U.S. Government Poisoned Booze to Enforce Prohibition
During Prohibition, crime syndicates were re-distilling industrial alcohol to supply their speakeasies. In an effort to “poison the well,” the federal government responded by requiring manufacturers to add new, deadly compounds to the industrial alcohol mix, leading to the deaths of thousands nationwide. In an article at Slate.com, Deborah Blum writes:
It was Christmas Eve 1926, the streets aglitter with snow and lights, when the man afraid of Santa Claus stumbled into the emergency room at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. He was flushed, gasping with fear: Santa Claus, he kept telling the nurses, was just behind him, wielding a baseball bat.
Before hospital staff realized how sick he was — the alcohol-induced hallucination was just a symptom — the man died. So did another holiday party-goer. And another. As dusk fell on Christmas, the hospital staff tallied up more than 60 people made desperately ill by alcohol and eight dead from it.…
A Machine To Let You Taste Words
A nonsensical waste of time? Goofy conceptual art? Or a magical cross-sensory experiment? A device that converts any word that you type into a cocktail, via Morskoiboy:
My piece has buttons working as pumps and has pipes instead of wires. It also has a display like any other electronic panel board, but as opposed to using liquid crystals as in electronic displays, my machine’s display functions via multicoloured syrups. My machine converts words into cocktails. And, yes, it does work. Now I can literally taste the flavor of my words.
Pressing the buttons on the keyboard injects the corresponding ingredients into the display, which tints different segments of the display and thus produces letters. You can try to imagine that each letter can have a taste (L-Lime, A-Apple), a color (R-Red, G-Green), or a name (K-Kahlua, J-Jagermeister).
1000-Year-Old Aztec Brew Is Hottest Beverage In Mexico
As quoted by Reuters, Mexico City Museum Director, Salvador Zarco tells us that “Among the Aztecs the drink was reserved for the nobles and priests for ceremonial use and for pregnant women.” I have visions of hipster pregnant chicks in Williamsburg flocking to their local pulqueria…
Ecstasy As Cancer Cure
Ecstasy (MDMA)
Who would have thought – popping an E could cure cancer! From BBC News:
Modified ecstasy could one day have a role to play in fighting some blood cancers, according to scientists.
Ecstasy is known to kill some cancer cells, but scientists have increased its effectiveness 100-fold, they said in Investigational New Drugs journal.
Their early study showed all leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma cells could be killed in a test tube, but any treatment would be a decade away.
A charity said the findings were a “significant step forward”.
In 2006, a research team at the University of Birmingham showed that ecstasy and anti-depressants such as Prozac had the potential to stop cancers growing.
The problem was that it needed doses so high they would have been fatal if given to people.
The researchers, in collaboration with the University of Western Australia, have chemically re-engineered ecstasy by taking some atoms away and putting new ones in…
How To Tell When You’re Drunk
Melinda Beck asks “How much alcohol does it take to get intoxicated?” for the Wall Street Journal:
Many people figure a few beers at a ballgame or a couple of glasses of wine with dinner won’t put them over the legal limit for driving. But how alcohol affects people is highly individual, with a number of factors in the mix.
Quick shots of liquor hit the bloodstream faster than slow sips of wine. Drinking on an empty stomach impairs reflexes more than consuming alcohol with food…
Legal Moonshine On Sale In South
If you’re hankering for some moonshine, head on down to South Carolina, where it’s finally legal, reports Harriet McLeod for Reuters:
Two entrepreneurs are taking advantage of new micro-distillery laws in South Carolina to make and sell traditional moonshine whiskey legally for the first time in the southern state.
The Dark Corner Distillery will open next month in Greenville, where engineer Joe Fenten, 27, and longtime home beer brewer Richard Wenger will produce and sell small batches of 100-proof moonshine from a custom-made copper still.
The distillery, housed in a 1925 building, will also include a tasting bar and a museum dedicated to the history of the Dark Corner, the local mountains that were once full of moonshiners, feud and mayhem, Fenten told Reuters.
The area was settled, along with the nearby Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, by Scots, Irish and Welsh who migrated down through the Appalachian…
Elves of the Apocalypse: “Machine Elves” and the Self-Sabotage of Psychedelic Research
Beware the “clockwork [sic] elves” who control the global elite promising them “eternal life, total power, total control, everything you could ever want, just kill everyone [...] friendly little guys…” Via Modern Mythology:
Right. Most if not all mythologies include creatures resembling elves. Therefore the archetypal image must be based upon encounters with the Machine … Er … Clockwork Elves. As with all paranoid logic, this argument is easily felled by Occam’s Razor, which advocates that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity,” in short, that the “simplest answer is most likely the correct one.” It is much more plausible to propose that the entities encountered during the DMT-experience could very well bear some measure of resemblance to elves (elongated and angular shapes are common); that one comes to think “if they look like elves, they are elves” at least makes sense!
THERE ARE NO FUCKING MACHINE ELVES!
To be fair, Alex didn’t make…
The Pentagon’s LSD Bombs
I never knew there was such a thing as “psychedelic warfare”. From a vintage Popular Science article, via Parapolitical:
Secret U.S. tests show[ed] startling military uses for weird new chemical agents. The so-called “loony gas,” which we believed could incapacitate enemies without actually harming them, turned out to be LSD. Although we acknowledged that LSD could make people “daffy,” we also stated that these psycho-chemicals were more or less humane. That is, the military could saturate enemies with LSD and take over their towns, without destroying them, before the people recovered.
Drugs And The Meaning Of Life
Does the altering of consciousness, through means chemical or otherwise, lie at the very heart of existence? Author and neuroscientist Sam Harris, usually known for ripping religion to shreds, delves into the meaning and value of drugs in an essay via SamHarris.org:
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness. We form friendships so that we can feel certain emotions, like love, and avoid others, like loneliness. We eat specific foods to enjoy their fleeting presence on our tongues. We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts. Every waking moment — and even in our dreams — we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness that we value.
Drugs are another means toward this end. Some are illegal; some are stigmatized; some are dangerous — though, perversely, these sets only partially intersect. There are drugs of extraordinary power and utility, like…
Old Drinkers Protected Against Dementia
But you have to reach 75, life is not fair. Richard Alleyne writes in the Telegraph:
Scientists found pensioners aged 75 or over who like a daily pint or glass of wine are helping to stave off senility.
Those who drink alcohol are 30 per cent less likely to develop dementia and 40 per cent less likely to suffer Alzheimer’s than those who were teetotal, according to the research.
A study of more than 3,200 German people aged 75 or over attending GPs, who were free of dementia, were studied and checked 18 months and three years later.
Associations between alcohol consumption, type of alcohol – wine, beer, mixed alcohol beverages – and incident dementia were examined.
“People should be aware that we are talking about mild/moderate consumption of alcohol,” said Professor Siegfried Weyerer from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany.
Over 570 Australians Arrested In Police Crackdown On “Booze-Fueled Violence and Anti-Social Behavior”
Marissa Calligeros writes for Brisbane Times:
More than 570 people, including seven juveniles, were arrested in Queensland as part of a two-day police blitz targeting booze-fuelled violence and anti-social behaviour.
Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett said more than 1000 uniformed and plain-clothed police officers flooded potential trouble spots across the state, including bars, from 6pm on Friday.
Over the two nights, 574 people were charged, including seven juveniles who were apprehended over a combined total of 28 charges.
‘‘We’re disappointed that this level of police enforcement is necessary to ensure community standards of behaviour are being met,’’ Mr Barnett said.
Officers were forced to move 322 people to safety during a sweep of nightclub precincts, and issued 154 move-on directions.
‘‘We will continue to enforce the law to ensure that all members of the community can enjoy a night out in public places without their evening being ruined by a selfish few who have no regard for…
If It’s Not Scottish It’s Crap: Scotland Toasts New Whisky-Powered Bioenergy Plant
Nuff said. More power to alternative energy efforts. Kirsty Scott reports in the Guardian:
It is the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, and now whisky is to be used to create electricity for homes in a new bioenergy venture involving some of Scotland’s best-known distilleries.
Contracts have recently been awarded for the construction of a biomass combined heat and power plant at Rothes in Speyside that by 2013 will use the by-products of the whisky-making process for energy production.
Will Big Pharma Take Over The American Market For Medical Marijuana?
If the hundreds of uses for cannabis doesn’t plead the case for its legalization, the money made from its medical industry just might do it. The Washington Independent reports:
The American Independent has previously reported on the growing corporatization of the incipient medical marijuana industry at a time when medical marijuana dispensaries scrabble to hold on to their businesses in the face of a multi-pronged federal crackdown. But there are signs afoot that it just may become ever more corporate if a Big Pharma push to get the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to recognize a cannabis-derived drug is successful.
Last week, British prescription drug manufacturer GW Pharmaceuticals announced a licensing agreement with drug giant Novartis, maker of Ritalin and Excedrin, to begin selling GW’s drug Sativex in markets across Asia, Africa, Oceania and the Middle East. The medication is already available in Britain, where it’s produced and marketed by Bayer, and in Canada and…
Royal Virility Performance: The First Beer Brewed With Viagra
Royal Virility Performance by BrewDog. (BrewDog.com)
Because there isn’t enough alcohol and testosterone-influenced shennanigans at happy hour, BrewDog sells a beer laced with Viagra. Via FOX News:
Forget the little blue pill. A British company has brewed the first beer laced with Viagra.
The new brew is called Royal Virility Performance, and has been specially created to mark the upcoming Royal Wedding.
Downing just three bottles is equivalent to taking one pill of Viagra, which enhances men’s sexual performance.
The 7.5 percent alcohol India Pale Ale also contains extra aphrodisiacs including horny goat weed and even chocolate.
The makers of the beer, BrewDog, have even sent several bottles to Prince William for his wedding night.
Just 40 bottles of the beer will be produced initially, and will go on sale the day of the Royal Wedding, April 29, at BrewDog.com. All the proceeds go to the charity Centrepoint, which Prince William supports. But buyers will be limited to one…
Happy 4/20! Top 5 Marijuana Stories from Disinfo.com
4/20 is a day of fun, activism, and healing for millions of marijuana users throughout the world, so here are five of the dankest cannabis stories we have posted on Disinfo.com. To read all the pot-related stories in our news archive, go here. Does anyone know the origin of 420? If you’ve heard an urban legend about this most baked of numbers, please share…
Top Five Marijuana Stories:
1. Chronic Art: Making Amazing Mosaics From Roach Papers
2. Graham Hancock on Marijuana & Consciousness
3. Don’t Just Smoke a Joint on 4/20, Take Action Against Marijuana Prohibition
Can Alcohol Help the Brain Remember? Science Now Says So!
Via ScienceDaily:
The common view that drinking is bad for learning and memory isn’t wrong, says neurobiologist Hitoshi Morikawa, but it highlights only one side of what ethanol consumption does to the brain.
“Usually, when we talk about learning and memory, we’re talking about conscious memory,” says Morikawa, whose results were published last month in The Journal of Neuroscience. “Alcohol diminishes our ability to hold on to pieces of information like your colleague’s name, or the definition of a word, or where you parked your car this morning. But our subconscious is learning and remembering too, and alcohol may actually increase our capacity to learn, or ‘conditionability,’ at that level.”
Morikawa’s study, which found that repeated ethanol exposure enhances synaptic plasticity in a key area in the brain, is further evidence toward an emerging consensus in the neuroscience community that drug and alcohol addiction is fundamentally a learning and memory disorder.
When we drink…
Police Warn Of Growing Teen ‘Vodka Tampon’ Use
Time to check in on the latest youth trends: teens (both girls and boys) are increasingly using liquor-soaked tampons as a novel and stealthy means of getting drunk. A number of Facebook pages have popped in honor of the practice, called “slimming”. Ah, kids with their crazy fads! The Local enlightens on the scourge every parent should be most worried about:
Police in southern Germany warned this week of a dangerous new form of alcohol abuse among teens – using tampons soaked in vodka to get drunk quickly and hide the smell. The practice poses grave health risks, they said.
In early March a 14-year-old girl collapsed during a street festival in Konstanz, apparently highly intoxicated from using a vodka tampon, the paper reported. Youth researchers have since found out that this form of alcohol abuse is trendy in the region.
The trend arose among teens in the United States, where it is known as…
Too Much Alcohol May Cause Cancer
Photo: André Karwath aka Aka (CC)
Just when you thought that drinking a few glasses of red wine every day was going to prolong your life comes this report in the British Medical Journal that it raises the risk of cancer. From AFP:
About one in 10 cancers in men and one in 33 in women in western European countries are caused by current and past alcohol consumption, according to a study released on Friday.
For some types of cancer, the rates are significantly higher, it said.
In 2008, for men, 44, 25 and 33 percent of upper digestive track, liver and colon cancers respectively were caused by alcohol in six of the countries examined, the study found.
The countries were Britain, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany and Denmark.
The study also showed that half of these cancer cases occurred in men who drank more than a recommended daily limit of 24 grammes of alcohol, roughly two…
Inside Oaksterdam University: ‘Where Marijuana Gets You Higher Education’
Jason Motlagh writes in TIME:
On the second floor of the downtown campus, a motley group of students listens to a lecture titled “Palliative and Curative Relief Through a Safe and Effective Herbal Medicine.” Not the sexiest of topics on the face of it, but there’s a catch: this is Oaksterdam University, and the medicine being discussed is marijuana. At “America’s first cannabis college,” in Oakland, Calif., the sallow-faced hippy-skater types that one expects to find sit beside middle-aged professionals in business attire, united in their zeal for the pungent green leaf. No one dares speak out of turn, until instructor Paul Armentano, a marijuana-policy expert, cites a news report that U.S. antidrug authorities plan to legalize pot’s active ingredient exclusively for drug companies’ use. “More stinking profits for Big Business,” mumbles a young man wearing a baseball cap. His classmates groan in agreement.
More than 17,000 students have enrolled since Oaksterdam…
Imagine Free Beer At Your Office, But You Are Recorded For How Much You Drink…
Photo: Strom Carlson (CC)
Ryan Flinn reports for Bloomberg:
At Yelp Inc.’s San Francisco headquarters, a keg refrigerator provides a never-ending supply of beer to employees, letting them drink as much as they like.
They just have to be comfortable with full disclosure: Workers badge in to an iPad application attached to the keg that records every ounce they drink.
“If you’re at the top of the leader board consistently, I don’t know if that’s a place that you’d want to be,” said Eric Singley, director of Yelp consumer and mobile products. “Luckily, that hasn’t really even been an issue.”
In a contemporary version of “Mad Men” and its bibulous ad executives, more dot-coms are embracing the idea of drinking at work. That means keeping bars stocked at all hours, installing kegerators and letting programmers tip back a few while they code. It also raises questions about the effect of alcohol on productivity and the safety of…
