Heads up, heads: the 20th Anniversary HIGH TIMES Cannabis Cup announced its annual winners recently. I imagine the competition was fierce, but being a non-smoker, and having not been in Amsterdam anyway, I can only report the news. For instance, in the coveted headliner Cannabis Cup category:

Cannabis Cup:
1) G-13 Haze - Barney's
2) Chocolope - Grey Area
3) Super Silver Haze - Greenhouse United

I swear, if I ever do take up smoking for some reason or another, please by all means let it be to the soothing smoke of Super Silver Haze.

Fan vids already abound, including this one, featuring - wait for it - Tommy Chong:

I don't currently have the time to spare to watch this CBC documentary about "The LSD Crisis," but I did watch enough of it to enjoy some footage of Tim Leary getting ambushed by an interviewer (Art Linkletter maybe?):

LEARY: When you take LSD, you don't go out and get involved in fights, you don't go out and get involved in activities. Internal experience-
INTERVIEWER: What about going out a window and getting involved in a sidewalk twelve floors under?

Teehee. Anyway, here it is, a documentary from 1966 that apparently shows off "acid parties" and other Leary mayhem:

Via MilkandCookies.

You have to check the photos at the Daily Mail and decide for yourself what's going on, but it doesn't look good. Can you say magic bullet? And she's also canceled her remaining tour dates this year because her husband is in custody on jury tampering charges. Keep on rockin' in the UK!

In contrast to the Washington Post article on MDMA in therapy, it is somewhat anachronistic to find an article warning local residents of the dangers of this new drug, ecstasy. Are the people from Altona, Manitoba, really so isolated that they don't have a proofreader or even know how to spell ecstasy?

Is you [sic] son or daughter doing ecstacy [sic]? Has your best friend decided to try it “just once.” Have you? Ecstasy use is on the rise in Altona, and local police say a recent possession charge is only the beginning.

Altona Police picked up an individual under the intoxicated person detention act, and through the course of the arrest learned the suspect was high on ecstacy [sic]...

This drug is a new one on the Altona Police.

The Altona Police have never seen ecstasy? At least they know what to look for now:

Visible side effects of ecstacy [sic] use include dilated pupils, involuntary eye movement, sweaty palms, heavy sweating, increased heart rate, increased body temperature, heightened touch sensations, chattiness, restlessness, chattering teeth and muscle spasms.

Lookout chatty people, the Altona police are on to you now. And to wrap it all up we have a strange piece of vaguely scary disinformation:

People trying the drug for the first time are also in dangerous territory. Some people simply lack the proper enzymes to break down the drug. Ingesting the drug will prove fatal in those cases.

WTF? Is this true? Anybody?

Fame is hard to cope with, especially for such a little dog...

The latest from our favorite junkie-rocker. Way to stay in the news cycle Pete! Good on ya'.

In order to reduce temptation, Pete Doherty has banned all alcohol from the Babyshambles tour bus, bass player Drew McConnell told the NME, though Pete might have been better off banning heroin from the tour instead of booze. Now the only time you'll hear the phrase 'chin chin' will be when somebody is counting Pete's.

"He's insisted on it," whined Drew, "I thought it was a joke at first but it's true - we're having to hide bottles of beer under our pillows! I think it's indicative of Peter's resolve to sort himself out."

Of course, staying sober on tour is going to be difficult when your fan base consists of a bunch of 12-year-old drug fiends.

Some interesting news from our friends across the pond:

MORE than one in four 12 to 15 year olds in North Somerset has tried drugs in the last four weeks, according to a survey carried out by the schools watchdog.

The Ofsted questionnaire results show how the illegal substances listed include cocaine, LSD, ecstasy, heroin, speed, magic mushrooms, cannabis and solvents.

The only other bit of relevant data I could find from this report:

* 36 per cent of year eight and 10 pupils said they needed better information on sex and relationships, while 30 per cent said they needed more advice on drugs use.

Hmm... That must be the 30 percent without access to the internet.

The Washington Post ran a comprehensive article on MDMA and PTSD therapy this weekend. I didn't have a chance to read it until this morning, but it hits all the notes you would expect from a pro-therapy standpoint, giving out bits of data only the avid Erowid or MAPS bulletin reader might know. There is too much juicy text to crib in this space, but this is definitely a landmark article for the mainstream US press.

And now a word from our sponsor:

It seems Afghan opium farmers are actually ditching opium in favor of marijuana, which yields far more plant and drug per acre than any other crop they could find. The news of this switch was reported a few weeks ago in the New York Times, but what wasn't reported was how soldiers tasked with eradicating the plants are dealing with the new chore:

Other than taking pot shots at Taliban soldiers, forests of massive marijuana plants are giving Canadian soldiers few options.

Afghanistan is known for its poppy trade. But huge fields of marijuana plants, ranging from six to 12 feet high, are causing unique problems.

...

Taliban soldiers have been hiding in the forests, then jumping out to fire rocket-propelled grenades at vehicles. Because the plants retain energy, the insurgents can't be detected.

...

Another problem is the plants retain water. When the military tried to clear the forests, they found the plants wouldn't burn. They even tried various substances such as diesel fuel, to no avail.

The soldiers did have some success with one forest, though.

"A few plants at the edge of the forest were slightly drier and brown. They caught fire and burnt for a while," said Hillier.

"Unfortunately, they had one of our rifle sections of 10 men slightly down-wind from that. We couldn't keep up with the orders for munchies."