A young man has been filmed falling off his chair and lying incapacitated under the influence of a ‘legal high’ drug, all in the bid to promote the launch of a new film.

‘Salvia’ is currently on sale in the UK as a ‘legal high’ but, described as violently stronger than LSD, moves are currently underway to ban the hallucinogenic herb.

A trial of the drug was implemented on a group of Londoners on September 13, 2009, “inspired” by feature film ‘Reckoning Day’

Directed by Julian Gilbey, whose previous credits include ‘Rise of the Footsoldier’, it follows the US Special Forces’ quest to capture a ruthless, international brutal criminal who has been discovered in Europe shipping a brand new and fearfully powerful drug.

The potent drug in the film increases physical strength and human reflexes by 300%, as well as making the user impervious to pain.

Currently un-prohibited by UK Law, Salvia, or Salvia Divinorum, is notoriously known for its psychedelic properties including uncontrollable laughter, the feeling of merging with or becoming objects and sensations of motion or being pulled or twisted by forces.

Large doses can also create the feeling of a near death experience leaving many users mentally disturbed and emotionally scarred.

Thanks Jonathan!

Tips for cultivating marijuana. Testimonials by patients about its medical benefits. Cannabis cooking lessons. Even citations for award-winning strains of pot. Viewers here can now watch, every week, what amounts to a pro-weed news program.

Booted off one skittish TV station but quickly picked up by another, the low-budget “Cannabis Planet” show is televised evidence of how entrenched marijuana has become in California’s cultural firmament and a potent example of the way the pot subculture has been edging into the national mainstream.

“We’re trying to show the legitimacy of this plant,” said Brad Lane, the executive producer of the half-hour program.

Mr. Lane pays for the twice-weekly air time on the independent station KJLA — Thursday and Saturday nights at 11:30, sandwiched between “Bikini Beach” and “Jewelry Central” — and says he is now breaking even, almost two months after the show’s premiere. “Cannabis Planet” focuses on medical, agricultural and industrial uses of the hemp plant, purposely ignoring marijuana’s recreational aspects. Viewers, for instance, see very little actual smoking, even though the hosts and producers are known to inhale between takes. “We’re walking on eggshells here, to be honest,” Mr. Lane said.

Thanks mc!

The acceptance of medical marijuana has implications that extend far beyond helping those suffering from life-threatening diseases. It is one of several factors -- including demographic changes, the financial crisis, and the widely perceived failure of the war on drugs -- reopening the country's 40-year-old on-again, off-again shouting match over whether marijuana should be legalized.

This article is not another polemic about why it should or shouldn't be. Today, in any case, the pertinent question is whether it already has been -- at least on a local-option basis. We're referring to a cultural phenomenon that has been evolving for the past 15 years, topped off by a crucial policy reversal that was quietly instituted by President Barack Obama in February.

A scheme in which heroin is given to addicts in supervised clinics has led to big reductions in the use of street drugs and crime, the BBC has learned.

More than 100 users took part in the pilot - part funded by the government - in London, Brighton and Darlington.

They either injected heroin or received the drug's substitute methadone.

Those given heroin responded best and an independent panel which monitored the scheme over six months is advising ministers to set up further trials.

About three-quarters of those given heroin were said to have "substantially" reduced their use of street drugs.

Research suggests that between half and two-thirds of all crime in the UK is drug-related.

The Home Office says on its website that about three-quarters of crack and heroin users claim they commit crime to feed their habits.

Professor John Strang, who led the project, said the results were "very positive" because the scheme had helped cut crime and avoid "expensive" prison sentences.

Professor Strang, who is based at the National Addiction Centre, part of King's Health Partners, said the individuals on the programme were among those who had been the hardest to treat.

"It's as if each of them is an oil tanker heading for disaster and so the purpose of this trial is to see: 'Can you turn them around? Is it possible to avert disaster?'

"And the surprising finding - which is good for the individuals and good for society as well - is that you can," he said.

A Campbell River man has received $63,000 in damages for an "out-of-body experience" in which he said he saw God after being accidentally overdosed with the painkiller Ketamine while recovering from back surgery in Vancouver General Hospital.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Frank Cole made the award to former social worker Bradley Weafer, 38, but rejected Weafer's claim that he had suffered significant brain damage as a result of the overdose, which occurred Aug. 11, 2001.

Cole found that Weafer suffered psychological trauma from the overdose, in which he received the entire contents of a 500-milligram bag of Ketamine -- being administered intravenously -- over a five-minute period. He was supposed to have received three millilitres an hour for 24 hours.

The overdose caused him to lose consciousness and he needed to be resuscitated. He later told his parents he'd had a terrifying out-of-body experience, which medical evidence indicated was one of the side-effects of a Ketamine overdose.

He initially claimed to have suffered a heart attack as a result of the overdose, but this claim wasn't pursued at trial.

Cole found that Weafer had experienced poor health before the Ketamine incident.

The judge rejected claims that chest pains Weafer says he suffered were from CPR being performed on him and that the pain "insofar as it exists" was not caused by the incident.

Witnesses said Weafer was talking like a child when they visited him in hospital and he said he has experienced speech problems since the overdose. However, Cole dismissed that claim and said if Weafer has any speech problems, "they do not appear to impair his life."

Weafer told the court that before the overdose, he remembered being hooked up to medication and falling asleep.

"He said his life changed," Cole wrote in his reasons for judgment.

"He said: 'I was sucked down into black tunnels where I've never been before. People pulling me around by my feet, all black, was hot, scary, saw life flash in front of me. I saw my mother, felt being born and placed in my mother's arms, life review of all the good and bad... then I shot up through the sky surrounded like a shower of white light, went straight through the clouds and saw this figure to the right and he had a white cap on, look at his face and he wouldn't let me see his face. It was a bright white light. He was an office-tower high, larger than any building I'd ever seen.'"

Weafer then described seeing a gathering of people waiting for him on the other side of a trellis -- further journeys down into blackness and back into light --until he woke up and found doctors asking him questions.

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A source has told CBS News that the defense team for a former football coach charged in the death of one of his players is planning to claim the amphetamine medication Adderall, prescribed for the player's attention deficit disorder, could be to blame for his death.

Lawyers for Coach Jason Stinson, CBS News confirmed, plan to use the expert testimony of a former Kentucky medical examiner who will say Adderall is the likely cause of death.

Stinson, former coach of a Pleasure Ridge Park, Ky., school, is on trial for reckless homicide and wanton endangerment in the death of Max Gilpin. Gilpin, a 15-year-old player, collapsed during football practice while running in 94-degree heat last August. He died three days later of complications from heatstroke

Thanks to The Dropper for digging up references on this story!

The downstairs lounge of McCloud’s San Francisco home is a private art gallery dedicated to what could be called America’s most “illuminating” art form, de-activated samples and sheets of acid from the sixties to the noughts collected everywhere from the local street corner to the other side of the world. Stumbling through his collection is like one giant flashback to every acid trip you’ve ever had, immortalized right there on his wall.

Check it for the full interview and some interesting blotter images.

Law enforcement authorities raided a number of medical marijuana dispensaries -- one official put the number at 13 -- in San Diego County on Wednesday, including at least three in North County, where one person was arrested on suspicion of selling the drug.

Medical marijuana has long been a contentious issue in San Diego County, with local governments fighting state laws that approve and regulate the use of the drug by sick people, as well as the dispensaries that provide the herb.

The reason behind the raids was unclear Wednesday afternoon, and officials mostly remained mum.

And if that wasn't enough:

Spokane police on Thursday raided a medical marijuana store, shutting it down, arresting the owners and warning similar operations to close, too.

Police said it was the first time in the state that medical marijuana distributors had been arrested on a charge of delivery of a controlled substance.

Law officers searched a store called Change, along with four private residences. Change opened earlier this year. Arrested were co-owners Scott Q. Shupe, 54, and Christopher P. Stevens, 36.

Police said the business was selling marijuana to more than 1,000 customers. The dispensary was closed, and police warned other medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane to close their businesses as well.

Thanks to the great Vivian McPeak of Hempfest fame for pointing this story out.

Researchers have now explored ketamine's effects on suicidality in patients with treatment-resistant depression, and are publishing their results in the September 1st issue of Biological Psychiatry. Ketamine acutely reduced suicidal thoughts when patients were assessed 24 hours after a single infusion. This reduction in suicidality was maintained when patients received repeated doses over the next two weeks.

Corresponding author Rebecca Price commented on these encouraging findings: "If these findings hold up in larger samples of high-risk suicidal patients, IV ketamine could prove an attractive treatment option in situations where waiting for a conventional antidepressant treatment to take effect might endanger the patient's life."

Since this was a preliminary study in a small group of depressed patients, further research is needed to replicate these results. However, the findings are promising and could result in improved treatment for suicidal patients in the future.

Two years ago the NIMH announced that ketamine could be the key to a group of novel antidepressants. At the time I aked, "Why not just use ketamine?" Looks like someone listened.

By any measure, making drugs illegal fails to achieve one of its primary objectives. But it is the unintended consequences of prohibition that make the most compelling case against it. Prohibition fuels crime in many ways: without state aid, addicts may be forced to fund their habit through robbery, for instance, while youngsters can be drawn into the drugs trade as a way to earn money and status. In countries such as Colombia and Mexico, the profits from illegal drugs have spawned armed criminal organisations whose resources rival those of the state. Murder, kidnapping and corruption are rife.

Making drugs illegal also makes them more dangerous. The lack of access to clean needles for drug users who inject is a major factor in the spread of lethal viruses such as HIV and hepatitis C.

So what's the alternative? There are several models for the legal provision of recreational drugs. They include prescription by doctors, consumption at licensed premises or even sale on a similar basis to alcohol and tobacco, with health warnings and age limits. If this prospect appals you, consider the fact that in the US today, many teenagers say they find it easier to buy cannabis than beer...

Unfortunately, the idea that banning drugs is the best way to protect vulnerable people - especially children - has acquired a strong emotional grip, one that politicians are happy to exploit. For many decades, laws and public policy have flown in the face of the evidence. Far from protecting us, this approach has made the world a much more dangerous place than it need be.