Auto-tuned scientific discussion of the wonders of the brain from many different expers, with trippy animation. By Symphony of Science.

[Thanks Luke!]

Enterprising locals across the nation are contributing to the effort by setting up their own drug take-back booths. Actually I just made that up, but it would be kind of a clever and subversive gig.

The day is followed on by DoseNation-sponsored National Prescription Drug Take Day on Sunday, May 1. Actually I just made that up too.

Originally published in 2009 'Singing to the Plants -- A Guide to Mestizo Shamanism in the Upper Amazon' by Stephan V. Beyer is an exemplary, scholarly work on the topic. Beyer has doctorates in religion and psychology, has previously published works on Buddhism, the Tibetan language and religion, and has studied sacred plant medicine in both North America and the Upper Amazon. The richness of his background really comes to the fore in this insightful and comprehensive text.

The scholarly technique of Singing to the Plants functions on several layers. Firstly, the personal level, from Beyer’s own experiences being trained by two mestizo healers, or to the Western mind, shamans; don Roberto Acho Jurama and dona Maria Luisa Tuesta Flores. The effect of this intimate research is two-fold, not only does it mean he brings first-hand understanding to his cartography but he does so from inside the processes he describes, rather than being purely observational. Does this bias his opinion? Perhaps, but it feels more that it gives the author an authority in his voice, and in the quoted voices of his teachers, ultimately lending an authenticity to the text.

[Thanks Mason! PS - Stay away from those Tumblr blogs!]

[Thanks Mason!]

I write this from Mexico, where the ‘War on Drugs’ and clashing drug cartels have claimed thousands of lives. The billions of dollars worth of aid being pumped in countries in South America, Afghanistan and elsewhere have resulted in, at best, the ‘balloon effect’, where production is pushed down in one area only to pop up in another. In the fifty years since the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the ‘War on Drugs’ has morphed from a figurative battle to a literal one. The fog of war has driven politicians to go beyond the bounds of law in their lust for battle: the Single Convention allows for the medical and scientific use of controlled drugs and yet, many countries interpret it as prohibiting all use of all Schedule I drugs, hindering potentially life changing research.

Domestic law has also been trampled upon in the rush to act tough on drugs. The UK’s 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act [MDAct] was designed to remove decision-making about drugs from the party politics of parliament to minimise the risk that short term party interests might lead to bad laws. The MDAct classified drugs in three levels – A B C – based on their relative harms of drugs, which were decided upon by an expert group, the ACMD [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs]. This worked well for the first 30 years and even Margaret Thatcher accepted its recommendations on needle-exchange to limit HIV spread. Though this went against her political philosophy, she accepted that it was logical to be guided by experts and was rewarded by the UK leading the world in terms of slowing the rate of HIV spread from intravenous drug use.

In the last decade under Tony Blair’s government, things began to change. It decided it knew better than experts and hunted for evidence to support its policy decisions rather than the other way round. In late 2004, Blair decided to wage a different type of war -- this time on drugs. For unknown reasons -- at least not explained in his autobiography -- he decided to ignore the MDAct (i.e. break the law) and make decisions on drugs without consulting the experts on ACMD. He convened a special meeting of senior police, military and customs officials, from which the war was initiated.

The first salvo was aimed at magic mushrooms. These were legal at the time but the government decided that they had to be hard on head-shops selling freeze-dried preparations so they made them a Class A drug without consulting the ACMD. The well known adage “the first casualty of war is the truth” certainly applied to the mushroom decision as by no metric are mushrooms as harmful as the real Class A drugs such as crack cocaine and heroin.

[Thanks Gwllym!]

Lots of economists write about the economics of illegal drugs. Here's a paper from a Harvard guy. Here's another co-authored by a couple Chicago guys.

One thing missing from those papers: Actual drug dealers.

So for today's podcast, we run some economic theory by Freeway Rick Ross (pictured), who was one of the biggest crack dealers in LA in the '80s and '90s. He went to prison in '96, and was released on parole in '09.

Economists say that people demand a "risk premium" to do illegal, risky work. But it didn't feel that way to Ross:

"When you come from where I was when I started selling drugs, you feel hopeless. You don't think you're going to live past 24 years old. Go to jail, come out with stripes. Really wasn't any risk."

Click to listen. Drug economics talk begins around 3:25.

[Thanks Sam Hell!]

Silberman: Until I read your book, I never realized how much of an influence Allen [Ginsberg] had on Leary.

Conners: It was massive. That's really the heart of this book: How Allen Ginsberg enabled Timothy Leary to become Timothy Leary. It goes back to Allen being asked to give a presentation to all these psychiatrists coming in for an annual conference in Boston. Allen gets up there and reads a poem called "Lysergic Acid" and another called "Laughing Gas." After the conference, Allen hears about Leary’s work and Leary -- who was involved in testing psychedelics as "psychotomimetics," substances that mimic psychosis -- hears about Allen. Before then, there wasn’t really any artistic component to Leary’s research.

So in comes Allen, this great networker, this expert at forging connections between people in a very pure and organic way, and he turns Leary onto this idea of getting great artists and intellectuals to take these drugs. They thought that by the time the government caught on to what they were doing, they would have a foundation of prominent intellectuals who supported their work. Leary would later come right out and say, "From the time that Ginsberg showed up on my doorstep, everything changed. After that, the project was different, my life was different, and I was on a different path." That spark drove me to write White Hand Society.

[Thanks Sam Hell!]

I saw this show last night in Madison. It was a great show, although frankly I am a bit too old for this kind of thing anymore. But it warmed my heart to see kids smoking DMT on the street outside the theater. And it was a nice bonding experience with the friends I went with.

Tour is heading to the West coast, dates at the link. Seattle seems to be the last stop, May 8 at the Showbox.

This video mapping thing is cool. There was a posting here last year with a video of an art installation with a room with a bunch of boxes with video mapped onto them, which was quite cool. This concert uses basically the same technique, to good effect. I guess it's a "thing" now.

One thing I realized, being in a show full of high kids with clever, trippy visuals is that at this point, pretty much no matter what happens at a show full of high kids, the high kids are probably already so media-savvy that they'll just take it as more obvious eye candy. No matter what it is. The second coming of Jesus could burst forth from the clouds and people would probably go "whoah, cool show!" Sort of like how at the Station nightclub fire in 2003, many people assumed the fire was part of the special effects, which probably contributed to the huge body count of that fire (although the blatant fire code violations are obviously the main culprit).

Approximately 27,500 people died from unintentional drug overdoses in 2007, driven to a large extent by prescription opioid overdoses...

Unintentional overdose deaths in teens and adults have reached epidemic proportions in the U.S. In some 20 states in 2007 the number of unintentional drug poisoning deaths exceeded either motor vehicle crashes or suicides, two of the leading causes of injury death. Prescription opioid pain medications are driving this overdose epidemic. Opioid pain medications were also involved in about 36 percent of all poisoning suicides in the U.S. in 2007.

In a commentary article released ahead of the print version in the April 19, 2011 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, physicians affiliated with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and Duke University Medical Center cite data noting that in 2007 unintentional deaths due to prescription opioid pain killers were involved in more overdose deaths than heroin and cocaine combined.

Scary figures, until you consider tobacco kills almost 500,000 in the US each year, and alcohol kills around 100,000. But those are usually slow, expensive deaths, not the sudden overdoses you get with prescription narcotics. Notice how when billion dollar industries kill hundreds of people each day with their products it becomes a statistical news story. Yet when one kid has a bad trip on Salvia it becomes the scare story of the week, and must be banned immediately. Double standard?