Another side effect of the war on drugs: public lands are being trashed by marijuana growers. It's an ecological disaster, apparently:

Come September, marijuana growers who have labored for five months in some of California's most remote country will abandon their secret gardens, taking their multimillion-dollar crops.

What will they leave behind? Irrigation tubes that snake for a mile or more over forested ridges. Pesticides that have drained into creeks and entered the food chain, sickening wildlife. Piles of trash and human waste in the most rugged and bucolic drainages.

The government hasn't got the resources to clean up these lands properly:

The trash goes first, packed out sometimes by National Guard helicopters or hotshot firefighters once fire season is over. Restoring native plants and fixing soil erosion problems are longer-term issues which, officials say, are sometimes never addressed.

"Unfortunately, we really can't clean up all those sites like we would like to," said Ross Butler, assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau of Land Management's Sacramento office.

"We go in, we get the weed," Butler said. "Everything else just kind of ends up staying behind."

So if you're keeping score at home, the war on drugs has managed to incarcerate zillions at a cost of zillions while failing to meaningfully halt any amount of supply or demand, and the unregulated black market is taking advantage of public land to continue getting the population high, after which the government can only barely find resources to take out the trash. Gotcha - it makes perfect sense!

Salon recently ran an in depth piece on the (not particularly surprising) spread of heroin use among U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan in particular, it's quite easy to come across heroin, since - as you may have heard - Afghanistan supplies much of the world's heroin at this point. Crackdowns on dealers have been limited, and as the reporter notes, it's easy enough to simply walk into shops and ask point blank for a bag of heroin in any amount. And what's motivating drug use among G.I.s?

Many of the addicts returning from Afghanistan, however, point to sheer boredom as the reason for their use. "I had to work 12 hours a day, seven days a week, but half the time there was nothing to do," one reservist who served at Bagram complained. Another expressed frustration at the number of contractors sharing their positions. "It really pissed us off that we were there doing the same job as KBR guys who were making three or four times as much. It sucked." Bored and disillusioned with the process and mission at hand, many soldiers turn to heroin to pass the time and escape the monotony.

Of course, PTSD is also expected to surface as a major reason, although for various reasons, statistics about current conflicts take nearly five years to start surfacing in a meaningful fashion in government reports on veteran addiction. But still, the parallels with drug use by G.I.s in Vietnam are hard to miss.

As Mark Benjamin reported in Salon last December, combat in Iraq also shares certain features with combat in Vietnam -- constant patrols punctuated by ambushes, a deteriorating sense of mission -- that are likely to produce high levels of PTSD.

About 2.4 million Americans had served in Vietnam before the U.S. pulled out in 1973. In 1971, while the war was coming to a close, the media reported that the level of heroin addiction was 10 to 15 percent of lower ranking enlisted men. Contemporary researchers concurred, putting the figure at 14 percent.

Those figures were later revised sharply downward, with true addiction now thought to be closer to 4.5 percent.

Researchers still believe, however, that 20 percent of all soldiers who served in Vietnam used opiates at least once. More than half of the veterans now being treated for substance abuse by the VA served during the Vietnam era, but the percentage of opiate addicts who served during the Vietnam era was unavailable.

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Last week, I went to the American Museum of Natural History, and was reminded just how bitchin the Rose Planetarium is. For a few years now, they've been doing an evening show called "Sonic Vision," curated by our pal Moby, with music from David Bowie, the Flaming Lips, Rob Zombie, and artwork from people like Alex Grey. It's basically like watching a Mind's Eye video, but with better music. AT THE FUCKING PLANETARIUM. Jesse and I went a while back and were probably the only people there not tripping. Which made me feel like an old lady. Anyways, it's pricey, but entertaining, and I thought y'all might get a kick out of the trailer.

I went in for another TMS study yesterday, this one simultaneous with EEG. I didn't do much playing around; I did bring in an empty aluminum can and found that no, it doesn't go flying across the room. I'm not surprised; that would take a lot of energy, much more than I'd imagine you could deposit in a small area of brain tissue without consequence. Other than that, all I have to report is that it was a grueling 5 1/2-hour experimental marathon during which time I received a total of about 6,000 pulses, about 200 bursts of 30 each, and I feel just fine. As far as I know, the most anyone has ever done is about 13,000, so I feel kind of special I guess.

I did get an image from the positioning system showing the locations of all the EEG electrodes superimposed on the reconstructed MRI image of my head. It reminded me so much of Hellraiser I couldn't resist...

And now it's time for Drugged Thoughts, with James Kent. From the drug comedy DVD Tales From The Tripside.

If you've been putting off that big trip to Amsterdam, thinking things would never change, you might have cause to reconsider... especially if you were hoping for some legal magic mushrooms. The case of a recent 17-year-old leaping to her death on mushrooms has caused all kinds of alarm; of course, the girl's preexisting psychiatric history isn't to blame, no sir. Regardless, members of the Dutch government are outraged, and a big ol' study is going down - the results of which will either be an age limit of 18 years, or a complete ban nationwide.

The article I read included an "amusing" little round up of other magic mushroom incidents, all involving tourists (who consume the vast majority of mushrooms in the country):

-A 22-year-old British tourist ran amok in a hotel, breaking his window and slicing his hand.

-A 19-year-old Icelandic tourist thought he was being chased and jumped from a balcony, breaking both his legs.

-A 29-year-old Danish tourist drove his car wildly through a campground, narrowly missing people sleeping in their tents.

The sad thing is I don't find these stories far-fetched and they don't particularly surprise me. By definition, if you grow up in a country where strong psychedelics are illegal, there's no guarantee that you will acquire useful skills for handling yourself on strong psychedelics. If you then travel to a country where there are no limits on your use of strong psychedelics, it totally makes sense that there's a small but real chance you will act out in some idiotic or harmful fashion. The problem, of course, isn't inherently the mushrooms or the shops that sell them; it's the way rational, honest information about responsible drug use is essentially non-existent. (Stop me if you've heard this before...)

I have only a passing appreciation for beer, so I guess it caught me by surprise to come across a foodie article recently extolling the virtues of beer cocktails:

Many classic cocktails have a beer-based counterpart; beery versions of the margarita, Bloody Mary and kir royale have both charmed and appalled adventurous drinkers and staunch purists. There's also a universe of beer drinks involving chasers or shots, such as the boilermaker. But for summer drinking, beer cocktails that are low in alcohol deliver optimum refreshment without turning you into a lethargic blob come evening.

Ordinarily I'd be skeptical, but just recently we tried out a newly opened neighborhood bar that delivered a Bloody Mary with a "secret ingredient" - and after much cajoling, the bartender admitted the ingredient was Guinness. It was weird, and got mixed reviews; surprisingly, I was kind of in favor of the slightly tangy flavor it added to the mix. At any rate, apparently this kind of thing is great for summer:

Light- to medium-bodied beers are best for cocktails, although for the ultimate thirst quencher on a 90-degree day you can't beat a watery, cheap American lager mixed with lemonade.

Pilsners, wheat beers and Belgian-style ales in particular have an affinity for citrus. Throughout Europe, there are a number of variations on the combination of beer and fizzy, soda-style lemonade; at home, you can upgrade the citrus-beer pairing with freshly squeezed juice. Or try something new altogether: ruby-red punch made from dried hibiscus blossoms (known as flor de jamaica in Latin America) makes not only a visually striking drink, but also offers an invigorating tang.

I'm just not sure I can go there; periodically I come across cocktails that incorporate ginger beer, but it was easier to understand that the strong ginger flavor was the reason to use it, not the "beer"-ness. I guess I could have been wrong. Of course, the part where the writer indicated these were "low alcohol" options for summer is probably where she really lost me.

Warren Ellis led off his most recent Sunday Hangover column on SuicideGirls with a nice nostalgic look back at the smart drug craze of the mid-90s:

So in preparation for today I bought a bottle of something called Head Start, which calls itself “thirst aid for hangovers.” A hypotonic energy drink, it seems to be the current iteration of “smart nutrients,” which we all crammed into our bodies in the late Eighties/early Nineties in the hope that we could be both drunks-and-druggies and immortal geniuses. This thing is stuffed with easy-burn carbs, electrolytes, vitamins and detoxing amino acids. It sounds great, and probably a lot less hellacious on the system than some of the gunk we necked in the cyberdelic days to try and light up our punished synapses after nights of cheap beer, worse whisky and licking the yellowed bottoms of bathtubs that the local E was mixed in last week.

I can’t get the bottle open. The lid seems to be fused shut somehow.

Head Start is the most horrific joke on drunks I have ever seen perpetrated in the field of retail. I can’t cut this fucking thing open.

The column goes on to analyze American media's obsession with Lindsay Lohan, in excruciatingly funny detail - I won't spoil the surprise here, you'll just have to hop over to SuicideGirls and check it out.

I'm pleasantly amused by the florid prose in this lunar eclipse announcement from NASA:

Close your eyes, breathe deeply, let your mind wander to a distant seashore: It's late in the day, and the western sun is sinking into the glittering waves. At your feet, damp sand reflects the twilight, while overhead, the deep blue sky fades into a cloudy melange of sunset copper and gold, so vivid it almost takes your breath away.

A breeze touches the back of your neck, and you turn to see a pale full Moon rising into the night. Hmmm. The Moon could use a dash more color. You reach out, grab a handful of sunset, and drape the Moon with phantasmic light. Much better.

Too bad it's only a dream...

Early Tuesday morning, August 28th, the dream will come true. There's going to be a colorful lunar eclipse visible from five continents including most of North America...

The eclipse will start at 2:52 AM PDT on August 28; head to the link for more details and more overwrought imagery. It does sound quite nice. Oh, and just to point out the semi-obvious: that will be right in the middle of Burning Man, which is a fine platform whence to observe the night sky, as well as a fine venue for dreamy spectacle of any sort...

In case you haven't had any supremely bizarre religious initiation video lately, please to check out this clip from a 1991(!) home instruction tape produced by the Church of the SubGenius. It's every bit as demented and perfect as you might hope.

Via MilkandCookies.