An amusing Farmer's Insurance commercial.

Boing Boing recently posted a link to this hilarious mash-up of the original Star Trek with Jefferson Airplane's epochal "White Rabbit". Hilarity ensues...

I expect this will start a trend of Trek mash-ups.

On the self-released front, please to enjoy this miasmic fusion of post-rock and weirdo ambient techno, as presented by Downliners Sekt. Their entire 2008 release, The Saltire Wave, is available for free via their site; hie thee hither to snag and enjoy. No official word on whether these two tracks are truly inspired by Sasha Shulgin, but you know, it just kinda makes sense.

Downliners Sekt - Shulgin
Downliners Sekt - Shulgin (Part II)

An Animal Planet video that proves two things: a) watching monkeys get drunk is HILARIOUS! And b) watching lemurs get high on the narcotic secretions of giant millipedes is CREEPY!

Via MilkandCookies.

I keep forgetting to pass this photo on; Megan Seling posted it over on the Slog recently. The comments thread over there is pretty funny.

Just in case you'd forgotten, there happen to be quite a few doctors out there who support medical marijuana. Why, just take a look at this recent position paper from the American College of Physicians, for instance:

The American College of Physicians, the largest medical specialty organization and the second largest physician group in the United States, today issued a strong statement urging a fundamental rethinking of U.S. government policy on medical marijuana, stating, "ACP strongly urges protection from criminal or civil penalties for patients who use medical marijuana as permitted by state laws."

ACP's position paper specifically criticized the federal classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug, deemed by the government as not having accepted medical uses or safety for use under medical supervision. "ACP urges review of marijuana's status as a Schedule I controlled substance and reclassification into a more appropriate schedule, given the scientific evidence regarding marijuana's safety and efficacy in some clinical conditions," the statement declared.

What good might come from such a statement?

"This statement by America's second largest doctors' group demolishes the myth that the medical community doesn't support medical marijuana," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C. "The ACP's statement smashes a number of other myths, including the claims that adequate substitutes are available or that marijuana is unsafe for medical use. 124,000 doctors have just said what our government refuses to hear, that it makes no medical or moral sense to arrest the sick and suffering for using medical marijuana."

And LAist notes:

While the country's most respected medical collective, the American Medical Association (AMA), continues to ask for more research, they do not support the declassification of marijuana; the ACP hopes to persuade the AMA otherwise. They also hope to put pressure on the government--particularly now, when all eyes are on the politicians who are positioned to assume the White House, and bring about change.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration - Australia's equivalent of the FDA - is investigating claims that Ambien (or Stilnox, as it's marketed Down Under) is causing disproportionately large numbers of reports of bizarre behavior: sleep walking, sleep eating, even sleep suicides. No one has any idea why Australians are reporting side-effects at many times the rate found in other nations:

"Interestingly, we're not seeing nearly the same profile of side effects of Stilnox in other countries as we're seeing in Australia," Dr Hammett said.

"The reports of abnormal sleep behaviour, that are the focus of media attention, appear to be much more common in Australia than other countries."

That could be put down to a number of issues.

"Is that because we have a very good reporting system here in Australia and our health-care professionals and our community know that they can report these adverse reactions? That's certainly a strong possibility," he said.

"Or is the recent focus in the media on this somehow affecting the reporting pattern in Australia?"

As an Australian who gets 20 Stilnox a year (for international air travel), I've been enjoying my sleeping pills. Apparently, other Australians haven't.

The Dallas Observer has a mournful, in-depth article on how peyote is vanishing from southern Texas, the only part of the United States that can grow it. Only three people are legally allowed to harvest peyote, which can only be sold under strict guidelines. However, the buttons are getting smaller and scarcer:

"Peyote is in jeopardy," he says. "You hear stories about it coming from Mexico now. The ranchers in Texas have put up tall fences you can't jump. Then, there are all the wetbacks and Border Patrol. There's just too much heat.

"A lot of the Natives are real sensitive about the situation," Collum says. "The supply will not meet the demand unless you can convince the ranchers to cooperate. And the ranchers, they don't give a fuck about peyote."

Ranchers used to be friendly with the peyoteros, who paid them a small lease for access to their land. In recent years, as land prices have skyrocketed and Hispanic immigration has boomed, Anglo ranchers have come to view the peyoteros as a nuisance. According to Morales, many ranchers would rather plow their fields to plant grass for cattle feed than protect their native plants.

This isn't a story about the extinction of peyote, given that 90% of North America's peyote supply comes from Mexico. But Mexican peyote cannot be legally imported into the United States. Theoretically it can be grown in greenhouses, but even though it can be legally harvested, it apparently cannot be legally cultivated. What to do?

As a botanist, Terry thinks he's found a solution—buying up land to protect the plant. But the price of land has skyrocketed.

"The only obstacle is the cost of buying a minimum of 2,000 acres of South Texas real estate," he says. "That means we're talking about something on the order of $2 million. For a relatively new 501(c)3 like the Cactus Conservation Institute, that's a fund-raising project of enormous magnitude."

It's also a challenge raising money to save a plant that the federal government considers a dangerous, addictive drug. But the biggest obstacle for conservation might be the Indians themselves. Many Indians are opposed to cultivating peyote in greenhouses. Their opposition stems from a mystical belief in the cactus as divinely planted.

Hmm, caught between government policy and mystical belief - sounds like the church is definitely headed for a spiritual test...

I don't think we here at DoseNation are above mentioning, in the ongoing saga of Lindsay Lohan, that she "was comfortable with" posing for a nude photo shoot for New York magazine, inspired by Marilyn Monroe. Lohan mentioned Monroe's, and Heath Ledger's, drug overdose deaths, saying "They are both prime examples of what this industry can do to someone," but vowed not to follow that path, saying "I sure as hell wouldn't let it happen to me."

Children's lit? Clever satire? Educational hilarity? All of the above?