My response to "UN: drug gangs controlling parts of British cities"

HI, greetings readers. Once in a while I read one or two articles from a newspaper and get overwhelmed by the sense of inbalance. A lack of fairness, comprehensive thinking and alternative views on whatever issue they choose to make NEWS.

Here we have an example of 'soundbites' and 'quotes' from the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) 2011 report, that from the off, seems flawed to me, in its inability to entertain the possibility of legalization as a strategy for Global harm reduction, let alone the medical and industrial uses of Cannabis and hemp in particular, the masses of new jobs, new cultural awareness etc.

So I'll add my comments to the article in BOLD CAPITALS. Please excuse my ranting tone, it's just stooping the level of sillyness I see in these arguments and statements made, so funny eh.

--Steven Pratt.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9110374/UN-drug-gangs-controlling-parts-of-British-cities.html

UN: drug gangs controlling parts of British cities

Parts of British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control, a United Nations drugs chief said today.

(DRUGS GANGS? DOES SUPERDRUG AND BOOTS QUALIFY AS 'DRUGS GANGS?' PLEASE, DEFINE YOUR TERMS!)

Image 1 of 2

Police officer arrests a suspected drug dealer Photo: Getty Images

10:00AM GMT 28 Feb 2012

720 Comments

(SUSPECTED DRUG DEALER? WELL, IF HE TURNS OUT TO BE INNOCENT YOU MIGHT CONSIDER GIVING HIM SOMETHING IN RETURN FOR THE USE OF HIS PHOTO. ALL IN GOOD SPIRITS)

Professor Hamid Ghodse, president of the UN's International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said there was ''a vicious cycle of social exclusion and drugs problems and fractured communities'' in cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester.

(DRUGS PROBLEMS AND FRACTURED COMMUNITIES, VICIOUS CYCLES... YES, DUE TO PROHIBITION, AND THE WAR ON DRUGS, AND MONEY SPENT ON FOREIGN WARS AND SWINDLED BY LOCAL AND NATIONAL POLITICIANS, BANKERS AND CORPORATIONS, IMHO)

The development of ''no-go areas'' was being fuelled by threats such as social inequality, migration and celebrities normalising drug abuse, he warned.

(WHAT? CELEBRITIES NORMALIZING DRUG ABUSE! WELL, YOUR A CELEBRITY NOW MR GHODSE, BUSY DE-NORMALIZING DRUG-ABUSE NO DOUBT. WHAT DO YOU MEAN? WHAT DRUGS, WHAT DO YOU VIEW AS ABUSE? EH?
MIGRATION? MIGRATION OF SOULS?
OH, I GET IT, YOU MEAN NON-WHITE, LOWER MIDDLE CLASS JOBLESS 'CELEBRITIES'.

How should Britain's drug problem be tackled?

(SLIDING IN FROM THE LEFT!)

 

Increased drug prevention and treatment programmes in worst affected areasTougher sentences for people caught using or selling drugsLegalise drugs such as cannabis to reduce crimeTackle inequality in areas which have become no-go zones

VoteView ResultsShare This

 

Helping marginalised communities with drugs problems ''must be a priority'', he said.

''We are looking at social cohesion, the social disintegration and illegal drugs.

28 Feb 2012

''In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities within the societies which develop which become no-go areas.

''Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.

''Examples are in Brazil, Mexico, in the United States, in the UK, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and therefore it is no good to have only law enforcement, which always shows it does not succeed.''

(OK, I AGREE, AND PRESENT FULL LEGALIZATION OF ALL DRUGS AS THE SOLUTION, WAKE UP YOU MORON!)

Prof Ghodse called for such communities to be offered drug abuse prevention programmes, treatment and rehabilitation services, and the same levels of educational, employment and recreational opportunities as in the wider society.

(THATS A VERY WIDE RANGE OF OLD IDEAS, PEPPERED WITH IDEALISTIC SWEET TALK ABOUT EQUALITY AND WORK. MY THOUGHTS DRIFT TO BANKING ABUSE PREVENTION PROGRAMMES, PONZI SCHEME TREATMENT AND FINANCIAL BAIL-OUT REHABILITATION SERVICES. IT MIGHT LOOK GRIM UP NORTH BUDDY, BUT MOST THE REAL PSYCHOPATHS AND SOCIAL PARIAHS ARE AROUND LONDON, WHERE ALL THE GLOBAL CORPORATE ACTION TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HUGE PHARMA BORGS, THE BANKS AND THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX, SPREADING CARNIEGE AND DESTRUCTION AND MAYHEM ACROSS THE UK AND THE WORLD. AND YET, SOME WEED SMOKING GANGSTERS WHO REALLY JUST LOVE TO PLAY X-BOX AND SURF THE NET IN VARIOUS ALTERED STATES POSE SUCH A MASSIVE THREAT TO SOCIETY?)


''Youth of these communities must have similar chances to those in the wide society and have a right to be protected from drug abuse and drug dependence,'' he said.

(OH YEAH, I FORGOT, THE TAX PAYERS PAY FOR THIS KIND OF PROTECTION AND TREATMENT ALREADY, THE POLICE ENFORCE YOUR PROHIBITION IN THE UK WITHOUT MERCY. LIKE ANY OTHER CRIME. AND NOW WITH THE ADDED EXCUSE OF PROVIDING EQUAL CHANCES IN THE WIDER COMMUNITY, BY PROTECTING FROM DRUG DEPENDENCE. BULLSHIT! WAKE UP. I SAY.)

''It is crucial that the needs of communities experiencing social disintegration are urgently tackled before the tipping point is reached, beyond which effective action becomes impossible.
''The consequences of failure are too high for society and should be avoided at all cost.''
The INCB's annual report for 2011 found persistent social inequality, migration, emerging cultures of excess and a shift in traditional values were some of the key threats to social cohesion.

(THE TIPPING POINT EH? WHAT TIPPING POINT, WHAT POINT, WHAT PIVOT? AND FROM WHICH AFTER EFFECTIVE ACTION BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE? WHAT? WHEN IS THAT? LEGALIZATION AND DECRIMINALIZATION COULD DO THAT, ACTUALLY, SEE PORTUGAL AND THE NETHERLANDS ON THIS ISSUE. PLEASE. LOOK AND READ FREDERICK POLLACK. THANKS.)

As the gap between rich and poor widens, and ''faced with a future with limited opportunities, individuals within these communities may increasingly become disengaged from the wider society and become involved in a range of personally and socially harmful behaviours, including drug abuse and drug dealing,'' it said.

(LIKE A BAD TRIP HE JUST GOES AROUND AND AROUND SAYING NOTHING MUCH BUT PARANOID STERETYPICAL SOUNDBITES. BULLSHIT. MOST CREATIVE PEOPLE I KNOW SMOKE POT AND HAVE TRIPPED BALLS AT LEAST A FEW TIMES IN A RESPECTFUL AND DILIGENT WAY. YOU, MR GHODSE HAVE OBVIOUSLY NEVER TRIED ANY OF THE DRUGS YOU SO HEARTILY EXPONGE. WAKE UP YOU DICK-HEAD AND PULL THAT INCB FINGER OUT YOUR ASS-HOLE. WHAT ABUSE? HOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN? AND WHAT DEALING? HOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN, WHAT ABOUT THE UK AND US GOV. DRUG DEALING? HAVE YOU EVER ADDRESSED THAT, AND THE DOUBLE STANDARDS, AND THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECT THIS CAN HAVE ON SOME WHO MAY FIGURE YOUR A FRONT FOR THE COPS AND ROBBERS, DUE TO YOUR DARK PARANOID VISIONS AND DIATRIBE.)

The report added: ''While migration offers many positive benefits to the migrant and to society at large, it can create a sense of dislocation from the surrounding community and a sense of vulnerability on the part of those who are displaced.

''Where migrating social groups have travelled from areas associated with illicit drug production and drug abuse, there is a greater likelihood of individuals engaging in forms of drug misuse as a way of coping with such a sense of dislocation.''

(SIMPLY, BOLLOCKS MR GHODSE. BOLLOCKS. YOUR WORDS ARE EMPTY AND MEANINGLESS, AND THE REPORTING HERE ALSO STINKS FOR IT'S CHOICE OF QUOTES AND LACK OF BALANCED ARGUMENT.)

Celebrities' use of illicit drugs may also ''contribute to a growing normalisation of certain forms of drug misuse within the wider society and in turn can lead to the undermining of social cohesion''.

But the INCB warned none of the factors ''should be seen as leading individuals inevitably into a lifestyle of drug abuse and criminality''.

''Whatever the social processes and social pressures at hand, human beings still have the capacity to exercise some element of choice in what they do and what they refrain from doing,'' it said.

(EH, SOME ELEMENT OF CHOICE? WELL NOT IF THAT INVOLVES A LITTLE MEDICAL MARIJUANA, OR A TRIPPY WHIPPY, OR SOME REICHEAN THEARAPY OR NLP COURSES IN MOST PLACES. WHAT SANCTAMONIOUS BULLSHIT THE INCB SPOUTS. AS I SAID, BUNCH OF MORONS. 

A Home Office spokesman said: ''The Ending Gang and Youth Violence report published by the Government in 2011 sets out a comprehensive strategy for supporting local areas to reduce the effects of gang violence.
 
''We want to stop young people from joining gangs in the first place through intervention and support to children and families at risk of gang violence.

''This will be matched with tough and intensive enforcement action to bring perpetrators to justice.''

(NICE ENDING! BOOM, BE WARNED, SO TO SPEAK. WELL I DISAGREE TOTALLY WITH THE INBALANCED VIEWS OF THIS ARTICLE, THE BAD PICTURE OF THE SUSPECTED DRUG DEALER, THE BAD QUOTES FROM MR GHODSE JUST REPEATING THE SAME SHIT. NO STATISTICS, NO HYPERLINKS, JUST ONE RAY OF HOPE, ONE.....

THE VOTING DEVICE WHICH INCLUDES THE PROPOSAL TO LEGALIZE AS A STRATEGY TO DEFEAT ORGANIZED CRIME AND CRIMINAL GANG DEALINGS. AS OF TODAY IT HAS THE MOST VOTES. I REST MY CASE. HEY, MAYBE FOLLOW UP THIS ARTICLE WITH A PRO-LEGALIZATION AND/OR DECRIMINALIZATION PIECE, FEATURING A SMART AND INTELLIGENT SCIENTIST REFUTING EVERY POINT MR GHODSE, THE HOME OFFICE AND THE INCB MAKE.

YOURS SINCERELY,
--STEVE FLY AGARIC 23.

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HOPKINS SCIENTISTS SHOW HALLUCINOGEN IN MUSHROOMS CREATES UNIVERSAL “MYSTICAL” EXPERIENCE

Johns Hopkins Medicine
Media Relations and Public Affairs
Media Contact:  Eric Vohr
410-955-8665; evohr1@jhmi.edu
July 11, 2006

Rigorous study hailed as landmark
Using unusually rigorous scientific conditions and measures, Johns Hopkins researchers have shown that the active agent in “sacred mushrooms” can induce mystical/spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries.
The resulting experiences apparently prompt positive changes in behavior and attitude that last several months, at least.
The agent, a plant alkaloid called psilocybin, mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors-as do some other hallucinogens-but precisely where in the brain and in what manner are unknown.
An account of the study, accompanied by an editorial and four experts’ commentaries, appears online today in the journal Psychopharmacology. 

Cited as “landmark” in the commentary by former National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) director, Charles Schuster, the research marks a new systematic approach to studying certain hallucinogenic compounds that, in the 1950s, showed signs of therapeutic potential or value in research into the nature of consciousness and sensory perception.  “Human consciousness…is a function of the ebb and flow of neural impulses in various regions of the brain-the very substrate that drugs such as psilocybin act upon,” Schuster says. “Understanding what mediates these effects is clearly within the realm of neuroscience and deserves investigation.”
“A vast gap exists between what we know of these drugs-mostly from descriptive anthropology-and what we believe we can understand using modern clinical pharmacology techniques,” says study leader Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., a professor with Hopkins’ departments of Neuroscience and Psychiatry and Behavioral Biology. “That gap is large because, as a reaction to the excesses of the 1960s, human research with hallucinogens has been basically frozen in time these last forty years.”
All of the study’s authors caution about substantial risks of taking psilocybin under conditions not appropriately supervised. “Even in this study, where we greatly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia,” says Griffiths. “Under unmonitored conditions, it’s not hard to imagine those emotions escalating to panic and dangerous behavior.”
The researchers’ message isn’t just that psilocybin can produce mystical experiences. “I had a healthy skepticism going into this,” says Griffiths, “and that finding alone was a surprise.” But, as important, he says, “is that, under very defined conditions, with careful preparation, you can safely and fairly reliably occasion what’s called a primary mystical experience that may lead to positive changes in a person. It’s an early step in what we hope will be a large body of scientific work that will ultimately help people.”
The authors acknowledge the unusual nature of the work, treading, as it does, a fine line between neuroscience and areas most would consider outside science’s realm. “But establishing the basic science here is necessary,” says Griffiths, “to take advantage of the possible benefits psilocybin can bring to our understanding of how thought, emotion, and ultimately behavior are grounded in biology.”
Griffiths is quick to emphasize the scientific intent of the study. “We’re just measuring what can be observed,” he says; “We’re not entering into ‘Does God exist or not exist.’ This work can’t and won’t go there.”  
In the study, more than 60 percent of subjects described the effects of psilocybin in ways that met criteria for a “full mystical experience” as measured by established psychological scales. One third said the experience was the single most spiritually significant of their lifetimes; and more than two-thirds rated it among their five most meaningful and spiritually significant. Griffiths says subjects liken it to the importance of the birth of their first child or the death of a parent.
Two months later, 79 percent of subjects reported moderately or greatly increased well-being or life satisfaction compared with those given a placebo at the same test session. A majority said their mood, attitudes and behaviors had changed for the better.  Structured interviews with family members, friends and co-workers generally confirmed the subjects’ remarks. Results of a year-long followup are being readied for publication.
Psychological tests and subjects’ own reports showed no harm to study participants, though some admitted extreme anxiety or other unpleasant effects in the hours following the psilocybin capsule. The drug has not been observed to be addictive or physically toxic in animal studies or human populations. “In this regard,” says Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist, “it contrasts with MDMA (ecstasy), amphetamines or alcohol.”
The study isn’t the first with psilocybin, the researchers say, though some of the earlier ones, done elsewhere, had notably less rigorous design, were less thorough in measuring outcomes or lacked longer-term follow-up.
In the present work, 36 healthy, well-educated volunteers-most of them middle-aged-with no family history of psychosis or bipolar disorder were selected. All had active spiritual practices. “We thought a familiarity with spiritual practice would give them a framework for interpreting their experiences and that they’d be less likely to be confused or troubled by them,” Griffiths says. All gave informed consent to the study approved by Hopkins’ institutional review board.
Each of thirty of the subjects attended two separate 8-hour drug sessions, at two month intervals. On one they received psilocybin, on another, methylphenidate (Ritalin), the active placebo.
 In designing the study, researchers had to overcome or at least, greatly minimize two hurdles: the risk of adverse side-effects and the likelihood that the expectations of getting the test drug or the placebo would influence subjects’ perceptions.
To lessen the former, each subject met several times, before drug sessions began, with a reassuring “monitor,” a medical professional experienced in observing drug study participants. Monitors stayed with them during the capsule-taking sessions. Actual trials took place in a room outfitted like a comfortable, slightly upscale living room, with soft music and indirect, non-laboratory lighting. Heart rate and blood pressure were measured throughout.
The researchers countered “expectancy” by having both monitors and subjects “blinded” to what substance would be given. For ethical reasons, subjects were told about hallucinogens’ possible effects, butalso learned they could, instead, get other substances-weak or strong-that might change perception or consciousness. Most important, a third “red herring” group of six subjects had two blinded placebo sessions, then were told they’d receive psilocybin at a third.  This tactic-questionnaires later verified-kept participants and monitors in the dark at the first two sessions about each capsule’s contents.
Nine established questionnaires and a new, specially createdfollowup survey were used to rate experiences at appropriate times in the study. They included those that differentiate effects of psychoactive drugs, that detect altered states of consciousness,  that rate mystical experiences and assess changes in outlook. 
The study, Griffiths adds, has advanced understanding of hallucinogen abuse.

As for where the work could lead, the team is planning a trial of patients suffering from advanced cancer-related depression or anxiety, following up suggestive research several decades ago. They’re also designing studies to test a role for psilocybin in treating drug dependence.
The study was funded by grants from NIDA and the Council on Spiritual Practices.
Una McCann, M.D., William Richards, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and Robert Jesse of the Council on Spiritual Practices, San Francisco, were co-researchers. 
The commentaries on this study that appear in this issue of Psychopharmacology are available at: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/GriffithsCommentaries.pdf
and include remarks by:
*Hopkins neuroscientist and Professor of Neuroscience, Solomon Snyder, M.D.
*Former NIDA head Charles Schuster, Ph.D., now Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience at the Wayne State University School of Medicine
*Herbert Kleber, M.D., a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and a former deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
*David Nichols, Ph.D., with the Purdue University School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences
*Harriet de Wit, Ph.D., at the University of Chicago  Department of Psychiatry.  DeWit is the editor of Psychopharmacology.

Related links:  Q&A is with Roland Griffiths, the study’s lead researcher:http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/GriffithspsilocybinQ

Psychopharmacology:
http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/Press_releases/2006/GriffithsPsilocybin.pdf

http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press_releases/2006/07_11_06.html

Radiation-Loving Fungi Can Remove Toxic Waste

By Reid Schram
Epoch Times Staff Created: October 2, 2011 Last Updated: October 5, 2011

Related articles: Science » Inspiring Discoveries

Gomphidius glutinosus is a common woodland mushroom that concentrates radioactive cesium-137 to over 10,000 times background levels. (Bernd Haynold/Wikimedia Commons)

When Russian scientists sent a robot into the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 2007, the last thing they expected to find was life. Inside the most radioactive areas of the breached core was a group of common fungi collectively referred to as "black mold" growing on the reactor walls.
These molds were growing in one of the most hostile environments on the planet, with radiation levels high enough to give a lethal dose in minutes. But these fungi weren’t just growing, they were thriving.
A researcher at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Arturo Casadevall, investigated these resistant molds and helped to identify several distinct species.
They all shared one very interesting characteristic—they all contained the skin pigment melanin.
Perhaps the most interesting was a common species of black mold, Cryptococcus neoformans. This fungus does not normally contain melanin, but when exposed to radiation levels 500 times higher than background radiation, it would start producing melanin within 20 to 40 minutes.

Cryptococcus and other species grow faster in high radiation environments then their counterparts do at normal amounts of radiation. Casadevall’s work led to the discovery that the fungi use melanin to capture energy given off by ionizing radiation, rather like plants use chlorophyll to capture sunlight.

The radiation levels here on Earth have historically been much higher than they are today. Large amounts of highly melanized fungal spores have been found in early Cretaceous period deposits, a time when a massive global plant and animal die-out occurred.

One suggested cause of this mass extinction is that the Earth’s protective magnetic field became weakened or overwhelmed. This would have allowed excessive cosmic and solar radiation into our atmosphere for most life forms to survive.

But what would have been a bane for the majority of life on Earth would have been a boon for melanin-containing fungi.

Radiation-loving mushrooms, scientifically referred to as "radiotrophic fungi," have many potential applications. In 1987, at the Chernobyl disaster site, highly contaminated graphite used to cool the reactor was observed being decomposed by a yet unknown species of fungi.
Various species of fungi are also capable of concentrating different heavy metals. After the Chernobyl meltdown, mushroom hunters all over Europe were advised not to pick and eat certain species of fungi because they could be concentrating radioactive fallout.


Gomphidius glutinosus is a common woodland mushroom that concentrates radioactive cesium-137 to over 10,000 times background levels. An area that has been contaminated with deadly cesium, like the area surrounding the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan, could have spores from this species of fungi spread on it, and then later when the radioactive mushroom caps appeared, they could be collected and properly disposed of.

Using fungi to clean up radioactive or other types of waste is an emerging technique known as mycoremediation, and promises to be far less expensive than other competing methods.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/science/radiation-loving-fungi-can-remove-toxic-waste-62299.html

Muscarinic Antagonistic

Muscarinic receptors, or mAChRs, are acetylcholine receptors that form G protein-coupled in the plasma membranes of certain neurons^[1] and other cells. They play several roles, including acting as the main end-receptor stimulated by acetylcholine released from postganglionic fibers in the parasympathetic nervous system.
Muscarinic receptors were named as such because they are more sensitive to muscarine than to nicotine.^[2] Their counterparts are nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs), receptor ion channels that are also important in the autonomic nervous system. Many drugs and other substances (for example pilocarpine and scopolamine) manipulate these two distinct receptors by acting as selective agonists or antagonists.<sup>[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscarinic_acetylcholine_receptor</sup>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscarine

Muscarine was first isolated from Amanita muscaria in 1869. It was the first parasympathomimetic substance ever studied and causes profound activation of the peripheral parasympathetic nervous system that may end in convulsions and death. Being a quaternary amine, muscarine is less completely absorbed from the gastrointestinal tract than tertiary amines, but it does cross the blood brain barrier.^[2] Muscarinic agonists activate muscarinic receptors while nicotinic agonists activate nicotin receptors. Both are direct-acting cholinomimetics; they produce their effects by binding to and activating cholinergic receptors. Final proof of the structure was given by Jellinek (61) in 1957 with the help of X-ray diffraction analysis. These new findings set into motion research not only on the pharmacology of muscarine, but also on that of muscarine-like substances that are structurally related to acetylcholine.

Pharmacratic Inquisition FULL DOCU'

This documentary features comprehensive coverage and study of AMANITA MUSCARIA (The fly agaric) among other entheogens, symbolic alchemy and psychedelic mysticism. Featuring a synthesis of work done by John Allegro, R. Gordon Wasson, Carl Ruck, James Arthur, Mike Crowley, and others. My interest in Amanita Muscaria, Shamanism and altered states of consciousness begun when I read Cosmic Trigger by Robert Anton Wilson, who, I might add, remained skeptical about the many 'magic mushroom theories' about religion proposed by the above researchers, but, in a more broad sense he showed that evidence suggests that humans have been dosing their own nervous systems with psychedelic compounds for over 30'000 years. He also wrote a book dedicated to drugs, sex and Magick: