http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...20?feedType=RSS
'Tajik police have arrested a woman for trying to smuggle heroin in a refrigerator through express delivery firm DHL, the interior ministry said Friday.
The DHL office in the Tajik capital Dushanbe grew suspicious after noticing that its transportation cost to Moscow exceeded the actual cost of the fridge by several times. It then called the police, said the interior ministry.
"We have arrested a 26-year-old woman who tried to send via DHL a refrigerator with a total of 17.4 kg of heroin hidden in its inner cover plate," said Interior Ministry spokesman Khudoinazar Asozoda.
DHL in Dushanbe said it could not comment on the matter.'
A small collection I've put together over the last year. All but one of the cuts have rooted and are plumping and pupping nicely. Thanks to the SABsters that make these available. Hopefully I can do the same one day.
Back Row (from left): E. lageniformis "Eileen", E. pachanoi "Kimura's Giant", E. pachanoi "Kimura's Giant", E. lageniformis "Psycho0"
Front Row (from left): E. peruvianus KK338, E. pachanoi, E. pachanoi "Super Pedro", E. lageniformis monstrose, E. pachanoi
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=586
'In the late 1600s, the Puritan settlement of Salem in Massachusetts toppled into chaos when accusations of witchcraft began to appear. Two young girls, aged nine and eleven, were said to have fallen victim to fits "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease," including screams, strange contortions, and throwing objects. The village doctor, unable to explain the symptoms, suggested that witchcraft may be afoot in Salem. Others in the settlement began to exhibit similar inexplicable behavior, and shortly the accusations began to fly.
The infamous trials that followed left nineteen people hanged to death, and scores of others imprisoned under suspicion of supernatural wrongdoing. Today, few would suggest that those punished were actually guilty of witchcraft, but the true cause of the errant behavior in Salem's citizens is still a mystery.'
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070508/wl_as...Yd9Mq0CtCkfYhAF
‘Groups of elderly Australians are reportedly setting up backyard laboratories to manufacture an illegal euthanasia drug so they can kill themselves when they have had enough of life.
One group has already succeeded in producing the drug nembutal, which is used by vets to put down animals, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported on Monday night.
At least four other backyard factories were planned for major cities across the country, with a total of some 800 elderly people prepared to become involved in producing the drug.
Dozens of older Australians were also engaged in illegally importing nembutal from the Mexican border town of Tijuana, close to the US city of San Diego, according to the report.’
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ODD...EMPLATE=DEFAULT
‘A 17-year-old boy was growing marijuana on vacant property owned by Ocala’s deputy police chief, authorities said. Deputy Chief Greg Graham said he was told about the plants by neighbors on Saturday. He had bought the lot two months ago as an investment, the Ocala Star-Banner reported. Deputies with the Martin County Sheriff’s Office confiscated nine potted marijuana plants on the lot.
Graham said he has known the teen, who was not identified because of his age, for several years.
“I have no idea why he picked my property,” Graham said.’
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=604
'In the year 1760, a Swiss naturalist named Charles Bonnet became concerned when his grandfather Charles Lullin began to experience a parade of "amusing and magical visions." The eighty-nine-year-old Lullin was being visited by visions of people, birds, carriages, and buildings, all of which were invisible to everyone but him. Apparently these mysterious objects materialized spontaneously among the few bits of the world he was still able to perceive through his cataracts.
Bonnet's grandfather did not demonstrate any other signs of marble loss, in fact he seemed quite sane aside from the vivid hallucinations. Moreover, the elderly man was keenly aware that the strange sights were all in his mind. Bonnet cataloged his grandfather's curious circumstances, and over time the condition he described came to be known as Charles Bonnet Syndrome, or CBS. Numerous similar cases have been recorded in the decades since, and though it has long been regarded as a rare disease, recent evidence suggests that it is much more widespread than previously believed.'
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?i...p;in_page_id=34
‘Setting wheelie bins on fire and inhaling fumes to get high is the new ‘drug of choice’ for teenagers, police say.
The craze is behind more than 50 bin fires in Barnsley, they add.
Anti-solvent abuse charities warn that inhaling bin fumes could be more dangerous than sniffing glue or petrol.
Wheelie bins are made from high density polyethylene – composed of double-bonded carbon and hydrogen molecules.
Burning an empty one releases carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
These deadly gases starve the brain of oxygen, giving a headacheheavy short high.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/29/business...and&emc=rss
‘In praise of the opaque green liqueur beloved by his creative contemporaries, Oscar Wilde once posed the rhetorical question, “What difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset?”
The prosaic answer, at least for Americans, has long been one of legality: sunsets can be freely enjoyed, but absinthe was forbidden because it contained thujone, a potentially toxic compound.
Intrepid drinkers have worked around the ban by ordering imported bottles off the Internet or smuggling them back from Eastern Europe. Now they have a third, less dodgy option: Lucid, which is being marketed as the first legal, genuine American absinthe in nearly a century.’
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/stor...?hub=TopStories
‘One compound, cannabidiol, or CBD, made people more relaxed. But even small doses of another component, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, produced temporary psychotic symptoms in people, including hallucinations and paranoid delusions, doctors said.
The results, to be presented at an international mental health conference in London on Tuesday and Wednesday, provides physical evidence of the drug’s damaging influence on the human brain.
“We’ve long suspected that cannabis is linked to psychoses, but we have never before had scans to show how the mechanism works,” said Dr. Philip McGuire, a professor of psychiatry at King’s College, London.
In analyzing MRI scans of the study’s subjects, McGuire and his colleagues found that THC interfered with activity in the inferior frontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with paranoia.
“THC is switching off that regulator,” McGuire said, effectively unleashing the paranoia usually kept under control by the frontal cortex.’
http://www.nbc5i.com/news/13110648/detail.html
‘Olga Sanchez thought her 15-year-old son had stopped using “cheese,” a heroin mixture making its way across the Dallas area.
But this spring, Oscar Gutierrez’s brother found him dead in bed.
“He was very purple. He was very cold, cold,” said Sanchez, who had been attending drug counseling with her son since discovering his cheese habit last fall.
The deaths of at least 18 teenagers, ranging from ages 15 to 18, have been linked to the mixture of black tar heroin — a less refined form of the drug — and Tylenol PM tablets ground into a powder. [..]
Several factors appear to be driving the popularity of cheese. Kids often buy the drug from other kids. It’s affordable, selling for about $2 a dosage. And it is usually snorted rather than injected.’
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=...line-news_rss20
It might not be a pleasant job, but testing sweat samples could soon play a role in monitoring drug addicts.
A team led by Nadia Fucci of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart in Rome, Italy, tested the sweat excretion profiles of drugs including methadone, caffeine and cocaine. Although it was difficult to quantify the amount of drug used, they found sweat offered a longer detection window than saliva and urine. Unlike hair, which can only show chronic use, even one-off use will show up in sweat (Forensic Science International, DOI: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2007.03.010).
Sweat patches could be used to monitor drug addicts in rehab or on probation, say - assuming they don't remove or switch patches.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa...903&ref=rss
'A single dose of morphine can block a process in the brain associated with learning and memory for as long as a full day after being ingested, according to a new study. The disruption causes a neuronal imbalance that researchers say could be the first step in the development of addiction. They add that therapies designed to prevent this from happening during drug use could one day help to thwart chemical dependency.'
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews...542461720070426
‘The marijuana being sold across the United States is stronger than ever, which could explain a growing number of medical emergencies that involve the drug, government drug experts on Wednesday.
Analysis of seized samples of marijuana and hashish showed that more of the cannabis on the market is of the strongest grade, the White House and National Institute for Drug Abuse said.
They cited data from the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Potency Project showing the average levels of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, in the products rose from 7 percent in 2003 to 8.5 percent in 2006.
The level had risen steadily from 3.5 percent in 1988.’
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...23?feedType=RSS
Could a smoking ban spell the end of Amsterdam's world famous coffee shops, where smoking cannabis is one of the main attractions?
No chance, says local conservative politician and coffee shop owner Michael Veling.
The Dutch may well follow other European countries in banning tobacco smoking in restaurants, cafes and bars, but Veling says it should still be possible to smoke dope.
Just some flower shots from my Datura plants.
Datura innoxia spp quinquecuspidata (D. meteloides)
Datura metel 'Mr Purple'
Datura metel 'Unforgettable'
Datura stramonium v tatula
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070419/ap_on_fe_st/drug_sign
‘A father says he wasn’t trying to shame his 14-year-old son when he made the boy wear a large sandwich-board sign saying, “I abused and sold drugs.” [..]
“I’m doing this because I love him,” he said. “We do have an extreme drug problem in America, and maybe it’s time for extreme measures that parents need to take to monitor this problem that we have.” [..]
The father said he recently learned after reading the boy’s MySpace page that his son was involved with marijuana and OxyContin. That’s when he decided to act, and the boy agreed to the punishment. [..]
By then the boy said he’d learned his lesson. “This is embarrassing. I ain’t going to be doing it again,” the boy said. “Drugs are for losers. That’s all I can say.”‘
http://www.thecancerblog.com/2007/04/19/ma...growth-by-half/
‘More and more media reports are mentioning the potential merits of marijuana. The most recent headlines say the active ingredient in the drug cuts tumor growth in common lung cancers in half and greatly reduces the ability of the cancer to spread.
Researchers at Harvard University tested marijuana’s main ingredient, delta-tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, in both lab and mouse studies and say their experiments are the first to show THC inhibits the growth of cancer.’
http://radaronline.com/features/2007/03/sindergarten_1.php
‘It’s 11:30 at night; the kids are on the floor of a yellow school bus that’s parked not in Manhattan but a desolate lot in Williamsburg; and everyone on the bus, including the storyteller, is in high school. Oh, one more thing: they’re all on 5-methoxy-N N-diisopropyltryptamine, better known as the club drug Foxy.
Every two weeks, in some forsaken corner of the city, New York’s privileged teenagers go to “Sindergarten,” a traveling party for 17-year olds who, for a few carefree hours, want to feel like they’re five again. Nursery school-style accessories—snacks, children’s music, storybooks, finger-paints—are supplemented with multiple doses of Foxy methoxy, a hallucinogen similar to Ecstasy said to facilitate a childlike sense of wonder with the world.’
What I have.
Areca catechu - "Betel nut" - Seeds and plants
Averrhoa carambola - "Star Fruit" - Seeds and plants
Boesenbergia rotunda - "Fingerroot, Chinese ginger" - Rhizomes
Chrysopyhllum cainito - "Star Apple" - Seeds
Curcuma longa - "Turmeric" - Rhizomes
Cycas revoluta - "Cycad" - Plants
Kaempferia galanga - "Maraba" - Rhizomes
Piper betel - "Betel leaf, Vetrilai" - Plants
Pouteria caimito - "Abiu" - Seeds
Synsepalum dulcificum - "Miracle Fruit" - Seeds and plants
Theobroma cocoa - "Cocoa, Chocolate" - Seeds
I also work in a nursery specialising in exotic fruits, gingers, rare palms, heliconias and aroids so if your intersted in looking for any particular species just PM me and I'll see if I can track it down.
What I want.
Ephedra nevedensis - Seeds or plants
Lophophora sp. - Seeds (any variety)
Lophocereus schotii - Plant/cutting
Tabernanthe iboga - Seeds, plants
Any cacti grafting stock (preferably already rooted) such as:
Trichocereus pachanoi
Trichocereus scopulicolus
Myrtillocactus geometrizans
Pereskiopsis sp.
Opuntia compressa
http://www.fhma.com/grapefruit.htm
‘Grapefruit juice has been shown to affect the metabolism of several drugs. Included in the list of potential target drugs are diazepam, cisapride, cyclosporine, felodipine and other dihydropyridine calcium channel blockers, midazolam, nisoldipine, triazolam, saquinavir, lovastatin, and atorvastatin. The mechanism of this interaction appears to primarily result from inhibition of enzymes in the intestinal wall.
Several constituents of grapefruit juice have been implicated including the flavonoids naringin and naringenin, along with the furanocoumarins, bergapten and 6,7-dihydroxybergamottin. Unfortunately, the content of these varies between different grapefruit juices and varieties of fruit, making it impossible to determine if one is safer than another.’
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-0...th_N.htm?csp=34
‘Reports of candy-flavored methamphetamine are emerging around the nation, stirring concern among police and abuse prevention experts that drug dealers are marketing the drug to younger people.
The flavored crystals are available in California, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, Texas, New Mexico, Missouri and Minnesota, according to intelligence gathered by Drug Enforcement Administration agents from informants, users, local police and drug counselors, DEA spokesman Steve Robertson says. [..]
Among the new flavors are strawberry, known as “Strawberry Quick,” chocolate, cola and other sodas, Robertson said. One agent reported a red methamphetamine that had been marketed as a powdered form of an energy drink, he said.’
