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IF Obama Is Honest, He'll End the Drug War
(Alexander Zaitchik, AlterNet, December 23, 2008)
Obama was frank about his own drug use, so why isn't he more honest about what a disaster war on drugs has been?

One of the many things that made Barack Obama such a refreshing candidate was his frank and unapologetic admission of drug use. True, Anderson Cooper extracted curt "yeses" from some 2004 Democratic candidates when he asked them point-blank if they had ever smoked pot. But Obama has written openly and without prompting about his experiences, not only with marijuana, but cocaine, a "hard" drug. On the campaign trail he even joked about inhaling deeply -- "that was the point," he said more than once. Unlike George W. Bush, Obama didn't hide behind evasive murmurs about "irresponsible behavior," or turn his drug experiences into a setup for some maudlin born-again conversion story. . . . Partly because Obama was so reasonable and matter-of-fact about his own All-American experiences getting high, drug-policy reformers were among those most excited by his candidacy. If any aspect of America needs change, it is the country's prohibitionist and punitive approach to drugs and drug use. Obama, it seemed, was the right politician to take an executive hammer to the cracked marble pillars of America's disastrous war on drugs. Throughout the primaries and general election, Obama gently encouraged these hopes by advocating commonsense drug-policy reforms. He criticized federal paramilitary raids on state-sanctioned greenhouses and called for ending racist discrepancies in cocaine sentencing laws. . . . Nobody expected Obama to tap Tommy Chong to run the Office of National Drug Control Policy. But maybe, just maybe, Obama would have the political courage to publicly acknowledge what an emerging majority of Americans now grasps: that the war on drugs is a failure, that it is unjust, and that it is an epic waste of law-enforcement time and resources. . . . Still a month before inauguration, the hopes of drug-policy-reform advocates have had their wings clipped several times, beginning with the announcement of the Democratic ticket. . . . "The pick of Joe Biden was my first sign of digestive tumult," "Rather than oppose the Reagan-inspired War on Some Drugs, Biden became an enthusiastic supporter and legislative booster. He was at the center of creating the ONDCP [in 1988], mandatory minimum sentencing, civil forfeiture laws, the Rave Act, funding for DARE in public schools and the ad campaigns for the Partnership for a Drug Free America." . . . NORML board member Dominic Holden says: "Biden is the drug war embodied." . . . The selection of the emblematic Democratic drug warrior of the 1980s was followed by the selection of his 1990s counterpart, Rahm Emanuel. As President Bill Clinton's liaison with the ONDCP, the incoming chief of staff advised on and defended that administration's tough-on-crime punitive approach to drugs and its cowardly opposition to medical-marijuana initiatives and needle-exchange programs. While Clinton has since expressed regret over some of these positions, the tightly wound Emanuel has not. . . . Obama's pick for attorney general, meanwhile, has a mixed record on drug policy reform that will hopefully be clarified during the expected Senate dogfight over his nomination. But the record is not encouraging. As D.C. attorney general in the 1990s, Eric Holder supported mandatory sentences of 18 months to six years for selling a range of drugs that included marijuana. He is also on record supporting the "broken windows" theory of neighborhood policing most closely associated with Mayor Rudy Giuliani's NYPD and the conservative Manhattan Institute. Holder's iron-fist drug politics find a public health counterpart in the confused mind of Obama's Transition Team point man on the ONDCP, Don Vereen, who as recently as November explained his opposition to medical marijuana by saying, "[It] sends the wrong message to children." . . . Regardless of where Obama's appointees stand and how much, if any, political capital he is willing to spend on drug-policy reform, the need to turn his campaign slogan into reality has never been greater. Last week, the Justice Department released numbers showing that 1 in every 100 Americans is now in prison, and 1 in every 31 is either behind bars, on parole or on probation. For this grotesquerie we can thank the war on drugs. More than half of federal prisoners (95,000 people) are behind bars for drug-law violations -- a record. Nationally, around half a million people are in prison on nonviolent drug charges. The Drug Policy Alliance estimates that this is a tenfold increase since 1980, totaling more than the entire prison population of Western Europe. . . . Another law that reform advocates hope will be ignored is the blanket federal prohibition of marijuana, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled trumps states' rights to legally grow and distribute marijuana for medical purposes. Obama has criticized federal raids on state-sanction dispensaries as a poor use of federal resources, a popular position. The electoral politics of medical marijuana also favor progress on this front. . . . "One in four Americans now lives in a medical marijuana state," Aaron Houston, director of government relations at the Marijuana Policy Project, explained to Reason magazine. "And medical marijuana outpolled Obama in Michigan by six points. Medical marijuana states, including Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, were essential to Obama's victory, and continuing a federal war against a quarter of the country would make no sense." . . . Advocates may have their best ally not in the White House or in Congress, but in the economy. As state budgets shrink across the country, legislatures are often forced to choose between education and prison budgets. [with California choosing prisons over schools!] This phenomenon is most stark in California, where a budget shortfall and massive overcrowding has Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about letting people go and the legislature discussing sentencing reform. . . . "During the last recession, we saw an enormous number of states enact reform," says DPA's Piper. "This is the silver lining of an economic downturn. After the recession recedes, the reforms tend to stick, when the states realize they are saving money." . . . If the economy ends up being the prime mover behind drug reform under Obama and the incoming Congress, it will be better than nothing, but still a sad commentary on the Democratic Party and American democracy in general. Polls and state ballot initiatives continue to show the public widening its lead ahead of their elected leaders on drug policy, who more often than not remain stuck in the 1980s, if not the 1920s. While changing the law ultimately falls upon Congress, Obama could help take his party and the country into the new century by using the bully pulpit to question the premises and effects of the drug war. If he chooses to do so, he is certainly surrounded by enough veteran drug warriors to provide political cover. Who knows? If President Richard Nixon could go to China, maybe Joe Biden & Co. can help Obama make the shorter but equally historic trip down Main Street to the local head shop.

COMMENT by Lorenzo: I'm not counting on Obama for anything positive, particularly in the government's war on consciousness. He lied to us about FISA, he lied to us about supporting the LGBT community, in fact I can't think of a single primary campaign promise that he's kept. Could we have somehow elected a Black Bush?

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posted by Lorenzo 12:32 PM

 

Sting Operation Proves Police Are Basically Corrupt

It's about time that the tables are turned on police corruption in the War on Drugs.

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posted by Lorenzo 7:52 AM

 

Nevermind, Barack Obama Wants to Arrest Marijuana Users After All
(Scott Morgan, Chronicle Blog, 02/01/2008 )
For one brief glorious moment, we thought Barack Obama supported marijuana decriminalization. He said so in 2004 and his campaign reiterated it yesterday, only to subsequently retreat and pledge support for current marijuana laws. . . . At first, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said that the candidate had "always" supported decriminalizing marijuana, suggesting his 2004 statement was correct. Then after the Times posted copies of the video on its Web site today, his campaign reversed course and declared he does not support eliminating criminal penalties for marijuana possession and use. . . . "If you're convicted of a crime, you should be punished, but that we are sending far too many first-time, non-violent drug users to prison for very long periods of time, and that we should rethink those laws," Vietor said. The spokesman blamed confusion over the meaning of decriminalization for the conflicting answers. [Washington Times] . . . . Indeed, as Pete Guither notes, no one is really sure what "decriminalization" actually means, which likely explains the Obama campaign's ultimate unwillingness to be associated with the term. . . . . And that tells you everything you need to know about why meaningful debate of our marijuana laws is continuously excluded from mainstream politics. . . . Note, for example, that everything we know about the major candidates' drug policy positions has emerged as a result of someone explicitly asking them. The tortured evolution of Obama's views on marijuana occurred only because this information was demanded of him. First, Bill Maher forced Chris Dodd to discuss the issue, resulting in Dodd's endorsement of marijuana decrim. Then, Tim Russert asked other democratic contenders whether they disagreed with Dodd. The front-runners sheepishly raised their hands in opposition to even mild marijuana reform. Finally, when the Washington Times forced Obama to clarify his conflicting positions, Obama's campaign briefly endorsed reform before finally concluding that they opposed decrim even though they're still not sure what it is. . . . I continue to question the fundamental political wisdom of refusing to talk about marijuana. It's an issue people care about. It's an issue that gets headlines. And it's an issue that's been handled about as poorly as one could possibly imagine for a long long time. . . . I believe that marijuana reform, properly and passionately framed by an eloquent and viable candidate, could prove to be far less toxic than the brilliant campaign strategists in Washington D.C. collectively assume. And it is nauseating to consider that this terrible war on marijuana users owes its survival as much to a flawed political calculus as to the actual beliefs and convictions of those who sustain it.

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posted by Lorenzo 7:23 PM

 

Obama Plans on Increasing Persecution of Non-violent Drug Offenders
(NORML, November 23, 2008)
It has been painful from the outside looking in to watch President-elect Barack Obama begin to cobble together his cabinet officers and senior staff in regards to what prospects there are for substantive cannabis law reforms in this first term. . . . There are only a couple of key appointments left that may signal the political tea leafs for cannabis law reforms in Obama 1.0 — head of Drug Enforcement Administration (which serves under the Attorney General at the Department of Justice) and the Drug Czar (see below regarding rumored nominee). . . . Who among current Obama nominees are giving me some acid burn? . . . In order of importance: White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel ... what has me most concerned about Rahm is that for so long he has been so consistent in opposing drug policy reforms, most especially cannabis law reforms. In the Clinton White House he played a major role in domestic policy making, with a strong nod to matters of criminal justice. He was effectively the White House's point man with the Drug Czar. In my view, Rahm was not concerned with effective policy-making as much as image making, so as to help inoculate the President (and Democrats) from the historical albatross hanging from their necks during most national elections—fear of being viewed by the Republicans, and more importantly the general public, as being 'weak on crime'. . . . Rahm chose to ignore the science (and the Constitution I'd hastily add) and conflate the somewhat easy to distinguish and politically popular battle for patients to access medicinal cannabis with the decidedly unpopular 'War on Some Drugs'. . . . Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder . . . NORML has serious concerns about the choice of Eric Holder as the next Attorney General because he has a long history of opposing drug policy reforms, perceiving cannabis smoking by adults as a public nuisance worthy of constant harrassment, promoting violent governmental intervention into the private lives of citizens who consume cannabis, supporting mandatory minimum sentencing and so-called civil forfeiture laws. . . . Vice-President Joe Biden . . . Biden represents the decade and type of 'liberal' politician in the 1980s, who, rather than oppose the Reagan-inspired War on Some Drugs, decided to become an enthusiastic supporter and legislative booster. Biden was at the center of creating the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), mandatory minimum sentencing, civil forfeiture laws, the Rave Act, funding for DARE in public schools and the ad campaigns for the Partnership for a Drug Free America. . . . When asked in Connecticut this past May of pain management, Biden exhorted that "There’s got to be a better answer than marijuana." . . . With Biden (and Emanuel) loyally by his side, from a purely political point of view, Obama (like a fellow Baby Boomer-type Bill Clinton before him) has wisely guarded against right wing attacks that he may be 'soft on drugs'. . . . ONDCP Transition Team Director Dr. Don Vereen . . . Vereen told the Psychiatric News in 1999 that he believed that doctors who prescribe marijuana as irresponsible and actually advocated arresting medical patients caught with marijuana. Yikes! . . . Vereen, like Emanuel (and so many other selective prohibitionists), has adopted the same rote cited rationalizations why cannabis can't be legally controlled and taxed like thousands of pharmaceuticals currently: marijuana can’t be thought of as a therapeutic treatment because it’s usually smoked and because dosages are difficult to control.

[COMMENT by Lorenzo: I am now very regretful that I voted for Obama. His appointments are making me sick to my stomach.

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posted by Lorenzo 7:30 PM

 

U.S. Supreme Court: State Medical Marijuana Laws Not Preempted by Federal Law
(Save Access Now, December 1, 2008)
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a landmark decision today in which California state courts found that its medical marijuana law was not preempted by federal law. The state appellate court decision from November 28, 2007, ruled that "it is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws." The case, involving Felix Kha, a medical marijuana patient from Garden Grove, was the result of a wrongful seizure of medical marijuana by local police in June 2005. Medical marijuana advocates hailed today's decision as a huge victory in clarifying law enforcement's obligation to uphold state law. Advocates assert that better adherence to state medical marijuana laws by local police will result in fewer needless arrests and seizures. In turn, this will allow for better implementation of medical marijuana laws not only in California, but in all states that have adopted such laws. . . . "It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA) ... California medical marijuana patient Felix Kha was pulled over by the Garden Grove Police Department and cited for possession of marijuana, despite Kha showing the officers proper documentation. The charge against Kha was subsequently dismissed, with the Superior Court of Orange County issuing an order to return Kha's wrongfully seized 8 grams of medical marijuana. The police, backed by the City of Garden Grove, refused to return Kha's medicine and the city appealed. Before the 41-page decision was issued a year ago by California's Fourth District Court of Appeal, the California Attorney General filed a "friend of the court" brief on behalf of Kha's right to possess his medicine. The California Supreme Court then denied review in March. . . . "The source of local law enforcement's resistance to upholding state law is an outdated, harmful federal policy with regard to medical marijuana," said ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. "This should send a message to the federal government that it's time to establish a compassionate policy more consistent with the 13 states that have adopted medical marijuana laws."

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posted by Lorenzo 6:57 PM

 

An Hillarious Attempt to Demonize Marijuana


Hey kids, stop and think for a minute. The above video is the U.S. Government's official thinking about marijuana. Even if you haven't tried cannabis, you know what a silly piece of crap that video is. So my question is this: If the government is telling insane lies like that to you, what else do you think they are lying about? ... Are they telling you the truth about anything?

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posted by Lorenzo 3:19 PM

 

Straight People Need Not Apply
Mark Hughes in MPP’s Communications Department developed this hilarious parody of the ONDCP’s absurd new advertising campaign.

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posted by Lorenzo 7:51 PM

 

Obama and the Drug War
Even though we supported Obama, I know of no one in the psychedelic community who has much, if any, hope that there will be a lessening of intensity in the insane war on plants and chemicals. As the following short audio clip points out, Obama's first two appointments lead one to suspect that, like Clinton, he will put more non-violent drug offenders in prison cages than ever before. He may be a wonderful human being, but never forget that his chosen profession is to be a politician. .... Need I say more?

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posted by Lorenzo 5:02 PM

 

Congressional Medical Marijuana Opponents Roundly Defeated
(Ben Morris, Medical MPP, 11-06-08)
Not only did Tuesday’s election produce two major marijuana policy victories, but we also saw signs of progress in Washington, D.C. . . . Barack Obama has consistently said that he does not support the federal government arresting medical marijuana patients in states where medical marijuana is legal. He also affirmed to MPP that he would not use federal resources to raid medical marijuana dispensaries in California, something his predecessor’s administration has done countless times. . . . [COMMENT by Lorenzo: And we should hold him to this promise.] . . . And the Politico reported that Obama's pick for drug czar may be Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton. Bratton is "totally supportive of the concept of medical marijuana". . . . There were some promising changes in Congress as well. ... With several elections still undecided, the Democrats are likely to pick up 22 new seats in Congress — 17 of which belonged to medical marijuana opponents in the last Congress. And every single Democratic incumbent who lost Tuesday was a medical marijuana opponent. . . . As I noted in an earlier post, a number of the most outspoken medical marijuana opponents faced tough opposition going into the election — and several of them were sent packing. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-Fla.), Congressman Ric Keller (R-Fla.), and Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.) are the most notable lawmakers who MPP will not miss. . . . Additionally, candidates who are close allies of MPP won spots in the House of Representatives, like Nevada State Senator Dina Titus, who is a strong supporter of medical marijuana.

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posted by Lorenzo 7:15 PM

 

The Drug War in 100 Seconds

A new video from the Marijuana Policy Project.

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posted by Lorenzo 3:08 PM

 

LSD Therapy Trials Underway in Switzerland
(James Randerson, The Guardian, August 12, 2008)
First test [(sic)?] of "psychedelic psychotherapy" since the 70's. Researchers hope effects will improve quality of life. . . . Scientists are exploring the use of psychedelic drugs such as LSD to treat a range of ailments from depression to cluster headaches and obsessive compulsive disorder. . . . The first clinical trial using LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland in June. It aims to use "psychedelic psychotherapy" to help patients with terminal illnesses come to terms with their imminent mortality and so improve their quality of life. . . . Another psychedelic substance, psilocybin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, has shown promising results in trials for treating symptoms of terminal cancer patients. And researchers are using MDMA (ecstasy) as an experimental treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. . . . In the Swiss trial eight subjects will receive a dose of 200 microgrammes of LSD. This is enough to induce a powerful psychedelic experience and is comparable to what would be found in an "acid tab" bought from a street drug dealer. A further four subjects will receive a dose of 20 microgrammes. Every participant will know they have received some LSD, but neither the subjects nor the researchers observing them will know for certain who received the full dose. During the course of therapy researchers will assess the patients' anxiety levels, quality of life and pain levels. . . . Before hallucinogenic drugs became popular with the counter culture, they were at the forefront of brain science. They were used to help scientists understand the nature of consciousness and how the brain works and as treatments for a range of conditions including alcohol dependence. . . . Charles Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre, is in the vanguard of the resurgence of scientific interest in psychedelics, having recently completed a trial that used psilocybin to help patients with terminal cancer come to terms with their illness. "I think there's a perception these compounds hold untapped potential to help us understand the human mind," he said. . . . Prof Roland Griffiths at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore Maryland recently published a study of 36 healthy volunteers who were given psilocybin and then observed in the lab. The participants' ages ranged from 24 to 64 and none had taken hallucinogens before. When the group were interviewed again 14 months later 58% said they rated the experience as being among the five most personally meaningful of their lives, 67% said it was in their top five spiritual experiences, and 64% said it had increased their well-being or life satisfaction. . . . "The working hypothesis is that if psilocybin or LSD can occasion these experiences of great personal meaning and spiritual significance ... then it would allow [patients with terminal illnesses] hopefully to face their own demise completely differently - to restructure some of the psychological angst that so often occurs concurrently with severe disease," said Griffiths. So by expanding their consciousness during a session on the drug, the patient is able to comprehend their thoughts and feelings from a new perspective. This can lead to a release of negative emotions that leaves them in a much more positive state of mind. . . . Twelve patients with terminal cancer have already helped Grob to test this idea and, although the research is not yet published, anecdotal reports from some subjects are encouraging. . . . Despite fears that psychedelic drugs can induce psychosis, they are comparatively safe when administered with the proper precautions and with trained medical professionals present, according to a manual for studying their effects, which was recently published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. . . . They do have a powerful effect on a person's perception and consciousness and cannot be considered "safe", but they are almost entirely nontoxic, they virtually never lead to addiction and they only rarely lead to long-lasting psychosis (usually in people with a family history of mental illness).

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posted by Lorenzo 2:46 PM

 

Marijuana Media Minute Special Report: Death by Marijuana

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posted by Lorenzo 9:20 PM

 

A case in defense of Salvia divinorum
(EROCx1, August 3, 2008)
[Please Note: EROCx1 is a friend of mine, and I highly respect his opinions and judgment. ... Lorenzo]
I was recently approached by some journalists who are currently performing research for a report they are producing on Salvia divinorum, with a focus on its legal status. . . . I asked the journalist interviewing me if he had tried Salvia divinorum? Unfortunately he replied with a no. I recommended that any professional investigator preparing a national story on an ineffable experience should at least invest 15 minutes and try the herb already. It's like someone reporting on a religion and the person being interviewed said, "Do you want to meet god?" And the interviewer says, "No." Why wouldn't you? It’s safe and legal. I don't believe anyone could possibly comprehend the Salvia experience without direct experience with it. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. That’s his personal and private choice, but I hope he does. He had all the scientific literature so there was really no point in repeating what he already knew. I made it clear the Salvia divinorum is NOT like any other psychedelic. . . . This includes Marijuana, LSD, Magic Mushrooms or any other of the known psychedelics. This analogy is all too commonly used by the media and is more inaccurate then claiming all food tastes the same and has the same nutritional properties or that all medicine is the same. These analogies are absurd. . . . Most legislators argue Salvia is similar to illegal substances therefore it too should be illegal. The Federal government all ready has a law that makes any substance similar to illegal substances also illegal. It’s called the Analog Act. This only further proves (as previously mentioned) that Salvia is special and is not like the other classic psychedelics. . . . Please keep in mind when these things are made illegal, they are not only restricted for use by ordinary people. They are restricted from scientific study. . . . I must make it clear for the record. I do not use or posses any illegal substances. At this phase in my life, Salvia and psychedelic thinking are more then enough to satisfy my entheogenic needs. Mostly I enjoy the philosophy and theory of it all. I like to read, participate on forums and listen to podcasts like my friend Lorenzo’s Psychedelic Salon. By doing so I am able to benefit simply by taking in other peoples reflections on their experiences. . . . The effects of Salvia range from mild to profound and last about 15 minutes. A little of the history of Salvia from the Mazatecan shamans, re-dicovery by Wasson & Hoffman. All the way up to making her emergence onto the Internet and probably on her path to extinction. But we won’t let her go with out our best effort to keep her legal. She is an intelligent plant spirit. Evading the Inquisition and all attempts to stomp out the use of Shamanic plants. We talked about the communities’ attempts to keep Salvia legal. Being that this is not currently a Federal matter. Its tuff to organize state by state, now we must even watch county and city ordinances. Just knowing the law of the Country is difficult enough, let alone fight all the smaller battles. There is presently no national organization of Salvia users taking political action. Maybe there should be, or are we too late?

Thank you for reading this. Please feel free to share this with others. I would appreciate a link back to my blog

Peace and Blessings,
EROCx1

[NOTE: This is only a very short excerpt from a long and well-written essay that you will find by clicking the link above.]

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posted by Lorenzo 7:32 PM

 

The 5 Greatest Things Ever Accomplished While High
(Jack O'Brien, Cracked.com)
Francis Crick Discovers DNA Thanks to LSD
For the few Cracked readers not versed in the history of human genetics, Francis Crick is the closest that field gets to a rock star, which is pretty fucking close as it turns out. In 1953 in Cambridge, Crick burst through the front door of his home spouting what his wife Odile originally thought was crazy jibberish about two spirals twisting in opposite directions from one another. Like all great rock star's wives, Odile was an artist, and drew exactly what her husband described. Then the pair and research partner James Watson all went out to a pub and got drunk.

Freud and Cocaine Invent Psychoanalysis
The first ten years of Sigmund Freud's career were like a roving cocaine pep rally. He prescribed cocaine to his friends for headaches, nasal ailments or just to "give (their) cheeks a red color." After all, why whore yourself up with makeup when you can get the same effect with a little cocaine?

A Coke Addict Makes a Coke-Flavored Cola and Calls it Coke
Coke has it right there in the name. When Coca Cola was created in the summer of 1885, the market was even more crowded with sodas than it is today. In addition to Coke, Pharmacists were selling thousands of sodas, including Dr. Pepper, which got its name from the Texas doctor who marketed it as a cure for impotence.

Dock Ellis Trips His Way to a No-Hitter
The day of the no-hitter, Dock Ellis woke up around noon on what he thought was Friday and ate three tabs of acid, presumably because he was tired of Wheaties. But when his girlfriend arrived she was carrying Saturday's newspaper, which meant he'd slept through Friday or that his girlfriend's was a time traveler. The sports page had more bad news, he was scheduled to pitch in San Diego in six hours. . . . Ellis had pitched high before. And by that we mean he had never pitched sober. Starting with booze as a high school prodigy and moving up through amphetamines and cocaine in the MLB, his Pirate teammates often took bets on whether anyone could take as many amphetamines as Dock. . . . Unfazed despite being on enough acid to melt Jimi Hendrix's guitar, Ellis hopped a flight to San Diego, and faced down a lineup that had woken up knowing what day it was, and also had the upper hand in the "not on acid" category. Not a single one got a hit.

Moses Takes 'Shrooms, Shits Out Ten Commandments
The area surrounding Mt Sinai, for example, was home to two common psychedelic drugs and, according to a 2008 Time and Mind article written by Benny Shanon, a professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, psychedelic mushrooms and other mind-altering substances played a huge role in the religious rites of Israelites during Biblical times. . . . Professor Shanon maintains that the scene described in Exodus, (involving blaring trumpets, bright lighting and thunder), fits the "classic imaginings of people on drugs" and further that "the seeing of light [that occurs in hallucinations] is accompanied by profound religious and spiritual feelings."

[Please click the link above for greater detail.]

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posted by Lorenzo 6:49 PM

 

Legal Prescription Drugs Most Deadly of All
(Bruce Mirken, Marijuana Policy Project, July 29, 2008)
A new study just published in Archives of Internal Medicine shows a 360.5% increase in the death rate from fatal medication errors (FMEs) from 1983 to 2004, vastly outstripping most other causes of death. Notably, most of the increase in deaths took place at home, not in medical settings or other locations. FMEs are defined as deaths from mistakes involving medications: accidental overdoses, the wrong drug being taken, etc. They do not include deaths from "adverse reactions" (side effects) involving drugs taken correctly. . . . While the sharpest increase was among medication errors in which alcohol and/or street drugs were also involved, this figure was still well under half the number of FME deaths without alcohol or street drug involvement. While the data analyzed by researchers do not include the exact medications or other drugs involved, the researchers note that use of illicit drugs did not rise during the period studied, and the death rate from alcohol or street drugs increased only modestly in the period studied. . . . Simply put, more patients are being sent home with powerful narcotics and other drugs to administer themselves. . . . Clearly, an important lesson here is that legal drugs can be deadly. Even if they’re prescribed. Even if they’re over-the-counter (acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is responsible for about 500 U.S. overdose deaths each year). Even if they’re legal recreational drugs like booze. . . . Marijuana is strikingly absent from this picture of deadly drugs. Unlike narcotic painkillers or alcohol, marijuana does not suppress breathing. As an editorial in the British Medical Journal noted, marijuana use has not been linked to higher death rates, and no fatal marijuana overdose has ever been documented. Indications of life-threatening interactions between marijuana and legal medicines are notably absent from the medical literature. . . . Some drugs are indeed deadlier than others, and marijuana is not among them.

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posted by Lorenzo 9:40 PM

 

The Myth of Drug Addiction
(Bruce K. Alexander, Simon Fraser University)
Most Canadians believe that certain drugs cause catastrophic addictions in people who use them. This conventional belief is reflected in such familiar phrases as "crack cocaine is instantly addictive" or "heroin is so good, don't even try it once". It is also implied in the professional literature which routinely describes certain drugs as "addictive", "dependency producing", or "habit forming". The belief that drugs can induce addiction has shaped drug policy for more than a century. . . . However, the only actual evidence for the belief in drug-induced addiction comes 1) from the testimonials of some addicted people who believe that exposure to a drug caused them to "lose control" and 2) from some highly technical research on laboratory animals. These bits of evidence have been embellished in the news media to the point where the belief in drug-induced addiction has acquired the status of an obvious truth that requires no further testing. But the widespread acceptance of this belief is a better demonstration of the power of repetition than of the influence of empirical research, because the great bulk of empirical evidence runs against it. . . . Belief in drug-induced addiction may have deep cultural roots as well, since it is a pharmacological version of the belief in "demon possession" that has entranced western culture for centuries. . . . This is more than an academic issue. Canadian policy decisions frequently are constrained by the public’s strongly-held belief in drug-induced addiction. Draconian laws, sentencing, and even police violence have been justified by the need to keep addicting drugs out of the hands of the nation’s youth at all costs. As well, it is almost impossible to experiment with medical administration of heroin or cocaine to addicts for fear that the medical profession would be seen as dispensing an addicting drug that could find its way to the public. . . . Analysing the vast and complex literature that relates to this topic becomes simpler if the general belief that heroin and cocaine cause addiction is resolved into two more specific claims, and each is evaluated separately. The two claims are: Claim A: All or most people who use heroin or cocaine beyond a certain minimum amount become addicted. ... Claim B: No matter what proportion of the users of heroin and cocaine become addicted, their addiction is caused by exposure to the drug. . . . The two claims are rarely stated this explicitly. Usually, they are either assumed, stated in a vague way, or combined. However, every professor who teaches a course in drug addiction knows that the majority of students firmly believe both of them at the beginning of the semester. . . . Claim A is usually asserted less strongly now than it has been in the past, when claims of "instant addiction" were often made for both heroin and cocaine and, earlier, for alcohol, marijuana, and numerous other drugs. More cautious contemporary statements of Claim A state that addiction only occurs after several exposures to the drug, although the minimum amount required to produce addiction is left unspecified. . . . Here it is important to consider the meaning of the term "addiction". Some (not all) of the non-addicted users of heroin studied by Blackwell and by Zinberg were regular users of heroin. However, they did not feel out of control, the heroin habit did not consume their lives, they did not steal to obtain it, and they were not criminalized. Therefore, by all normal definitions of "addiction" and equivalent terms, these people were not addicted (for example, see definitions in Jaffe (1990) or the most recent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association). If the term "addiction" is applied to mere occasional use or innocuous regular use the term becomes trivial--most people regularly and stubbornly use things that carry some substantial risk of harmful side effects, like automobiles, skis, computers, and birth control pills. . . . Taken together, the American and Canadian population surveys indicate that merely having used cocaine is associated with less than a 10% chance of having it as often as 100 times. Virtually all addicts use it far more than 100 times. . . . I hope that this short review is sufficient to show that the conventional belief that heroin and cocaine cause addiction is very far from an empirically supported fact. By the normal, skeptical standards of science, Claim A is false and Claim B is an unsubstantiated hypothesis. . . . Moreover, the conventional belief in drug-induced addiction appears to persist because it serves personal, social, professional, commercial, and political needs.

[NOTE: This is only a short excerpt from a very long paper containing much detail and many references. Please click the link above to read the entire paper.

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posted by Lorenzo 4:20 PM

 

WHO Documents Failure of U.S. Drug Policies
(Bruce Mirken, AlterNet, July 2, 2008)
The United States has some of the world's most punitive drug policies and has led the cheering section for tough "war on drugs" policies worldwide, but a new international study suggests that those policies have been a crashing failure. A World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, conducted by some of the world's leading substance abuse researchers, found that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use. . . . The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. [COMMENT by Lorenzo: I wonder what that number would be if all of the people surveyed felt comfortable enough to be honest. My guess is that well over half of everyone over 16 years old in this country has tried cannabis at least once.] The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the United States leading the world by a large margin. . . . This study is important because it's the first time a respected international group has surveyed drug use around the world, using the same questions and procedure everywhere. . . . Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure. . . . Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the United States led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in the Netherlands, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 -- roughly one-third of the U.S. figure. . . . Back in 2002, denouncing a proposed marijuana law reform in Nevada, ONDCP distributed a list of talking points to prosecutors specifically slamming the "extremely dubious" Dutch system of regulated sales, saying, "Increased availability of marijuana leads to increased use of marijuana and other drugs." . . . In fact, ONCDP's latest excuse for the failure of U.S. drug policies -- that enforcement and penalties don't really have much effect on rates of use -- is probably just about right. But it also dynamites any justification for our current marijuana laws. The WHO researchers put it this way: "The U.S., which has been driving much of the world's drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. ... The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use." . . . For this we arrest 830,000 Americans a year on marijuana charges?

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posted by Lorenzo 3:55 PM

 

Dr. Albert Hofmann Dies at 102
(Adam Bernstein, Washington Post,April 30, 2008)
Albert Hofmann, 102, a Swiss chemist and accidental father of LSD who came to view the much-vilified and abused hallucinogen he discovered in 1938 as his "problem child," died April 29 at his home in Burg, a village near Basel, Switzerland, after a heart attack. . . . Lysergic acid diethylamide, thousands of times stronger than mescaline, can give its user an experience often described as psychedelic -- a kaleidoscopic twirling of the mind pulsating with color and movement. . . . After its discovery, LSD was viewed as a wonder drug with the potential to treat problems including schizophrenia and alcoholism. For the latter, some held the theory that chronic drinkers quit only after experiencing the hallucinations of delirium tremens. . . . LSD attracted many prominent advocates. They included Aldous Huxley, author of "Brave New World," and psychologist Timothy Leary, who saw the drug as a potent way for people to live up to his 1960s counterculture motto: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." . . . The CIA was also widely reported to have used LSD in experiments on unwitting subjects. This, and greater recreational use that caused some fatal overdoses, led to the widespread condemnation of the drug and, by the early 1970s, its criminalization. As a result, research permission and funding from state and federal agencies was terminated. . . . In Dr. Hofmann's opinion, outlawing LSD made its use even more attractive to young people and diminished any safeguards. He spoke of many hippies stopping by his home on the way to their spiritual quest, hoping to score from his "secret stash." . . . Dr. Hofmann headed the research department for natural medicines at Sandoz before retiring in 1971. At the company in the 1950s and 1960s, he discovered and named many of the active hallucinogenic ingredients in Mexican "magic mushrooms," including psilocybin and psilocin. He was credited with important developments in medications for geriatric and gynecological uses as well as drugs to control blood pressure. . . . He was a member of the Nobel Prize Committee and a fellow of the World Academy of Sciences. He was a prolific writer of scientific articles and the author of several books, many of which tried to bind the scientific with the spiritual. In particular, he denounced the demonization of LSD after hippies and societal dropouts seemed to have monopolized the media's focus. . . . In his 1989 book "Insight Outlook," he wrote that LSD taken by "mentally stable persons in the right set and setting" was suited to the Western world, which he saw rife with "materialism, estrangement from nature, . . . [and] the missing of a sense-making philosophical fundamentalness of life."

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posted by Lorenzo 10:35 PM

 

A Few Good Words About Cannabis

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posted by Lorenzo 9:34 PM

 

Psychedelic Researcher Turns DEA Informant
(JEANE MacINTOSH, New York Post, February 18, 2008)
A Harvard-educated Manhattan jet-setter has been pegged as the money-laundering mastermind behind a massive LSD drug ring run out of a Kansas missile silo, The Post has learned. . . . Stefan Wathne, a 39-year-old scion of New York's socially prominent Wathne apparel family, surrendered to federal agents Jan. 7 as he stepped off a plane at Newark Airport - after three years on the lam. . . . Wathne is accused in a 2005 federal indictment of laundering as much as $3 million through Russia between 1996 and 2000 for what authorities have described as the most prolific LSD operation in US history. . . . His arrest marks the latest chapter in a bizarre federal drug case that has unfolded over five years and featured a surreal cast of characters. . . . In addition to Wathne - an erstwhile financial planner and former American Ballet Theatre trustee - the case has included a prominent Harvard psychiatrist and a deputy director of a UCLA drug-study program. . . . In another strange twist, singers Sting and Paul Simon helped pay the legal bills for a witness in the case. . . . The drug ring was cracked in November 2002, when the US Drug Enforcement Agency descended on a decommissioned military silo outside Topeka, which had been converted to a lab capable of churning out massive amounts of LSD. . . . The drug, formally known as lysergic acid diethylamid and originally used to study personality disorders, is the most potent hallucinogen known. The government banned it in 1966. . . . The feds arrested the Princeton- and Harvard-educated head of the operation, William Leonard Pickard, a noted chemist who at the time was deputy director of UCLA's Drug Policy Analysis program. . . . Pickard and an accomplice, California computer specialist Clyde Apperson, were charged with conspiracy and possession to distribute after agents seized enough raw material to produce 16 million doses of LSD, with an estimated street value of as much as $160 million. . . . The arrests put Wathne on the DEA's radar. . . . A Reykjavik-born Icelandic national whose family later put down roots here, Wathne was introduced to Pickard through Dr. John Halpern, a leading psychedelic researcher from Harvard's prestigious McLean Hospital. . . . Halpern, records show, was paid $319,000 by Pickard from 1996 to 1999 - the same years Wathne is charged with laundering money for Pickard. . . . Testimony at Pickard's drug trial suggested that Halpern was paid for the Wathne introduction. . . . Wathne's alleged role in the LSD ring was to take drug money, cycle it through Russia and then send it back to Pickard, partly in the form of a "donation" to his UCLA research program, according to testimony at Pickard's trial. . . . After the silo bust, Halpern made a deal with the feds and ratted out his friends. . . . He also rolled on a one-time New Mexico business partner, Alfred Savinelli, from whom Pickard had bought chemicals and glassware to make LSD.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT THIS STORY PLEASE SEE:

Halperngate

Halperngate Video

The Bad Shaman Meets the Wayward Doc

Halperngate II

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posted by Lorenzo 4:46 PM

 

Penn & Teller - Bullshit - War on Drugs

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posted by Lorenzo 12:13 PM

 

Psilocybin & Cancer Anxiety Research Video
The following two videos are from a news special by CBC in Canada and feature Dr. Charlie Grob who has also been a featured speaker in the Psychedelic Salon.

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posted by Lorenzo 8:07 PM

 

Mescaline Experiment on Human - Video by Dr. Osmond
This is an extremely interesting video of a 1950s experiment by one of the world's leading psychedelic researchers of the time. Included is an interview 30 years later with the test subject who by then was a member of the UK House of Lords.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED VIEWING (by Lorenzo)

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posted by Lorenzo 9:19 AM

 

Television: The Most Dangerous Drug On The Planet

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posted by Lorenzo 5:32 AM

 

Video: "In Pot We Trust"

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posted by Lorenzo 8:01 PM

 

The Peace Drug Being Used to Treat PTSD
( Tom Shroder, Washington Post, November 25, 2007)
PTSD is usually triggered by combat, rape, childhood abuse, a serious accident or natural disaster -- any situation in which someone believes death is imminent, or in which a significant threat of serious injury is accompanied by an intense sense of helplessness or horror. Not all or even most trauma victims develop PTSD, but enough do so that nearly 24 million Americans, or 8 percent of the population, have suffered from it at some point in their lifetime. It is estimated that in any given year, more than 5 million Americans have active PTSD -- a costly problem in humanitarian and economic terms. Drug and alcohol abuse are all-too-frequent consequences of PTSD, as is loss of productivity and the need for expensive, long-lasting medical treatment. . . . The ever-lengthening Iraq war will count among its other costs a legacy of thousands of veterans in need of psychiatric treatment. The government estimates that already more than 50,000 soldiers -- about 4 percent of those who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan -- have been treated for symptoms of PTSD. Many more might actually have it: Military studies put the number at 12 to 20 percent of those returning from Iraq and 6 to 11 percent of those returning from Afghanistan. And the news gets worse. . . . "Vets with PTSD are particularly costly to the [Veterans Affairs] system," says Linda Bilmes, a lecturer in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "They constitute 8 percent of the claims, but 20 percent of the payments." Bilmes, who has studied the ongoing costs of the wars, estimates that treating Iraq vets with PTSD over the next 50 years will cost taxpayers $100 billion. This is based on findings that one-third of vets with PTSD will remain unemployable, and all suffering with PTSD will have a much higher than normal likelihood of needing treatment for physical ailments. And that's just the direct costs to the budget. "Assuming that the war continues, though with lower deployments, through 2017," she says, and assuming the rate of PTSD isn't being underreported, the cost of lost economic productivity to the U.S. economy will be in excess of $65 billion. . . . Whatever the cause, the symptoms of PTSD are fairly consistent, and Donna's -- which rated severe on a standard diagnostic test -- were typical. Her prognosis was not great. Some antidepressants can diminish symptoms, and various forms of psychotherapy can, long term, sometimes untangle the psychological knot at the root of the problem. But the nature of PTSD makes therapy problematic. The very symptoms -- acute anxiety, heightened fear, diminished trust and inability to revisit the trauma -- are a direct roadblock to healing. At least one-third of people with PTSD never fully recover. . . . Two Iraq veterans with war-related PTSD, the study's first, are cleared to begin. Close behind are similar studies in Switzerland and Israel. At Harvard's McLean Hospital, researchers are set to evaluate MDMA therapy as a way to alleviate acute anxiety in terminal cancer patients. In Vancouver, Canada, the effectiveness of an ongoing program to treat drug addiction with another potent psychedelic drug, ibogaine, is under scrutiny. There is a proposal, based on case histories, to study the ability of LSD to defuse crippling cluster headaches. . . . THE PROMISE OF A BLOCKBUSTER TREATMENT, one that doesn't just address symptoms but defuses underlying causes, is a particularly seductive vision right now. A report issued last month by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine emphasizes the uncertain effectiveness of current PTSD treatments, and the urgent need of returning soldiers who will suffer from it. . . . To a non-scientist, the very preliminary results of Mithoefer's study would suggest that MDMA might be just what the doctors ordered. Of the subjects who have been through both the MDMA-assisted therapy and the three-month post-experiment follow-up tests, Mithoefer reports, every one showed dramatic improvement. . . . It's not well understood why MDMA, or any psychedelic drug, can produce extraordinary experiences. But in MDMA's case, the crude explanation seems to involve a drug-forced rush of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin assists in the transmission of nerve impulses and plays a role in regulating a wide range of sensations and impulses, from mood, emotion, sleep and appetite to sensation, pleasure and sexuality. One recent study pointed out physiological similarities between a brain under the influence of MDMA and the post-orgasmic state, also known for producing emotional closeness and euphoria. . . . The new safety study was not testing the dangers of MDMA under the conditions of illegal use. Eighteen people were given dosages similar to those that would be used in psychotherapy sessions, and the settings were comparable to the calm of a psychiatrist's office. The gist of the findings: MDMA given under those circumstances produced no acute harm or evidence of brain impairment. These results were bolstered by a Swiss study in which people who had never before taken MDMA were given brain scans before and after being given a single therapeutic-range dose of the drug. Comparison of the before and after scans showed no damage.

[ALSO LISTEN TO: "MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", a talk given by Dr. Michael Mithoefer.]

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posted by Lorenzo 8:16 PM

 

Why War and LSD Don't Mix

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posted by Lorenzo 7:27 AM

 

Medical Marijuana and Drew Carey on CNN



Drew Carey's reason.tv Medical Marijuana spot

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posted by Lorenzo 8:32 PM

 

Revelations About Drugs by Bill Hicks

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posted by Lorenzo 7:59 PM

 

Bill Hicks Talks about the War on Drugs

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posted by Lorenzo 7:55 PM