November 19, 2012
The Secret Ingredients for Marijuana Legalization: Moms and Hispanics Convincing women — mothers, especially — that legalization wasn’t simply about stoners and libertarians was essential to ending blanket prohibition. They needed to be assured this was sound policy and that their children would not be affected. “We definitely wanted to reach [women],” says Tonia Winchester, the outreach director behind the Yes on I-502 camp. “We were very much focused on not being a pro-pot campaign but a pro-policy campaign, showing that we could shift resources from incarcerating and focus on programs we knew would work.” Read more. [Image: AP]

The Secret Ingredients for Marijuana Legalization: Moms and Hispanics

Convincing women — mothers, especially — that legalization wasn’t simply about stoners and libertarians was essential to ending blanket prohibition. They needed to be assured this was sound policy and that their children would not be affected.

“We definitely wanted to reach [women],” says Tonia Winchester, the outreach director behind the Yes on I-502 camp. “We were very much focused on not being a pro-pot campaign but a pro-policy campaign, showing that we could shift resources from incarcerating and focus on programs we knew would work.”

Read more. [Image: AP]

2:46pm
(Notes: 110)
  
Filed under: Marijuana Drugs Latinos Women Voting Politics 
November 2, 2012
How I Enabled the Cult of Lance Armstrong Horrifically but undeniably, a dark, cynical leap into the deepest moral abyss seems to be exactly what Lance Armstrong’s career really was. Together with almost everyone who had been a fan and admirer of Armstrong’s achievements, both athletic and philanthropic, I’ve been wrestling with painful, complicated feelings of anger, sorrow, and disillusionment as the totality of his disgrace sinks in. But as a magazine journalist once deeply invested in covering the Armstrong era in cycling, I also feel a shock of self-recrimination as I struggle to reconcile my part in lionizing a man who, in hindsight, was almost certainly a cheat and a liar of breathtaking audacity and shamelessness. How could I have characterized the rumors and accusations that Lance relied on banned performance-enhancing drugs and techniques as part of a “myth”? Read more. [Image: AP]

How I Enabled the Cult of Lance Armstrong

Horrifically but undeniably, a dark, cynical leap into the deepest moral abyss seems to be exactly what Lance Armstrong’s career really was. Together with almost everyone who had been a fan and admirer of Armstrong’s achievements, both athletic and philanthropic, I’ve been wrestling with painful, complicated feelings of anger, sorrow, and disillusionment as the totality of his disgrace sinks in. But as a magazine journalist once deeply invested in covering the Armstrong era in cycling, I also feel a shock of self-recrimination as I struggle to reconcile my part in lionizing a man who, in hindsight, was almost certainly a cheat and a liar of breathtaking audacity and shamelessness. How could I have characterized the rumors and accusations that Lance relied on banned performance-enhancing drugs and techniques as part of a “myth”?

Read more. [Image: AP]

10:31am
(Notes: 46)
  
Filed under: Lance Armstrong Sports Cycling Doping Drugs Cancer Journalism 
October 22, 2012
Don’t Inhale: There is a Detectable Amount of Cocaine in Urban Italian Air Italy’s Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research just published a report that measured psychotropic drugs (including cocaine, nicotine, cannabinoids, and caffeine) in the air in eight major cities: Palermo, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Turin, Milan, Verona, and Naples. Read more. [Image: AP]

Don’t Inhale: There is a Detectable Amount of Cocaine in Urban Italian Air

Italy’s Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research just published a report that measured psychotropic drugs (including cocaine, nicotine, cannabinoids, and caffeine) in the air in eight major cities: Palermo, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Turin, Milan, Verona, and Naples.

Read more. [Image: AP]

4:54pm
(Notes: 270)
  
Filed under: Italy Drugs Health WTF 
September 25, 2012
How Collecting Opium Antiques Turned Me Into an Opium Addict

“You really have to work hard to get hooked on smoking opium. The Victorian-era form of the drug, known as chandu, is rare, and the people who know how to use it aren’t exactly forthcoming. But leave it to an obsessive antiques collector to figure out how to get to addicted to a 19th-century drug.”

- As told to Lisa Hix at CollectorsWeekly.com

1:39pm
(Notes: 192)
  
Filed under: Drugs Opium Longreads Antiques History submission 
September 12, 2012
Medical Case Study: What Happens When You Live-Tweet an Acid Trip?

LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is a hallucinogen, meaning its primary action is alteration of perception, mood, and thought.

The vast majority of hallucinogen-related hospitalizations aren’t the result of direct physiologic effects, but from injuries related impaired judgement. For those who insist on experimenting with acid, at least do so in a supportive, private environment.

With release of dopamine and seratonin, many report senses of euphoria and existential ambition.

Read more.

3:30pm
(Notes: 357)
  
Filed under: Twitter Funny LOL Drugs LSD Acid 
July 13, 2012
‘Breaking Bad’ is the Best Show on Television There. We said it.

‘Breaking Bad’ is the Best Show on Television

There. We said it.

3:24pm
(Notes: 320)
  
Filed under: breaking bad amc television cable series drugs characters 
June 7, 2012
Intercepted! Mitt Romney Harshes His California Neighbors’ Mellow It’s an interesting look into the American psyche that even now, four years after the housing bubble brought the national economy to its knees, few things have the power to fascinate like real estate. And there’s no better example than Mitt Romney’s house in La Jolla, California. First there was the infamous car elevator. In today’s New York Times, Michael Barbaro visits La Jolla and gets the Romney family’s neighbors to dish on their gripes about the relatively new arrivals. Many of those complaints are exactly what one might expect. A good number of the adjacent homeowners are liberal, and take issue with the former Massachusetts governor’s politics, though there’s no reason one can’t enjoy a barbecue with an ideological adversary. There’s some standard NIMBYism about the Romney family’s plans to drastically renovate the property. And others are upset about the presence of Secret Service agents, an inconvenience that the Romneys can’t do much about. One particular gripe sticks out, though. The Romneys rarely entertain neighbors, but they have tried to weave themselves into the fabric of local life. Mr. Romney and his wife take regular walks around La Jolla, exchanging pleasantries with fellow strollers and occasionally enforcing the law. A young man in town recalled that Mr. Romney confronted him as he smoked marijuana and drank on the beach last summer, demanding that he stop. Read more. [Image: Reuters]

Intercepted! Mitt Romney Harshes His California Neighbors’ Mellow

It’s an interesting look into the American psyche that even now, four years after the housing bubble brought the national economy to its knees, few things have the power to fascinate like real estate. And there’s no better example than Mitt Romney’s house in La Jolla, California.

First there was the infamous car elevator. In today’s New York Times, Michael Barbaro visits La Jolla and gets the Romney family’s neighbors to dish on their gripes about the relatively new arrivals. Many of those complaints are exactly what one might expect. A good number of the adjacent homeowners are liberal, and take issue with the former Massachusetts governor’s politics, though there’s no reason one can’t enjoy a barbecue with an ideological adversary. There’s some standard NIMBYism about the Romney family’s plans to drastically renovate the property. And others are upset about the presence of Secret Service agents, an inconvenience that the Romneys can’t do much about.

One particular gripe sticks out, though.

The Romneys rarely entertain neighbors, but they have tried to weave themselves into the fabric of local life. Mr. Romney and his wife take regular walks around La Jolla, exchanging pleasantries with fellow strollers and occasionally enforcing the law. A young man in town recalled that Mr. Romney confronted him as he smoked marijuana and drank on the beach last summer, demanding that he stop.
Read more. [Image: Reuters]

11:17am
(Notes: 35)
  
Filed under: Romney Marijuana Drugs News 
June 1, 2012
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bath Salts (But Were Afraid to Google) Okay, first things first, are these actual, like give your mom for Mother’s Day, bath salts? No. People aren’t going around getting high off of Dead Sea salts. One cannot use these for bathing. Well one could, but it would not have the desired effect. These bath salts, also known as plant food, are a blanket term for synthetic drugs often made from mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV. […] So, then, why the misleading moniker? Two reasons. The drugs usually come in powder and crystal form, looking like the real-deal bath salts and also carry names that call back to our bath products, like Ivory Wave and Red Dove. Also, selling them under the name “bath salts” acted as a loophole for dealers, making the substances legal. Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Reuters]

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Bath Salts (But Were Afraid to Google)

Okay, first things first, are these actual, like give your mom for Mother’s Day, bath salts?

No. People aren’t going around getting high off of Dead Sea salts. One cannot use these for bathing. Well one could, but it would not have the desired effect. These bath salts, also known as plant food, are a blanket term for synthetic drugs often made from mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV. […]

So, then, why the misleading moniker?

Two reasons. The drugs usually come in powder and crystal form, looking like the real-deal bath salts and also carry names that call back to our bath products, like Ivory Wave and Red Dove. Also, selling them under the name “bath salts” acted as a loophole for dealers, making the substances legal.

Read more at The Atlantic Wire. [Image: Reuters]

12:09pm
(Notes: 115)
  
Filed under: Bath salts Drugs 
May 17, 2012

In Focus: Mexico’s Drug War: 50,000 Dead in 6 Years

Warning: All images in this entry are shown in full. There are many dead bodies; the photographs are graphic and stark. This is the reality of the situation in Mexico right now.

Top: A masked Mexican soldier patrols the streets of Veracruz, on October 10, 2011. Soldiers of the Army, Navy and members of Federal Police patrol the streets of the city as part of “Veracruz Safe Operation” after a rising tide of violence plaguing this tourist city.

Bottom: A forensic technician points his flashlight at the shoes of a man at a crime scene in Mazatlan, on February 13, 2012. The man was shot dead by gunmen while he was walking on the street, according to local media.

See more. [Images: AFP/Getty, Reuters]

1:54pm
(Notes: 362)
  
Filed under: Photography World news News Mexico Drugs Felipe Calderón Los Zetas NSFW 
April 25, 2012
Cocaine Rots Your Brain: Seriously, Heavy Users Lose More Gray Matter As if we needed any more evidence that cocaine is bad for you, new research shows that people who are dependent on the drug have brains that age almost twice as fast as those who aren’t similarly addicted. The study, which appeared this week in Molecular Psychiatry, builds on what we already know about growing old: that as we age, our brains gradually lose their volume. Researchers ran brain scans of 120 middle-aged people, 60 of whom had cocaine dependencies. Controlling for age, gender, and verbal IQ, they discovered that those without a history of drug abuse lost 1.69 milliliters of brain volume each year, compared to 3.08 milliliters among people who were cocaine-dependent. In other words, cocaine may literally be rotting your brain. Read more. [Image: Flickr]

Cocaine Rots Your Brain: Seriously, Heavy Users Lose More Gray Matter

As if we needed any more evidence that cocaine is bad for you, new research shows that people who are dependent on the drug have brains that age almost twice as fast as those who aren’t similarly addicted.

The study, which appeared this week in Molecular Psychiatry, builds on what we already know about growing old: that as we age, our brains gradually lose their volume. Researchers ran brain scans of 120 middle-aged people, 60 of whom had cocaine dependencies. Controlling for age, gender, and verbal IQ, they discovered that those without a history of drug abuse lost 1.69 milliliters of brain volume each year, compared to 3.08 milliliters among people who were cocaine-dependent.

In other words, cocaine may literally be rotting your brain.

Read more. [Image: Flickr]

3:24pm
(Notes: 69)
  
Filed under: Drugs Cocaine Health Science 
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