For no apparent reason, please to enjoy this vaguely demented music video by the artist Socalled, for a track called "You Are Never Alone." This should get your weekend off to a properly unsettling start.

Drug testing for alcohol and drugs is plenty pernicious, but now add to that testing for nicotine. Seems like if you're a heavy smoker, you might not want to accept a job at a company that screens for nicotine, but one unlucky smoker did exactly that and wound up getting fired over it. Unfortunately, the company in question doesn't seem to distinguish between "quitting smoking" and "using nicotine-based smoking cessation methods," as it seems he was fired for having too much nicotine in his system. Still, it all seems pretty ridiculous:

"It's a freedom thing: 90 percent of Americans support me and in Europe it's more like 100 percent," said Rodrigues, who claims that since he was fired last year he has featured in newspaper articles in Britain and appeared on radio shows in Poland and Lithuania.

A poll published last week showed that most Americans think Rodrigues's firing was unfair. Only seven percent of Americans think employers should be allowed to sack workers who smoke, the survey said.

The flip side of this approach, of course, is the case of a school in Australia that has allowed a 16-year-old student to have officially sanctioned smoke breaks, on account of how she needs cigarettes to stay calm - despite the fact that she isn't old enough to legally smoke in the first place. Wacky! And how exactly did this young student wind up in such a position? Her mother is at least partially to blame:

Tara's mother said she had started rewarding Tara with just six cigarettes a day if she did chores and behaved at school.

"It's not like I want my kid to smoke. I've done everything to get her to stop it, so if I can control it and say 'when you can have a cigarette, you do chores', that might help.

"I don't want her smoking. It's the last thing you want to let your kid do.''

Honestly, I can think of several other things that would more likely qualify for the "last thing" I'd want my kid to do. But still, the notion that this kid's doctors colluded in basically writing her a permission slip for this kind of behavior does seem a bit dodgy.

Of course, in terms of getting through high school, at least smoking is still cool, so she's got that going for her.

In the continuing quest to lengthen human life spans, U.S. researchers recently turned their attention to an antidepressant called mianserin, and found that they could extend the life span of a worm with similar biology to humans by around 30 percent. Apparently this is achieved by tricking the brain into believing that it's starving, mimicking the beneficial effects of "caloric restriction" without actually causing the little guy to go hungry:

Many studies have shown that slightly starving certain animals -- reducing how much they eat by about 30 percent -- can cause them to live longer.

It is not entirely clear if this occurs in humans, but researchers are keen to duplicate the beneficial effects of calorie restriction without the misery of going hungry....

[Mianserin] blocks brain cell signaling by the neurotransmitter or message-carrying chemical serotonin, which is linked with mood and appetite. The drug is used in Europe under several brand names, including Bolvidon, Norval and Tolvon but not usually in the United States. It can cause aplastic anemia and other effects on immune system cells.

Buck's team found that in addition to interfering with serotonin in the worm, it also blocked receptors for another neurotransmitter, octopamine.

They said some other research suggests that serotonin and octopamine may complement one another -- with serotonin signaling the presence of food and octopamine signaling starvation.

Buck said it is possible that mianserin drug tips the balance in the direction of octopamine, tricking the brain into thinking it has been starved.

There's no call to run right out and start sucking down mianserin, of course; as one of the researchers points out, "It is a stretch from a worm to a human being." Which, while seemingly obvious, does need to be pointed out I suppose, given the hunger of some to see their mortal coils extended beyond current limits. There's a whole life extension debate waiting to be unpacked behind this story, of course, which I leave for the comments if you're interested; obviously I think this line of research is promising and exciting, though, and am happy to see even modest results along these lines.

Here's something from the "why didn't I think of that?" department: a Singaporean consulting company will create custom cocktails for you, based on your personality or some other original set of criteria, and will only charge you "1800 Singapore dollars ($NZ1633) for a recipe for an individual event and 5400 dollars ($NZ4900) for corporate events". Gee, is that all?

"Taste is such a personal experience," said Sim, who prefers being called a "flavor Impressionist". "We create recipes that reflect the personality of the client and which aim to answer the question: what would your story taste like?"....

Sim, who studied psychology and the cultural connotations attached to foods, says he can take months to research an individual or a product and decide on the right combination of ingredients that best reflect their nature.

For example, his "Candle in the Wind" cocktail, dedicated to Marilyn Monroe, includes vanilla because it's the base note in her favorite perfume and grapefruit juice, which is bittersweet, to reflect her life.

"It's easier with companies, because they provide you with the type of image they want to portray and their target clients. It takes longer for individuals. It's very difficult too to create a cocktail for someone who's close to you," he said.

Of course, for some people - like me - coming up with an original cocktail would be as easy as finding out which brand of drain cleaner is on sale at the grocery store, but I guess I never really have fit into the definition of "high end clientele."

If you plan to visit London between now and December 9th, you might want to check out an intriguing new play that opened recently called The Six Wives of Timothy Leary, which notched at least one favorable review:

Wife number one, Marianne (Hetty Abbott), tells her story to a guest at a party, his second wife Mary (Lisa Came) speaks to a journalist at a restaurant, his third wife Nena (Anna Brook) talks to a lover, his fourth wife Rosemary (Charlotte Donachie) addresses a rally, common law wife Joanna (Katharine Bennett-Fox) speaks to Leary when he is in prison and his last wife Barbara (Alison Baker) talks to his spirit at his funeral.

With so many different voices and experiences to be heard over a 40-year period, the play could easily have degenerated into confusion, but director Timothy Hughes keeps the story tight, giving each wife a distinct voice and look, each with her own mannerisms and ways of moving around the sparsely-designed stage, while snatches of music including jazz and rock’n’roll keep us informed of the era.

It takes very little time to become immersed in their stories and there is no weak link - each actress is totally in tune with her character, successfully managing to communicate the highs and lows of being married to Leary.

Definitely sounds like the production is worth a peek. If any DoseNation readers manage to check it out, we'd love to hear about it.

I don't think this is a joke, but it should be a cautionary tale for those of you in search of better ways to get high. Today you may be smoking or snorting your drugs, tomorrow you could be running live current through your body. No, really.

Baba Mangal Das, the priest of Ram Janaki temple at Bamhorisar village in Lalitpur District of Uttar Pradesh is addicted to this weird habit for three years. And, he strangely claims to have never faced any adverse effect.

“At night, I plug this wire in and place a live wire either inside my mouth, ears or under my armpit to sleep well. Without having electric shocks, I turn restless. I have been doing it for the past three to four years," a priest Ram Janaki temple, Bamhorisar.

The 52-year-old priest is said to have been fond of opium, smack and marijuana. His craving for intoxication remained unquenched until he experienced electric shock on touching one end of an electrified iron rod in 2004.

Mangal Das loves getting his dose of thrills from a kitchen-heater's coils while it is switched on. Over it, he places one end of a rod and takes the other end to his tongue.

"I used to dope a lot. I used to have marijuana but slowly it stopped intoxicating me. I started getting electric shocks to satisfy my craving,” said Mangal Das.

In a move that's stunning international analysts, Afghan opium farmers are ditching their traditional cash crops in favor of another lucrative high: Jenkem. The move comes in the wake of a UN and coalition-led crackdown on opium poppy production in the southern Afghan region.

"The opium market is saturated," bemoans one Afghani farmer with loose ties to Taliban militants. "The kids today, all they want is Jenkem Jenkem Jenkem. They see it on CNN and suddenly it is all they want."

While this move away from agriculture-based drug production to sewage-based production means more profits for the impoverished farmers, it also means more headaches for the coalition forces tasked with drug eradication in the area.

"Opium poppies are one thing," says Major Rim Bryant of the Marine task force in charge of poppy control in the Southern regions, "But with Jenkem, unless you want us to break every pot, bucket, and pail within three-thousand square miles, we just can't stop it."

But the problem doesn't end there. Military insiders have recently told DoseNation.com that Jenkem use has spread to coalition soldiers stationed in the Middle East. "They're having major problems with the guys in Iraq using this Jenkem," commented Major Ruble [name changed] in a recent communiqué. "I can smell it on their breath! The Marine Corps sent out a warning to all its members about it so we'd know what to look for."

And while opium poppies may make a nice bright target for aerial surveillance, the raw ingredients for Jenkem are much harder to spot, even with high-tech methods. "Basically we're out here looking for (feces) and (urine)," says Bryant. "And what are we supposed to do when we find it? Bury it? These guys are sneaky out here. They'll just make more."

---

This story is exclusive to DoseNation.com.

Forty-two seconds from tiny to huge. Amazing!

Hi , I have created new software to help people stop smoking.
It's a quit meter, but with more opttions. If you want to see, you can download for free at www.stopbuddy.com

This is old news, but it became new news again today when Obama was asked about drugs by a student during a campaign stop:

"You know, I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about. You know, got into drinking. I experimented with drugs," he said. "There was a whole stretch of time that I didn't really apply myself a lot. It wasn't until I got out of high school and went to college that I started realizing, 'Man, I wasted a lot of time."'

Obama has written about his drug use in his memoir, "Dreams from My Father."

"Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final fatal role of the young would be black man," Obama wrote. Mostly he smoked marijuana and drank alcohol, Obama wrote, but occasionally he would snort cocaine when he could afford it.

Drugs, Obama wrote, were a way he "could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

Blur the edges of my what now? I forgot what I was reading.