The Erowid Review - a book review blog focused on psychoactive-focused tomes and related works - just published a review I originally wrote for The Entheogen Review in 2005. It's for a very interesting transhumanist work by Ramez Naam, entitled More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, a book which offers quite an enlightening take on how our future might evolve:

Psychonauts throughout the years have often used the phrase “consciousness expanding” to describe the effects of psychedelic substances. It seems implicit to some people that the alchemical mystery which unfolds when a person’s nervous system encounters drugs like LSD and DMT is a dissolution of the typical constraints of human awareness; we temporarily enhance our understanding, our empathy, even, potentially, our capacity for serenity and peace. Arguments can be made that the psychedelic experience is not inherently expanding or enhancing anything, let alone consciousness, but that’s not really the point; on a person by person basis, the experience is so subjective and ephemeral that who can truly arbitrate the question?

Well, as it turns out, science is rapidly catching up to that question; with every passing year, we learn more and more about the inner workings of the brain. The quest begins with the desire to heal, but then quickly moves past healing the sick to enhancing the healthy. What would you do, then, in a future world where a single pill might produce beneficial effects to your mood – your consciousness – for months at a time, by altering an aspect of your genetic make-up? How would you react if you learned that technology existed to reliably trigger psychedelic experiences simply by delivering a precisely targeted electrical impulse to your brain – and what would you do if you knew that experience could be recorded and transmitted via the Internet to a pal in Kuala Lumpur who intended to play it back and experience it, just as you experienced it? How much more expanded would your consciousness be in a world like that?

In his remarkably entertaining new popular science book, More Than Human: Embracing the Promise of Biological Enhancement, software engineer Ramez Naam walks us through a giddying array of possible futures, all of which have very real and very clear roots in the science of the present day. In chapters such as “Choosing Our Bodies,” “Choosing Our Minds,” and “A Child of Choice,” Naam offers case study after case study demonstrating how techniques originally intended to heal will eventually be used to enhance the human experience.

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Perhaps I missed this when it first came out (last year! Yes, I live under a rock) because I never would have thought it could be done: a Victorian-era novel of mathematical formalism and speculation made into a movie. The novel Flatland was published by Edwin Abbott Abbott in 1880, and is a warm fuzzy early memory for those of us who spent our childhoods as adorable math geeks.

Even if you don't like to entertain yourself by warping your mind into higher (or lower) dimensions, the trailer at this link is still great CGI eye candy.

Queens of the Stone Age: helping get the weekend started. Enjoy.

In 1969, Hugh Hefner hosted a TV show called Playboy After Dark (a set of highlights was recently released on DVD), and at one point, Hef invited the Grateful Dead to appear. I'm not much of a Deadhead, but I enjoyed seeing this young incarnation of Jerry Garcia hold his own in the cocktail party vibe that Hef embodied.

Via MilkandCookies.

If you've seen enough pot bust stories, you may find yourself wondering, "Just how exactly do they know that school bus full of pot is worth exactly $15 zillion?" Turns out - hey, the authorities kind of just guess!

When San Rafael police raided an indoor pot farm last month, they seized 600 plants and estimated their street value at $800,000.

Yet when the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force raided an indoor farm in Ignacio days earlier, they seized 224 marijuana plants and estimated the value at up to $1 million.

One estimate pegs the street value of each pot plant at $1,333, the other at $4,464. Why the big discrepancy?

"There's no exact science on this stuff," said San Rafael police Sgt. Dan Fink. "There's so many factors involved."

Wait - there's no exact science on this stuff? Good God, you mean, we're just arresting people and throwing them in jail on the basis of... of inexact non-science???

Ahem, sorry for the shrill. What I mean to say is, "Boy, isn't that curious!" At any rate, I'd be curious to hear from those of you who might have ever purchased pot in your lives how these California prices stack up against your neighborhood:

Prices vary accordingly. Sgt. Rudy Yamanoha of the Marin County Major Crimes Task Force said low-grade marijuana sells for about $340 a pound, mid-grade for $750 a pound, and high-grade for $2,500 to $6,000 per pound.... But Lynnette Shaw, director of the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Fairfax, said the $6,000-per-pound figure is highly inflated because the legalization of medical marijuana in California has brought prices down. "The most a pound would cost on the street right now - the very, very, very most - would be $4,800 a pound," she said.

What do you mean, you don't buy pot by the pound? I'm so confused.

I came across this health story about synesthesia recently and was reminded.... well, I was reminded of several things that I'm not going to admit in front of a jury, but also, I was reminded of just how unusual the phenomenon actually is, and how some people have a permanent form of it:

Nineteen different combinations have been identified. But the combinations are almost limitless because a synesthete may have more than one form of the condition.

The most common form appears to be seeing colours in numbers and/or letters. This is called colour-language synesthesia. But other less common experiences are also possible. A synesthete may report that she feels piano music tickling her cheeks or that a person’s voice tastes like chutney.

In most cases, the sensation is triggered by external stimuli but in some cases it could be purely internal, such as associating the concept of a day or year with a sensory experience.

The sensory association is usually projected outside of the body, such as seeing the letter in colour, rather than in the mind’s eye.

This is probably one of the weirdest things in this report:

Synesthesia is a highly subjective, individualised experience. Colour-language synesthetes, for example, don’t agree on which colour goes with which number or letter. However, a remarkable number agree that the letter “o” is white.

At any rate, obviously this report came across my desk because of the requisite mention of how "antiserotonergic hallucinogens such as LSD and peyote" can cause it, but it's an interesting piece regardless, touching on the psychology of those who live with synesthesia and how they view themselves and the world.

A new study purports to demonstrate that Hispanics who have migrated to America are more likely to use illegal drugs than their non-acculturated counterparts, in order to essentially blend in with white American (drug-using) culture:

The study shows that 6.4 percent of whites reported using illicit drugs in the previous month, compared to 7.2 percent of acculturated Hispanics. However, less than 1 percent of non-acculturated, Spanish-speaking Hispanics reported use in the same time period.

“Their percentage/general patterns of substance use are very similar to white patterns of use, which is what we would expect given an acculturation/assimilation model,” Akins said. “When Hispanics acculturate to dominant American society their substance use behavior appears to mimic that of whites, the culture they are acculturating to.”

And why, in situations where Hispanics are non-acculturated, do we not see these patterns of drug use?

“In general, recent Hispanic immigrants are more family-oriented and have less tolerant views of drug and alcohol use,” Akins said.

There you have it. Let's hear it for tolerance!

I guess this falls under the "it sounded too good to be true" department: you may recall that the New Mexico state legislature passed what seemed to be a ground-breaking medical marijuana law, one that required the state to grow its own supply of medical marijuana so that patients in the state could have reliable access to quality plants. No other state had gone so far with similar legislation. Well, after a review, the state agency that was in the line of fire to actually grow the stuff has declined to comply with the law:

The state health department said Wednesday it will not comply with a portion of the new medical marijuana law that requires it to oversee production and distribution of the drug. It will still certify patients as eligible to possess marijuana, protecting them from state prosecution.

"The Department of Health will not subject its employees to potential federal prosecution, and therefore will not distribute or produce medical marijuana," said Dr. Alfredo Vigil, who heads the agency.

The decision came after state Attorney General Gary King cautioned last week that the agency and its employees could face federal prosecution for implementing the new law, and that his office can't defend state workers in criminal cases. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Naturally this has irritated a few people, who believe these risks were well aired during the process of passing the law in the first place; the notion of a lawsuit is of course being bandied about. And some think Gov. Bill Richardson needs to step in, although he's gallivanting around the country running for president so that might be a little tricky.

Still, the fact that the law passed in its current form, and the fact that lawmakers do not intend to back down on making these rules permanent, is still an interesting, positive development, in terms of thinking through the entire medical marijuana situation and attempting to craft a fair and sane approach.

If you haven't had a chance to see The Holy Mountain, the 1973 film by avant garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, then you're missing out on one of the most psychedelic movies I'm personally aware of. Oh I'm sure there are other strange films out there - and we'd love to hear about them - but when I saw this one recently, I had my head blown in about 58 different ways that I never expected. It was recently released as part of a DVD set of all of Jodorowsky's films - a set I highly recommend, as you'll run across all kinds of psychedelic mayhem therein. At any rate, here's the trailer for the film, to whet your appetite (and to answer the question, "How the fuck does anyone market stuff like this?"). You can try to imagine what this film is about based on this trailer, but rest assured, the film itself is decidedly weirder.

And now, a couple of related stories on the medical front. First, did you know about the wonder drug that reverses the effects of cocaine?

Dexmedetomidine, a sedative medication used by anaesthesiologists, counteracts the effects of cocaine on the human cardiovascular system, including lowering the elevated heart rate and blood pressure, according to researchers at the University of Texas Sourthwestern Medical Center.... The researchers have found that dexmedetomidine effectively reverses the action of cocaine on heart rate, blood pressure, and vascular resistance in the skin by interfering with the ability of cocaine to increase nerve activity.

“Typically, patients with cocaine overdoses in the emergency room are treated with nitroglycerin, sedatives such as Valium, and some blood-pressure medications such as calcium channel blockers and some beta blockers,” Dr. Vongpatanasin said.

“However, the standard treatments don’t alleviate all of the adverse effects of cocaine on the heart, blood pressure and central nervous system” she added.

But that's not all, folks. Research has indicated that the cravings felt by heavy alcohol drinkers are due at least in part to genetics, and scientists are looking for a chemical means to interrupt those cravings:

Fred Risinger never gives his eastern Idaho bar patrons a last call - but then his customers are mice. Some are teetotalers who eschew the mouse-sized shots of alcohol they can obtain at any time simply by pressing a lever in their cage. Others Risinger describes as "your wine with dinner mice."

And some are raging alcoholics, downing, in human terms, several fifths of liquor each day.

Risinger, an Idaho State University professor, said what makes the alcohol cravings in the individual mice different is the same thing that makes the alcohol cravings in humans different: genetics.

His goal is to find the right combination of drugs to short-circuit those genetic cravings that would lead the heavy drinkers, first with mice and then humans, to be able to turn away from alcohol.

"The majority of drugs I work with are so new they don't even have a name," Risinger, Department of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences chairman, told the Idaho State Journal. "I'm looking for an agent that eliminates craving while allowing people to maintain their daily functions."

Alcoholism is serious trouble and an agent like that would obviously go a long way toward helping break vicious cycles of abuse. But it also strikes me as similar to the quest for the perfect anti-obesity pill... and maybe someday we'll also have the anti-violence pill, and the anti-independent-thought bill, all helpfully distributed via the water supply. Come on, it'd be fun.