Posts Tagged ‘Drug Policy’

How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs

As the violence spread, billions of dollars of cartel cash began to seep into the global financial system. But a special investigation by the Observer reveals how the increasingly frantic warnings of one London whistleblower were ignored. A soldier guards marijuana that is being incinerated in Tijuana,...

April 11th, 2011 | Social Insight | Read More

Time for Change

In 1998 the UN declared: “a drug-free world, we can do it!” In reality, we cannot. The War on Drugs has failed. According to all available indices, it is no longer defendable. Vast expenditure on drug law enforcement has resulted in increasing levels of overall drug-use and lowered drug prices....

April 11th, 2011 | Drug Policy | Read More

Can Dope give us Hope?

The ban on hallucinogens is holding back vital research into their medical benefits, says Jake Wallis Simons. Last week, the news took on a decidedly trippy tinge. First, Professor David Nutt, sacked as an adviser to the Labour government for criticising its policy on drugs, sparked controversy...

December 14th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Drugs: the highs and lows

Natural or synthetic, legal or illegal, people have been taking drugs for thousands of years. High Society, a new exhibition at the Wellcome Collection, explores the culture of getting out of it By the end of planning her new exhibition, Caroline Fisher had come to an interesting conclusion. “It’s...

December 14th, 2010 | Arts | Read More

Was the poisoning of a French town in 1951 an LSD trial?

On August 16th 1951 a number of people in the quiet southern French town of Pont St.Esprit began to fall ill. Stomach pains were soon followed by violent and often terrifying hallucinations. Local hospitals were soon overwhelmed and more than thirty people were taken to asylums in nearby towns. It was...

August 25th, 2010 | Social Insight | Read More

‘Tame’ bears guard Canadian marijuana farm

Police raiding a marijuana farm in western Canada were astonished to find black bears apparently guarding it. However initial alarm wore off when officers realised the 10 or so bears did not behave aggressively and were in fact docile and tame. Police believe dog food was used to attract the animals...

August 25th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Drugs That Shape Men’s Minds

Aldous Huxley’s acclaimed essay about man’s inclination towards intoxication and the potential for good and evil that drugs represent In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country. The craving for ethyl...

August 4th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Jobs, Taxes and Crime: Keys to California’s Pot Vote

Getty Images Inside City Hall in Oakland, Calif., Jim Wilcox explained his plan for a commercial marijuana farm. “My idea was a Silicon Valley of cannabis,” he told the city council recently. “An office park for pot.” The council has approved the creation, licensing...

July 28th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More

Psychedelic Technologies

Imagine… you are strolling along the Esplanade at Burning Man, and something catches your eye. Bands of lights are rapidly moving up and down a 30 foot high pyramid, from Red at the bottom, through Orange, Green, Turquoise, Indigo, Violet, and finally White light at the top. Nothing too unusual,...

July 26th, 2010 | Science & Technology | Read More

(A Brief History and) Motivation of an Entheogenic Chemist

Abstract: Casey Hardison was arrested spring 2004 for the production of psychedelic-type drugs, i.e., LSD, 2C- B and DMT. In the three years since, not one person from ‘authority’ had bothered to ask him what motivated him to synthesise psychedelic drugs. It was as if the a priori assumption that...

July 5th, 2010 | Drug Policy | Read More