Topic: DRUGS - on July 22, 2016 at 11:35:00 AM CEST
The High Priests of Marijuana Fitness
Jim McAlpine’s plan to open the world’s first gym for marijuana enthusiasts is coming along well. Pot-related businesses are having their moment in the United States, especially in the Bay Area, where McAlpine lives and plans to open his gym, Power Plant Fitness. Arcview Market Research estimates the size of America’s marijuana industry at a fast-growing $7.2 billion, and Y Combinator, the esteemed startup accelerator, made its first investment in a cannabis business—an “uber for cannabis” delivery app—in 2015. “I’ve raised money before, and it’s been an arduous, shitty process that I hated,” says McAlpine. “This time so far it’s been a pleasure. We’re in the position where we’re picking and choosing who’s going to invest in us. A lot of professional athletes and celebrities want to get involved.”
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 19, 2016 at 4:31:00 PM CEST
Now That It’s Legal, Colorado Teens Are Smoking Less Weed
There’s a common myth about teenagers drinking in France. Because many French young people are allowed moderate amounts of wine at dinner, the story goes, they learn that booze isn’t such a big deal and thus drink more moderately. As it turns out, France has a serious problem with young binge drinkers, so that cute theory is out the window. But in Colorado, where weed has been legal for a few years now, it turns out that pot use among teens has been declining. Could that indicate that legalization leads to more responsible use? The data comes from a recent survey of 17,000 adolescents by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The most striking facts are these: In 2009, when pot was still a jailable offense, 25 percent of teens there admitted to toking in the last 30 days. In 2015, that number dropped four points, to 21 percent. Additionally, Colorado teens are smoking less than the national average for their age group.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 17, 2016 at 1:30:00 PM CEST
One striking chart shows why pharma companies are fighting legal marijuana
There's a body of research showing that painkiller abuse and overdose are lower in states with medical marijuana laws. These studies have generally assumed that when medical marijuana is available, pain patients are increasingly choosing pot over powerful and deadly prescription narcotics. But that's always been just an assumption. Now a new study, released in the journal Health Affairs, validates these findings by providing clear evidence of a missing link in the causal chain running from medical marijuana to falling overdoses. Ashley and W. David Bradford, a daughter-father pair of researchers at the University of Georgia, scoured the database of all prescription drugs paid for under Medicare Part D from 2010 to 2013.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 15, 2016 at 10:58:00 AM CEST
Shedding light on the dark web
The drug trade is moving from the street to online cryptomarkets. Forced to compete on price and quality, sellers are upping their game LEAVING vacuum-sealed bags, digital scales and stashes of marijuana lying around was a mistake. So was getting T-shirts and hoodies emblazoned with “Cali Connect”, under which name drugs were dealt online. Selling pot to an undercover officer was a further slip-up. All this is part of the prosecution evidence in an ongoing case against David Burchard in California. But the crucial piece of evidence, according to the police who arrested him in March, was that he had trademarked Cali Connect to protect his brand.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 13, 2016 at 11:38:00 AM CEST
State-Space of Drug Effects: Results
It is hard to keep up with all of the new research chemicals (RCs). When a substance comes onto the scene, it is hard to predict whether first adopters will experience fascinating, terrifying or just plain weird effects from the drug. Largely, one thing is certain: Most psychonauts agree that describing subjective effects is brutally difficult. Without a principled framework for pinning down the nature of a drug experience, we will continue to misunderstand and misjudge the states of consciousness disclosed by brains on RCs. What should we know about the subjective effects of a drug? In what way are drugs different? And in what way do they produce similar effects? This post will present a general conceptual framework for discussing drug effects in a principled fashion. This will be done by analyzing the responses of a recent survey on drug effects. The major axes of variance are obtained using factor analysis, and the dimensions are interpreted and discussed.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 13, 2016 at 11:36:00 AM CEST
Making meth: how New Zealand's knack for 'P' turned into a homebaked disaster
The five men were always going to stand out in the isolated New Zealand surfing village of Ahipara. Their inept attempts to launch a nine-metre boat with multiple mechanical problems provided one clue. The fact they were also offering locals large amounts of cash for help was another. “I knew something dodgy was up,” says Peter Furze, a surfer who watched the men try and fail to get their boat into the rough seas off Ninety Mile Beach. Related: New Zealand police seize record haul of meth in drug bust When a new boat was purchased for NZ$98,000 (£55,000) in cash and then abandoned on the shore, locals demanded police investigate. Their instincts were right.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 13, 2016 at 11:35:00 AM CEST
Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte urges people to kill drug addicts
Authoritarian firebrand Rodrigo Duterte was sworn in as the Philippines’ president on Thursday, extending an olive branch to the country’s elites in his official speech, only to later vow to wipe out drug traffickers and urge the population to kill addicts. Duterte, 71, won last month’s election in a landslide after a campaign dominated by threats to kill tens of thousands of criminals in a relentless war on crime, and tirades against the nation’s elite that cast him as an incendiary, anti-establishment hero.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 12, 2016 at 4:49:00 PM CEST
UK's biggest ever haul of class A drugs as £512m of cocaine found in North Sea boat
Three tonnes of cocaine worth £512million, the UK’s biggest class A drugs haul , were found on a boat seized in the North Sea. The captain and first officer of tugboat MV Hamal were yesterday found guilty of drug trafficking. It had left Turkey for Guyana in South America where drugs were loaded. In April 2015, after a tip by French authorities, Royal Navy and Border Force vessels boarded the Hamal 100 miles off Aberdeen.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 9, 2016 at 5:54:00 PM CEST
Cannabisforscher Rudolf Brenneisen: "Die Natur ist nicht immer besser"
Der Schweizer Pharmakologe über Apotheken statt Schwarzmarkt, Leberzirrhosen im Weinland und die Legalisierungsdebatte an sich Wien – Rudolf Brenneisen sitzt in einem gepolsterten Rattansofa im Park vor dem Festsaal des niederösterreichischen Landesklinikums Mauer-Öhling. Er trägt ein dunkles Hemd, auf das kleine, bunte Kakteen gedruckt sind, und die Socken unter der senfgelben Hose sind mit großen Hanfblättern bestickt. Der 67-jährige Schweizer hielt bei der Fachtagung Sucht in Mauer-Öhling einen Vortrag mit dem Titel "Cannabis: Was die Pflanze kann, und was wir daraus machen". Der nunmehr emeritierte Professor für Pharmazie an der Universität Bern forschte seit den 1970er-Jahren an der Wirkung der Staude, arbeitete unter anderem für das Internationale Drogenkontrollprogramm der Vereinten Nationen (UNDCP) und die US-Drogenbehörde DEA. Als Mitglied einer Expertengruppe wurde er heuer vom Schweizer Bundesrat beauftragt, im Rahmen eines wissenschaftlichen Pilotprojektes die praktischen Möglichkeiten im medizinischen Bereich auszuloten.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 8, 2016 at 4:54:00 PM CEST
Police, Prosecutors and Judges Rely on a Flawed $2 Drug Test That Puts Innocent People Behind Bars
Amy Albritton can’t remember if her boyfriend signaled when he changed lanes late that August afternoon in 2010. But suddenly the lights on the Houston Police patrol car were flashing behind them, and Anthony Wilson was navigating Albritton’s white Chrysler Concorde to a stop in a strip-mall parking lot. It was an especially unwelcome hassle. Wilson was in Houston to see about an oil-rig job; Albritton, volunteering her car, had come along for what she imagined would be a vacation of sorts. She managed an apartment complex back in Monroe, La., and the younger of her two sons — Landon, 16, who had been disabled from birth by cerebral palsy — was with his father for the week. After five hours of driving through the monotony of flat woodland, the couple had checked into a motel, carted their luggage to the room and returned to the car, too hungry to rest but too drained to seek out anything more than fast food. Now two officers stepped out of their patrol car and approached.
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 8, 2016 at 4:53:00 PM CEST
Silicon Valley Investors Are Finally Getting Marijuana Religion
When three Colorado marijuana entrepreneurs made a presentation to 40 Silicon Valley investors last year, it was as though they were discussing something dirty. “There was an uncomfortable chuckle in the room, kind of like you’re talking about porn,” says Fulton Connor, the Sand Hill Angels Inc. member who arranged the meeting. His fellow venture capitalists just couldn’t get past the fact that marijuana remains prohibited under federal law. They’re way more chill now, he says. In May, Connor’s firm, which typically invests in mainstream startups like the taxi-hailing app Flywheel, steered $200,000 to Tradiv, an online marketplace for wholesale cannabis. “They understand it more as a business and the direction of the market,” Connor says. “And they see where it’s becoming more acceptable.”
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Topic: DRUGS - on July 7, 2016 at 3:57:00 PM CEST
After Medical Marijuana Legalized, Medicare Prescriptions Drop For Many Drugs
Prescription drug prices continue to climb, putting the pinch on consumers. Some older Americans appear to be seeking an alternative to mainstream medicines that has become easier to get legally in many parts of the country. Just ask Cheech and Chong. Research published Wednesday found that states that legalized medical marijuana — which is sometimes recommended for symptoms like chronic pain, anxiety or depression — saw declines in the number of Medicare prescriptions for drugs used to treat those conditions and a dip in spending by Medicare Part D, which covers the cost on prescription medications.
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