Tag Archives | Drugs

Dennis Hopper: Wild Rider

By on February 21, 2013 in News 5

People who know me know I love to read and during the holidays I look forward to the books I’m inevitably gifted almost as much as I look forward to the fun, food, family and friends. I’ve been plowing through some of the books St. Nick sent my way and am planning on mentioning some of them here as I finish them up.

The first book I’ve read in 2013 is a biography of writer/director/actor/painter/photographer and art collector Dennis Hopper. Hopper started acting as a teenager in movies like Rebel Without a Cause, and he became famous as the director and co-star of Easy Rider – the film that more or less marks the beginning of the New American Cinema that was to take over movie screens in the 1970′s. Of course, Hopper famously imploded into a spiral of drugs and drink before rebounding as an actor in movies like Blue Velvet and Speed, and as a director with flicks like the Los Angeles gang drama Colors.… Read the rest

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Best Job Of The Future: Marijuana Consultant For The Government

By on February 18, 2013 in News 4

If becoming a drone operator is too dystopian, consider this. In U.S. states which have newly legalized pot, experts on its growth and consumption are needed for public service, NBC News reports:

The job description requests an unlikely mix of skills: five years of regulatory experience, with a law degree preferred, and extensive knowledge of all things marijuana. But that didn’t stop dozens of people from turning out to find out about becoming Washington state’s official marijuana consultant.

As officials figure out how to regulate the state’s newly legal marijuana, they’re hiring an adviser to fill in the gaps: how cannabis is best grown, dried, tested, labeled, packaged, regulated and cooked into brownies.

The board has advertised for consulting services in four categories. The first is “product and industry knowledge” and requires “at least three years of consulting experience relating to the knowledge of the cannabis industry, including  product growth, harvesting, packaging, product infusion and product safety.”

… Read the rest

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In A Few Years, Will A Love Drug Cure Divorce?

By on February 14, 2013 in News 22

Via the Guardian, Will Storr on chemically strengthening the bond between two people by huffing from an inhaler:

According to scientists at the University of Oxford, at some point in the life of my marriage (rough estimate of about 10 years), a new breed of “love drug” might become available – a medication that could heal wounded relationships. It will likely be delivered as an inhaler and prescribed by a relationship counsellor. You’d sniff up a dose in the presence of your loved one and, as the chemical entered your bloodstream, it would strengthen your bond.

Such a drug would likely contain doses of two structurally similar hormones: oxytocin and vasopressin. Of the two, oxytocin is the more famous–sometimes known as the “cuddle chemical”, its positive role in experiences such as orgasm and childbirth seems to have led some to imagine it as an inhalable happy drug. Vasopressin has been implicated in an animal defending its babies.

… Read the rest

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This Movie Was Filmed in the Fifth Dimension

By on February 13, 2013 in News 12

The title to this was something that was communicated to me while I was ganj-i-tating during the witching hour last Sunday Morning, accompanied by a feeling of supreme recognition. The movie they’re referring to is our lives. Friend me for magick updates on Facebook, this is the sort of odd shit that happens. Are cute pug puppy pictures coming soon? Of course they are.

The other week I decided that so as to stay away from the net a bit like I normally do on the weekends, I’d condense my psychic updates to a weekend edition entitled The Weekend in Sorcery. First weekend was interesting. The second was fucking bananas- (edited it a bit to post here, so keep that in mind, but otherwise, read on true believers):

Weekend of January 8-10, 2013 (year of the witch):

This is a rich. Went to the OM show on Friday, which was super packed.… Read the rest

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The “Nutty Professor” vs. The Government on Drugs

By on February 3, 2013 in News 3

Andrew Dilks writes at orwellwasright.

Professor David Nutt is back in the news again, describing Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe’s suggestion to introduce mandatory drug testing by their employers as “bonkers”. Appearing on the BBC, Nutt highlighted how the current drugs policy is both morally and scientifically wrong and that a rational approach to the issue is crucial, citing Portugal, the Netherlands and Colombia – where plans have recently been announced to decriminalize ecstasy – as examples to follow.

Professor Nutt came to public attention following his work advising the government as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. His repeated clashes with government ministers on the classification of drugs eventually led to his dismissal after he publically claimed that his daughter was statistically at greater risk horse riding than she would be taking ecstasy. Despite the accuracy of this statement it met with intense criticism from the government, who demanded a full apology from Nutt.… Read the rest

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Today’s Blue Light Special: 10 Pounds of Weed

By on February 1, 2013 in News 5

A fantastic headline courtesy of SPD Blotter:

Police seized a big package of pot earlier this week after the weed took a wrong turn on a cross-country trip and landed in the stock room at a north Seattle Kmart.

Just after noon on January 28th, Kmart employees called police to their store at 132nd and Aurora Avenue N. after a package—filled with 10 pounds of weed wrapped in garbage bags, packing peanuts, and cleaning-fluid-soaked pages from a Korean newspaper (?!?)—arrived at the store.

Delivery information on the package indicates it was originally shipped via UPS from Los Angeles to a Philadelphia address, but never made it to its intended destination in Philly.

Whoever sent the package listed the address of the Seattle Kmart on the return label…

[continues at SPD Blotter]… Read the rest

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River Phoenix Rises Again

By on January 31, 2013 in News 6

Actor and musician River Phoenix died from drug-induced heart failure in 1993. Only 23 years old, Phoenix had delivered intense, emotional performances in movies like Stand By Me, Running on Empty, Dogfight and My Own Private Idaho, and he was working on a film called Dark Blood when he passed away. That film will finally make its U.S. premiere at the Miami Film Festival during the first ten days of March. I mentioned this on Coincidence Control Network months ago and wanted to keep everybody updated.

This BlackBook post fills in the details:

As heartbreaking as the all too short life is, his legacy will be revived this year at the Miami International Film Festival when director George Sluizer debuts Phoenix’s the final film. When Phoenix passed away in 1993, Sluizer’s Dark Blood was 80% completed, and the unfinished footage disappeared into a vault somewhere. But in 1999, when he learned that the remains would be burned “to make space,” Sluizer brought the film to the Netherlands.… Read the rest

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GHB Prohibition: Codification of Moral Mass Hysteria

By on January 28, 2013 in News 7

[disinfo ed.'s note: this original essay was first published by disinformation on November 23, 2001.]

Banned by the Food and Drug Administration in 1990, gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB), an alleged aphrodisiac and muscle enhancer, continues to wreak havoc.
~~ New York Times (“Love Hurts”)

The popularity of date rape drugs–like the clear, slightly salty-tasting liquid GHB–has prompted bar owners and law enforcement agencies around the state to launch aggressive public awareness campaigns.
~~ Los Angeles Times (Dirmann)

Gamma-hydroxybutyrate, or GHB, is known as a date-rape drug because it is often used on sexual assault victims. It is also gaining popularity as a recreational drug.
~~ Minnesota Daily (Olson)

GHB is so new, experts say, that few are aware of its danger. And at the raves, it’s becoming the rage.
~~ CNN (“Trendy Drug”)

These reports luridly describe GHB as “an alleged aphrodisiac and muscle enhancer” that “continues to wreak havoc,” as a “date-rape drug,” as a “recreational drug,” and as a “new” and popular drug at “raves.” These usually credible news sources deride GHB as a threat to society with little legitimate use.… Read the rest

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GHB: The Perfect Drug?

By on January 28, 2013 in News 7
[disinfo ed.'s note: this original essay was first published by disinformation on November 9, 2000. Some links may have expired.]

Gamma-hydroxybutyrate is a naturally occurring carbohydrate present in virtually every kind of meat-based food. In its clinically synthesized form, GHB is prescribed by doctors as a treatment for sleep disorders, anxiety, schizophrenia, lack of libido, and as an aid to childbirth (GHB enhances dilation of the cervix). For years it has been used by body builders and more recently, as a recreational drug on the club scene, but the substance first became widely known in the U.S. when it was rumored that GHB was the cause of River Phoenix’s death in 1993. Although this story was 100% urban myth (club kids curious on how to die from drugs should look up ‘Heroin’ in the dictionary), it is typical of the misrepresentation which has followed GHB since it first came into our collective consciousness (a Newsweek report from this time incorrectly defined GHB as ‘an obscure and dangerous steroid substitute.’)

There are a lot of people with legitimate intentions who believe GHB is vitally dangerous to your physical well being, and you would do well to do some research before ingesting anything unknown.… Read the rest

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