One day in 1964, Nicholas Sand, a Brooklyn-born son of a spy for the Soviet Union, took his first acid trip. He had been fascinated by psychedelic drugs since reading about them as a student at Brooklyn College and had experimented with mescaline and peyote. Now, at a retreat run by friends in Putnam County, N.Y., he took his first dose of LSD, still legal at the time. Sitting naked in the lotus position, before a crackling fire, he surrendered to the experience. A sensation of peace and joy washed over him. Then he felt himself transported to the far reaches of the cosmos. [continues 1480 words]
There's something quasi quaint about the federal government introducing legislation to legalize marijuana. News reporting on the budding bill has generously employed terrible puns to create a sense of giggling excitement about it. A Canadian Press story advised that all of Ottawa is "buzzing" at the audacity that dope represents. Buzzing? Among the permanently buzzed, perhaps. Clearer eyes can't help recognizing the stale nature of the gesture, like watching poor old drunken Uncle Boo being shuffled into a cab long after the other guests have left the party. [continues 640 words]
How to talk to your kids about the death of teen and the risk of drugs Like parents across the city, I was shaken by the photograph of Chloe Kotval, her long straight hair and big, hopeful eyes so like those of my own daughter, attached to a story about death. Gone at 14, apparently of a drug overdose. That evening I sat down with my 12-year-old. "A very sad thing has happened to a teenager in Kanata," I began. [continues 441 words]
Like parents across the city, I was shaken by the photograph of Chloe Kotval, her long straight hair and big, hopeful eyes so like those of my own daughter, attached to a story about death. Gone at 14,apparently of a drug overdose. That evening I sat down with my 12-year-old. "A very sad thing has happened to a teenager in Kanata," I began. "Oh, you mean Chloe?" she said. "I know all about it. It's all over Instagram." [continues 425 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - To the red-and-blue map of American politics, it may be time to add green. The movement to legalize marijuana, the country's most popular illicit drug, will take a giant leap on Election Day if California and four other states vote to allow recreational cannabis, as polls suggest they may. The map of where pot is legal could include the entire West Coast and a block of states reaching from the Pacific to Colorado, raising a stronger challenge to the federal government's ban on the drug. [continues 1313 words]
Health Care: Goal is to teach primary physicians how to best treat specific cases As fentanyl overdoses continue to dominate headlines, the head of a newly announced B.C. Centre on Substance Use says finding the best addiction treatment in B.C. is notoriously difficult because there's no single system to navigate - and science-based addiction therapy is vastly underused in the province. "The medical side of addiction treatment isn't well established," says Dr. Evan Wood, who was named interim head of the new research centre by Premier Christy Clark on Sept. 28. [continues 763 words]
I believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan to decriminalize and regulate the production, sale and use of marijuana is correct and should be applied as well to other drugs, such as cocaine. I feel this way not because I am in favour of drug use (I wouldn't dream of using these substances myself ) but because an iron-fisted "war" to eradicate drug use doesn't work and is counterproductive. Greater problems are caused by making drugs illegal than by the drugs themselves. [continues 300 words]
I believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan to decriminalize and regulate the production, sale and use of marijuana is correct and should be applied to other drugs as well - like cocaine, for example. I feel this way not because I am in favour of drug use, but because an iron-fisted "war on drugs" attempt to eradicate drug use doesn't work and is counterproductive. Greater problems are caused by making drugs illegal than by the effects of the drugs themselves. [continues 232 words]
I believe that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan to decriminalize and regulate the production, sale and use of marijuana is correct and should be applied to other drugs as well, like cocaine, for example. I feel this way not because I am in favour of drug use (I wouldn't dream of using these substances myself ), but because an iron-fisted "war on drugs" attempt to eradicate drug use doesn't work and is counterproductive, in the sense that greater problems are caused by making drugs illegal than by the effects of the drugs themselves. [continues 308 words]
We can rant all day about how dirty and bloody the current war on drugs has become, but we cannot deny the fact that only President Rodrigo Duterte has shown utmost resolve and political will to do battle with drug syndicates. The illegal drug trade is just one of the tentacles of the underworld. According to law enforcement experts, revenues accrued from drug trafficking fund the criminal colony that is illegal gambling, human trafficking, white slavery, gunrunning, cybercrime and terrorism, not to mention sustaining the network of government officials who aid the illegal structure. [continues 920 words]
GOOGLE defines pogrom as an organized massacre of a particular ethnic group, particularly the Jews in Russia and Eastern Europe in 1881-1884. The word is synonymous with massacre, slaughter, carnage, bloodbath without due process. Although not exactly similar in reach, intensity and wickedness, there is little difference between the Russian pogrom and the Duterte administration's ongoing campaign against those engaged in illegal drugs in their disregard for the sacredness of human life and lack of due process. Lately, various media outlets estimate that around 300 suspected drug addicts have already been killed by policemen and vigilante groups in various parts of the country since President Duterte's inauguration last June 30, 2016. The deaths have a familiar ring to it-the victims engaged the police in a shootout; they grabbed the gun of a cop or they tried to escape. One incredible aspect of this narrative is that hardly any cop has died in the process. Parati na lang ang drug addicts ang namamatay, hello? [continues 374 words]
Hallucinogenic African Bark Could Be the Answer to Heroin Addiction, and Addiction in General Richard Dilley had tried everything by the time he traveled to Mexico and agreed to ingest a drug derived from a hallucinogenic African shrub bark that, he was told, would alter his brain. All for the bargain price of $10,000. While terrifying in a way, the drug known as ibogaine (or Tabernanthe iboga in its natural state) was, at this point, less of a horror than the drug Dilley had been addicted to since his teen years. [continues 3617 words]
The marijuana expert was in. Dale Gieringer, 70, a coauthor of California's 20-year-old medical marijuana law, was taking questions at a metal desk plopped down in the middle of an unusual new museum exhibit, "Altered State: Marijuana in California." A neatly dressed 77-year-old woman from Walnut Creek took a seat next to him. She seemed hesitant, but determined. Her husband hovered behind her. "I've never smoked anything," the woman told Gieringer, one of several pot experts invited to answer questions on the occasional Friday evening. "And I've been using Blackberry Kush for sleeping. Will it hurt my lungs? That's what I'm worried about." [continues 906 words]
A Sonoma County-related lawsuit that attempted to establish the use of marijuana as a protected sacrament for use in religious ceremonies was tossed out in federal court this week. The claim that Sonoma County sheriff's officers destroyed sacramental marijuana plants belonging to a Kenwood church was dismissed after the attorney for the church failed to show up in federal court. Two members of the Oklevueha Native American Church, which has a branch off Lawndale Road, claimed that sheriff's deputies violated their civil rights by confiscating approximately 600 marijuana plants used in their religious ceremonies. [continues 504 words]
'True champion of Hamilton': mayor Hamilton's own prince of pot and effervescent candidate for political office is being remembered as a kind and colourful soul dedicated to making his city a better place. Michael Baldasaro, a longtime advocate for marijuana legalization, died Thursday morning in hospice after a short battle with cancer. He was 67. Baldasaro, a minister in the Hamilton-based Church of the Universe, made it his mission to help the downtrodden and disadvantaged, said congregant Rev. Juliet Boyd. [continues 1035 words]
Each spring when the jacarandas bloom and the breezes flutter their purple petals through the air, I always hum, "Purple rain, purple rain .." So it was all the more tragic - and coincidental that just as the jacaranda petals started to fall this year, Prince, the artist behind that song and dozens of other hits that form the soundtrack of my teens, was found unresponsive, alone in his suburban Minneapolis home. That he was only 57 was shocking enough. That he was known as a clean-living, serious artist was all the more. Here was a superstar who had a reputation for being a teetotaling vegan. Always attracted to the spiritual, he became a Jehovah's Witness, forsaking - even swearing not to mention - the overt sexuality of his early music and stage persona. [continues 1153 words]
SANTA CRUZ - The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition. Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country. [continues 910 words]
The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition. Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker, said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country. [continues 843 words]
California Looks Poised to Emerge As the Center of the Cannabis Economy in November SANTA CRUZ - The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition. Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country. [continues 843 words]
Psychedelic drugs have made a resurgence as medications to treat illnesses from post-traumatic stress disorder to end-of-life anxiety, but researchers at the University of B.C. say the substances might also rein in domestic violence. The UBC Okanagan study, published last week in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, found that 42 per cent of imprisoned men in the U.S. who did not take psychedelic drugs after their release were arrested within six years for domestic battery, compared to 27 per cent for those who had taken drugs such as LSD, psilocybin - also known as magic mushrooms - and MDMA, which is known by the street name ecstasy. [continues 594 words]
