Who needs 'Unix In A Nutshell' when you've got LSD in a sugarcube?

[Thanks Mason!]

Following complaints by the public that the TV ads for Yves Saint Laurent's new fragrance Belle d'Opium, starring French actress Melanie Thierry, "simulate drug use," Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ads in the UK.

According to the Daily Telegraph, YSL Beaute said it "suggests the addictive qualities of women who wear the fragrance, rather than the addictive effects of narcotics."

One of the more bizarre aspects of officials sanctioning raves at the publicly owned L.A. Coliseum and Sports Arena is that Los Angeles County health authorities have actually embarked on a campaign to teach young people how to take ecstasy safely.

Under the strategy of "harm reduction" -- if you're going to get wasted, might as well not kill yourself -- the county this year will distribute fliers at raves that give tips that essentially amount to advice on how not to O.D. on this illicit, schedule 1 drug.

Strange, because the Coliseum Commission, which runs those venues, seems to be bending over backwards to allow ecstasy-fueled raves to happen four times a year at the sites.

Well okay then, thank you very much.

White House Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is warning people against taking the newest synthetic drugs, often marketed as "bath salts" and being sold legally on the Internet and in drug paraphernalia stores.

The drugs are sold under brand names like "Purple Wave" and "Ivory Wave." The powdered drug can produce a high similar to cocaine, LSD or ecstasy when smoked, injected or snorted. But Kerlikowske says synthetic stimulants in the powders have sickened hundreds already this year.

Kerlikowske says these stimulants can cause chest pains, increased blood pressure and heart rate, agitation, hallucinations, extreme paranoia and delusions. He met with federal drug and health officials at the White House Tuesday to discuss their growing popularity.

The chemicals are not federally regulated; some states are considering bans.

Originally published in 2009 'The Atmosphere of Heaven: The Unnatural Experiments of Dr Beddoes and his Sons of Genius' is an outstanding work of historical non-fiction by Mike Jay. His previously published drug-related works include such titles as 'Blue Tide' and 'Emperors of Dreams' and this offering is an examination of, arguably, the era in which modern drug writing first flowered. The book is full of fascinating research, which manages to thread together science, politics and philosophy in an extremely engaging and well written narrative.

The Atmosphere of Heaven tells the story of physician and scientist Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) and his circle of colleagues, as they attempted to revolutionise medicine through experimental chemistry, during the turn of the nineteenth century. The book is set against a backdrop of social tension; it opens with a mob rampaging through Birmingham on its way to setting fire to the home of theologian, natural philosopher and political theorist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). Riots pepper the book and as war with neighbouring France drags Britain's poor to the brink of starvation, the nation is split between the royalists, like the Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger (1759-1806), who wage war with the newly formed French Republic and those progressives who see the war as a battle against equality and the rule of the people. Science, Jay so aptly illustrates throughout the text, was not immune from the political discourse of the day, and Thomas Beddoes fully embodied both.

My husband has admitted to making a very big mistake.

"He co-operated fully with the police, was charged and was released."

This morning he resigned his employment with immediate effect, she said.

"I am angry, hurt and very disappointed," she said.

Which sounds very much like a politician trying very hard to save her skin.

[Thanks, sleepy!]

Originally published in France, in 1860, under the title ‘Les Paradis Artificiels’ (Artificial Paradises); Charles Baudelaire’s classic of drug writing is a blend of personal insight, translation, and morality discourse.

Charles Baudelaire was an early precursor to the French symbolist movement of the late nineteenth century. The literary movement was a reaction to realism and placed a lot of emphasis on the power of dreams and the imagination as tools for communicating ideals through symbols. Synaesthesia was one the great tools of the symbolists and Baudelaire wrote of hashish: "By graduations, external objects assume unique appearances in the endless combining and transfiguring of forms. Ideas are distorted; perceptions are confused. Sounds are clothed in colors and colors in music." (Baud 50). Baudelaire utilised the dream as the symbolic ground of the drug experience, which in the case of this edition of Artificial Paradises incorporates wine, hashish and opium.

Raids against seven stores have led Calgary police to make what they consider their first bust of synthetic marijuana in the city.

In all, 770 packets of the drug worth an estimated $30,000 were seized from Bongs & Such, Smoker's Corner and Grass Roots stores Tuesday, said Det. Collin Harris.

He said the drug -- often branded as Spice, K2, Yucatan Fire, Tribe or Skunk -- contains an illegal organic compound and is said to mimic the effects of marijuana.

"The people that were selling the product knew the effects of the product and were telling our (undercover) individuals purchasing the product how to best consume it," Harris said.

Harris said medical reports from the U.S. indicate users of the drug have experienced side-effects, including panic attacks, heart palpitations, hallucinations, delusions and vomiting.