TV news clip about kids and drugs in high school. Best quote, "When I sold acid I could sell 100 hits a day at school." Woah. Funny side note, you can actually hear the producer talking (and chuckling) during portions of this segment.

I know it would hardly be sporting to pick on an essay by a fifth grader, who won a competition at her school by writing about how much better the world would be if drugs and alcohol didn't exist. Instead, I merely wanted to point out that "Just Say No" still thrives, in case you'd forgotten, and honestly, this particular fifth grader isn't making bad points. Sure, the things she described - drunk driving, drug addiction, cigarettes causing cancer - would all go away without drugs and alcohol. Some of her other points - people would be happier, families would be closer - well, that's certainly debatable, and while this young girl won the essay competition, she's not on the debate team yet and her earnestness is pretty endearing regardless.

At any rate, no fifth grader is going to win an essay contest writing about how drugs are awesome, and frankly, the reason I wanted to point out this girl's essay is the lurking suspicion deep in my mind, usually buried but occasionally foregrounded for various reasons, that life would actually be a lot less complicated and a little more enjoyable without the temptation of recreational drug use. Before anyone jumps down my throat about that, let me point out that neither I, nor our fifth grade essay winner, is really talking about so-called "spiritual" use of any particular substance. But even there, I'm willing to blur the line by saying it's long, long been a policy of mine that I can't in good conscience "turn on" a person to LSD who's never taken it before, not anymore, regardless of whether that person seems likely to use it in a spiritual context or not. Of course, that's just a personal quirk, borne out of a belief that LSD is a unique Pandora's box, and I have no problem giving people advice once they've already made up their minds to take it.

But still, it's there in my mind - a tiny impulse to quietly suggest avoiding the slippery slope of recreational involvement with drugs. Maybe it's a by-product of the observation that, among many enthusiastic drug-taking subcultural units I've encountered, it's fairly easy for enthusiasm to be the prevalent philosophical mindset, as opposed to caution and restraint. You might argue that balance is really desired, and frankly, I don't feel like splitting hairs over it, because I'm more guilty than most of raw enthusiasm, despite the veneer of caution I've been forced to impose on myself in order to guarantee any chance of survival into old age. But still, when a fifth grader has enough wherewithal to posit that without the complications of drug addictions, families' lives might be closer and happier... well look, she's not pointing at something completely imaginary, even if we sit back on the couch and thank our lucky stars that she's not talking about us or our friends.

I have to wonder, how did the world get so far ahead of me that the Feds are already seizing a drug whose category I never even imagined, let alone knowing about this specific drug.

Apparently a drug used to treat glaucoma was informally observed to cause lengthening of of the eyelashes, and eventually some enterprising cosmetic/pseudopharma companies started selling it, shall we say, WAAAY off-label. Sounds great, but allegedly the drug has potential side effects including nerve damage, so at this point the FDA is not happy about it.

Of course, at the same time, the perennial off-label background continues unabated; there's nothing stopping Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeons from handing out a few scrips here and there. As the article says, this sort of cosmetic usage of drugs and other medical technology is quite common; in many cases, though, it just has to stay decentralized, a "mom-and-pop" operation.

Oh sure, it's juvenile, but it's also funny, in part because it's just hiliarious to imagine how Queens of the Stone Age got invited to perform at a rehab clinic in the first place:

The boys are well known for their wicked sense of humour. Just last week their gig at an LA rehab clinic was pulled after they began playing Feel Good Hit Of The Year [sic], a song that boasts the opening line: “Nicotine, valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstacy and alcohol.”

In case you need a reminder, please to enjoy the video for this very track.

An excellent, densely reported story on "The Sleep-Industrial Complex" recently came across my desk. Bookended by an analysis of how mattress-makers attempt to market and sell their wares, naturally the piece also dives into how Ambien and Lunesta are marketed, as well as how they operate on the sleeping mind:

A popular theory is that one of the pill’s side-effects is actually contributing to their success. Most sleeping pills are known to block the formation of memories during their use, creating amnesia. This is why people who endure freaky side-effects — so-called “complex sleep-related behaviors” like getting into a car and driving or ravenously eating, all while asleep — don’t remember those events. Yet this amnesia could be quite beneficial, suggests Michael Bonnet, a professor of neurology at Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine in Dayton, Ohio. “How do you know you slept last night?” Bonnet asked me. A night of lousy, interrupted sleep, he points out, is easy to remember. “It’s full of memories, noise and pain, and heat and rolling around and obtrusive thoughts and worries — all of these various stimuli.” And we may continue to register such things even while asleep, making sleep vaguely unrefreshing. But a good night of sleep, Bonnet went on to say, “is always the antithesis to all those things, which is oblivion.” A sleeping pill, Bonnet speculates, in addition to encouraging sleep chemically in the brain, also “erases all of these thoughts that we use to define ourselves as being awake. The pill knocks them all out, and the patient says, ‘Hey, I must have been asleep because I don’t remember anything.’ ”

That theory is not universally accepted, of course, but it certainly feels plausible. Regardless, the article also explores the history of sleep in general, noting for instance:

More surprising still, Ekirch reports that for many centuries, and perhaps back to Homer, Western society slept in two shifts. People went to sleep, got up in the middle of the night for an hour or so, and then went to sleep again. Thus night — divided into a “first sleep” and “second sleep” — also included a curious intermission. “There was an extraordinary level of activity,” Ekirch told me. People got up and tended to their animals or did housekeeping. Others had sex or just lay in bed thinking, smoking a pipe, or gossiping with bedfellows. Benjamin Franklin took “cold-air baths,” reading naked in a chair.

I don't want to spend too much summarizing the article, since it's laden with far too many details. But as a long time insomniac who occasionally falls into the category of "people with appallingly disturbed sleep," the article contained a fair bit of insight and points out several books that are likely worth pursuing.

A pair of barns recently caught fire on Tim Leary's old stomping grounds, the Millbrook estate. Apparently the actual mansion itself only suffered smoke damage, but I suspect those walls are more than accustomed to excess smoke at this point.

I am listening to a program on the CBC radio program "Ideas" right now, about ayahuasca, and thought I'd post a link. Just click on the side for a stream. Right now Mr Dennis McKenna is explaining the basic chemistry...

Even if you are too late to catch this post, try for the second part on the 26th.

I'll let the site speak for itself...

"Monday, November 19
IN SEARCH OF THE DIVINE VEGETAL, Part 1 of 2 CD
From the Amazon jungles to downtown Canada, ideas about Ayahuasca revive a decades-old argument about the uses and abuses, the ecstasies and the efficacies of mind-altering plants. Ayahuasca has been part of shamanic tradition for centuries. Broadcasters Thomas McKinnon and Leonard Cler-Cunningham travel the old trails, attend the ceremonies, and debate the religious, economic and political questions surrounding the divine vegetal.
Part 2 airs Monday, November 26."

See what happens when people get funding to work with cannabinoids?

A compound found in cannabis may prevent breast cancer spreading to other parts of the body, scientists believe.

Experts hope that cannabidiol, also known as CBD, could be a realistic alternative to chemotherapy.

...

CBD fights the disease by stopping the activity of a gene called Id-1, which is believed to be responsible for the spread of cancer cells from the site of the original tumour - a process known as metastasis.

The study found CBD had this affect on breast cancer cells in a laboratory.

Editor's Note: The following article appeared in Psychedelic Illumination 6 as a sidebar to a piece on toad licking. Check the citation at the bottom of the text to see where it was initially found.

There are several types of toxic substances found in toads, including cardioactive agents, catecholamines, indolealkylamines and non-cardiac sterols. These toxins are located in the skin and parotid glands and may be transferred by handling or ingesting a toad's skin.

Secretions of the toad parotid glands will cause pain and severe irritation when placed in eyes, nose, and throat. Dogs who have been poisoned with bufagins develop ventricular fibrillation and symptoms resembling digitalis poisoning. Vasoconstriction may also be seen. Dyspnea and weakened respirations may be seen.

Paralysis and seizures have been reported in both humans and animals Many bufagins also have local anesthetic actions, especially on the oral mucosa. Salivation and vomiting is often seen in animals Cyanosis has also been seen in poisoned dogs.

Drug users have been known to smoke the chopped skins of toads for their hallucinogenic effect. The skin of one toad is sufficient to cause significant symptoms and even death in both animals and humans. No toxic levels have yet been established for any of the bufagins. Since many of the other substances are metabolized rapidly, laboratory analysis is impractical.

There are three primary areas of toxicity: cardiac glycoside effects, pressor effects, and hallucinogenic effects. Usually the cardiovascular effects are the most prominent.

There are several types of toxic substances found in the venom of toads. Bufagins (bufandienolides) are cardioactive substances found in toad venom They have effects similar to the cardiac glycosides found in plants. Bufotoxins are the conjugation products of the specific bufagin with one molecule of suberylargine. Bufotoxins were originally isolated from the parotoid glands of toads, but have since been seen in various plants and mushrooms.

There are also several catecholamines in toad venom. Epinephrine has been found in as high a concentration as 5% in the venom of several species. Norepinephrine has also been found.

Chemicals found include several indolealkylamine bufotenines. Bufotenines are organic bases containing an indole ring and have primarily oxcytocic actions and often pressor actions. Specific substances include bufothionine, serotonin, cinobufotenine, bufotenine, dehydrobufotenine and the 5-hydroxy derivative of N-N,dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a hallucinogen.