DoseNation

Music video: 'Night of the Crickets' by mr. Gnome

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:18:31 -0500

Yep, it's all fun and games until you get your head trapped in a bird cage by monkey-people.

Posted by Scotto.

4th International Amazonian Shamanism Conference: FREE Mp3 Downloads

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:00:38 -0500

For those of you (like me) who unfortunately could not attend the fourth annual Amazonian Shamanism Conference in Iquitos Peru this summer, I have some good news that I am happy to share with you. A number of presentations were recorded and are available online for NO charge. These include talks and presentations by: real shamans & curanderos, Dennis McKenna, Robert Forte, Frank Echenhofer, Pablo Amaringo, Dr. Richard Grossman, Jimmy Weiskopf, and many other luminaries of this field. Enjoy!

Download the complete Mp3 collection:
4th_International_Amazonian_Shamanism_Conference_vbr_mp3.zip [1GB Zip file]
Right click and save as.

[Ed. note: individual talks are available via erocx1's site at the link below.]

From erocx1.blogspot.com. Posted by erocx1.

High Times goes digital

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:57:24 -0500

Our pals at High Times are about to start distributing their magazine in a digital-only format, via Zinio - placing them alongside such stalwarts as Popular Mechanics, Business Week, PC World, and of course, Playboy. The pitch is clever ("The World�s Greenest Magazine Just Got Greener"), and Zinio's service generally gets good reviews for what it is. You're still paying for a subscription, but there's something to be said for saving a tree. (Something like: "Gee, we're really just saving that tree for later, when some other magazine can come along and chop it down.") At any rate, there's a free preview issue available for your perusal.

From hightimes.com. Posted by Scotto.

Hydroponics lab found in mall

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:41:45 -0500

Yeah, in case you hadn't already heard the news:

The Drug Enforcement Administration discovered something unexpected in the Mall of the Americas.
DEA agents found a hydroponics lab with more than 200 marijuana plants, standing 3 to 6 feet tall in the air and worth millions of dollars, in a storage area on the second floor of the mall.
Authorities said the electricity that powered the lab was diverted from the mall's main power supply.

This is in central Florida, by the way, not the similarly-named monstrosity in Minneapolis, but really, does it matter? The beauty of this story is its testament to human ingenuity. Really, this is kind of a lost Neil Gaiman fairy tale, if you ask me. (Thanks to Wouldpkr for the heads up.)

From www.cfnews13.com. Posted by Scotto.

Just say 'we're already smart enough, thanks' to smart drugs

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:36:23 -0500

If you're like me, you're just dying to know what human resources professionals think about the new breed of "smart drugs" like Modafinil and Ritalin. (Of course, if you're like me, you're also somewhat concerned about a strange new appendage that is trying to grow out of your back, but we can discuss that elsewhere.) Well, look no further than Personnel Today, your source for "human resources news, strategy, and community," and its recent report entitled, "Performance enhancing drugs don't work in the workplace." For instance:

The idea that any kind of medication is a quick fix which can boost work performance should be anathema to HR professionals, says Ben Wilmott, employee relations adviser at the CIPD. "Essentially, this is about managing performance properly," he says. "There should be clear guidance from employers about their policy on this, and employees should be properly managed, and be given working hours that they can handle easily, rather then using artificial stimulants to put in longer hours."

There, it's just that easy. And while you're at, could you please have the free coffee and all the free soda machines removed from my office? Of course:

Indeed, the 'magic pill' approach goes against all the advice offered by workplace health consultancies such as Vielife. "There is no doubt that smart drugs like Moda�finil work - the government is giving them to troops fighting in Iraq," says Dr Peter Mills, chief medical officer with Vielife.
"But monkeying with your brain chemicals is not a good idea. Though there is no evidence to support it yet, because this is all so new, I suspect that smart drugs will impair long-term neurological health.
"Other drugs that have an effect on neuro-transmitters - such as LSD and cocaine - have been found to have an adverse effect if they are used habitually," he says.

You hear that, downtrodden wage slaves of the world? Monkeying with your brain chemicals is not a good idea (even though there is no evidence to support it yet). Or something.

Naturally I don't expect the chief medical officer of Vielife ("the global leader in transforming the way individuals, employers and healthcare providers manage physical and emotional well-being") to be particularly excited about the idea of performance-enhancing drugs, since his whole company's shtick seems to be about reducing corporate health care costs (and presumably transferring a healthy chunk of that money into, uh, consulting services for Vielife). Nor do I expect a hard-hitting journalistic enterprise like Personnel Today to bother to ask researchers who study Modafinil first hand what they might think about its long term health implications, as opposed to asking an "employee relations adviser."

So yeah, I guess it's business as usual out there on the interwebs.

From www.personneltoday.com. Posted by Scotto.

Delta Goddesses Turn Cajun mix

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 21:16:54 -0500

December, 2001

Waldemar (as DJ Lp3)
Mycelia Studios, Greenville, Mississippi Delta

Dedicated to Frankie Painter & Stacie Williams
on their move to New Orleans

http://download.yousendit.com/EB5DCC1C4F8F8611

Patterns Emerge
Bill Hicks' untitled ambient piece at the end of Arizona Bay album
Voodoo Warriors of Love - 'Imagine'
Freaky Chakra - 'Budded on Earth to Bloom in Heaven'
Undark feat. U2's The Edge - 'Stone's Eggs'
Seefeel - 'Moodswing'
The Shooter - 'The Drum'
Moby - 'Everytime You Touch Me' (NYC Jungle mix)
Art of Noise - 'Born on a Sunday'
Radiohead - 'Everything in its Right Place'
Orbital feat. David Gray - 'Illuminate'
Ultramarine - 'Saratoga' (Upstate mix)
Grain - 'Ocean'
Massive Attack - 'Dissolved Girl'
Crystal Method - 'Coming Back'
Tenacious D - 'Inward Singing'
Tenacious D - 'Lee'
Slayer & Atari Teenage Riot - 'No Remorse'
On with the mix
Ultramarine - 'Stella'
Sad World (Dr. Atmo) - 'Kirkuk'
The Orb - 'Little Fluffy Clouds' (Coldcut's Inner Master mix)
The Orb - 'Little Fluffy Clouds' (Ultraword album mix)
The Orb - 'Little Fluffy Clouds' (live in Tokyo '93)
Orbital - 'Halcyon & On'
Opus III - 'It's a Fine Day'
Orbital - 'Belfast'
Terre Thaemlitz - '040468'
Strawberry Girl - 'Moonbeams'
outro

From download.yousendit.com. Posted by Waldemar.

Boom Festival 2008

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:46:47 -0500

Dancing on liminal ground Idanha-a-Nova, Portugal�This year�s Boom festival compelled at least 25,000 people to make the long trek to a hot and dusty corner of Portugal near the Spanish border, where they decamped along the shores of a large lake whose presence mitigated the ferocity of the sun and the sear environs. The bi-annual festival has been running for over a decade, and it has long been recognized as one of the more underground and intentional of the larger festivals devoted to psytrance�that intensely trippy electronic dance genre whose ferocious metronomic beat sends dancers surging and stomping through interdimensional portals fringed with swirling sonic filigrees and creepy �lurker at the threshold� samples. As befits the mind-melting aspirations of this potent and popular subgenre, Boom�s dominant subcultural tone is neotribal: a rave-inflected millennial florescence of hippie shit like long hair, dreads, feral fashion exotica, chai shops, massage booths, copious cannabis consumption, and paganish New Age tantric mysticism.

I gave a talk at the Liminal Village, one of half a dozen various stages and sound systems that defined the cultural ecology of the festival. A large tent surrounded by delightful gardens and bamboo temples that had been created in the weeks running up to the festival, the Liminal Village did the important work of injecting discourse, practices, workshops, discussions, and images�through both a visionary art gallery and a film series�into the festival environment. This learning center takes advantage of the fact that outdoor festivals are liminal zones, in-betwixt and in-between. With their peculiar blend of hedonic utopia and aimless refugee camp, the festival creates a space-time warp that allows people to glimpse new possibilities, to receive new map points, to reformat their expectations of themselves, and of the slippery dream of reality as well.

The Liminal Village formalized this process, advancing global countercultural concepts, practices, and politics in a subcultural space that is geared to the experience and desires of hundreds of thousands of predominantly young people around the planet. Much of this material was too woo for my tastes, with too much fuzzy talk of �the coming shift� and the �emerging culture� (as my friend Zariat pointed out, culture is always emerging). The calendrical fetish of 2012�the shamanic Y2K that even wacky Christian end-times preachers are now starting to invoke�reared its literalist head. At the same, though, I believe we need to work with the meta-consciousness implied by these urgent and millennialist memes, and was happy to lend my voice on a talk about the origins and character of apocalypse consciousness that remained, as far as I know, unrecorded (doh!). The basic message? Wake up and dream.

I am not a big psytrance fan, and found the main stage this year even less dance-inducing than usual, thought that may have been due to a decision to restrict my psychoactive diet (almost) to hash spliffs and caffeine. Properly off your face, and especially with eyes closed, the electronic precision and charka tweaking techniques of a good psytrance set can rewire a psychedelicized nervous system as powerfully as, say, a fat balloon of nitrous oxide�and for a much longer stretch of time. But I find it all too insistent, machinic, and alienating, perhaps because my trance dance body was shaped by the far more organic slop of the Grateful Dead. Boom provided some of that live band energy with the Sacred Fire stage, though every time I swung by, it just sounded like dorky world fusion. I preferred the Groovy Beach stage, which a wide range of electronic booty music ranging from stanky breaks to dubstep to minimal techno laced with Boards-of-Canada melancholy, as well as some impressively dreadful pop cheese to boot. My favorite set, from a DJ whose name I was too time-damaged to ever track down, was devoted to witty and sinuous tech funk, a playfully polyrhythmic splice of techno, electro, and breaks that resurrected some old school disco moves�including the deeply charming handclap�in a spirit not so much of irony as innocent exuberance.

Boom features a lot of visible consumerism. Attendees were confronted with a long line of reasonably good food-stalls, dozens of vendors providing the latest twists and turns of neotribal fashion�s feral mutations, and lots of beer stands. Given that Burning Man is just around the bend, I could not resist noting how much the alternative mall undercut the self- and clan-reliance that makes playaspace feel so much farther away from conventional reality. Though Burning Man encourages its own breed of mindlessness, and though vending allows many travelers to escape the empire of conventional work, a lot of Boom attendees were clearly coasting on the usual urban logic of consumption and distraction.

Perhaps this explains the depressing fact that there was litter everywhere, a pervasive and ugly webwork of crap that undermined the rhetoric and practice of environmental awareness that otherwise sets the Boom apart from most corporate festivals. The festival organizers provided compost toilets, recycling stations, and generators powered with veggie oil recycled from the previous festival. There were problems of course�the compost toilets were unclean, a nasty bug attacked many a GI tract, while other low impact strategies seemed to have principally reflected a need to cut costs. Still, the Boom folks were clearly set on making a difference. But the trash skeins of beer cans, plastic water bottles, cigarette butts and other moop�which the far larger and more chaotic Burning Man manages to largely avoid�reflected how much work it takes to draw festival-goers out of engrained and thoughtless behaviors.

There were a few other obvious differences from the West Coast freak festivals I know best. On the plus side, there was hardly any visible police presence, and, given that the consumption of drugs has been effectively decriminalized in Portugal, this made for the refreshingly free and open consumption of cannabis. On the other hand�and somewhat surprisingly�the crowd seemed a bit more uptight with their bodies and physical display. The freak costumes were more generic, there was less body modification, and there was nary an exposed bosom or hairy ass to be found, even though hundreds of people were swimming in the lake every hot afternoon. I got the sense that young Europeans were more distant from their hippie forebears than we are in the West Coast.

Of course, Europe has exceptional performers, and hoopers, jugglers, and fire dancers all performed at the Theatroom, a large stage devoted to alternative performance arts. There were also a number of interactive art pieces and inventive, low-cost structures, many created from recycled materials. Near the Liminal Village stood one flower-shaped device around twelve feet high, which my pal Spoon dubbed the �trance machine.� Cords attached to each of its �petals� could be yanked on, triggering a single track that the collective crowd of cord-yankers could mix into a thumping tune.

Next door was a long, low-slung tent that concealed the Kaleidoscopic Creature, a theatrical experience which I had caught the previous year at the UK�s notoriously muddy Glade festival. After entering and sitting down at one end of the tent, the small audience is treated to an interdimensional rocket-ride produced by a ingenious and decidedly analog blend of mirrors and puppetry. Despite (or because of) the low tech, the Creature conjures up more cosmic awe, organic metamorphosis, and mythopoetic sentience than any festival art I have ever seen. A big fat gold star to the French crew.

Given that Boom is essentially a week-long trip-party for young people, I was most interested in checking out how different crews with somewhat different agendas created cultural spaces and cognitive feedback loops designed to raise and clarify the consciousness, intentionality, and environmental awareness of these budding hedonists. The Liminal Village and the Healing Center did this through talks and workshops and films, while the harm reduction crew who staffed Cosmic Care created a safe space staffed with experienced crisis managers able to care for most of the psychoactive casualties without calling in the heavy guns. Free publications and a variety of gardens introduced attendees to the philosophy and practice of permaculture, hopefully focusing the often nebulous rhetoric about �planetary consciousness� into practical expressions. But as the litter proved, there is still a large gap between attendees who are tuned into these intentional processes and the ones who are there to party and feel no compulsion to open their ears to the good news/very bad news that in-your-face environmental consciousness demands. Again I thought of Burning Man, which, for all the faults and fuck-ups and toxic trash, does a great job of inculcating a basic ethic of personal responsibility, and at the very least programs people to pick up their trash.

The most bid for sanity in the swirling dynamics of the Boom was a drug-testing unit set up by Energy Control, a dynamite Spanish harm reduction crew centered in Barcelona. Inside a teepee at the edge of a spit of land, where a somewhat dodgy bridge made of empty metal barrels led to the Sacred Fire stage and yet another healing center, Energy Control set up a simple and inexpensive thin layer chromatography lab. Using only a very small amount of materials dropped off by attendees, Energy Control could set brand claims against chemical reality. Tiny red stars sold as mescaline (an impossibility given the weight of an effective mescaline dose) were revealed to be LSD, while a lot of the Ecstasy sold featured mixtures of caffeine and other bunk rather than MDMA. As an advisory board member for Erowid�which had a booth alongside Energy Control�I was tickled pink with this direct injection of rational data into the psychoactive feedback loops of desire and consumption that characterize this offline, down-and-dirty festival. Look for an extensive interview with the Energy Control crew in the next edition of Erowid Extracts.

Finally, all this talk of drugs would be incomplete if I did not relate an experience I had with a substance that came my way through the happenstance that festivals breed�what the visionary artist Luke Brown called �syncronnections.� Changa is a DMT-containing smoking mixture developed in Australia that is being touted, with fair reason, as �smokable ayahuasca.� Unlike freebase DMT, changa is a dried plant mixture containing crushed leaves from the ayahuasca vine Banisteriopsis Caapi, along with other herbs, which were not identified on the colorful sticker of my plastic baggy but that sometimes include the Mexican dream herb Calea Zacatechichi and the South American Justicia Pectoralis. A solution of DMT is then most likely enfused into this smoking mixture. As with the ayahuasca brew, the vine provides the MAO inhibitor that modifies and extends the sometimes beautiful and always bizarre flash of DMT, which, given changa�s Oz origins, is most likely sourced from acacia.

Along with a friend, I said hello to changa on the last night of the festival. We sat on a small hill facing away from the sound systems and towards the lake, where the bulbous moon�which had been almost entirely eclipsed the night before�glittered on the water like a quicksilver mist. In the distance glowed the lights of a medieval mountain town with the somewhat ominous name of Monsanto. The smoke was sweet, and the entrance into the vestibule of the tryptamine palace was smooth but strong, and I slid gently along DMT�s inside-outside Mobius strips of sentient energy with more clarity and with less anxiety than usual. My fingers folded into spontaneous mudras and the breath of fire sparked without will. Then the vibrating weave of nature�s alien mind fluttered and unfolded us and set us gently back on the scraggly hillside, where the crickets and their ambient chirp-track trumped the distant thump of machines. Boom!

From techgnosis.com. Posted by Erik Davis.

No time to relax

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:34:41 -0500

You know, whenever I get even moderately complacent, the Drug Policy Alliance is always there to remind me that we're so thoroughly screwed right now that it's kind of hard to believe:

It's the day after Christmas in 2001. You're 21 years old. After finally putting your 18-month-old daughter to sleep, you're relaxing in your favorite recliner, nodding off in the flickering light of the television show you're only half-watching and the string of Christmas lights around your front window. When you hear the sounds of someone trying to kick in your door, you run to your daughter's bedroom; when someone does break in and kick down her bedroom door, you shoot. It turns out the man you shot is the (white) police chief's son, and as he dies of internal bleeding en route to the hospital you (a black man) are arrested, beaten so badly your bleed from your ear for a week, and are put on death row for five years (until a judge overturns what was a wrongful sentencing). The drugs the cops were looking for (using a warrant that named no one in your household) were never found. This is the case of Mississippian Corey Maye, who is still locked up.
Or: you are 57 years old, getting ready for work in mid-May 2003. It's shortly after six in the morning. A battering ram breaks down your door, and in gets tossed a flash grenade. You can't breathe, you're coughing, and the police don't believe you - they're looking for a stash of drugs and guns they'll never find. Taking no notice of your worsening condition, they handcuff you, and in little more than an hour, though you're finally on the way to the hospital, the heart attack caused by this traumatic violation takes your life. This was Alberta Spruill, a church volunteer and city worker in Harlem.
Or it's November 2006. You're a fierce 92-year-old woman, frightened by the sounds of someone prying off the burglar bars that cover your front door, but determined to protect your home: when your door is broken down you fire one shot at the intruders, before being shot 39 times, handcuffed and left to die while the police (who are the intruders, and as it turns out, have broken down the wrong door) realize their mistake and plant drugs in your basement. This was Kathryn Johnston of northwest Atlanta; two of the cops responsible for her death pled guilty to manslaughter last year, and a third was recently convicted of lying in the cover-up.

Yep, the hits just keep on coming.

From blog.drugpolicy.org. Posted by Scotto.

Marijuana and mountain lions don't mix

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 03:20:24 -0500

I don't have much to say about this, other than - seriously?

Russell Rexrode, a 41 year old Ft. Bragg resident, has been sentenced to 180 days in jail following his conviction by a jury of felony cultivation of marijuana. Sheriff's deputy Dustin Lorenzo testified during the trial that he weighed 119 pounds of processed marijuana and 142 pounds-worth of unprocessed marijuana plants found at Rexrode's residence. Sheriff's Lieutenant Rusty Noe testified that the wholesale value of the pot was $2,400 per pound.
Fish and Game Department Lieutenant Lynette Shimek testified that she led the search of Mr. Rexrode's property on Oct. 17, 2005, on the basis of evidence relating to "unlawful mountain lion possession." Superior Court judge Ron Brown presided over the case, and in addition to giving Rexrode the jail sentence, he ordered the defendant to pay $1,500 for the misdemeanor offense of having the mountain lion.

Okay then! Memo to pot smokers with mountain lions: watch yer backs!

From www.ukiahdailyjournal.com. Posted by Scotto.

Slow Drug Nation

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:43:47 -0500

This labor day weekend, while many Bay Area readers of this blog will find themselves at the annual DIY amusement park that is Burning Man, another quixotic event of lofty ideals and hedonistic indulgence will be taking place in San Francisco. Slow Food Nation is being billed by organizers as the largest celebration of food in history, bringing together artisans, activists, farmers and food fanatics from around the country and around the world to taste, celebrate, and debate the past present and future of food.

The principles of the Slow Food movement and the conceit of the event are summed up well in this modest proposal written by SFN chair Katrina Heron from last Sunday�s SF Chronicle:

No one knows less about food than us. We, the American people, having inherited an extraordinary and unprecedented wealth of native and immigrant culinary traditions and knowledge - a kind of Alexandrian library of edible wisdom - no longer know how to feed ourselves�

The fundamental questions the movement raises about what we choose to put in our bodies, and examining the ignorance about our food choices at both the personal and policy level seems analogous to the sorts of discussions we in the entheogen community have around drugs.

And there is actually a bit of drug content in the event. Coffee, chocolate, tea, beer, wine and spirits will all have pavilions at the massive Taste Hall at Fort Mason. I�m a co-curator for the coffee pavilion and we�ve brought together some of best coffees from around the world, a number of great producers, an insane amount of gear and a team of the best roasters and baristas in the country to attempt to deliver a mind-blowing coffee experience to many thousands of attendees. If you are dodging the desert this year, Slow Food Nation might be an enlivening alternative.

From slowfoodnation.org. Posted by tonx.

New worry for parents: Digital Drugs (OMG!!)

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:43:30 -0500

In one of the dumbest articles we may see all year, Kim Komando warns parents of "binaural beats," audio files that "induce drug-like effects" in anyone with access to the inter-web and a good pair of headphones. (Including YOUR children!!) [insert gasp here]

Different types of digital drugs

Some sites provide binaural beats that have innocuous effects. For example, some claim to help you develop extrasensory powers like telepathy and psychokinesis. [...]
However, most sites are more sinister. They sell audio files ("doses") that supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol and marijuana.
But it doesn't end there. You'll find doses that purportedly mimic the effects of LSD, crack, heroin and other hard drugs. There are also doses of a sexual nature. I even found ones that supposedly simulate heaven and hell.

Further quotes (because I can't help myself):

The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They've caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions. [...]
At the very least, digital drugs promote drug use. Some sites say binaural beats can be used with illegal drugs.

Say it isn't so!

Read the full article, if you have the stomach for this sort of thing, and watch for the surprise wrap-up ending. (Spoiler alert: think "gateway drug!")

And remember kids: warn your parents against crappy, alarmist fear tactics disguised as information!

From www.usatoday.com. Posted by weirdmomma.

Psychedelic drugs could heal thousands

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 20:43:21 -0500

By: Andrew Feldmár
From: guardian.co.uk
Tuesday August 19 2008

Andrew Feldmár has been practising psychotherapy in Vancouver, Canada for 38 years. He writes:

There is a horrible sense of meaninglessness and chaos that comes from the extreme loneliness of being cut off. Trauma, whether sustained in the family, or in the military during combat, renders millions feeling unsafe, insecure, mistrustful, and in the end isolated, lonely and desperate. Judith Lewis Herman, who wrote the definitive book on trauma and recovery, stated that all so-called mental illness and suffering could be seen as a person's misguided attempt to survive trauma. Fear separates, love unites. We all wish to grow to freedom, to belong, to participate. Hatred is like gangrene, shame is deadly. Forgiveness is but a faint hope.

Sandoz began to market LSD in 1947 as a psychiatric panacea, the cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behaviour, sexual perversions, alcoholism, and other addictions. During a 15-year period beginning in 1950, research on LSD and other hallucinogens generated over 1,000 scientific papers, several dozen books and six international conferences, and LSD was prescribed as an adjunct of psychotherapy to over 40,000 patients. The current research using psychedelics heralds a reawakening to the magnificent healing possibilities of these now prohibited substances. After over 40 years of repression or oppression, Rick Doblin of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (Maps), and others are spearheading a more enlightened, less hysterical and terrified approach to the use of these substances. I am participating in what hopefully will be Canada's first government approved clinical trials in 40 years, sponsored and organised by Maps, evaluating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for subjects with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder.

There are many other applications of psychedelic psychotherapy, such as ibogaine, or ayahuasca for the treatment of substance abuse. Large numbers of people could benefit from the use of psychedelics as entheogens, introducing people to spiritual experiences, reducing pain and suffering due to isolation, by the irresistible realisation that each of us is a small part of something much greater than any of us, that separateness is an illusion, there is nothing to fear, and love is accessible, shame can be left permanently behind. Rites of passage, responsibly organised, could benefit everyone.

Despite prohibition, people have often asked me to attend their own psychedelic experiments, to keep them safe, to guide them towards liberation, the end of automatic habit patterns, kneejerk reactions, towards heartfelt responses, love, acceptance and forgiveness. After one session with MDMA, people were able to sustain insights gained, without further assistance from the drug. Psychotherapy proceeded faster and deeper than before: the debilitating effects of shame have been annulled, heavily defended hearts opened, and stayed open, and people acquired the ability to enjoy the sacrament of every living moment without distraction by past regrets or future worries. No small gains!

After three LSD sessions, a patient emerged from what was labelled chronic psychotic depression (she had attempted suicide three times, had been hospitalised, and given several courses of ECT, major antipsychotics and antidepressants), and was able to hold a job, derive pleasure from her days, and look forward to cultivating a varied garden of delights. She moved from cursing me for not letting her die to blessing me for the surprising freedom that opened up for her as a result of her LSD experiences. Psychotherapy, without LSD, would not have been enough, I'm afraid.

I can only hope that if new research with psychedelics proceeds in a responsible, careful and creative manner, the powers that be can begin to support and foster further research into this fascinating realm. I was 27 when I first tasted this incredible substance called LSD. Now I am 68 and for the last two years have been persona non grata in the US, because a border guard Googled my name, and found an article I wrote many years ago on entheogen-assisted psychotherapy. I hope I will be invited into the US before I die to teach professionals how to use psychedelics for the benefit of all.

From www.guardian.co.uk. Posted by erocx1.

Drank - for when you want to fall asleep at the party

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:21:21 -0500

Have you ever found yourself at home wishing, "gee, what I really need right now is something that *tastes* like robitussin and seltzer, and sort of acts like it, but won't make me disassociate" ?

Well, me either, but somebody out there is in luck! Today the anti-energy drink Drank hits the shelf. It's basically grape soda with valerian root and melatonin, modeled after the cough syrup cocktail that killed DJ Screw in 2000.

It sounds revolting, but I'm sure there will be skinny kids with bad haircuts weaving their way through the streets of Williamsburg, bragging about how they are all Dranked out. In my perfect world, these kids would run into a gang of Sparks enthusiasts and they would have a rumble in coordinated orange and purple jumpsuits.

From gothamist.com. Posted by HellKatonWheelz.

Dandy Warhols: The WorldCome On

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:17:15 -0500

I don't usually post about mainstream bands, but the Dandy's are different. In a world dominated by electro trance gurus and power pop princesses, the Dandy Warhols continue to hold down psychedelic rock for those of us who remember what psychedelic rock is really like. No, I'm not talking about jam bands, I'm talking about endless riffs, glam guitar, and vocals that are just inaudible enough to mean almost anything you want. Yes, take one part Jane's Addiction, one part Led Zeppelin, and one part Ziggy Stardust, and you get something approximating the The Dandy Warhols. Holding it down for Portland and the Pacific Northwest, the Dandys continue to rock, even on their recent poorly-reviewed album. I guess they didn't sound enough like Coldplay to impress the critics this time 'round. They still hold it down for psychedelic pop, and they still fuckin' rock.

PS - this track was scored via the KEXP Song of the Day podcast. Check it.

Posted by jamesk.

College presidents call for lowered drinking age

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 09:00:31 -0500

In a previous posting here, we heard that John McCardell, Jr., a historian and former president of Middlebury College, was talking harm-reduction logic for lowing the drinking age to 18. In current news, a group he started called the Amethyst Initiative has collected signatures from 100 presidents of well-known universities around the country supporting "an informed and dispassionate debate" on the current drinking age. The statement is classic harm-reduction logic:

But the statement makes clear the signers think the current law isn't working, citing a "culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking," and noting that while adults under 21 can vote and enlist in the military, they "are told they are not mature enough to have a beer." Furthermore, "by choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law."

It will be interesting to see if there is any informed debate that comes of this, especially the age-old question: Will anyone have the intelligence to consider the way things work in other countries?

From ap.google.com. Posted by omgoleus.

Memo: sugar free Red Bull makes your blood 'sticky'

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:24:37 -0500

And in the "people drink sugar free Red Bull?" department, here's some potentially disturbing news:

An Australian study found the sugar free version of the caffeine-loaded beverage causes the blood to become sticky and increases the chance of a life threatening clot.
Dr Scott Willoughby, who tested the drink on students, said: �One hour after they drank Red Bull, their blood systems were no longer normal. They were abnormal like we would expect in a patient with cardiovascular disease.
�If you add in other risk factors for cardiovascular disease - stress or high blood pressure - this could be potentially deadly.�

Thank god the sugar-full version is completely and thoroughly healthy and good and proper and righteous and everything one could hope for in a can full of wakey-wakey deliciousness, whew! I love, of course, that they "tested the drink on students." Perfect!

In other health news, other things you might enjoy are probably killing you as well. Film at eleven, et cetera.

From www.telegraph.co.uk. Posted by Scotto.

Cigarettes vs. air pollution

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 00:17:30 -0500

Here's an exciting development: the harmful effects of cigarette smoke might actually be mirrored by the harmful effects of, uh, breathing air:

A previously unrecognized group of air pollutants could have effects remarkably similar to harmful substances found in tobacco smoke, Louisiana scientists are reporting in a study scheduled for presentation today at the 236th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society. Inhaling those pollutants exposes the average person up to 300 times more free radicals daily than from smoking one cigarette, they added.
The discovery could help explain the long-standing medical mystery of why non-smokers develop tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer, said H. Barry Dellinger, Ph.D., the Patrick F. Taylor Chair of Environmental Chemistry at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
"Free radicals from tobacco smoke have long been suspected of having extremely harmful effects on the body," Dellinger said. "Based on our work, we now know that free radicals similar to those in cigarettes are also found in airborne fine particles and potentially can cause many of the same life-threatening conditions. This is a staggering, but not unbelievable result, when one considers all of diseases in the world that cannot currently be attributed to a specific origin."

In other words - smoke 'em while you got 'em!

From www.physorg.com. Posted by Scotto.

Fatal Bromo-Dragonfly OD reported at Erowid

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 11:38:27 -0500

According to news reports and one journal article, one Danish man was hospitalized and another was killed by toxic effects of bromo-dragonfly in September, 2007. Pers Ståhl, 35, suffered convulsions, liver and kidney failure, and lost several fingers and toes, while his unnamed friend died within hours of taking the substance.
The two men reportedly ordered bromo-dragonfly from an internet vendor and took an unknown amount one evening. One of the men had previously taken bromo-dragonfly, while the other had not.
The two were found the next morning by Ståhl's brother. Ståhl was deeply disoriented and could not use his legs, and his friend was dead.

You can read more about this case at Erowid.org.

From www.erowid.org. Posted by jamesk.

Get Your Drug On

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:15:18 -0500

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!

From getyourdrugon.com. Posted by amazingdrx.

Drugs win Mexican Drug War

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 00:48:08 -0500

The bullet holes in the safe-house door tell you who's winning Mexico's drug war. The armor-piercing ammunition, fired from the inside by drug traffickers, shredded the 20-gauge steel like small cannonballs; the rounds fired from the outside, by federal police, merely punctured the metal like so much bird shot. After that midnight firefight on May 27--the result of a botched police raid in the desert city of Culiacán in northwestern Mexico--seven cops lay dead. Only one narco gunman died; the rest, at least half a dozen, escaped. For neighbors, the carnage carried an unambiguous message. "I realized," says Victor Rodríguez, a fishmonger and family man, "that the power of the narcos has surpassed the power of my government."

From www.time.com. Posted by jamesk.