October 15th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture, For Educators, For Parents
In 2006, the UK Times reported that 35,000 British children, under the age of 16, were second generation heroin users. Harm reduction, Safe Sites, free heroin for hard core intravenous [...]
October 15th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture, For Health Professionals, Interesting Information
The number of people admitted to hospital in England with mental illnesses linked to use of illegal drugs has doubled in the past decade, official figures revealed yesterday. The NHS Information Centre said 38,170 adults and children were admitted with [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Dan Reed
Marijuana can make you forgetful. Michael Krawitz wants to help you remember. Krawitz is a kind of curator of dope history. He’s the founder of the traveling Cannabis Museum, in San Francisco through today as part of the convention of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. It’s important for a [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Bill O ‘Reilly
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Rockefeller drug laws in New York State. The statutes’ most severe provision requires that a judge impose a prison term of no less than 15 years to life for someone convicted of selling two ounces or possessing four ounces of a narcotic substance. Now [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Dan Levine
One Saturday last September, 50,000 people, most of them teenagers, crowded into the Boston Common for the eighth annual Freedom Rally. Its organizers billed it as the largest marijuana legalization event on the East Coast. Strolling through the crowd, holding a joint was a 17-year-old highschool senior who said his name was Bill. [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Joe Eszterhas Cleveland
By JOE ESZTERHAS CLEVELAND — I’ve written 14 movies. My characters smoke in many of them, and they look cool and glamorous doing it. Smoking was an integral part of many of my screenplays because I was a militant smoker. It was part of a bad-boy image I’d cultivated for a long [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Rick Doblin
Spring 1991: “The DEA is on the ropes and even their attorneys seem to have lost all moral fervor and to realize they are on the wrong side. One of the Judges in the case was the brother of William Buckley, the noted conservative voice in favor of drug legalization….If the court decides [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
QUOTE: Larry King “You’re not suggesting they legalize LSD?” John Morgan: “I certainly am. I believe that the drug should be legalized.” (From 1992 interview on CNN by Larry King.)
QUOTE: “When do we see normal drug use, except in my apartment.” “There is no
such thing as treatment.” “Cocaine does not cause physical dependence.”
“When we know [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By Melanie Phillips
A silent coup has taken place in drugs policy. The legalisers have captured the Home Office. The government has quietly downgraded its attempt to reduce the number of people taking illegal drugs.
This astonishing development became clear last Friday, when the Home Office minister Bob Ainsworth told a conference that the government was going [...]
October 6th, 2008 | Full text | published by BRAHA Editor in Drug Culture
By E. Patrick Curry
Lester Grinspoon blithely dismisses any serious health considerations in the smoking of marijuana. Indeed, Dr. Grinspoon - a longtime proponent of legalization of not only marijuana but also of a wide range of psychedelic drugs - has routinely dismissed most evidence of the deleterious effects of smoked marijuana, attributing it to the [...]
In the wake of a meeting of the UK government’s advisory body on drugs to discuss the harmful effects of ecstasy, Professor Keith Laws and Professor Fabrizio Schifano will reveal research findings about the drug at the university’s Health and Human Sciences Research Institute Showcase on October 21. [...]
Lester Grinspoon, MD, a psychiatrist and associate professor at Harvard, is frequently used as an “expert” in support of “medicalization of marijuana.” He has publicly attested to his personal use of illicit drugs and on several occasions has published statements in leading medical journals that cocaine is neither harmful [...]
It has been known for more than two decades that many illicit drugs inflict damage on the immune system leaving the body open to a host of opportunistic infections, not the least of which is the HIV virus. Other drugs accelerate the progression of HIV to full blown AIDS. In fact, a study [...]
Relief from pain. In some people, prescription pain relievers also cause euphoria or feelings of well being by affecting the brain regions that mediate pleasure. This is why they are abused. Other effects include drowsiness, constipation and slowed breathing. [...]
On Sunday researchers at the University of Buffalo reported that Ritalin, used on children diagnosed with ADHD, may cause long-term changes in the brain. Many clinicians regard Ritalin as short-acting but the research with gene expression in an animal model suggests that it has the potential for causing long-lasting changes [...]
The body produces many chemicals and hormones, i.e., histamines, steroids, thyroid hormone, digitalis-like substances, adrenalin, etc, all of which work by attaching to corresponding brain receptors. The key is that these natural substances produced by the body are present in nanogram amounts [...]
Among the things everybody knows is that Democrats, being the party of the little people, raise money in small contributions, whereas Republicans, being the party of fat cats, raise funds in huge basketfuls from wealthy corporate types. At least, that’s the way the world is usually portrayed by the “Today Show,” The New York Times and the Democratic Party. So it’s of more than passing interest to see [...]
A full page ad appeared Sunday, April 25, l999 in the Denver Rocky Mountain News. It had a picture of Steve Allen and an appeal to Parents. A partial quote from the ad read: Are you as disgusted as I am at the filfth, vulgarity, sex and violence TV is sending into our homes? are you fed up with steamy unmarried sex situations, filthy jokes, perversion, vulgarity, foul language, violence, killings, etc.? [...]
A study from Israel’s Ben-Gurion University looked at driving under the influence of various types of music using a virtual Volkswagen New Beetle. The music used was Kenny G, “Stranger on the Shore” at 56 bpm, Spyro Gyra’s “Cashaca,” at 112 bpm, and DJ Jurgen, pop trance mix at 132 bpm. The study’s findings are just [...]