959 posts tagged with drugs.
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The Making of Big Green
"An antidote to entrenched social, racial, and class inequalities."
What Harm Reduction Really Looks Like (On harm reduction in Minneapolis, Tim Evans for The Nation (supported by the nonprofit Economic Hardship Reporting Project, archive.ph)
Bill Cosby Talks To Kids About Drugs
Nothing more than the symptoms of a deeply noxious culture
Since I’m trying to describe for you what it feels like to attend a massive outdoor music festival without the aid of hallucinogenic indulgence or the balm of full-proof alcohol, I therefore feel justified in outlining and characterizing some of the more upsetting personal experiences that I’ve endured during this time. Because I’d suggest that when you’re sober, all the festival’s utopian enchantments begin to sort of seem both grotesque and dystopian. From High and Dry by Barrett Swanson [Harper's; ungated]
Faulty hospital testing leads to newborns being taken from their moms
Susan Horton had been a stay-at-home mom for almost 20 years, and now — pregnant with her fifth child — she felt a hard-won confidence in herself as a mother. Then she ate a salad from Costco. The Marshall Project reports on how faulty drug tests have lead to mothers losing custody of babies after their birth even though the moms had done nothing wrong. [more inside]
Trump's intention to invade Mexico
Military attack on drug dealers, close the border, deport millions of people. What could possibly go wrong? Some details about what could go wrong as result of interlocking bad policy. Mexico is a major trading partner these days.
“I kept wondering, ‘Who is this guy?’”
Marset’s odyssey reads like a transnational caper, bordering on the absurd. But it is a startling window into the level of impunity at the nexus of Latin American public life and the lower rungs of professional soccer, enabling drug traffickers to wield enormous influence in both worlds. Years after a global manhunt for him began, Marset remains at large. from A double life: The cocaine kingpin who hid as a professional soccer player: Part I / Part II [Washington Post; ungated Part I / Part II]
Like heroin, fentanyl delivers a euphoric high.
We Bought Everything Needed to Make $3 Million Worth of Fentanyl. All It Took Was $3600 and a Web Browser. (slReuters; interactive)
To see beauty in limitation is not an easy thing
In our technological age people are often caught between two worlds, forced to choose between what is pleasurable and what is beyond pleasurable. Activity A may be a genuinely enjoyable activity, but as an ordinary pleasure it comes with certain discomforts and limitations. Activity B, on the other hand, promises to move past those limitations, satiating our desire for maximal pleasure. Who wouldn’t want to choose Activity B, then, when the option is presented so readily? from The Rise of Hyperpleasures by Samuel C. Heard (Mere Orthodoxy; ungated)
Another layer of mediation to an already loopy transmission
Though LSD was sometimes passed around in the 1960s on actual blotting paper, sheets of perforated (‘perfed’) and printed LSD paper do not come to dominate the acid trade until the late 1970s, reaching a long golden age in the 1980s and ’90s. As such, the rise of blotter mirrors, mediates and challenges the mythopoetic story of LSD’s spiritual decline. For even as LSD lost the millennialist charge of the 1960s, it continued to foster spiritual discovery, social critique, tribal bonds and aesthetic enrichment. During the blotter age, the quality of the molecule also improved significantly, its white sculptured crystals sometimes reaching and maybe surpassing the purity levels of yore. Many of the people who produced and sold this material remained idealists, or at least pragmatic idealists, with a taste for beautiful craft and an outlaw humour reflected in the design of many blotters, which sometimes poked fun at the scene and ironically riffed on the fact that the paper sacraments also served as ‘commercial tokens’. from Acid media [Aeon; ungated]
Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?
You could call them “sky flowers,” but that doesn’t really make sense either—after all, the faded blue behind each squiggle is water, not sky, and the squiggles themselves don’t represent solid objects in any tangible, meaningful way. But they look right. The reds and greens and yellows add life and color in a way that a flat blue might not. Those odd shapes, suspended motionless with no clear reason or value, establish a tone. There are a lot of things that don’t make sense on SpongeBob SquarePants. But there’s a clear and coherent vision that runs through the entire show, from the design of SpongeBob’s kitchen-sponge body down to the squeaky-balloon sound of his footsteps. It’s a perspective, and a warm, specific, crazy little world. Of course it has sky flowers in it. What else would be up there?Today marks 25 years since the original broadcast of "Help Wanted" -- the pilot episode of marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg's educational comic that became a delightful romp of "relentless optimism and fundamental sweetness", a hothouse flower of inventive and absurdist imagination, a cultural touchstone for multiple generations, and one of the most iconic and beloved animated franchises of the 21st century. Are you ready, kids? [more inside]
The Portugal Model for Addressing the Overdose Crisis
I am a professor of medicine and public health who researches the government’s response to addiction. I also spent more than two decades as a police officer. If cities expect to help reduce our nation’s overdose crisis and not simply ride a policy pendulum back and forth between election cycles, their leaders need to enact compassionate, effective drug policies and ensure fair access to public space at the same time.
White House Down (and Up)
The White House has its own pharmacy—and, boy, was it shady under Trump [Ars Technica] [more inside]
Happy Life-Day Eve!
Pick out a quiet town and tie it down
American Oligarchy How Warren Buffett’s billionaire son took over a U.S. city and made it his personal playground.
“My heart, my mind, is in England”
The Albanian town that TikTok emptied Since the fall of communism in 1991, Kukes has lost roughly half of its population. In recent years, thousands of young people — mostly boys and men — have rolled the dice and journeyed to England, often on small boats and without proper paperwork.
The People Selling Drugs Here Are Merely Pawns
In a nearby town square, a skinny child in a Steph Curry T-shirt climbs a tree. A few blocks away, a three-wheeled mototaxi whizzes by, a San Francisco Giants sticker affixed to its bumper ... More extravagant emblems of San Francisco appear unexpectedly and often, alongside crumbling adobe huts, stray roosters and heaps of singed garbage. Handsome new homes, some mansions by local standards, some mansions by any standard, rise behind customized iron gates emblazoned with San Francisco 49ers or Golden State Warriors logos. from This is the Hometown of San Francisco’s Drug Dealers [SF Chronicle]
Oregon's experiment to curb overdoses
“At four in the afternoon the streets can feel like dealer central,” Funding for Measure 110’s promise of increased services comes from Oregon’s marijuana tax revenues. After a slow start, more than $265 million has flowed to programs that try to make drug use safer by providing clean needles and test strips, offer culturally specific peer support and provide shelter for people newly in recovery. But residential treatment for addiction has yet to be substantially expanded. [more inside]
Cancer drug rationing
US doctors are rationing lifesaving cancer drugs amid dire shortage The drug shortage could lead to preventable deaths, and it's unclear when it will end.
How a dose of MDMA transformed a white supremacist
Brendan was once a leader in the US white nationalist movement. But when he took the drug MDMA in a scientific study, it would radically change his extremist beliefs – to the surprise of everyone involved.
Ether / Or
The strands of medicine, consciousness expansion, intoxication, addiction, and crime were tightly entangled in fin-de-siècle Paris, where ether and chloroform circulated among bohemian demi-mondaines alongside morphine, opium, cocaine, hashish, and wormwood-infused absinthe ... Literary references to ether abounded, either as a signifier of decadence or as a literary prop to shift a realistic narrative into the landscape of dreams and symbols, where its dissociative qualities became a portal to strange mental states, psychological hauntings, uncanny doublings, and slippages of space and time. from The Ether Dreams of Fin-de-Siècle Paris by Mike Jay
Drug Wars
A little-known drug brought billions to Syria's coffers. Now it's a bargaining chip - "After more than a decade of boycotting him, Syria's Arab neighbors are now in talks to bring President Bashar al-Assad in from the cold. The Syrian leader has been received in some Arab capitals, but he is yet to be awarded the ultimate normalization with Saudi Arabia, one of Syria's staunchest foes – and the biggest market for its drugs." [more inside]
Panel backs moving opioid antidote Narcan over the counter
Drug Decriminalization in Oregon
After rocky start, hopes up in Oregon drug decriminalization In November 2020, Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 110, which made it the first state in the union to broadly decriminalize drug possession, a response to an untenable status quo. In addition, the measure pledged to support the expansion of drug treatment and harm reduction programs in the state through funds from cannabis taxes. [more inside]
Effing up the ineffable
'Magic mushrooms' would be decriminalized in California under new bill [ungated] - "SB 58 would allow only plant-based hallucinogens, such as psilocybin, the active ingredient in 'magic mushrooms,' and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, which is found in some plants used to brew ayahuasca. Other naturally occurring psychedelics that would be allowed under the bill include ibogaine, a psychoactive alkaloid found in the iboga shrub, and mescaline found in cacti other than peyote." [more inside]
The Three-Continent Joyride Known as “Team America”
“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” Irizarry said. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.” from DEA’s most corrupt agent: Parties, sex amid ‘unwinnable war’ [AP]
California To Make Its Own, Low-Cost Insulin, Newsom Says
Gov. Gavin Newsom says California will make its own insulin, noting that its current high-cost "epitomizes market failures." [more inside]
And the ones that mother gives you... don't do anything at all.
"Go Ask Alice" is a 1971 novel about teenage drug use, purported to be the "found diary" of a real teenage girl (but almost certainly a complete fabrication) and a contributor to the moral panic of Nixon's war on drugs. It has never been out of print. Carmen Maria Machado is the guest in a 3-part You're Wrong About podcast series with host Sarah Marshall and guest Rick Emerson (author of Unmask Alice) to talk about the book's influence on American culture.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 [more inside]
Cannabis in Japan gets a rematch
It all began when police found a small quantity of "a cannabis-like plant material" in the car of Jōmon-revivalist sculptor ŌYABU Ryūjirō (大藪龍二郎, nickname "Yaburyū". He believes that the Jōmon "cords" are actually cannabis fibers.). But it goes back farther than that, to when MIKI Naoko (scroll to the bottom) (三木直子) was translating Marijuana is Safer into Japanese, and was moved by the story of Peter McWilliams, a Prop-215-protected AIDS patient who was persecuted by the US Federal government and denied access to cannabis, and aspirated on his own vomit on his bathroom floor and died while awaiting trial. MIKI appears on the Great Moments in Weed History podcast to promote a Change.org petition (English follows Japanese) to pressure the judge in Yaburyū's trial to accept evidence and witnesses from the defense into consideration. The next court date happens today (in Japan time), March 25th 2022, about one hour from the time of this post. [more inside]
The Black Falconer
Rodney Stotts was looking to get a short-term "on the books" job so he'd have the paystubs he needed to convince landlords to rent him his own apartment, where he could more comfortably expand his real line of work--as a mid-level drug dealer in Southeast DC. The first employer who called him back was Earth Conservation Corps, an environmetal group focused on cleaning up the Anacostia River. There began Stotts' journey from drug dealing and prison to environmentalist and master falconer--perhaps unique among "escape from life on the streets" accounts. [more inside]
“They do what they want.”
In total, a staggering 83 active-duty soldiers stationed at Fort Bragg died in the 18 months ending June 2021, according to data obtained by Rolling Stone. [...] The Army can’t or won’t say how a whole platoon’s worth of soldiers died at its largest installation, home of the Special Forces, the Airborne Corps, and the Joint Special Operations Command. Over this same 18-month period, just three Fort Bragg soldiers died in overseas combat, meaning these elite troops are a dizzying 27 times more likely to die stateside than in war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria.[more inside]
He also offered a friend $1 million to serve as his personal alarm clock
“Tony’s true friends, not interested in profiting from Tony’s condition, became increasingly concerned about Tony’s health and many were looking for ways to get Tony professional help,” court documents said. “Unfortunately, in the months since Tony had left the rehabilitation facility, several less scrupulous people prominently occupied Tony’s attention and were living large, all at Tony’s expense.” The last months of Tony Hsieh, former Zappos CEO, who died in November 2020. (TW: self-harm, drug abuse) Previously.
"Our overall goal is to follow the lead of Oregon"
Seattle Votes to Decriminalize Psilocybin and Similar Substances [ungated] - "Seattle's city council voted unanimously to relax its rules against naturally occurring drugs, joining a handful of other cities that have decriminalized psilocybin and similar substances since Denver kicked off a wave of such changes three years ago." [more inside]
Cannabiz
What Do You Do With A Billion Grams Of Surplus Weed? Cannabis legalization was supposed to be a licence to print money. Three years on, nobody is turning a profit
This Man Does Not Make Poppers
AN0M
'When an Australian underworld figure began distributing customised phones containing the app to his associates as a secure means to communicate, police could monitor their messages'. 'From 2018, the FBI was covertly in control of An0m and Australian police introduced the technical ability to decrypt communications on the platform and monitor them for years'. 'Police claim the plan to use an encrypted app was hatched overseas over a few beers with FBI agents in 2018, before police figured out how to decrypt all messages'.
“an orgasm can’t kill you, though.”
The addiction researcher [and heroin user] Carl Hart argues against the distinction between hard and soft drugs. He describes using heroin in carefully managed doses, with product he trusts, in the company of friends, at times when being in an altered state does not interfere with his life, and achieving “a dreamy light sedation, free of stress.” [more inside]
Inside the dark, biohacked heart of silicon valley
I think this is all a result of a complete detachment from authenticity by these tech founders. They present a version of themselves that isn’t real, and then, when they look in the mirror, they see how inauthentic they really are, and the only way they can handle the illusion they’ve created is through drugs,” said one Silicon Valley insider who often spends time with the biohacking-obsessed ultrarich. “It’s all synthetic and it’s all an illusion.” The pandemic only heightened this, with people slipping into more extreme activities in their quest for control. [more inside]
“Is a whale a fish?” Illegal drugs in Japan in 2020
Japan likes to present itself as the only developed nation with effective drug prohibition, with lifetime cannabis use at 1.8%, compared to over 40% for the US and Canada. However, 2020 was an unusually tumultuous year for Japanese drug warriors. The most fascinating event has been a highly exceptional and irregular trial (still ongoing, link courtesy of archive.org as the site seems to be down) of one 青井硝子 (AOI Garasu, "Blue Glass", a pseudonym), that hinges on whether a "tea" (a simple water extraction of plant material that is not itself illegal, but contains a prohibited substance, DMT) can be considered an illegal "drug". Things took a turn for the strange when the defendant stood up in court and asked, "Is a whale a fish?". [more inside]
Severe Monkey Peen
Big Pharma teams up with Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters to help fight back against Big Bean in a new ad for Freshpotix, a pharmaceutical cure for coffee addiction.
Who are we to decide that life is not fair?
Only God knows, he said, when America will return to normal: “And I sometimes think we’ve got Him scratching His head because this is a bunch of craziness.”Appalachia in Southeast Ohio after the Great Society: A photo essay with words by Tim Sullivan and photos by Wong Maye-E. [more inside]
"Any criminal that uses an encrypted phone should be very, very worried"
International cooperation between police forces enabled them to spy on an encrypted phone network, Encrochat, since the 1st April 2020. The result is a massive operation arresting 746 suspects in the UK alone. [more inside]
I Will Nuke My Own Country Because God Wants Us Dead
Twins in Paradise, an animated short by vewn, aka Victoria Vincent
[Content note: nukes, suicide, drug use content]
Today in Coronavirus study news: This is fine
Studies That Most Likely Led WHO to Halt Hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 Trials are Under Fire Amid Questionable Data from Surgisphere (The Science Times, June 3, 2020) Other COVID-19 studies also drew from Surgisphere datasets. [more inside]
“The only thing is this world I’m afraid of is God... and the FBI.”
Have you heard of the rainbow-haired rapper Tekashi 6ix9ine but have no idea why? Are you at sea trying to understand the history of beefs, controversies, success, gang affiliations, federal RICO charges, and snitching? Let a young Englishman in London with a love of hip-hop and brilliant research who calls himself Trap Lore Ross explain it all to you in “The Clout Chronicles”:
pt 1: The Birth of 6IX9INE
pt 2: How 6IX9INE Stole His Persona
pt 3: The Allegations against 6IX9INE (THOSE ONES)
pt 4: How 6IX9INE Dominated the Billboard Charts
pt5: How 6IX9INE Took Over The Bloods
pt 6: The Many Beefs of 6IX9INE
pt 7: The Fall of 6IX9INE (Wherein Ross actually dyes his hair rainbow after going that far down the rabbithole)
[more inside]
helps with convergent thinking but not divergent thinking
A strong cup of coffee boosts focus and problem-solving — but not creativity (CNBC): "Researchers from the University of Arkansas looked at how caffeine affects our ability to do two cognitive tasks: problem-solving and brainstorming. The researchers found that while consuming caffeine “significantly enhanced” problem-solving abilities, meaning they solved problems faster and more accurately, it has no effect on people’s ability to think up new ideas." [more inside]
“A Scrappy Chicago Organization”
“ Last week, The Daily Beast published a report on “Protech Local 33”—a supposed union that claims to represent workers in California’s growing cannabis industry. According to The Daily Beast’s reporting, signs point toward Protech acting as a “company” or (in labor slang) “yellow” union: something banned under both international and national labor laws. .... But our investigation, conducted through extensive research through Department of Labor records, court records, IRS records, the Chicago Tribune newspaper archive, and interviews with Chicago labor activists shows that Protech is much more than a company union—and connects back to a long, troubling history of corruption in some segments of organized labor...” ‘I heard you grow marijuana’: Inside the organization behind Protech Local 33 (Strike Wave)
since perfume and stickers count as suspicious
No Glitter, No Glue, No Meth? Can Texas prisons really stop contraband by banning greeting cards? [The Marshall Project]
"In terms of antibiotic discovery, this is absolutely a first"
Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic (MIT): Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world's most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models. [more inside]