DoseNation reader JM mentioned this article on the environmental impact of cocaine production in a recent comment and I felt it deserves its own listing.

The production of a gram of cocaine means the destruction of four square metres of Colombian forest, they said, raising the question of which supermodels, popstars and city types should be lined up with hummer drivers and big game hunters in the environmental most-wanted stakes.

which puts a nice counterpoint on this high-larious comicstrip:
Partially Clips' Model in Evening Gown

The Register notes damage associated with processing chemicals, clearing forests for roads and runways, and even damage from supply side suppression efforts.

[T]he Colombian government's efforts to eradicate the plantations only serve to exacerbate the situation. They use planes to spray herbicides over coca plantations, with predictably gruesome consequences for insects, amphibians and other plants in the area. Growers then move to other areas, clear the native vegetation and start all over again.

Now, let's note in fairness that it is downright perverse to call drug users morally culpable for "forcing" the Colombian government to take these destructive actions. 'Cause you know we voted for this in order to keep selection pressure high on those coca plants. Only the strongest stuff will do for us, y'understand.

I was recently involved in a discussion of the environmenal impact of drug use a while back where one discussant pointed out that there's no such thing as a "guilt-free high". Most pot is grown under high powered lights. Nitrous oxide is greenhouse gas. Organic synthesis of MDMA, LSD or your personal favorite brand of alphabet soup tends to produce toxic byproducts and due to the unregulated nature of the business, these are rarely disposed of properly even when the people in question would otherwise be inclined to. Let's take a moment to imagine the trial and press coverage of an Ecstasy producer busted when the Feds found out about their inexplicable hazmat disposal bills.

Chalk up two more arguments against the war on drugs. Lots of people talk about the human violence surrounding trafficking due to prohibition. But not only would legalized, regulated drugs reduce turf wars and maintain higher standards of product purity, it would also mean that producers would be held to the same environmental standards as other industries and the worlds' governments could stop trying to destroy their own ecologies in the name of safety and security.

Breaking important news; I can't possibly improve on the AP's phrasing: "Three teenagers were arrested after two of them told police they dug up a secluded grave north of Houston, removed the skull from the coffin and converted it into a marijuana bong."

I wonder if they put the bowl in through the sinuses, or if they drilled a hole in the occiput? There don't seem to be any photos available of this particular science project, but if we find any we will certainly put them up here!

This is my favorite part of the AP article:

Police were interviewing Jones about the use of a stolen debit card when he told them about the grave theft, which purportedly occurred around March 15, according to court documents. Asked why Jones would volunteer such a story, Chomiak said, "We can only speculate and guess to what goes on in the criminal mind."

Another cyanide&happiness drug joke. Not the most exciting thing ever, but cute!

The Economist reports that American teens are increasingly fearful and avoidant of meth, but seem to be turning to cocaine (often crack) instead.

It is as though teenagers have a fixed quota of worry, which merely moves from drug to drug.

Which raises several interesting questions:

Is that because the government has a fairly fixed budget to spend on anti-drug campaigns and has to decide which ones to warn against?

Or is it because teens base these attitudes from the reality around them and they maintain a roughly constant number of friends and relatives who can support one habit or another?

Or is it because meth really is more dangerous than coke?

Enquiring minds want to know.

The Los Angeles Times recently ran a pretty fascinating column by someone who thought to go check out just how "easy" it was to purchase medical marijuana. Turns out: it's pretty easy. Not "easy" as in "any jackass walking in off the streets can get me some;" actually, it seems exactly (and refreshingly) the point of the law that the columnist herself actually voted for:

Fifteen minutes later, I was greeted by the doctor, a silver-haired man in a white lab coat, his name embroidered across the front. Diplomas lined the wall behind him. On his desk was a collection of family photos.

He looked over my medical forms and asked about the arthritis I'd noted. I told him the truth. Some days my fingers are so stiff it hurts to grip a doorknob or a steering wheel. I'd tried prescription drugs in the past, but stopped because of the side effects.

The doctor inspected my swollen fingers, gently squeezing the tender joints. He checked my pulse and blood pressure, then took a stethoscope and listened to my lungs.

His 10-minute exam was about as thorough as the one I'd received last year from the hand specialist at the orthopedic center, who sent me home with Celebrex.

This new doctor told me marijuana could help. He recommended I not smoke it. Bad for the lungs. Better to use it with a vaporizer. Or ingest it, infused in tea or baked in brownies.

Then he handed me a prescription for marijuana. Good for one year; no refill limits.

Apparently, people were up in arms, because the next column by Sandy Banks made it clear that dissent was in the air. But the fact is, medical marijuana is the law in the state of California, period. And even though abuse is possible, that doesn't mean the program should be abandoned, any more than we should completely abandon certain types of pharm prescriptions simply because abuse is a potential outcome.

The problem is unscrupulous providers who aim their marketing at healthy young people, and physicians who hand out prescriptions (legally considered "recommendations") without examining patients or inspecting their IDs.

Ultimately, the medical marijuana delivery process relies on patient and physician integrity. Some folks are going to game the system for a legal high. And some will credit it with making their lives worth living.

Beverly Hills physician Craig Cohen has turned down enough "24-year-olds with insomnia who haven't seen a doctor" to make him wonder about his role in recommending marijuana: "Am I just the candy man? That's in the back of my mind," he said in an interview last week.

But his other patients keep him going. "People with strokes, muscle spasticity, peripheral neuropathy. . . . The people I see are amazingly sick," he said.

"The state has provided a way for them to get relief. What's needed now is tolerance. And recognition that these people and their pain are real."

Neuroscientists have been studying learning and memory for many years. Some studies are done at the systems level, with behavioral tasks, functional neuroimaging, and lesions. Other studies are done at the cellular and molecular level, particularly focusing on the importance of the NMDA receptor in long-term potentiation of synapses, and the importance of DNA transcription and protein synthesis in the growth of new synapses to consolidate memories permanently. At least since the description of Korsakoff's syndrome in the 19th century, it has seemed clear that there is one mechanism for short-term memory, and another mechanism for long-term memory, and some mechanism(s) for transferring from short-term to long-term.

Since some time before the 90s, it has been known that elevated levels of adrenaline strengthen the formation of memories. This seems intuitively obvious, and it has spawned a bunch of clinical interest in possibly preventing PTSD (which I first learned about from Jamesk's post here). This has received quite a bit of media attention. The mechanism essentially involves weakening (though likely not blocking altogether) the transfer of information from short-term to long-term memory, although I don't think the mechanism has been well elucidated yet.

It has been known since at least as far back as the 80s that this transfer process involves transcription and protein synthesis. Also, it has been known that various disruptions (including electroshock) can block this transfer. More surprisingly, it has been observed at least as far back as 1968 that these amnesic treatments could also destroy existing long-term memories if those memories were first recalled into active awareness. This led to a theory called "reconsolidation", which means pretty much what it sounds like. Putting these pieces together, around 2000 it was demonstrated that activating a long-term memory, and then subsequently blocking protein synthesis in the area of the brain associated with the particular memory, caused the memory to disappear. This raises the possibility of Eternal Sunshine-style selective removal of memories

More recent cutting-edge research on the molecular details of memory have raised an astonishing, even shocking memory-hacking possibility. It was found that an enzyme called protein kinase Mzeta is involved in the maintenance of long-term memories. In very recent studies in rats, researchers were able to completely erase long-term memories by infusing a blocker called ZIP into the appropriate area of the rats' brains, even long after the memories had been consolidated and stable. This effect is non-specific; that is, the implication is that they are erasing all of the rats' long-term memories!

In the world of neuroscience there are few dichotomies left to argue, and another one has now bitten the dust.

One of the major scientific questions about the brain is how it can translate the simple intent to perform an action -- say, reach for a glass -- into the dynamic, coordinated symphony of muscle movements required for that action. The neural instructions for such actions originate in the brains primary motor cortex, and the puzzle has been whether the neurons in this region encode the details of individual muscle activities or the high-level commands that govern kinetics -- the direction and velocity of desired movements.

Obviously the materialistic view would favor a direct 1-to-1 mapping of neural action to muscle action, making the brain the direct control center for all intent and movement, and this now appears to be the case. The brain maps both individual muscle firing instructions as well as the overall movement patterns for every action, which seems obvious when you think about it. How did they figure it out? By watching monkeys playing videogames. Yay!

I know college kids think they can get away with anything, but San Diego State's Theta Chi chapter must have thought they were invincible. They were infiltrated and busted with a fully operational drug distribution ring on campus; group text messages advertising cocaine sales? May I suggest fewer bong hits and a tad more common sense?

Dozens of San Diego State University students were arrested after a sweeping drug investigation found that some fraternity members openly dealt drugs and one even sent a mass text message advertising cocaine, authorities said Tuesday.

Two kilograms of cocaine were seized, along with 350 Ecstasy pills, marijuana, psychedelic mushrooms, hash oil, methamphetamine, illicit prescription drugs, several guns and at least $60,000 in cash, authorities said.

Of the 96 people arrested, 75 were students.

Another gem buried in the lower paragraphs:

Those arrested included a student who was about to receive a criminal justice degree and another who was to receive a master's degree in homeland security.

They have master's degrees in homeland security? Wow. I can totally see the guys from my school's drug frat going into homeland security.

A high school student is accused of selling brownies made with marijuana at a school fundraiser.

17-year-old Heather McCurry told police she sold the brownies to raise money to buy a new computer.

Hmm, do I smell a future DoseNation contributor?

Bent has acknowledged having sex with followers — including his daughter-in-law — and lying naked with virgins. He said the virgins asked for sex, but he refused.