More on MDPV From WAFB:

It has been called the "poor man's meth" known as a legal way to get high. Today Governor Bobby Jindal signed an emergency rule making fake "bath salts" illegal. The synthetic drug is sold online and at gas station stores.

It is the first time something like this has been done. Jindal says the chemicals in this fake "bath salt" are now considered a schedule one drug, meaning not for medicinal purposes, but having high abuse potential.

Deputies in Livingston Parish wasted no time hitting several stores after the governor's announcement. They say they knew where the stuff was being sold, now they can get it off the streets.

"Whatever kind of bath salt you got, put it right here," said one Livingston deputy. 9 News rode along with Livingston deputies as they began confiscating the drugs. Livingston Parish deputies have known gas station stores have been selling the synthetic drugs by the packet. Now they can take them off the shelves.

From PhysOrg.com:

David Nichols studies the way psychedelic drugs act in the brains of rats. But he's haunted by how humans hijack his work to make street drugs, sometimes causing overdose deaths.

Nichols makes chemicals roughly similar to ecstasy and LSD that are supposed to help explain how parts of the brain function. Then he publishes the results for other scientists, hoping his work one day leads to treatments for depression or Parkinson's disease.

But Nichols' findings have not stayed in purely scientific circles. They've also been exploited by black market labs to make cheap and marginally legal recreational drugs.

"You try to work for something good, and it's subverted in a way," Nichols said. "I try not to think about it."

Now the 66-year-old chairman of the Purdue University pharmacology department is speaking out in one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals to describe an ethical struggle seldom discussed by brain researchers.

"You can't control what people do with what you publish, but yeah, I felt it personally," he said in a phone interview, explaining that his struggles are probably somewhat similar to those faced by the inventor of the machine gun, although not as severe. The journal Nature published his essay (Legal highs: the dark side of medicinal chemistry) online Wednesday.

Slow motion liquid art by Shinichi Maruyama.

[Thanks Sam Hell!]

Dangerous new drugs are being sold as fake bath salts, fake fertilizer or fake insect repellent -- and sending drug abusers to emergency rooms around the country after snorting or smoking them, poison center officials say.

At least 84 people around Louisiana have been hospitalized because of paranoia, fighting, hallucinations, suicidal thoughts and physical effects such as hypertension and rapid heartbeat -- most for a day or two but at least three of them for weeks, Mark Ryan, head of the Louisiana Poison Center, said Wednesday.

Although they're labeled as bath products or even poison, always including the warning "Not for human consumption," word on the street and the Internet is that they can be sniffed as "legal cocaine" or "legal speed," Henry A. Spiller, director of the Kentucky Regional Poison Center in Louisville, said Wednesday.

"These are experienced drug users... There's a lot of things they'll suffer for the drug high they're looking for," Spiller said. "Even these people are coming into the emergency room. Even they can't handle these fairly nasty effects."

Ryan said users describe the drugs as many times more potent than Ritalin or cocaine. Spiller said several people had tried to kill themselves, and others attacked friends or family.

Julie Sanders, an emergency room doctor in Covington, said her stepson, 21-year-old Dickie Sanders, shot and killed himself three days after sniffing "Cloud 9" -- one of the names under which MDPV, short for methylenedioxypyrovalerone (METH-uh-leen-di-OX-ee-PY-ro-VAL-uh-rone), is sold.

[Thanks Jon!]

A pill designed to curb someone's urge to have more than a few drinks is under development in Europe.

The experimental drug nalmefene, developed by Denmark's H. Lundbeck A/S, blocks the signals in the brain that make drinking feel good.

If clinical trials are successful, European regulators could approve use of the drug as early as 2012. It would be the first new alcoholism treatment approved there in more than 15 years, Bloomberg News reports.

The drug aims to reduce consumption of alcohol rather than stop it outright, unlike drugs currently on the market that prevent relapses after people quit drinking completely.

Nalmefene aims to reduce consumption without the abstinence requirements of Alcoholics Anonymous and other treatment programs, Adron Harris, director of the University of Texas at Austin's Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research, told the news agency.

[Thanks Luke!]

Originally published in 1967 ‘The Private Sea: LSD and the Search for God’ by William Braden is, broadly speaking, an attempt to contextualise spiritual and religious readings of the psychedelic experience in regard to other apparently contingent social movements of the time. William Braden was a journalist who, in writing the book, applied several journalistic techniques including interviews with prominent individuals and even experimenting with mescaline on himself.

Braden argues that there exists a relationship between radical theology, specifically the New Theology of Bishop John A.T. Robinson and the Death of God proclamation of Thomas J.J. Altizer, and what he refers to as LSD cultism (spiritual groups with psychedelic sacraments like Timothy Leary’s League for Spiritual Discovery, which from hereafter will be referred to as the psychedelic movement.) This relationship, his argument goes, is partly based on the introduction of Eastern philosophical and religious concepts into the Western mode of thinking and that together they present a challenge to orthodox Western theism. Secondly, he argues, these cultural shifts have created a renewed interest in metaphysics and that the possibility of developing a new humanistic ethic, based on the LSD experience for example, also represents a challenge to established science and reason.

Rick Strassman alerts us to this news:

I'm happy to announce that the independent documentary about DMT by Mitch Schultz, The Spirit Molecule, is now for sale on DVD. I was very involved in this film project, and am pleased with the result. You may order it through www.thespiritmolecule.com or on Amazon.com. It’s not yet on Netflix, but should be soon.

The December 2010 issue of The Pharmaceutical Journal has a short, readable and entertaining article on wild animals' use of psychoactives. You're almost certain to find out something new here, whether that's drunken elephants, coked up snails, overcaffeinated goats, yage chewing jaguars, the pharmacokinetics of catnip, or the requisite seasonal shroomin' reindeer. Check it out.

The NYTimes reports on a case of "almost-a-jury nullification":

To seat a 12-person jury, Judge Robert L. Deschamps III of Missoula County District Court had called a passel of Montanans to serve, and 27 had arrived at court on Dec. 16. So far, so good.

But after the charges were read, one of the jurors raised a hand.

“She said, ‘I’ve got a real problem with these marijuana cases,’ ” Judge Deschamps recalled on Wednesday. “And after she got through, a couple more raised their hands.” All told, five jurors raised questions about marijuana prosecution.

And so it was that Mr. Cornell soon became the lucky recipient of a case of almost-a-jury nullification, as prosecutors soon found themselves cutting a deal to dismiss the misdemeanor possession charge out of fear that they would not be able to find 12 jurors in this marijuana-friendly state to convict.

Unblinkingly excellent WMFU's Beware Of The Blog dishes up some ancient anti-drug PSAs from Mel Blanc, in character as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, and more.

Today's focus is on the legendary Mel Blanc and his fantastic and unforgettable anti-narcotics PSA's, as 'Mel Blanc' and five of his most famous Warner Brothers cartoon characters. As it's a holiday, we won't go into what a cranky fellow he allegedly was, and how so few of his collegues have much good to say of him, aside from acknowledging what a funny actor and how professional he was. Thrill to Porky at a smoky, scary drug party and being offered animal tranquilizers, Yosemite searching for tough guys not softened up by hard drugs to duel with, and so much more. I promised these last Christmas, and now I'm finally giving them up. Including a tiny bonus track from George Harrison, just because.

Here is a sample track from Foghorn Leghorn: