We interrupt this blog to bring you the following news flash: painkillers feel good. But don't take my word for it: take the word of popular television star, Hugh Laurie:

Hugh Laurie has admitted he experimented with strong painkillers.

The British actor, who plays Vicodin addict Dr. Gregory House in hit US TV show House, claims he tried the drug so he could understand his character better.

Hugh said: "I wouldn't recommend it - we have to be careful. But then again if you're not in pain it gives a floaty, pleasurable feeling."

As someone who spent years training as an actor to earn a degree in theatre, and as someone who understands how important it is for popular media figures to convey positive messages to the children of our society, I can only say: yeah, he's right, it sure does feel floaty and pleasurable. That is all.

MSNBC recently ran a pretty compelling and clear-headed account of a former Glamour writer's descent into Ambien addiction. The classic "descent into addiction" account is pretty much a standard, but the media isn't particularly saturated with sleeping pill addiction stories; consequently, this feels like shining a bit of light into a dark corner for those of us whose familiarity with Ambien and similar substances is a bit more fleeting.

Plus, Ambient is teh weirdness.

Once, I woke up to find a flight attendant bent over me, listening to my heart. We’d just landed, and everyone was standing up, collecting their bags. I’d remained slumped in my seat, head lolling forward. Passengers were craning their necks to look at me. When I realized what was happening, I brushed the flight attendant’s hands away. “I’m fine,” I said, annoyed. “I thought you’d stopped breathing,” she said, looking deeply concerned.

One of our agents in the field reported on this unusual site:

The sponsored link line on gmail this morning read:

Monkey on Acid - aisforacidmonkey.com - It's a monkey. It's on acid.

The link is to a piece of art, a degraded photo of a monkey in a cage, staring at its hand as many a tripper have done before. I'm not sure if the monkey is on acid, but I found it a memorable print. Talk about non sequitur of the first order.

This isn't drug related, but it does provide an apalling example of just how bad health journalism can be in general, even when prohibition isn't involved. The article at the link begins: "If you thought ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ products are the thing u need to turn to in a world full of chemicals, well… you’d better think twice." And in the next paragraph: "Not only is this chemical thought to be responsible for cancer, but it could also be a kidney neurotoxicant and respiratory toxicant among other things." WTF?!?

I just sent this letter to their editorial staff:

The quality of this article is inexcusable. Consider the opening: "If you thought ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ products are the thing u need to turn to in a world full of chemicals, well… you’d better think twice."

If u thought it was a good idea to hire teenage girls to write articles and send them in by SMS, well... you'd better think twice.

And then in the second paragraph: "Not only is this chemical thought to be responsible for cancer, but it could also be a kidney neurotoxicant and respiratory toxicant among other things." What the heck is a "kidney neurotoxicant"? Do you have any fact-checking staff at all? Or editors?

I'm certainly going to take anything I read on efluxmedia.com with a large grain of salt from now on.

Please to enjoy this beautiful recent episode of the delightful webcomic Wondermark. It's funny because it's true.

Seattle amateur photog Nic Launceford captured this stunning graf piece on the graffiti wall in Seattle's Georgetown. I really can't stop staring at it. This thumbnail doesn't do it justice AT ALL, so you'll have to click the link to view the large size.

Specifically I like how my brain continually tries to re-orient the image to make a face or other recognizable pattern, and is foiled. I like how it kinda looks like several faces melting into each other and both falling into and jumping out of the wall at the same time, and how the curvy twisty centerpiece contrasts with the basic blocky shapes in the background and sides.

Just a marvelous piece that makes me fall in love with graf work all over again.

Nic's got some other shots of great pieces in his Flickr stream, I recommend giving a few minutes' attention.

For those hep cats out there using Twitter to keep updated on your friends, enemies and crushes, this is for you. Follow DoseNation to get notifications of new DoseNation posts to your Twitter stream and/or mobile device. Yay for proprioception for the global mind!

Oh sure, you think you know how to party. But every now and then, a 15-year-old comes along and steals the crown for a day or two. Presented without comment:

15-year-old Gemma Anscomb told her parents she was having a few friends around for a video night. But instead she had advertised a party on social networking site Bebo and invited everyone she knew.

When Robert and Julia Anscomb arrived home the next day they found their dog Bailey unconscious. He had overdosed on ecstasy tablets. Their dining room floor was covered in four inches of beer, their lap-tops, iPods and jewellery had been stolen and they found handcauffs and underwear in their eight-year-old daughter's bedroom.

Mrs Anscomb told the Daily Mail : "We found underwear between the sheets and a pair of handcuffs." "What were they thinking? This is a little girl's room."

In her own bedroom the scene was little different. The walls were covered in black marks and there was evidence of group sex.

"There were six people in there having sex at one time. We feel totally violated."

Traces of cocaine, marijuana and alcohol bottles littered the house and the family estimates it will cost thousands of dollars to clean up.

But Gemma, who drank to excess and passed out at 7:30pm is not repentant. While she has gone into hiding she has managed to post comments about the party on her Bebo site.

"Yeahh it (the party) went wrong but it was well good. . . I mean it was f****** good," she wrote.

"My mother thought it would teach me a lesson by putting it in the papers. . . all thats dne is make everyone go 'wow ur party made the front page' . . . i meann it wasssss goooodddd. . . and my mums a t*** nehowww. . ."

OK, at least one comment: the reason this young lady leaps directly into the ranks of the professionals is that I know a whole host of contenders who would collapse weeping if their dogs wound up comatose after eating all their ecstasy... both for the dog's safety, and the loss of the pills. It just proves my whole point.

Aaaaaaanyway.

Here's something that you don't see every day: The Edmonton Sun is attempting to implicate "foxy methoxy" in the recent death of an Albertan.

Now we here at DoseNation are hardly equipped with the army of interns required to fact check every single news report that surfaces in our RSS slush piles. Therefore, take this with whatever grain of salt you see fit to take it with; however, the reason I'm bothering to pass it on is simply that it's so rare to see this particular substance in the news. And of course, it's amusing watching local news try to understand the situation.

The lede:

A local medical examiner is trying to determine whether an overdose of foxy methoxy - the latest mind-altering substance tripping into psychedelic subcultures - has killed someone in Alberta.

They're leaning toward this conclusion because "the rare hallucinogen, which has caused only one known death worldwide, appeared in the recent toxicology results of a dead Albertan, medical examiner Dr. Peter Singer told Sun Media." So there you have it: the article doesn't report on any other substances in the toxicology results. Nevertheless, the headline reads "'Foxy' drug killed Albertan?" Awesome!

Later on in the article, Singer notes:

"(Contrary to reports suggesting it is a mild hallucinogen) I suspect it's fairly potent, that the high is short-lived and unpleasant for most people."

Thank goodness Singer is on the scene to offer his suspicions about the drug! Certainly the reason it's turning up in someone's tox report is because that person expected it to be unpleasant. To be absolutely fair, the experience is by no means a slam dunk for all users. That said, it's also not particularly short-lived, and "most people" is an egregious overstatement regardless.

My favorite part, though:

Foxy is a synthetic triptomine, a drug in the same family as LSD and magic mushrooms that causes hallucinations, intensified tactile sensations, and - ever since a high-profile bust in New York City in 1999 - has been reputed to enhance sexual experiences.

They repeat the "triptomine" spelling twice in the article. I have a hard time reading that without pronouncing it "tript-o-MINE!" ala JJ Walker.

Aaaanyway.

Let us know if you go digging around for more facts in this case. In an ideal world, we'd do it ourselves, but the ideal parts of this world are contained in a small metal box that is buried very deep beneath the ocean, and we know not how to reach this box without awakening the Deep Ones who will someday consume us.

I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet, but it seems like it might be up my alley. It's from the C-Realm Podcast ("C" stands for consciousness), which I just learned about, and which apparently covers "topics focused on the coming Vingean Singularity, Entheogenic Exploration, the re-localization of community & agriculture, and Individual Conscious Autonomy." At any rate, occasional DoseNation correspondent Erik Davis pops up on a recent edition:

As the start of the fourth and final season of Battlestar Galactica draws near, [C-Realm blogger] KMO uses BSG to dig into questions of the continuity of individual identity over time with philosophy professor Amy Kind. Professor Kind contributed a chapter to the new book, Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy. In the second half of the program, we hear from Techgnosis author, Erik Davis. Erik details the need to employ tactical skepticism in negotiating the Mundus Imaginalis and dealing with its inhabitants.