Science Daily reports that NIDA has discovered a 'key epigenetic mechanism in the brain' to help explain cocaine's addictiveness:

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Science, shows how cocaine affects an epigenetic process (a process capable of influencing gene expression without changing a gene's sequence) called histone methylation. These epigenetic changes in the brain's pleasure circuits, which are also the first impacted by chronic cocaine exposure, likely contribute to an acquired preference for cocaine.

That's right, kiddies: cocaine reprograms the expression of your DNA.

Read the full article for the shocking truth.

Erik Davis has just been off to see James Cameron's SciFi-meets-Dances With Wolves-meets-Princess Mononoke epic, Avatar. He likes it. But Davis also makes the connection between the eco-spirtualism of the film and modern ayahuasca culture:

Among the professional creative classes who make up a sizable portion of West Coast seekers—for spirit and/or thrills—ayahuasca could almost be said to be mainstream. So it no longer matters whether Cameron or his animators have themselves drunk the tea; its active compounds are already swimming in the cultural water supply. Eco-futuristic dreams are now indistinguishable from the visionary potential of media technology itself. Indeed, whether you are talking form (ground-breaking 3D animation) or content (cyber-hippie wetdream decor), Cameron’s visual and technological rhetoric is impossible to disentangle from hallucinogenic experience.

Go and have a read.

This article from ENCOD - the European Coaltion for Just and Effective Drug Policies - highlights a new and rising threat to youth around the world. It describes one horrific case of addiction to equasy:

The dangers of equasy were revealed to me as a result of a recent clinical referral of a woman in her early 30’s who had suffered permanent brain damage as a result of equasy-induced brain damage. She had undergone severe personality change that made her more irritable and impulsive, with anxiety and loss of the ability to experience pleasure. There was also a degree of hypofrontality and behavioural disinhibition that had lead to many bad decisions in relationships with poor choice of partners and an unwanted pregnancy. She is unable to work and is unlikely ever to do so again, so the social costs of her brain damage are also very high.

So what is equasy? And what can be done about it? Read the article for the details of this harrowing new social problem.

Strung out on smack but still wanting to do your part for Planet Earth? Now you have an option, as reported by Newsbiscuit:

‘It just isn’t right that we’re swanning around in expensive cars draped with bling whilst Afghan poppy farmers struggle to feed the family goat,’ said ‘Big Daddy’ Johnson, a narcotics entrepreneur from Streatham. ‘Smack-heads on my patch can rest easy in the knowledge that at least 4% of their dole money will go directly to the farmer who lives under daily threat of violent reprisal from the local drug lord.’

This is a big, big trend. Watch for it.

Cracked.com has a fun article detailing some of those wacky experiments conducted by everyone's favorite don't-tell-the-neighbors-but-you've-been-dosed organization, the Central Intelligence Agency. Hours of howlers, and fun for the whole family!

Everyone's favorite disassociative anesthetic is becoming a big hit all around the world. This article from the Global Post talks about the history, the dangers and the culture of ketamine.

Happy 420, D00ds! And to celebrate, Huffington Post writer Ryan Grim has done some research on the real origins of "420":

It goes like this: One day in the Fall of 1971 - harvest time - the Waldos got word of a Coast Guard service member who could no longer tend his plot of marijuana plants near the Point Reyes Peninsula Coast Guard station. A treasure map in hand, the Waldos decided to pluck some of this free bud.

The Waldos were all athletes and agreed to meet at the statue of Loius Pasteur outside the school at 4:20, after practice, to begin the hunt.

"We would remind each other in the hallways we were supposed to meet up at 4:20. It originally started out 4:20-Louis and we eventually dropped the Louis," Waldo Steve tells the Huffington Post.

Read the whole article for the full, zany story. And happy 420!

At this time of year the New York Times Magazine reviews the lives of some of the luminaries who have passed in the previous twelve months. Today they're taking a look at the good Dr. Hofmann:

Hofmann was a wise man, however, and no more judgmental than any scientist should be, and in his writings on the subject he treats the hippie acid culture with grandfatherly moderation. Meeting Timothy Leary, a figure who arguably turned his magic medicine into a social threat, he remonstrated firmly with him, tried hard to see Leary’s ineffable good points and afterward called him “a charming personage.”

The whole piece is actually rather loving. Have a read.

That excuse beloved of lazy schoolchildren everywhere - blame it on the dog - came to a court in Australia's Northern Territory. Steven James Dwyer, 48, told the court that he believed his stash of MDMA to be birth control pills for his dog:

Dwyer told the court the ecstasy tablets - MDMA - had come into his hands when he was outside a Katherine laundromat, after he met a man with a female shar-pei dog.

"We chatted about them - where he got them ... we kept talking about dogs and how he bred her," Dwyer said.

"And then we talked about his female coming on heat."

Dwyer told the court the man had told him he used birth control tablets on the dogs, but he had since had his own dog desexed and had no use for the tablets he had in his car.

"I knew she was due to come on heat, I thought, 'That'll be very handy for her'," he said, claiming no money had changed hands.

Dwyer pled guilty and received a suspended sentence.

Have you ever wanted to make your own drug? You know, one that might be named after you? Now's your chance. Just fill in the blanks and be prepared for fame!