Twelve current and former members of the military stationed at Canadian Forces Base Wainwright in eastern Alberta have been charged with 70 drug offences.

Charges include possession of a controlled substance, production of a controlled substance and drug trafficking.

The substances alleged to be involved are cocaine, the hallucinogenic drug DMT, cannabis, ecstasy and some prescription drugs.

Two of the accused have also been charged with production of DMT.

A DMT lab was found in a residence on the base, which is usually reserved for privates awaiting release or training, said Maj. Daniel Dandurand, officer commanding the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service's Western Region Detachment.

The street value of the drugs was estimated at $10,000 by Dandurand.

[Thanks Jim!]

At the MAPS Psychedelic Science Conference 2010 with experiential journalist Rak Razam:

* Stan Grof divulges his personal history in the Checkoslovakian psychedelic scene of the 1950s and his first trip in 1956; psychedelic therapy, his LSD research in America and his disappointment at the discarding of years of scientific data; his subsequent founding of holotropic breathwork and its ability to alter consciousness; and his thoughts on the current wave of psychedelic research in some ways going over old ground... Stan advocates the technologies of the sacred as part of healing and a network of centers to support the exploration of consciousness in a supported environment...

* Nick Sand, famed LSD chemist who developed "Orange Sunshine" tells of his part in the acid movement of the sixties and beyond in a sizzling conversation... Sand trained with Mazatec mushroom shamaness Maria Sabina and received his first illuminations in cosmic glossalalia with her, deciding to first synthesize psilocybin... When that proved too expensive to produce he turned his hand to DMT, creating the first street use of the tryptamine in the US and turning people on, including Richard Alpert from Millbrook... Sand went on to become the Chief Alchemist for the League of Spiritual Discovery -- and was prosecuted for following his religion under his constitutional rights... The rest is history, and a very colorful one at that! Learn the secrets of pizeoluminescent-LSD as the inner light, the sacrafice the acid chemists took personally for their work, how Sand survived life in prison, his Eckhart Tolle connection -- and how Richard Milhouse Nixon was dosed with acid, and much, much more in this very provoking interview...

Originally published in France in 1956 'Miserable Miracle' by Henri Michaux explores the author/artist's experiences with mescaline; an hallucinogenic drug originally derived from the Peyote cactus. Translated into English in 1963 by Louise Varese, this review has been written from the 2002 New York Review of Books edition and contains an introduction by Octavio Paz and includes addenda.

Henri Michaux (1899-1984) was a writer and artist born in Namur, Belgium. He traveled widely, through the Americas, Africa and Asia before settling in Paris, France. After the freak death of his wife in 1948 he began devoting himself to ink calligraphy drawings and, at regular intervals, he began taking mescaline.

During the post-war years, before the popularization of LSD, mescaline was being used as an experimental drug in clinical, artistic and intellectual circles. Its use spawned several literary explorations, most notably Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, a book that Michaux had already read before embarking on the publication his own book Miserable Miracle. He wrote three books about the mescaline experience of which this offering was the first.

Daniel Oliveros and Jeff Sokolin were known as the "sexy boys" because they often described the wines they sold as "sexy juice." Oliveros and Sokolin ran Royal Wine Merchants, a Manhattan retailer that was, until a few years ago, one of the biggest players in the fine wine market. They lived as lavishly as their wealthy customers -- staying in swank hotels, often hiring limousines, and routinely opening thousands of dollars' worth of rare wines. Oliveros' marriage to porn star Savanna Samson added to the aura and the intrigue. But what really set the sexy boys apart was their seemingly limitless stock of legendary old wines, many of them in supersize bottles -- quantities and formats that no one else could get their hands on. They bombarded clients with faxes touting their latest finds: multiple bottles of 1961 Latour a Pomerol ("Kinky Juice!"), magnums of 1945 Mouton Rothschild ("our latest sexy purchase"), a double magnum of 1949 Cheval Blanc ("Perfect condition. Better than 1947!!! Trust me!!!"). It seemed too good to be true. Apparently, it was.

This quite riveting tale of apparently epic wine counterfeiting is, on the one hand, very hilarious in a "look what happens to rich people" kind of way. But by the same token, the provenance of any particular amount of Orange Sunshine blotter acid you come across is probably equally suspicious.

Thanks TMNS!

There has been a lot of inexcusably moronic meowmix said about mephedrone. So much meowmix, in fact, that I decided it would be best to ignore the entire phenomenon completely, because it was making me lose faith in both drugs and humanity. But then again, most people in the US have never even heard of mephedrone, or they think that you're just saying "methadone" with a speech impediment, so I have changed my mind and will now fill you in.

Mephedrone (pronounced with a labiodental fricative feh) is a synthetic stimulant that has become a media sensation of almost unparalleled stupidity in the UK. Vice's British editor, Andy Capper, was actually the first to report on the drug in April 2009 on the Vice blog. "There was a paralyzing mania. I felt totally insane," he wrote. The BBC picked up on it after that. By the end of 2009, new mephedrone horror stories were appearing daily in British tabloids, with bold statements such as "A legal drug known as 'meow meow' led one lad to rip off his own scrotum, police said today." Those enticed to read on find that he ripped off his scrotum because the 'meow meow' made him think he was covered in centipedes. After much research and several frenzied calls to the County Durham police department attempting to find said mephedrone eunuch, I have come to the firm conclusion that this supposed "lad" never existed. Making up an autocastration story like that is simply unacceptable, and if for no other reason I now feel obligated to set the record straight.