Topic: DRUGS - on May 26, 2012 at 11:10:00 AM CEST
How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death
Pam Sakuda was 55 when she found out she was dying. Shortly after having a tumor removed from her colon, she heard the doctor’s dreaded words: Stage 4; metastatic. Sakuda was given 6 to 14 months to live. Determined to slow her disease’s insidious course, she ran several miles every day, even during her grueling treatment regimens. By nature upbeat, articulate and dignified, Sakuda — who died in November 2006, outlasting everyone’s expectations by living for four years — was alarmed when anxiety and depression came to claim her after she passed the 14-month mark, her days darkening as she grew closer to her biological demise. Norbert Litzinger, Sakuda’s husband, explained it this way: “When you pass your own death sentence by, you start to wonder: When? When? It got to the point where we couldn’t make even the most mundane plans, because we didn’t know if Pam would still be alive at that time — a concert, dinner with friends; would she still be here for that?” When came to claim the couple’s life completely, their anxiety building as they waited for the final day.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 25, 2012 at 10:20:00 AM CEST
"Highlung" durch Drogen? - scobel
Über Chancen und Risiken Über Jahrzehnte war die Forschung mit halluzinogenen Drogen ein Tabu. Inzwischen gibt es weltweit einige wenige Forscher, die erneut die Spur der Halluzinogene aufgenommen haben und neue Erkenntnisse gewonnen haben. Gert Scobel diskutiert mit seinen Gästen über die Chancen und Risiken dieses Forschungszweigs.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 22, 2012 at 9:24:00 AM CEST
Techdirt Threatened With Defamation Suit Over Story On Feds Getting Royalty In Movie From Mexican Drug Cartel Money Launderer
We recently wrote about a very strange case, in which the US government apparently ended up with a 10% royalty in a soon to be produced Hollywood movie that is being billed as the "prequel" to Passion of the Christ -- the famous Mel Gibson movie that made over $600 million. The details were convoluted, but apparently our reporting on the subject upset someone, as we were sent an email, claiming that our post was defamatory and could cause damages in "the hundreds of millions of dollars," threatening that legal action would be taken if we did not change the post immediately.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 22, 2012 at 9:21:00 AM CEST
DEA Wants To Install License Plate Scanners and Retain Data for Two Years
Everyone driving on Interstate 15 in southwest Utah may soon have their license plate scanned by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The DEA and two sheriffs are asking permission to install stationary license plate scanners on the freeway in Beaver and Washington counties. The primary purpose would be to catch or build cases against drug traffickers, but at a Utah Legislature committee meeting Wednesday, the sheriffs and a DEA representative described how the scanners also could be used to catch kidnappers and violent criminals. That, however, wasn't the concern of skeptical legislators on the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee. They were worried about the DEA storing the data for two years and who would be able to access it.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 22, 2012 at 9:18:00 AM CEST
Penn Jillette Discusses Obama’s Hypocrisy on Drugs
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 21, 2012 at 12:26:00 PM CEST
High tide: Four tonnes of cannabis worth over $3million found floating off the coast of California
Nearly FOUR TONNES of cannabis has been found floating off the coast of Orange County, California by Harbour Patrol officers, according to reports.
The monster weed haul is said to have been packed into around 160 bales with an estimated street value of $3.6 million.
Border patrol agents told CBS Los Angeles that the mass of marijuana was discovered on Sunday after authorities had been informed about a “suspicious” sighting.
"Shortly before noon on Sunday, May 20, maritime law enforcement authorities received a tip about suspicious bales floating in the water off the coast of Orange County, near Dana Point," border patrol agent supervisor Michael Jimenez is quoted as saying.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 21, 2012 at 9:58:00 AM CEST
Legal highs making the drug war obsolete
If you want any evidence that drugs have won the drug war, you just need to read the scientific studies on legal highs.
If you’re not keeping track of the ‘legal high’ scene it’s important to remember that the first examples, synthetic cannabinoids sold as ‘Spice’ and ‘K2′ incense, were only detected in 2009.
Shortly after amphetamine-a-like stimulant drugs, largely based on variations on pipradrol and the cathinones appeared, and now ketamine-like drugs such as methoxetamine have become widespread.
Since 1997, 150 new psychoactive substances were reported. Almost a third of those appeared in 2010.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 19, 2012 at 9:17:00 AM CEST
Willie Nelson: 'If we made marijuana legal, we'd save a whole lotta money and lives'
The veteran musician on God, politics, his favourite singer and why weed should be decriminalised
What were the songs that made you realise you wanted to be a musician?
When I first started out, I sang a lot in church. Amazing Grace was the first song that I can remember ever singing. Gospel was probably the main kind of music I was into. Then I got into Bob Wills (1) and Hank Williams and Frank Sinatra and Louis Armstrong, all those great singers. Ray Charles came along – I loved him. Ray Price. The greatest singer there is, I think, is Ray Price (2).
Sinatra was a big hero of yours, of course.
Yes, he was. Still is. He is my favourite singer. And I read somewhere that I was his favourite singer, so that really made me happy.
There's no better compliment than that …
That was the big one.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 18, 2012 at 10:03:00 AM CEST
Group argues weed is safer than booze
A Colorado advocacy group is spending thousands of dollars to convince people that smoking pot is safer than drinking alcohol.
It's an attempt by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol to rally support for a vote in November that would legalize the drug for recreational use. Colorado legalized marijuana for medical use in 2000.
Last Friday, the group aired an advertisement on a local Denver channel during daytime programming encouraging people to "start your conversation about marijuana." The 30-second spot features a young woman typing a message to her mother on her laptop, explaining that after spending her college years drinking heavily, she now prefers marijuana because "it's less harmful ... I don't get hung-over and honestly I feel safer around marijuana users."
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 17, 2012 at 11:22:00 AM CEST
Multiple Sklerose: Marihuana lindert Spastizität
San Diego – Cannabinoide können die Spastizität lindern, unter der viele Patienten mit multipler Sklerose leiden. Dies gilt nicht nur für das im letzten Jahr in Deutschland zugelassene Cannabis-Spray Sativex. Auch das – illegale – Rauchen von Marihuana erzielte in einer randomisierten placebo-kontrollierten Studie im Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ 2012: doi: 10.1503 /cmaj.110837) eine gute Wirkung.
Die 30 Teilnehmer der Studie an der Universität von Kalifornien in San Diego mussten sich vor Studienbeginn einem Drogentest unterziehen. In ihrem Blut durften weder Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol noch Amphetamine, Benzodiazepine, Kokain und/oder sein Metabolit Benzoylecgonin nachweisbar sein. Auch psychiatrische Erkrankungen durften nicht vorliegen. Alle Patienten litten unter einer mittelstarken Spastizität.
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 17, 2012 at 11:19:00 AM CEST
The Anti-Science Streak in Federal Marijuana Policy
Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom, director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at UC San Diego, recently helped run a study that provided multiple sclerosis patients with either a marijuana joint or a placebo that looked, smelled, and tasted like marijuana. After smoking whichever substance they were given, patients were tested to see if it reduced their muscle spasticity -- an affliction, common to MS patients, that causes painful, uncontrollable spasms of the extremities. Spasticity was unaffected among the placebo patients but dropped 30 percent on average among the patients given real marijuana. The side effects? "Smoking caused fatigue and dizziness in some users," says Reuters, "and slowed down people's mental skills soon after they used marijuana."
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Topic: DRUGS - on May 17, 2012 at 11:18:00 AM CEST
Staat außer Kontrolle: In Mexiko ermorden Kartelle ungesühnt JournalistInnen
Seit Mitte März ist zwar ein neues Gesetz zum Schutz von Medienschaffenden in Kraft, beeindruckt ist davon jedoch offensichtlich niemand
Erdosselt, enthauptet, verstümmelt - kaum eine Woche vergeht, in der nicht über Morde in Mexiko berichtet wird. Gewalttaten an JournalistInnen, Massenexekutionen an einfachen Bürgern. Immer stecken die Drogenkartelle dahinter. Selten weiß man, ob die Sicherheitskräfte so frei agieren, wie sie sollten. Ob nicht auch ihnen die Angst im Nacken steckt. Der Staat verliert die Kontrolle.
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