Henry Nicholas III had the makings of a real-life "Iron Man."

He was a 6-foot-6 genius billionaire with a chiseled frame, physical endurance and a taste for fast cars and gadgets.

He even had a secret cave.

...

But the Southern California tech whiz's larger-than-life pedigree didn't lead to a crime-fighting alter ego. Rather, it allegedly spurred marathon drug-fueled orgies inside his very own Xanadu, a suite in a warehouse in Laguna Niguel, Calif.

In an Oriental-themed, tricked-out parlor, Nicholas, his friends and a bevy of prostitutes would party and have sex for days - abusing cocaine, laughing gas and other drugs, as music from such chart-toppers as Led Zeppelin and Phil Collins played, according to court papers and a former employee.

...

The government alleges that Nicholas handed out cocaine, ecstasy and nitrous oxide.

It also said he spiked the drinks of high-tech execs and representatives of Broadcom customers with ecstasy.

Phil Collins?!? More evidence of the judgment-distorting effects of cocaine abuse.

Q5 Neil: Are there still tribes which perform these rituals, and is it possible to find real samples of this Shamanistic tribal music?

A5 James: You can find CDs of the icaros of the Amazonian ayahuasceros or the throat signing of the Tuvan monks, and though these two cultures are displaced by vast spans of space they produce similar tones and themes in their music that are easily confused. Both of these styles at times sound like aboriginal didgeridoo, Mid-Eastern reed-pipes, and Tibetan Om chanters all combined. Some of it is much less complex, simple chanting and repetition of tones and themes that are not musically interesting but have tribal meaning. There's traditional shamanic medicine drumming, and most of it is quite monotonous because it's literally a form of hypnotic trance music. Generally there is a great deal of authenticity and preciousness ascribed to traditional shamanic music, but traditional authenticity is not really that important for good shamanism. All passionate music is shamanic in that it transports you immediately into the world of that song while your listening to it. Pearl Jam's "Evenflow" is just as shamanic as anything you can pull out of the Amazonian rainforest, it just speaks to a slightly different tribal archetype. But the key to maximizing this shamanic principal is being able to share these songs spontaneously for any occasion in a live environment, which is where music has its truest power to unite people. The ability to master the basic ritual skills and use them to channel group synchronicity in the psychedelic space is a core aspect of the shamanic archetype.

More at the link below...

A routine traffic stop by a Murfreesboro police officer Wednesday led to the arrest of a La Vergne man for possession of 637 hits of LSD.

The stash was buried in a series of trenches, and the team called in an air strike of RAF Harriers using 1000lb bombs to open up the site then poured gasoline on the debris and torched it.

While that's certainly a huge amount of weed and hash, what gets me about this story is the list of recent huge drug busts at the end:

IN NUMBERS

5 million

Ecstasy tablets seized in Melbourne in 2005 were claimed as the largest haul of street-ready tablets in the world, worth £120 million.

9 tons

of cannabis resin was seized by Vietnamese police last month in the largest drug haul in its history. Found in 400 cartons covered by jeans, en route from Pakistan to China, it was estimated to have a street value of £45 million.

38,000lb

of cocaine was seized by US Coast Guard officers who boarded a 330ft ship off the Pacific coast of Panama in 2007. It was the largest single sea-based seizure of cocaine by a US agency, with an estimated street value of £250 million.

Record-breaking drug busts happen every year or so, and the drug warriors issue press releases and pat themselves on the back for another 'victory' in the War on Drugs. The reality is that the market is so huge that there are ginormous piles of drugs just lying around like this, and the price of the particular drug doesn't even flutter when such a bust happens.

From Pat:

Max is a very, very troubled man. He's affected by Dissociative Indentity Disorder syndrome. Assuming the perspective of a drug injected into Max's brain, a quest ensues to find the source of the problem.

Shot principally with non-actors that answered a newspaper ad, they were given free reign by director Pat Tremblay to act out any hidden side of their personality, as long as it was done in front of 3 cameras and a bluescreen.

The result was then manipulated into the film's storyline and
transformed into a modern day psychedelic experimental comedic sci-fi journey. Or something like that.

Researchers at a university in California have revealed that a certain brain protein, called GDNF, can quickly cut the urge to drink. But so far it's only worked on animals... Ten minutes after the injection rats lost their appetite for spirits, and the effect lasted for at least three hours. The protein had a similar effect in preventing a relapse in alcoholic rats that were deprived of drinking for some time.

On my visit back home I got stories of old friends from old friends. Someone installed in London, who, having tried ketamine for the first time, went messianic, stumbling into the middle of Shaftesbury Avenue proclaiming he could control the traffic, which was dodging him, horns blazing.

I found this interesting because I know a crazy person who loves to stand on corners at busy intersections and "control the traffic". I have heard police say this is a common thing for schizophrenic or bipolar people to do. I have also had this "traffic control" urge on K, but it was more a fascination with watching or listening to traffic as opposed to a belief that I could control it.

Of course, if you are dodging in and out of lanes of oncoming cars you actually can control the traffic, just not in a good way. Not recommended for newbies.

Drug maker Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. on Tuesday reported that it has dosed the first patient in its phase 3 clinical trial of potential analgesic PMI-150 or intranasal ketamine, a nasal formulation of ketamine.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm noted that the current study is designed to confirm the analgesic efficacy of this experimental drug, developed for several intended indications, in treating postoperative pain following orthopedic surgery.

We've been following the evolution of this study on DoseNation, and are happy to tell you that right now there are volunteers being paid to sit around and snort ketamine to see if it makes them feel less pain. The future is so cool.