These images present an excellent invitation to understanding the size and scope of one section of the opium industry in India. I found these pictures in the 29 July 1882 issue of the Scientific American, which in turn had reproduced them from the Bengal Commissioner Lt. Col. Walter S. Sherwill, who published them as color lithographs in 1850 and which (again) found their way into print in The Truth about Opium Smoking by Benjamin Broomhill1(1882). They are iconic images of a devastating trade and were frequently reproduced over many decades--mostly not for the "devastating" part of what I just wrote, but more for the industrial/business appreciation end, as was the case with this article in SciAmerican. The British interest in the trade stretched back two cneturies earlier, and of course the use of opium bends far back into Neolithic times.

[Thanks Mike!]

NASA's Inspector General's Office says an investigation is under way after a white powdery substance found at the Kennedy Space Center tested positive for cocaine.

"Law enforcement personnel field tested the substance, which indicated a positive test for cocaine," said Renee Juhans, an executive officer with the office...

In January 2010, about 200 Kennedy Space Center workers were tested when a small bag of cocaine was found inside a space shuttle processing facility where Discovery was being readied for flight. That case was closed, and there were no arrests.

[Thanks Cosmic Mike!]

Brian is a rock musician who moved to Seattle about a year ago from a small town in the South. "I was straight-edge for a long time growing up, and there wasn't much down there," he says. "Just small-town potheads and some guys doing meth in a shack somewhere." His most intense drug experiences involved beer and marijuana.

Within months of moving, he was in a popular underground band. John, also in the band and one of Brian's roommates, brought a lot of drugs into their place--pot, pills, cocaine.

"One night, we're hanging out and--typical John--he brings out this white powder and asks me if I want some," Brian remembers. "He doesn't tell me what it is at all. We're freebasing--he pours the powder on some foil, gives me the straw, and lights it up. And I'm like, 'This is fucking awesome!' I just felt so good, so light, just so relaxed. And I ask him: 'What is this?' 'Fentanyl.' 'Oh, what's that?' 'It's heroin.'"

[Thanks Sam Hell!]

The renegade grandson of a former governor of Kentucky, Stanley helped lay the foundation for the psychedelic era by producing more than a million doses of LSD at his labs in San Francisco's Bay Area.

"He made acid so pure and wonderful that people like Jimi Hendrix wrote hit songs about it and others named their band in its honor," former rock ‘n' roll tour manager Sam Cutler wrote in his 2008 memoirs "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

Hendrix's song "Purple Haze" was reputedly inspired by a batch of Stanley's product, though the guitarist denied any drug link. The ear-splitting blues-psychedelic combo Blue Cheer took its named from another batch.

Stanley briefly managed the Grateful Dead, and oversaw every aspect of their live sound at a time when little thought was given to amplification in public venues. His tape recordings of Dead concerts were turned into live albums.

The Dead wrote about him in their song "Alice D. Millionaire" after a 1967 arrest prompted a newspaper to describe Stanley as an "LSD millionaire." Steely Dan's 1976 single "Kid Charlemagne" was loosely inspired by Stanley's exploits.

According to a 2007 profile in the San Francisco Chronicle, Stanley started cooking LSD after discovering the recipe in a chemistry journal at the University of California, Berkeley.

The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years.

"I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for," he told the Chronicle's Joel Selvin. "What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different."

[Thanks Mason!]

In our very own New York City, the owner of a terry-cloth bathrobe had his rightful property stolen simply because it was saturated with a concentrated solution of freebase heroin and cocaine. Aside from the heroin imparting an attractive color reminiscent of dried urine, it also played an obvious utilitarian role. It is widely known that when one steps out of a hot and steamy shower, the parsimonious application of talcum powder can go great lengths toward preventing chafing and irritation of the skin. Yet talcum powder is far from benign; indeed, excess inhalation can lead to a host of dermatological and pulmonary ailments... and so it comes as no surprise that many of us have abandoned talc in our post-ablutionary routines for more health-conscious choices like heroin. Specifically, China White heroin offers many of the absorbent properties of talcum powder without the risks of pulmonary talcosis. So when we apply heroin directly to our bathrobes in order to expedite the drying process at some point in the future, we will have committed a crime? Last time I checked, the true crime was putting on one’s clothing before the skin has been thoroughly dried.

South Americans have also been robbed of their sartorial rights. One Peruvian chemist and haberdasher produced a silicone-based material that can contain as much as 47 percent cocaine hydrochloride while maintaining its structural integrity. This wonder material was used to produce absolutely stunning baseball caps, wetsuits, and suitcases. Yet we are deprived of a fashionable innovation because of cocaine’s completely unrelated history as a psychoactive drug? Perhaps the regulatory authorities are unaware that melanoma rates are skyrocketing. If more Americans protected their skin from the assaults of ultraviolet light with a sporty, lightweight cocaine hat, the skin-cancer epidemic could be overcome once and for all.

The history books may suggest that cannabis is a powerful psychoactive plant, yet they neglect to discuss its applications in shoemaking. For insoles, how does compacted hashish compare with, say, Dr. Scholl’s massaging gel? Could it be that innocent men and women falsely labeled “drug smugglers” were simply taking advantage of the shock-absorbent orthopedic properties of this fine plant? A marijuana-based shoe provides excellent support and can prevent both pronation and arch collapse, yet the words of concerned podiatrists fall upon deaf ears in our nation’s government.

Originally published in Germany in 1924 'Phantastica' by Louis Lewin was first published in English in 1931. This review is written from the Park Street Press edition, 1998. The text is an early attempt at a categorisation of psychoactive drugs and while, in many respects, it is dated, especially pharmacologically, it still remains an important document; both as a resource for historical information and as a fascinating curiosity, which had a huge affect on drug writing in the twentieth century.

The author Louis Lewin (1850-1929) was born in Tuchel, in Western Prussia. He spent the majority of his life living in Berlin, where he graduated from the University of Berlin in 1875 as a medical doctor, specialising in pharmacology and was an expert in the field of toxicology. Known for his extraordinary style of lecturing, which held "audiences spellbound", he also had a wide-ranging knowledge of history, geography and anthropology, and was able to "quote flawlessly in foreign languages without any hesitation". With 248 major publications between 1874-1929, Lewin was a leading academic of his time but it was his interest in the side-effects of certain drugs that he is primarily remembered for now and with which this book is concerned.

Ex-cons like Vinny Colangelo are barred from certain business pursuits.

Felons can’t get a license in Florida as a pest-control operator. Colangelo can’t be a private detective or paramedic or title insurance agent or bail bondsman or labor union business agent. He can forget about employment with the Florida Lottery. Or qualifying as a notary.

“In Florida, this guy couldn’t own a liquor store,” said Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti.

Yet according to the DEA, Vincent Colangelo, who couldn’t kill bugs, serve cocktails or tail a cheating husband, could operate seven pain clinics and a pharmacy in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. His pill mills peddled more than 660,000 doses of oxycodone in just two years. The feds calculated Vinny’s proceeds at $22,392,391.

Ex-felons may find a lot of enterprises off limits, but to the consternation of Sheriff Lamberti, Florida’s famously lax regulation of pill mills offered a seamless transition for someone like Colangelo. He emerged from prison in 2004 after serving a four-year term for trafficking in heroin and cocaine and used his druggie expertise, according to the DEA, to build a $150,000-a-day business selling prescription narcotics.

“Selling prescription drugs is a lot more lucrative than selling coke,” said Capt. Karl Durr, head of the Palm Beach County narcotics unit. “You don’t have to cross international borders. The drugs are legally produced. And, for us, investigations are a lot more complicated, longer. A lot more expensive.”

Colangelo, busted Feb. 23 when federal, state and local cops closed down a dozen pain clinics in South Florida, was not the only convicted drug dealer in South Florida who got richer, faster, easier by peddling oxycodone. Pill-mill magnate Kent A. Murry came into the business with 15 previous arrests on his resume, included getting nabbed twice bringing in planeloads of marijuana from Colombia. Not to mention a very suspicious crash of a helicopter that happened to have a quantity of cocaine on board.

His criminal background was a perfect fit for Florida’s burgeoning pill industry.

[Thanks Clay!]

Kentucky has become the latest state to enact sentencing reforms in a bid to rein in skyrocketing corrections costs. Gov. Steve Beshear (D) last Thursday signed into law HB 463, a comprehensive corrections bill that will save the state millions of dollars a year, in part by sentencing drug possession offenders to probation instead of prison.

The bill was based on a multi-year collaboration between the Pew Center on the States Public Safety Performance Project and state officials. State officials and legislators working with the project convened a Task Force on the Penal Code and Controlled Substances Act and issued a January report that was the basis for the legislation.

"This overhaul of Kentucky's penal code is the result of a multi-year effort involving members of the executive, legislative and judicial branches," said Gov. Beshear. "Over the last three years, we've made headway with aggressive efforts to bring common sense to Kentucky's penal code, and our prison population has dropped each of the past three years. House Bill 463 helps us be tough on crime, while being smart on crime."

[Thanks Jon!]

...the current study found that the pattern of low gray matter was correlated with the number of years of alcohol, cocaine and cigarette use in the addicted group. The longer cocaine, alcohol, and cigarettes were abused, the lower gray matter was found in the hippocampus and frontal regions of the brain. This result means that curtailing drug use may be protective against such brain changes.

Renowned for its unique family vibe, the Sunrise Celebration provides a buzzing blend of the best in festival culture, alongside new and exciting ideas never before seen in a field. Based on a lovely organic farm in Somerset, the festival features 8 arenas, 15 entertainment venues, 8 talks and workshop spaces and a lot more besides. To find out more information and to buy tickets please head over to the Sunrise Celebration website. And, if you’re still not convinced you should attend this amazing festival, I hope my review from last year can go some way to persuading you - world class event, trust...