinking, by ingesting caffeine (as though being high on coffee is sobriety). Similarly, I’ve seen cocaine work wonders with respect to “sobering” drunk people up. A guy who is so drunk that he can barely walk or talk is literally a line or two away from coming off as though he has had almost no alcohol the entire night. I’ve seen this happen.

Wikimedia Image: cup of coffee (author: Assassingr)

While things like speed are more synthetic, the feeling of the high is basically the same. It is a travesty that so few people are aware of these things. Maybe someone more versed in chemistry would be able to split hairs here, but alas, the feeling of the high for these drugs is dauntingly similar.

Personally, caffeine makes me want to go to the washroom and take a dump, makes my hands shake, makes me feel nervous (when it wears off), and gives me the exact same “boost” that I got from cocaine back in the day. Could this be why cocaine was once an ingredient in Coca Cola?

I have caffeine as seldom as possible – maybe once every few months when no ginseng is around. Ginseng wakes me up without any of those bizarre side effects.

Personal Responsibility

I’m not going to lie – the pharmaceutical drug ads on TV are not helping the situation but I don’t think we have a drug culture because of ads on television. I submit to you that we have a drug culture because we want to have a drug culture.

Maybe we have a drug culture because drugs distract people and everyone’s too lazy and lacking in foresight to actually deal with the world’s problems. Maybe we choose to sedate ourselves and our children because we fear the responsibility we would have to take on when we realize how powerful we really are. We have this vague feeling that the longer we’ve thought a certain way the harder it is to change, however, I think too many people barely ever even try to change.

It seems to me that making it illegal to put drug advertisements on television would be a giant waste of time. Nobody (except for maybe victims of MK Ultra or some cruel thing like that) is forced at gunpoint to watch television. In general, we sit and waste our lives via our own free will. Let’s own up to that. We almost love the propaganda. More laws is not the answer.

Raising your child is your responsibility, not the TV’s responsibility and not the state’s responsibility. In fact, this type of Orwellian thought is the very reason the dictator in the novel 1984 is named “Big Brother”. It gets you used to the idea of feeling like you can trust the state and that it can replace your family. Arguably, globalists have been fairly successful in destroying the family and indeed this is one of their multifaceted tactics of global domination.

Let’s Get Real

Let’s stop pretending we’re that different from the people who dominate us. We should set an example and be the change we want to see.

Why are we so surprised?

Many of us now believe in karma, after all. How many of you have a cat that you’ve mutilated, euphemistically referring to that act as “spaying” or “fixing”? Hey, I’m not saying I’m better than you. I once got a veterinarian to “fix” a cat that I had too (when I was living on “auto-pilot” more). I’m just saying let’s be honest with ourselves.

How many of you have allowed your son (or daughter, in some places) to be victims of the barbaric act of circumcision?

How many of you have a gold fish in a tiny glass jail in your house?

How many of you don’t give two sh!ts when you see those poor lobsters at the grocery store living in conditions that I would call torture, as they are forced to be surrounded by their own crap and urine in a fluoride filled tank with their claws clamped shut, all these lobsters on top of one another in a mountain of misery, staring at artificial lights as they count down the days they have left?

You might think that’s funny or irrelevant, but in a world that is pure consciousness your intentions or negligence have an instantaneous affect on everything. You’re putting out bad vibes by not looking at the facts.

Sure, many other animals suffer as a result of stores like these existing and it’s definitely not always in-your-face like with the lobsters – people have the opportunity to separate “beef” from “cow” in this way – but I have never met anyone who has even mentioned this lobster abuse to me or what they think of it. I’ve seen people in front of fancy restaurants protesting with signs against foie gras being served (as they should – foie gras is an abomination), but never any love for the lobsters.

The fact that we can put up with this level of abuse right in front of our faces is, I think, a huge part of the problem. Just walking into a pet-store should kill anyone’s mood, but for some reason it doesn’t.

When I was young, I had a neighbour who “owned” a dog. The neighbour would let the small dog roam around in a tiny fenced-in jail-like area in the backyard but the dog also had some sort of electronic device on its collar that seemed to automatically electrocute the poor thing every time it barked. I would often hear the dog try to bark and then I would instantly hear the loud high pitched cry of pain that it let out upon getting zapped/tazed.

I have more stories like this, but I think you get the picture.

When I came across the headline “Marijuana Prevents PTSD In Rats” I thought two things:

#1: How the hell would anybody give post-traumatic stress disorder to a rat?

#2: Do you really need to torture rats to find out pot’s effectiveness? I mean, it doesn’t grow everywhere for nothing and I’m sure you could have found many humans who had PTSD and simply asked them, “Does pot help you?”

The above video is funny, I’ll admit (I laughed) but it also underscores a sad reality. Equally important to scrutinizing the power structure of our civilization is our ability respect each other in the moment, on a day to day basis, so that we can remember what it is we’re trying to save in the first place.

It is in our best interest to act humanely to all the different creatures and spirits that inhabit our planet. Otherwise we are chasing our tails and we can look forward to wasting even more energy on a fabricated war on drugs that only serves to divide and conquer us.

By the way, the day I read the Snoop-arrest article my website registered 420 site-hits. If that’s not a synchronicity, I don’t know what is.

Amir Alwani is a psychonaut who makes metal, electronic and hip-hop music. He is also the founder and editor of the online independent media outlet known as Potent News.

Why Ritalin Is Wrong

majestic — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:39:58 +0000

L. Alan Sroufe, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development explains the failings of Ritalin in the New York Times:

Three million children in this country take drugs for problems in focusing. Toward the end of last year, many of their parents were deeply alarmed because there was a shortage of drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that they considered absolutely essential to their children’s functioning.

But are these drugs really helping children? Should we really keep expanding the number of prescriptions filled?

In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit disorder.

As a psychologist who has been studying the development of troubled children for more than 40 years, I believe we should be asking why we rely so heavily on these drugs.

Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.

Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs.

What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see…

[continues in the New York Times]

Silk Road (The Website With Every Illegal Drug Imaginable For Sale) Is Hiring

majestic — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:25:47 +0000

Adrianne Jeffries notes that Silk Road is one hot startup, for BetaBeat:

No publicity is bad publicity: Silk Road, the illicit online marketplace that came to light after Gawker’s Adrian Chen announced you could buy any drug imaginable there with Bitcoins, has been booming after increased awareness due to a rash of alarmist press coverage.

Drugs! Anonymous currencies! Hackers! Our children! But gradually Silk Road, and to a lesser degree Bitcoin, faded from the stage, largely because most people couldn’t understand how to use them. Silk Road can only be accessed using the anonymous network Tor, and you should probably know a thing or two about encryption before you buy anything.

But as we learned via a few Bitcoining Betabeat readers, Silk Road is doing really well—well enough to expand its anonymous team. “Silk Road is currently hiring a database expert and a customer support team member,” writes one reader. “On top of the ordinary ‘describe your background and expertise’ and ‘why do you want to join us’ questions, they’re asking for the applicant’s drug of choice.”…

[continues at BetaBeat]

‘Magic Mushroom Therapy’ Clinical Trials May Begin This Year In U.K.

JacobSloan — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 13:00:47 +0000

We may be just a few years away from going to our neighborhood pharmacies for our monthly supply of medicinal mushrooms. From the Independent:

Magic mushrooms could one day be prescribed for depression after Professor David Nutt, the controversial sacked government drugs advisor, claimed research on healthy volunteers proved what a mistake it was to abandon therapeutic psychedelic drugs more than 50 years ago.

The first clinical trial into magic mushroom therapy could start by the end of the year after two small studies suggested the active chemical, psilocybin, had a profound affect on key regions of the brain.

Professor Nutt’s team, at Imperial College London, hope to test the hallucinogen on depressed patients who have not benefited from antidepressants or behavioural therapy.

Psilocybin would be infused into their bloodstreams before a psychotherapy session, tailored to elicit positive memories. If funding is approved by the Medical Research Council it would represent a major step towards mainstream rehabilitation for such drugs since LSD was banned in 1966.

The first study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, involved scanning the brains of 30 people given the drug intravenously to measure changes in blood flow and activity. Unexpectedly, the MRI scans showed the drug caused activity to decrease in hub areas with dense connections to other areas. It disconnected two key hubs: the medial prefrontal cortex, which is hyperactive in people with depression, and the posterior cingulate cortex, thought to play a role in self-awareness.

Polish Lawmaker Smokes Pot in Parliament

DeepCough — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 05:01:55 +0000

Photo: Peterson (CC)

If Ron Paul or Barney Frank did something like this, I’d be a little bit more inclined to support them, especially concerning presidential bids … Reports Agence France-Presse via the RAW Story:

Janusz Palikot, the leader of a new party which brought in Poland’s first trans-gender and openly gay MPs, launched a drive Friday to legalise marijuana by smoking pot in parliament.

“This is the weed,” he told reporters in his office in the lower house of parliament, lighting up a large incense joint containing what he said was a legal quantity of marijuana.

Palikot said his party had submitted a bill to legalise marijuana.

Earlier on Friday, the philosophy graduate known for his flamboyant political stunts, caused a stir when he announced he would “light up” in parliament.

“I want to condemn the hypocrisy concerning marijuana consumption,” Palikot told reporters. “Someone said they would smoke a joint in parliament and the reaction was tantamount to someone announcing a coup d’etat.” …

The New Cocaine Trade

majestic — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:46:34 +0000

Coca leaf in Bolivia. Photo: Marcello Casal Jr./ABr (CC)

John Lyons reports on some seismic shifts in where cocaine is produced, for the Wall Street Journal:

In the dusty town of Villa Tunari in Bolivia’s tropical coca-growing region, farmers used to barricade their roads against U.S.-backed drug police sent to prevent their leafy crop from becoming cocaine. These days, the police are gone, the coca is plentiful and locals close off roads for multiday block parties—not rumbles with law enforcement.

“Today, we don’t have these conflicts, not one death, not one wounded, not one jailed,” said Leonilda Zurita, a longtime coca-grower leader who is now a Bolivian senator, a day after a 13-piece Latin band wrapped up a boozy festival in town.

The cause for celebration is a fundamental shift in the cocaine trade that is complicating U.S. efforts to fight it. Once concentrated in Colombia, a close U.S. ally in combating drugs, the cocaine business is migrating to nations such as Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia, where populist leaders are either ambivalent about cooperating with U.S. antidrug efforts or openly hostile to them.

Since 2000, cultivation of coca leaves—cocaine’s raw material—plunged 65% in Colombia, to 141,000 acres in 2010, according to United Nations figures. In the same period, cultivation surged more than 40% in Peru, to 151,000 acres, and more than doubled in Bolivia, to 77,000 acres.

More important, Bolivia and Peru are now making street-ready cocaine, whereas they once mostly supplied raw ingredients for processing in Colombia. In 2010, Peru may have passed Colombia as the world’s biggest producer, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. Between 2009 and 2010, Peru’s potential to produce cocaine grew 44%, to 325 metric tons. In 2010, Colombia’s potential production was 270 metric tons…

[continues in the Wall Street Journal]

Moderate Marijuana Smoking Doesn’t Hurt Lungs

majestic — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:20:10 +0000

Good news for those who partake via AP/Fox News:

Smoking a joint once a week or a bit more apparently doesn’t harm the lungs, suggests a 20-year study that bolsters evidence that marijuana doesn’t do the kind of damage tobacco does.

The results, from one of the largest and longest studies on the health effects of marijuana, are hazier for heavy users – those who smoke two or more joints daily for several years. The data suggest that using marijuana that often might cause a decline in lung function, but there weren’t enough heavy users among the 5,000 young adults in the study to draw firm conclusions.

Marijuana is an illegal drug under federal law although some states allow its use for medical purposes.

The study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham was released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The findings echo results in some smaller studies that showed while marijuana contains some of the same toxic chemicals as tobacco, it does not carry the same risks for lung disease…

[continues at AP/Fox News]

Russell Brand & Daniel Pinchbeck In Conversation

Daniel Pinchbeck — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 02:51:50 +0000

Recorded by Mitch Schultz, Russell Brand joined Daniel Pinchbeck, Graham Hancock and a galactivated group of Reality Sandwich retreat-goers at the Boulder Mountain Guest Ranch in Utah for a frank and funny conversation covering a wide range of topics including the nature of contemporary media, quantum physics, the difference between psychedelics and “horrible drugs that nullify you”, what comes after time, and the idea that people have been “coded” by society not to anticipate change.

Follow Daniel on Twitter.

Gary Webb’s Drug War Reporting Vindicated

majestic — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 02:30:32 +0000

Freeway Ricky Ross. (Patrick Bastien Photography)

The late, lamented Gary Webb never really received the credit he deserved for his investigative journalism blowing open the CIA-Contras drug trafficking scandal. Now Ryan Grim sets the record straight in this article for Huffington Post, ostensibly about Ron Paul and conspiracy theories, but really an opportunity to plug his new book, This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America:

…Earlier this week, I looked into [Ron] Paul’s claim … that the war on drugs had racist origins and that the medical community played a role in lobbying for drug prohibitions. That charge was more or less accurate.

So is Paul’s claim about the CIA and drug trafficking, a connection I explore in the book “This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America.” (An excerpt of the chapter on the CIA appeared in The Root.) The following is drawn from my book.

Since at least the 1940s, the American government has organized and supported insurgent armies for the purpose of overthrowing some presumably hostile foreign regime. In Italy, the United States helped pit the Corsican and Sicilian mobs against the Fascists and then the Communists. In China, it aided Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang in its struggle against Mao Zedong’s communist forces. In Afghanistan, it once backed the mujahedeen in their fight against the Soviet Union and today backs warlords in opposition to the mujahedeen.

All of these and other U.S.-supported groups profited, or still profit, heavily from the drug trade. One of the principal arguments made by the Drug Enforcement Administration in support of the global drug war is that the illegal drug trade funds violent, stateless organizations. The DEA refers specifically to al Qaeda and the Taliban, but the same method of fundraising has long been used by other violent, stateless actors whom the United States befriended.

AN ‘UNCOMFORTABLE’ STORY

Douglas Farah was in El Salvador when the San Jose Mercury News broke a major story in the summer of 1996: The Nicaraguan Contras, a confederation of paramilitary rebels sponsored by the CIA, had been funding some of their operations by exporting cocaine to the United States. One of their best customers was a man nicknamed “Freeway Rick” — Ricky Donnell Ross, then a Southern California dealer who was running an operation the Los Angeles Times dubbed “the Wal-Mart of crack dealing.”

“My first thought was, ‘Holy shit!’ because there’d been so many rumors in the region of this going on,” said Farah 12 years later. He’d grown up in Latin America and covered it for 20 years for the Washington Post. “There had always been these stories floating around about [the Contras] and cocaine. I knew [Contra leader] Adolfo Calero and some of the other folks there, and they were all sleazebags. You wouldn’t read the story and say, ‘Oh my god, these guys would never do that.’ It was more like, ‘Oh, one more dirty thing they were doing.’ So I took it seriously.”

The same would not hold true of most of Farah’s colleagues, either in the newspaper business in general or at the Post in particular. “If you’re talking about our intelligence community tolerating — if not promoting — drugs to pay for black ops, it’s rather an uncomfortable thing to do when you’re an establishment paper like the Post,” Farah told me. “If you were going to be directly rubbing up against the government, they wanted it more solid than it could probably ever be done.”

In the mid to late 1980s, a number of reports had surfaced that connected the Contras to the cocaine trade…

[continues at Huffington Post]

Nationwide Shortage Of Ritalin And Adderall

majestic — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 15:56:37 +0000

In November Jacob Sloan posted a story about a chronic shortage of Adderall in New York City. Now the New York Times reports that the shortage extends to Ritalin and generic versions, nationwide:

Medicines to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder are in such short supply that hundreds of patients complain daily to the Food and Drug Administration that they are unable to find a pharmacy with enough pills to fill their prescriptions.

The shortages are a result of a troubled partnership between drug manufacturers and the Drug Enforcement Administration, with companies trying to maximize their profits and drug enforcement agents trying to minimize abuse by people, many of them college students, who use the medications to get high or to stay up all night.

Caught in between are millions of children and adults who rely on the pills to help them stay focused and calm. Shortages, particularly of cheaper generics, have become so endemic that some patients say they worry almost constantly about availability.

While the Food and Drug Administration monitors the safety and supply of the drugs, which are sold both as generics and under brand names like Ritalin and Adderall, the Drug Enforcement Administration sets manufacturing quotas that are designed to control supplies and thwart abuse. Every year, the D.E.A. accepts applications from manufacturers to make the drugs, analyzes how much was sold the previous year and then allots portions of the expected demand to various companies.

How each manufacturer divides its quota among its own A.D.H.D. medicines — preparing some as high-priced brands and others as cheaper generics — is left up to the company.

Now, multiple manufacturers have announced that their medicines are in short supply…

[continues in the New York Times]

Why Smoking Synthetic Marijuana Is A (Very) Bad Idea

majestic — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 21:58:54 +0000

Six excellent reasons not to touch the synthetic stuff, from Adam Brown. Here’s Number 5, but it’s worth reading the rest at Cracked.com:

#5. Because It Absolutely Is Not “Like Weed”
The obscure chemical compound that blazed the path that leads to full-on adults like myself casually strolling into a beat-to-shit liquor store and saying, “I’ll have one Zombie Matter, please” all while keeping a straight face was developed by a Clemson University chemist named John Huffman. He was conducting research on cannabinoids for the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. The compound he came up with was called JWH-018, because JWH are Huffman’s initials and he’s clearly an egotistical prick. You know what else he is? A buzzkill. Check out this quote:

These compounds were not meant for human consumption. Their effects in humans have not been studied and they could very well have toxic effects. They absolutely should not be used as recreational drugs.”

Those sure as hell don’t sound like Bob Marley lyrics, do they? Maybe that’s a standard disclaimer for synthetic drugs developed by actual scientists as opposed to under-stimulated college freshman in cramped dorm rooms, but still, I’ve never seen it stamped on a sack of real weed like it is on the pretend stuff.

Since JWH-018 started making the rounds, reports have been popping up left and right about the health risks associated with synthetic marijuana. Like the three teens in Texas who showed up at a Dallas emergency room with heart attack symptoms, for example. If teenage heart attacks don’t rattle your cage, there’s also the mother of two in Indiana who just straight up died.

Before you hit the comments to call that dead mom an asshole for tarnishing the otherwise harmless name of fake weed, read this. Trust, the guy who wrote that is pretty much making the same argument that you want to and he sounds scientific as fuck doing it. You probably won’t. He eventually comes to the extremely long-winded conclusion that the mother in Indiana probably got a “bad batch” of K2 and, as a result, it killed her.

Fantastic. Now show me the story about a mother of two who got her hands on a “bad batch” of actual marijuana and fucking died. The fact that a “bad batch” can even exist is really all there is to know about why synthetic marijuana and actual marijuana are not like each other at all.

Eventually, JWH-018 was banned along with its chemical brother JWH-073. Strangely, that’s when things got even more bizarre.

[Read the rest at Cracked.com]

Richard Branson: It’s Time To End The War On Drugs

majestic — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 02:34:24 +0000

Richard Branson. Photo: David Shankbone (CC)

The billionaire businessman shows a hint of his counterculture roots by joining the call for an end to the war on (some) drugs, on his Virgin blog:

Visited Portugal, as one of the Global Drug Commissioners, to congratulate them on the success of their drug policies over the last 10 years.

Ten years ago the Portuguese Government responded to widespread public concern over drugs by rejecting a “war on drugs” approach and instead decriminalized drug possession and use. It further rebuffed convention by placing the responsibility for decreasing drug demand as well as managing dependency under the Ministry of Health rather than the Ministry of Justice. With this, the official response towards drug-dependent persons shifted from viewing them as criminals to treating them as patients.

Now with a decade of experience Portugal provides a valuable case study of how decriminalization coupled with evidence-based strategies can reduce drug consumption, dependence, recidivism and HIV infection and create safer communities for all.

I will set out clearly what I learned from my visit to Portugal and would urge other countries to study this:

In 2001 Portugal became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines…

[continues at his Virgin blog]

Marijuana Use At 30-Year High Among U.S. Teenagers

Easy Rider — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 08:14:07 +0000

Anahad O’Connor reports in the NY Times:

One out of every 15 high school students smokes marijuana on a near daily basis, a figure that has reached a 30-year peak even as use of alcohol, cigarettes and cocaine among teenagers continues a slow decline, according to a new government report.

The popularity of marijuana, which is now more prevalent among 10th graders than cigarette smoking, reflects what researchers and drug officials say is a growing perception among teenagers that habitual marijuana use carries little risk of harm. That perception, experts say, is fueled in part by wider familiarity with medicinal marijuana and greater ease in obtaining it.

Although it is difficult to track the numbers, “we’re clearly seeing an increase in teenage marijuana use that corresponds pretty clearly in time with the increase in medical marijuana use,” said Dr. Christian Thurstone, medical director of the adolescent substance abuse treatment program at Denver Health and Hospital Authority, who was not involved in the study. Medical marijuana is legal in 16 states, including Colorado, and the District of Columbia.

Missouri is the U.S. Meth Capital, Again

Easy Rider — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 23:59:29 +0000

Walter White has some serious competition. Chad Garrison writes in the Riverfront Times:

Missouri has once again been ranked as the nation’s biggest meth-producing state based on the number of drug labs busted last year.

According to Missouri Highway Patrol figures published in the Post-Dispatch, law enforcement seized 1,774 meth labs in 2009 — up 20 percent from the 1,487 confiscated in 2008.

Missouri outpaced the No. 2 state — Indiana — which had 1,096 meth lab busts in 2009. Jefferson County, Missouri, led the state with 227 labs confiscated last year.

The news comes as Missouri legislature considers a bill that would require pseudoephedrine — the key ingredient for meth — to be sold only as a prescription.

Study: Marijuana Legalization Reduces Traffic Deaths

JacobSloan — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 16:46:02 +0000

Legalizing pot across the nation would save many lives. The University of Colorado Denver Newsroom explains:

A groundbreaking new study shows that laws legalizing medical marijuana have resulted in a nearly 9 percent drop in traffic deaths and a 5 percent reduction in beer sales.

“Our research suggests that the legalization of medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities through reducing alcohol consumption by young adults,” said Daniel Rees, professor of economics at the University of Colorado Denver who co-authored the study with D. Mark Anderson, assistant professor of economics at Montana State University.

The researchers collected data from a variety of sources including the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, and the Fatality Analysis Reporting System.

The study is the first to examine the relationship between the legalization of medical marijuana and traffic deaths.

“We were astounded by how little is known about the effects of legalizing medical marijuana,” Rees said. “We looked into traffic fatalities because there is good data, and the data allow us to test whether alcohol was a factor.”

Anderson noted that traffic deaths are significant from a policy standpoint. “Traffic fatalities are an important outcome from a policy perspective because they represent the leading cause of death among Americans ages five to 34,” he said.

The economists analyzed traffic fatalities nationwide, including the 13 states that legalized medical marijuana between 1990 and 2009. In those states, they found evidence that alcohol consumption by 20- through 29-year-olds went down, resulting in fewer deaths on the road.

Drug Cartels Building High-Tech Tunnels Below U.S.-Mexico Border

JacobSloan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:04:16 +0000

Gives new meaning to “underground economy.” The Globe and Mail writes:

When architect Felipe de Jesus Corona built Mexico’s most powerful drug lord a 200-foot-long tunnel under the U.S.-Mexican border with a hydraulic lift entrance opened by a fake water tap, the kingpin was impressed. The architect “made me one [expletive] cool tunnel” Joaquin (Shorty) Guzman said, according to court testimony that helped sentence Mr. Corona to 18 years in prison in 2006.

Built below a pool table in his lawyer’s home, the tunnel was among the first of an increasingly sophisticated drug transport system used by Mr. Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel. U.S. customs agents seized more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine that had allegedly been smuggled along the underground route.

In the past five years, a crackdown on drug smugglers in Mexico and tighter U.S. border security above ground has led to a dramatic increase in the use, and the sophistication, of tunnels under the border.

There have been more than 100 tunnels discovered during President Felipe Calderon’s five years in office, double the number found over the previous 15 years. Officials suspect most recently found tunnels belong to the Sinaloa cartel, which has been perfecting its technique for two decades using specialized technology and a cadre of trained builders.

That tunnel, replete with a hydraulically controlled steel door, elevator and electric rail tracks, was built by the Sinaloa cartel, which controls the California-Mexico border area where the bulk of subterranean passages are, he said.

To burrow deep and long – one tunnel stretched four kilometres – smugglers employ powerful machinery, some of which can bore a small hole deep in the soil and create a walled shaft without having to send anyone below ground. “It’s super fast, it’s really actually scary,” said Tim Durst, assistant special agent in charge of ICE’s San Diego office. “You can have a tunnel done in a couple of weeks.”

The drilling equipment costs between $50,000 and $75,000, and officials say they have no way to stop cartels from obtaining the high-powered gear.

Woman Arrested For Attempting Meth Lab Inside Wal-Mart

JacobSloan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:00:48 +0000

If Wal-Mart has supplanted plazas, main streets, and town squares as the communal gathering place in locales across the country, and meth culture has become the predominant culture in some areas, it stands to reason that a logical weekend activity would be cooking up some meth at Wal-Mart. KJRH in Oklahoma reports:

Tulsa Police say a woman tried to make a meth lab inside a south Tulsa Walmart.

According to police, Alisha Halfmoon, 45, began taking items used to make meth off of shelves at the Walmart located at 81st and Lewis in south Tulsa. She then began trying to make the drug while still inside the store.

When officers took the items outside the store, some spilled. One officer suffered a minor burn to his hand. No customers were injured.

Technologists Will Be The Next Drug Dealers

majestic — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 18:54:20 +0000

DJ Spooky. Photo: Eddie Codel (Ekai) (CC)

Olivia Solon explains at Wired UK:

Technologists will become the next drug dealers, administering narcotics through brain stimulation, according to Rohit Talwar, the founder of Fast Future Research speaking at Intelligence Squared’s If conference.

Talwar was charged by the government to investigate the drugs landscape over the next 20 years, exploring scenarios going beyond the traditional model of gangs producing and shipping drugs around the world.

He described how the world of genomic sequencing and services such as 23 and Me open up possibilities for tailoring drugs to the individual, delivering effects based on your physiology — which could apply just as effectively to narcotics as it could medicines.

He cited research from the University of California, Berkeley where neuroscientists were able to replicate images people were seeing based on the brain patterns of activity. When combined with transcranial magnetic stimulation — which has been used to inhibit brain functions such as the ability to speak or remember — it opens up the possibility of electronically delivering targeted highs.

He said: “You could also visualise the experience and then tailor the effect to what you want. This nano-bio-info-cogno convergence gets us into some very interesting spheres.”

One scenario he imagines would make use of biological proteins manufactured with information-processing technology to deliver effects that could be triggered by electromagnetic stimulation. He imagined that they could be used in a club environment where the DJ would release nanoparticles that the audience could ingest…

[continues at Wired UK]

Is It More Dangerous To Drive Drunk Or Stoned?

majestic — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 14:28:17 +0000

Brian Palmer discovers that it’s an open and shut case, for Slate:

A new study suggests that legalizing medical marijuana reduces traffic fatalities. The authors noted that legalizing marijuana reduces alcohol consumption, and people are more wary of driving high than drunk. Which drug is actually more dangerous on the road?

Alcohol, and it’s not even close. It’s hard to directly compare alcohol and marijuana, because driving impairment depends on dosage and the two drugs tend to affect different skills. (Pot makes drivers worse at mindless tasks like staying in a lane, while alcohol undermines behaviors that require more attention like yielding to pedestrians or taking note of stop signs.) Nevertheless, Yale psychiatrist Richard Sewell reviewed the academic literature on driving while intoxicated in a 2009 article, and found that alcohol is significantly more dangerous. Real-world data from auto accidents indicate that a drunk driver is approximately 10 times more likely to cause a fatal accident than a stoned driver. In most studies, smoking one-third of a joint or less has virtually no impact on a driver’s performance. A couple of studies even suggest that pot smokers are less likely to cause an accident than sober drivers.

It’s a little surprising that THC has such a small effect on driving. In experiments testing the skills required for driving—coordination, visual tracking, and reaction time—rather than driving itself, subjects under the influence of pot fare significantly worse than sober people. But when you put them behind the wheel of a driving simulator, tokers perform okay. Those who have taken in a moderate dose of the drug show minimal impairment, and very experienced smokers show almost no deficit at all. (Interestingly, habitual stoners are also better at driving drunk than ordinary people.)…

[continues at Slate]

Turn On, Tune In And Get Better?

majestic — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 20:22:24 +0000

Disinformation readers who have read Graham Hancock’s recent books Supernatural and Entangled are well aware that hallucinogens can be powerful and highly effective medicine, but until recently US government policy more or less prohibited any scientific research using them. The tide is starting to turn, as this article from the LA Times makes clear:

What a long, strange trip it’s been. In the 1960s and ’70s, a rebellious generation embraced hallucinogens and a wide array of street drugs to “turn on, tune in and drop out.” Almost half a century later, magic mushrooms, LSD, Ecstasy and ketamine are being studied for legitimate therapeutic uses. Scientists believe these agents have the potential to help patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, drug or alcohol addiction, unremitting pain or depression and the existential anxiety of terminal illness.

“Scientifically, these compounds are way too important not to study,” said Johns Hopkins psychopharmacologist Roland Griffiths, who conducted the psilocybin trial.

In their next incarnation, these drugs may help the psychologically wounded tune in to their darkest feelings and memories and turn therapy sessions into heightened opportunities to learn and heal.

“We’re trying to break a social mind-set saying these are strictly drugs of abuse,” said Rick Doblin, a public policy expert who founded the Multidisciplinary Assn. for Psychedelic Studies in 1986 to encourage research on therapeutic uses for medical marijuana and hallucinogens. “It’s not the drug but how the drug is used that matters.”

Regulators and medical researchers remain wary. But among at least some experts at the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration, the shift in attitude “has been dramatic,” Doblin said.

Researchers explored the usefulness of hallucinogenic agents as an adjunct to psychotherapy in the 1950s and ’60s. But allegations that hallucinogens were used in government-funded “mind control” efforts, freewheeling experimentation by proponents like Dr. Timothy Leary, and the drugs’ appeal to a generation in revolt quashed legitimate research for decades…

[continues in the LA Times]

Every Crazy CIA Plot (You Are Aware of) Originated With One Man: Sidney Gottlieb

bluemana — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:15:32 +0000

Very interesting article from Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9.com:

There are stories that have come to light, over the years, that make the Central Intelligence Agency look like a collection of Looney Tunes shorts. The violence, the slapstick, and the over-the-top ridiculousness of the experiments that have been conducted over the years boggle the mind. They came from the (slightly-boggled) mind of one man: Sidney Gottlieb.

Sidney Gottlieb proved to the world that there are few things more dangerous than a chemist with a metaphysical streak — especially if he collects a few thwarted ambitions. Born in 1918, he was deemed physically unfit for duty in the Second World War. Instead of going to war, he went to the University of Wisconsin, and graduated with a degree in chemistry. His degree didn’t help him into the army, but it did interest the CIA.

The Central Intelligence Agency, barreling into the Cold War, was trying to devise new ways to get an advantage over the enemy. Old warfare strategies wouldn’t work. They had to brainstorm new ones. It’s said that there are no bad ideas in brainstorming. The CIA, at the time, seemed set out to prove that there were no bad ideas at all. And Gottlieb was just the guy to try to help them.

Read More from Esther Inglis-Arkell on io9.com

America’s Concentration Threatened By Adderall Shortage

JacobSloan — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:42:57 +0000

Is Adderall the crystal meth of the middle and upper classes? Well, both drugs became huge at around the same time. The Fix writes that prices are skyrocketing and panic and withdrawal are setting in across the nation as pharmacies’ shelves run short:

When Jay V.’s pharmacist told him about the nationwide Adderall shortages last weekend, he reacted as any economically rational finance professional would, and attempted to bribe her. Whatever the cost, “it’s cheaper than cocaine,” his reasoning went. And even if it isn’t, you can’t put a price on never having to go back to doing bumps in the work bathroom to get through late night deal committee meetings, can you?

Jay’s pharmacist said she was reserving her supply for regular customers, but that the price had doubled and the clock was ticking.

If addiction is the kind of thing you think about a lot, it’s easy to overlook its significance in the cold, objective Realpolitik scheme of things, which is this: it’s a great fucking business model.

The best of the addiction-based business models are “addiction-proof” addictive drug, and the Adderall story is at its core the saga of a nearly century-long quest for this unattainable ideal. Amphetamine salt — Adderall’s active ingredient — has been the subject of heady dispute within the medical profession since the drug company Smith, Kline and French began peddling the stuff in 1935, but for decades just about the only thing medical community generally agreed about was that it was not addictive …

I’m High on Crystal Meth: Time to Kill and Eat A Bobcat

LordSatan — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 05:37:10 +0000

Via the Mercury News:

A 38-year-old Morgan Hill man has been charged with being high on methamphetamine, owning a stash of sharp cockfighting ankle spikes, and skinning a bobcat before he ate it.

Henry Arnibal was not charged with eating a bobcat. That’s not illegal, but killing one without a permit is against the law, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Steve Lowney said. Arnibal didn’t have a permit. All the charges, filed Monday, are fish and game violations, except for the penal drug charge. All are misdemeanors.

Arnibal was arrested Nov. 7 on Sleepy Valley Road in unincorporated Morgan Hill. He was allegedly high on meth. Deputies found 50 roosters, gaffs, sharp hooks that are attached to roosters’ legs for illegal cockfights, and the preserved carcass of a bobcat. Arnibal told authorities that the large feline had eaten five of his roosters, according to Lowney. He killed it with a .22-caliber rifle, authorities allege.

High Childhood IQ Linked to Subsequent Illicit Drug Use

Good German — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:45:22 +0000

Via ScienceDaily:

A high childhood IQ may be linked to subsequent illegal drug use, particularly among women, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. The authors base their findings on data from just under 8,000 people in the 1970 British Cohort Study, a large ongoing population based study, which looks at lifetime drug use, socioeconomic factors, and educational attainment.

The IQ scores of the participants were measured at the ages of 5 and 10 years, using a validated scale, and information was gathered on self reported levels of psychological distress and drug use at the age of 16, and again at the age of 30 (drug use only) . Drug use included cannabis; cocaine; uppers (speed and wiz); downers (blues, tanks, barbiturates); LSD (acid); and heroin.

By the age of 30, around one in three men (35.4%) and one in six women (15.9%) had used cannabis, while 8.6% of men and 3.6% of women had used cocaine, in the previous 12 months. A similar pattern of use was found for the other drugs, with overall drug use twice as common among men as among women. When intelligence was factored in, the analysis showed that men with high IQ scores at the age of 5 were around 50% more likely to have used amphetamines, ecstasy, and several illicit drugs than those with low scores, 25 years later. The link was even stronger among women, who were more than twice as likely to have used cannabis and cocaine as those with low IQ scores.

The same associations emerged between a high IQ score at the age of 10 and subsequent use of cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines, multiple drug use and cocaine, although this last association was only evident at the age of 30. The findings held true, irrespective of anxiety/depression during adolescence, parental social class, and lifetime household income.

Quest For The Ultimate Human Killing Machine

majestic — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:57:56 +0000

Guilt, tiredness, stress, shock – can specialized drugs help to mute the qualities that make soldiers human, asks Michael Hanlon in the Independent (with thanks to disinfo reader Freeman for the tip):

…The era of The Terminator, the perfect robotic killing machine, is decades away; to date, all efforts to create a humanoid robot that can climb the stairs, let alone fight the Taliban, have been risible. But scientists are reporting breakthroughs with the next-best thing – the creation of human terminators, who feel less pain, less terror and less fatigue than “non-enhanced” soldiers and whose very bodies may be augmented by powerful machines.

Efforts to understand the brain of the soldier and put this knowledge to good use have been going on for some time. Professor Jonathan Moreno, a bioethicist at Pennsylvania State University, studies the way neuroscience is being co-opted by the military. “Right now, this is the fastest-growing area of science,” he says.

The Pentagon is currently spending $400m a year researching ways to “enhance” the human fighter. The defence giant Lockheed recently unveiled its “Hulc” (Human Universal Load Carrier), a science fiction-like, battery-powered exoskeleton that allows a human to lift 100kg weights and carry them at a fast run of 16kph (10mph). The videos of the Hulc in action are truly impressive. Superman strength is one thing, but soldiers still need to sleep. In Afghanistan the average soldier in combat gets only four hours’ rest a day and sleep deprivation is the single biggest factor in reducing fighting performance. Not only are tired soldiers less physically able to fight and run, they make more mistakes with the complex weapons systems at their disposal – mistakes that can prove deadly to themselves and their comrades.

Using chemistry to attack fatigue is, of course, nothing new. Two centuries ago, Prussian soldiers used cocaine to remain alert and Inca warriors used coca leaves to stay alert long before that. Since then, nicotine, amphetamines, caffeine and a new class of stimulants including the drug Modafinil have all been used successfully, to the extent that American soldiers can now operate normally even after 48 hours without sleep. Now the chemists are trying to tweak the molecular structure of this drug so that it will switch off the desire for sleep for even longer…

[continues in the Independent]

The World’s First Cocaine Bar

JacobSloan — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:50:17 +0000

Backpacking tourists flock to La Paz, Bolivia’s Route 36 for long nights of cocaine and Jenga. Is this what your neighborhood dive bar would look like if hard drugs were legalized? The Guardian writes:

The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. And he has seen it all.

La Paz, Bolivia, at 3,900m above sea level – an altitude where even two flights of stairs makes your heart race like a hummingbird – is home to the most celebrated bar in all of South America: Route 36, the world’s first cocaine lounge. I sit back to take in the scene – table after table of chatty young backpackers, many of whom are taking a gap year, awaiting a new job or simply escaping the northern hemisphere for the delights of South America, which, for many it seems, include cocaine.

Down in Route 36’s main room, the scene is chilled. A half-hearted disco ball sporadically bathes the room in red and green light. Each table has candles and a stash of bottled water, plus whatever mixers one cares to add to your drink. In the corner, a pile of board games includes chess, backgammon, and Jenga …

Six Fictional Drugs With Unintended Side Effects

majestic — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:21:11 +0000

Substance D, Soma, Melange – they’ve all been part of our culture for decades. Gabe Habash looks at the side effects for Publishers Weekly:

In fiction and in reality, medicine is designed and set up to operate with the best of intentions, to eliminate pain and disease and the things that push us toward mortality. In theory. In practice, we know that there are holes in this theory. But for all the problems in the reality of medicine, at least we don’t have to worry about these 6 fictional drugs, which were designed to make the world a better place, but failed in all types of spectacular ways.

1. Altruizine from “Altruizine” by Stanislaw Lem

Unintended Side Effect: It makes people too altruistic.

Lem, one of the most widely-read sci-fi writers in the world, wrote a short story within his collection The Cyberiad about Altruizine, a metapsychotropic drug that causes the user to feel the pains and emotions of others within a radius of fifty yards.

According to its discoverer, Altruizine

“will ensure the untrammeled reign of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Compassion in any society, since the neighbors of a happy man must share his happiness, and the happier he, the happier perforce they, so it is entirely in their own interest that they wish him nothing but the best. Should he suffer any hurt, they will rush so help at once, so as to spare themselves the pain induced by his. Neither walls, fences, hedges, nor any other obstacle will weaken the altruizing influence… We assume no responsibility for results at variance with the discoverer’s claims.”

The story, which has a full title of “Altruizine, Or a True Account of How Bonhomius the Hermetic Hermit Tried to Bring About Happiness, and What Came of It,” is about a robotic engineer who creates the drug and sends Bonhomius the Hermit (who is eager to help others) into society to try it out. What happens is people start experiencing things like the birthing pains of a cow, while others run into a newlyweds’ house to experience their new pleasures vicariously…

[continues at Publishers Weekly]

The War On Drugs: Ron Paul Vs. Barack Obama (Video)

Easy Rider — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 02:57:03 +0000