How The CIA Doped San Franciscans With LSD
Did the CIA accidentally turn San Francisco into America’s grooviest city? SF Weekly on newly uncovered details on Operation Midnight Climax, one of the absolute strangest slices of U.S. history:
Wayne Ritchie may be among the last of the living victims of MK-ULTRA, a Central Intelligence Agency operation that covertly tested LSD on unwitting Americans in San Francisco and New York City from 1953 to 1964.
There were at least three CIA safe houses in the Bay Area where experiments went on. Chief among them was 225 Chestnut on Telegraph Hill, which operated from 1955 to 1965. Inside, prostitutes paid by the government to lure clients to the apartment served up acid-laced cocktails to unsuspecting johns, while martini-swilling secret agents observed their every move from behind a two-way mirror. Recording devices were installed, some disguised as electrical outlets.
To get the guys in the mood, the walls were adorned with photographs of tortured women…
NYPD Officers Defy Orders To End Marijuana Arrests
In short, New York City cops put 50,000 people behind bars last year for marijuana possession — even though the state decriminalized it in 1977 — and they refuse to stop. Via Raw Story:
Police officers in New York are “manufacturing” criminal offenses by forcing people with small amounts of marijuana to reveal their drugs, according to a survey by public defenders.
Under New York law, possession of 25g or less of marijuana [merely] brings a $100 fine. Only when the drugs are in public view are the police permitted to make an arrest for drug possession. One in three respondents said police had forced them to take the marijuana out of pockets or from under clothes and produce it into public view.
In September last year, Kelly issued an order to officers not to arrest people caught with small amounts of marijuana. But the number of those arrested increased after the order was…
Media Roots: DEA & IRS Raid on Oakland Pot Clinics
The IRS and DEA came to downtown Oakland this afternoon to aggressively raid multiple medical marijuana dispensaries as well as Oaksterdam, an educational facility that teaches plant cultivation to medical marijuana patients. Robbie Martin of Media Roots ran to catch the raid and captured an intense standoff between the people and the federal officials. He also confronts an ABC 7 news reporter after he hears them tell the police they are doing an ‘amazing job.’
Justice Scalia Now Seems More Skeptical About ‘Obamacare’ Than Home-Grown Marijuana
Can’t make this stuff up. Reid Pillifant writes on Capital New York:
To some longtime observers of the Supreme Court, the surprising part of yesterday’s oral argument wasn’t that Justice Anthony Kennedy critically questioned the individual mandate; it was the harshly skeptical tone from Justice Antonin Scalia.
Scalia, one of the court’s most outspoken characters, has long been an originalist villain to those on the left, but there was a distinct strain of thought, at least among some constitutional scholars, that he might be inclined to look favorably upon the Affordable Care Act.
That idea rested primarily on his concurrence in Gonzales v. Raich, a 2005 case out of California, in which the court found that the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce extended to marijuana that was grown at home solely for personal consumption…
Why Being Sleepy and Drunk Are Great for Creativity
Creativity can seem like magic … actually, it’s not. Jonah Lehrer writes in the Wired Science:
Here’s a brain teaser: Your task is to move a single line so that the false arithmetic statement below becomes true.
IV = III + III
Did you get it? In this case, the solution is rather obvious – you should move the first “I” to the right side of the “V,” so that the statement now reads: VI = III + III. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people (92 percent) quickly solve this problem, as it requires a standard problem-solving approach in which only the answer is altered. What’s perhaps a bit more surprising is that nearly 90 percent of patients with brain damage to the prefrontal lobes — this leaves them with severe attentional deficits, unable to control their mental spotlight — are also able to find the answer …
Sex-Deprived Male Fruit Flies Turn to Alcohol
Reports Bloomberg via the San Francisco Chronicle:
Male fruit flies become barflies when rejected by females, choosing alcohol-spiked food more often than their successful brothers in a study that suggests it may be due to a brain chemical also found in humans.
The spurned flies had lower levels of a molecule in their brains called neuropeptide F than the males who were allowed to mate, according to findings published today in the journal Science. Neuropeptide Y, the version found in humans, has been tied to addiction and mental illness, said Ulrike Heberlein, one of the researchers.
The molecule may begin to explain how experience and environment shape human addictions, said Heberlein. About half of a person’s risk of addiction is genetic, and environment is known to play a role. The experiment may help explain the biological triggers that affect certain behavior or cravings and could help research into treatments for addiction …
‘Knights Templar’ Drug Cartel Calls For Truce During Pope’s Visit to Mexico
Reports the AFP via the Herald Sun:
The Knights Templar drug cartel is calling a short truce — but only to welcome Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico. They did put up signs announcing this,” a Guanajuato state government source told AFP privately on Sunday.
The Knights Templar are holding off on all violent action, we are not killers, welcome to the Pope,” the official said paraphrasing one of the signs put up in the town of Irapuato, Guanajuato state. The signs were seen in at least seven towns statewide.
The Pope arrives March 23 in Leon, in the neighbouring state of Michoacan, where the Knights Templar were founded. President Felipe Calderon has launched a military crackdown against the cartels battling it out for control of the lucrative drug trade, in which some 50,000 Mexicans have lost their lives since 2006.
Young Drug Users Ingest ‘Mystery White Powders’
A poll by The Guardian and Mixmag magazine reveals that in many cases people have no idea what drugs they are taking:
A fifth of young drug users admit to taking “mystery white powders” without any idea what they contain, according to an international Guardian survey that reveals the extent of reckless behaviour among a new generation of high-risk drug takers.
The poll of 15,500 people by the Guardian and Mixmag magazine also found that more respondents in the UK and US admitted taking cannabis than either tobacco or energy drinks. Those who defined themselves as clubbers were more likely to take ecstasy than smoke cigarettes…
LSD Gets Another Look As Alcoholism Treatment
Scott Hensley reports on NPR:
You might be tempted to chuckle about some Norwegian researchers peering back at experiments done during the ’60s and ’70s with LSD as a treatment for alcoholism.
But don’t.
Their rigorous analysis, combining data from six different studies, concludes that one dose of the hallucinogenic drug might just help.
The past studies randomly assigned patients to get a strong dose of LSD or something else (another drug, such as amphetamine, a low dose of LSD or nothing special). And the results provide evidence for a beneficial effect on abstinence from alcohol.
For what it’s worth, the analysis, just published online by the Journal of Psychopharmacology, was funded by the Research Council of Norway, not exactly a fringe outfit …
Heart Disease Drug Found To Reduce Racism
A pill to prevent subconscious racism? If only we’d known that it was this easy … the Telegraph reports:
Volunteers given the beta-blocker, used to treat chest pains and lower heart rates, scored lower on a standard psychological test of “implicit” racist attitudes. They appeared to be less racially prejudiced at a subconscious level than another group treated with a “dummy” placebo pill.
Scientists believe the discovery can be explained by the fact that racism is fundamentally founded on fear. Propranolol acts both on nerve circuits that govern automatic functions such as heart rate, and the part of the brain involved in fear and emotional responses.
Experimental psychologist Dr Sylvia Terbeck, from Oxford University, who led the study, said: “Given the key role that such implicit attitudes appear to play in discrimination against other ethnic groups, and the widespread use of propranolol for medical purposes, our findings are also of considerable ethical interest.”
Read More:…
The Drug War’s Effect On Bodies And Minds
Via Brooklyn Rail, Jason Flores-Williams, a defense lawyer whose father spent sixteen years in prison on drug charges, on the influence of the War on Drugs on how we think:
There are two kinds of power and the drug war’s got them both in spades. The first is we’ll-kick-your-ass power. If you don’t go along with our vision of things, then we’re going to throw you in jail and try to ruin you. It’s the kind of power we think of when we think of China, except that when it comes to the prison-industrial complex we’re actually more repressive than they are.
The second power is foundational to all other forms of power: the power to make people doubt and dislike themselves. All we have to do is look in the mirror to know that the drug war has been an absurdity. Have you ever used drugs? Are you a felon who…
How Marijuana Impairs Short-Term Memory
Mo Costandi writes in the Guardian:
My latest news story for Nature describes a new study which explains how marijuana causes impairments in working memory, or the ability to retain information for short periods of time. This is a well known side effect of marijuana, which is unwanted with respect to medicinal use of the drug, but until now the underlying neurobiology was unknown.
The research shows that tetrahydrocanabinol (THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) impairs working memory by inducing a form of synaptic plasticity that weakens neuronal connections. This could lead to new THC-related drugs that have therapeutic value but do not cause this unwanted effect. More interestingly, though, the findings provide compelling evidence that hitherto neglected brain cells called astrocytes are critical for brain function and play a direct role in cognitive processes.
There are two different types of synapitc plasticity. One of these, called long-term potentiation, strengthens the connections between neurons so…
Drug Cartels Helped Save Capitalism During Financial Meltdown
Hmm … I wonder why this story haven’t received more attention in the years since it was reported? As Rajeev Syal reported in the Guardian:
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations’ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary…
What Jennifer Aniston May Not Know About Ayahuasca
It’s the evening of January 25, 2007, and I’m hosting my first Ayahuasca Monologues storytelling event to a packed room at Eyebeam Atelier in New York City. On stage, Breaking Open the Head author Daniel Pinchbeck, who semi-popularized the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca within the spiritual counterculture, brushes aside his disheveled hair, asking in a voice barely audible from laryngitis, “How many of you here have tried ayahuasca?” Out of 220 people, only nine hands lift in the air, and they are mostly the featured storytellers (including myself) that I’ve directed for the show that night.
Cut to February 2012, and the mega-celebrity, Jennifer Aniston, best known for playing perky girl-next-door Rachel in Friends, is tipping a bowl of ayahuasca to her lips in Universal’s newest romantic comedy Wanderlust. In just a few years, the once secret “shamans brew” of the Amazon has snaked its way into the popular consciousness, including the entertainment industry…
Mexican Scientists Unveil Vaccine Against Heroin Addiction
An inoculation could make the ravages of drug dependency an ailment of the past. One imagines the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries putting up an epic battle a few years down the road when researchers turn their sights toward developing vaccines to eliminate cigarette and painkiller addiction. Reuters reports:
A group of Mexican scientists is working on a vaccine that could reduce addiction to one of the world’s most notorious narcotics: heroin. They have successfully tested the vaccine on mice and are preparing to test it on humans.
The vaccine, which has been patented in the United States, works by making the body resistant to the effects of heroin, so users would no longer get a rush of pleasure when they smoke or inject it.
Anatomy Of The Adderall Drought Of 2012
Via Motherboard, Kelly Bourdet on the inevitable mass shortages of the drug necessary to function in modern life. Will the empty pharmacy shelf be the 21st century equivalent to the gasoline scares of the 1970s?
For many people with ADHD, Adderall is what best manages their symptoms. At the same time, a drug that reduces appetite, increases wakefulness, induces feelings of euphoria (side effects, or, rather, effects of Adderall) — all through flooding your brain’s reward system—has vast potential for abuse. Amphetamine salts, used in Adderall, are classified by the U.S. Government as a Class II Narcotic, the same as cocaine and Oxycontin.
To prevent hoarding of materials and their potential for theft and illicit use, the Drug Enforcement Agency sets quotas for the chemical precursors to drugs like Adderall. But with the number of prescriptions for Adderall jumping 13 percent in the past year, pharmaceutical companies claim that the quotas are…
The Pharmacy On A Chip Implant
Source: MicroChips
Coming soon, whether we like it or not! The Financial Times reports:
A wirelessly controlled implant, which delivers precise drug doses into the patient’s body, has had a successful first clinical trial, bringing the possibility of the “pharmacy on a chip” that could transform drug delivery closer.
Researchers used the microchip device to give seven women with osteoporosis daily doses of a bone-strengthening hormone that was normally injected. The results were announced at the start of the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting on Thursday.
The device could transform drug delivery and help usher in a new era of telemedicine – delivering healthcare over a distance – said Robert Langer, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the project started 15 years ago.
“You could literally have a pharmacy on a chip,” he said. “You can do remote control delivery, you can do pulsatile drug delivery, and you can…
Legalize It!
Is this the End (of cannabis prohibition as we know it)?
The NORML blog says eight states may legalize marijuana this year:
2012 has only just begun and it is already shaping up to be one of the most exciting and active years for marijuana law reform in some time. More than a dozen state legislatures are currently considering reform measures in some respect and 8 states are attempting to put legalization initiatives before voters this November.
Many of these efforts are still in the signature gathering stage. Check out the list below to see if you might be able to vote ‘Yes’ on marijuana legalization in your state this year and how you can get involved to make that a reality. In addition to the legalization initiatives below several states, such as Ohio and Massachusetts, are working to also put medical marijuana initiatives before voters this year. To stay up to date on…
Is North Korea Addicted To Meth?
Could between a quarter and half of the North Korean population be meth users? SINO-NK reports:
Though the North Korean government would never admit to outsiders that there is a drug problem in the country, the Daily NK has filed many reports over the past several years suggesting that “bingdu” (meth) is available practically at epidemic levels inside the DPRK. Articles claim, among other things, that commodity prices rise and fall depending on the harshness of ongoing crackdowns on bingdu; that middle schoolers in Hamhung, South Hamgyong Province, were caught producing bingdu; that teenagers give it as a birthday gift to peers; and, most recently, that Kim Jong-Un had ordered a crackdown on bingdu producers, sellers, and users.
Quotes from defectors and sources who spoke to the Daily NK report that anywhere from ¼ to ½ of the population in North Korea are using the drug. And as reported by Isaac Stone Fish…
Smoking Marijuana Nearly Doubles Risk Of Driving Accidents
While it might seem obvious, researchers Mark Asbridge, Jill A. Hayden and Jennifer L. Cartwright took the trouble to scientifically conclude that “acute cannabis consumption is associated with an increased risk of a motor vehicle crash, especially for fatal collisions.” They report their findings in the British Medical Journal – here’s the abstract:
Objective To determine whether the acute consumption of cannabis (cannabinoids) by drivers increases the risk of a motor vehicle collision.
Design Systematic review of observational studies, with meta-analysis.
Data sources We did electronic searches in 19 databases, unrestricted by year or language of publication. We also did manual searches of reference lists, conducted a search for unpublished studies, and reviewed the personal libraries of the research team.
Review methods We included observational epidemiology studies of motor vehicle collisions with an appropriate control group, and selected studies that measured recent cannabis use in drivers by toxicological analysis of whole blood or self report. We excluded experimental or…
