http://www.world-science.net/othernews/070320_plant.htm
"For traditional cultures not yet drawn into the whirlwind of modernity, knowledge of local plants may provide a real health boost, a study has found.
The research concluded that such knowledge, far from being a set of old wives’ tales, may be a useful body of wisdom that’s under threat as globalization gradually erases indigenous cultures.
Working with indigenous Amazonian Tsimane’ people in Bolivia, scientists found that mothers with good knowledge of local plants and their uses were likelier than others to have healthy children.
The Tsimane’ live a traditional lifestyle and use local plants for firewood, construction, tools, food, and medicine. As they come into contact with commercial goods and services, their knowledge of local plants fades, according to the researchers, Thomas McDade of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and colleagues."
I have been ordering the odd thing or two from "Shaman Australis" for a while now, but just recently have started to contribute to the forums. Once I did, it took about 48 hours for me to turn from a soul that thought he was either looking at everything sideways, an outcast from all society..."Why am I the only one that thinks like this?" and the rest of the world was mad...to a openly practicing Shaman, standing tall and proud while finding like minded people taking me seriously, even to the point of sharing similar experiences and thoughts. Searching yahell chatrooms for truly open minds was a complete waste of time because I have found 3 friends (all in U.S.A) through yahell (and that took 3-4 years) and now am linking up with many like minds...Once again, to all that have saved this Shaman from insanity...THANK YOU. This shall now be "home."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/...70323105029.htm
"A new study published in the Lancet proposes that drugs should be classified by the amount of harm that they do, rather than the sharp A, B, and C divisions in the UK Misuse of Drugs Act.
The new ranking places alcohol and tobacco in the upper half of the league table. These socially accepted drugs were judged more harmful than cannabis, and substantially more dangerous than the Class A drugs LSD, 4-methylthioamphetamine and ecstasy.
Harmful drugs are currently regulated according to classification systems that purport to relate to the harms and risks of each drug. However, these are generally neither specified nor transparent, which reduces confidence in their accuracy and undermines health education messages.
Professor David Nutt from the University of Bristol, Professor Colin Blakemore, Chief Executive of the Medical Research Council, and colleagues, identified three main factors that together determine the harm associated with any drug of potential abuse:
1. the physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug
2. the tendency of the drug to induce dependence
3. the effect of drug use on families, communities, and society
Within each of these categories, they recognized three components, leading to a comprehensive nine-category matrix of harm. Expert panels gave scores, from zero to three, for each category of harm for 20 different drugs. All the scores for each drug were combined to produce an overall estimate of its harm."
(see earlier post "Illegal drugs can be harmless, report says")
Here is my largest graft that I can enter in the comp.
Here is a 0.8cm graft about to flower!!! unfortunatly it was sown before the comp starts.
Other grafts
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/2007/03/1...-would-be-rich/
‘So Wolf began snooping around and found that two chains, Costco and Sam’s Club, sold generics at prices far, far below the other chains. Even once you factor in the cost of buying a membership at Costco and Sam’s Club, the price differences were astounding. Here are the prices he found at Houston stores for 90 tablets of generic Prozac:
Walgreens: $117
Eckerd: $115
CVS: $115
Sam’s Club: $15
Costco: $12
Those aren’t typos. Walgreens charges $117 for a bottle of the same pills for which Costco charges $12.’
http://www.click2houston.com/news/11270519...2&qs=1;bp=t
‘Three men, including a Houston-area paramedic, were arrested after investigators found nearly 400 pounds of marijuana in an ambulance, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday.
Maumelle, Ark., police said they discovered the drugs after the ambulance broke down near a gasoline station.
“An individual, that was actually an off-duty police officer, called and said that he just felt like things were out of sort,” Chief Sam Williams said.
Officers arrived and found the men and the ambulance.
“They were wearing white shirts and black BDU pants,” Williams said. “The white shirts had some rank insignia of them. It would be fair to say that they were wearing clothing that would resemble medical personnel.”‘
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6283
‘Cannabis extracts may shrink brain tumours and other cancers by blocking the growth of the blood vessels which feed them, suggests a new study.
An active component of the street drug has previously been shown to improve brain tumours in rats. But now Manuel Guzmán at Complutense University, Spain, and colleagues have demonstrated how the cannabis extracts block a key chemical needed for tumours to sprout blood vessels – a process called angiogenesis.
And for the first time, the team has shown the cannabinoids impede this chemical in people with the most aggressive form of brain cancer - glioblastoma multiforme.’
up to 14 successful grafts now. the 2 big cardona are flying. removed a pup off one to graft but not sure if it will take. 2 other tex are not far behind the 2 cardona. rest are only just starting to take off. finally got 1 peres to start growing.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/state-election-...3722560775.html
‘The Christian Democrat leader, Fred Nile, wants random drug testing for all NSW MPs.
He will be first to volunteer, and wants the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon to be second.
Unaccountably, in 2004 Mr Nile voted for an amendment watering down Rhiannon’s motion to breath-test MPs for alcohol while in Parliament.
Yesterday Mr Nile was tough on drugs in Macquarie Street: “The voting public deserve to know whether the people they elect are capable of making rational decisions and are prepared to devote themselves to the job. There is no room for illegal drug taking in a House of Parliament.”‘
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070314/ap_on_...dical_marijuana
‘A woman whose doctor says marijuana is the only medicine keeping her alive can face federal prosecution on drug charges, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling was the latest legal defeat for Angel Raich, a mother of two from Oakland suffering from scoliosis, a brain tumor, chronic nausea and other ailments who sued the federal government pre-emptively to avoid being arrested for using the drug. On her doctor’s advice, Raich eats or smokes marijuana every couple of hours to ease her pain and bolster her appetite. [..]
Raich, 41, began sobbing when she was told of the decision that she was not immune to prosecution and said she would continue using the drug.
“I’m sure not going to let them kill me,” she said. “Oh, my God.”‘
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/01/opi...edgrinspoon.php
‘A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine that we still need “proof” of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.
The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found that smoked marijuana was effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy.
It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis. [..]
As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,,2029072,00.html
‘Illegal drugs can be “harmless” and should no longer be “demonised”, a wide-ranging two-year study concluded today.
The report said Britain’s drug laws were “not fit for purpose” and should be torn up in favour of a system which recognised that drinking and smoking could cause more harm.
The RSA Commission on Illegal Drugs ,set up in January 2005, also called for the main focus of drugs education to be shifted from secondary to primary schools and recommended the introduction of so-called “shooting galleries” - rooms where users can inject drugs. [..]
Current laws, the panel claimed, were been “driven by moral panic” with large amounts of money wasted on “futile” efforts to stop supply rather than going after the criminal networks behind the drugs on British streets.’
Also see:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs...2026246,00.html (Alcohol and tobacco are deadlier than ecstasy, report warns)
The Drugs league table
Drugs assessed in order of danger
1 Heroin
2 Cocaine
3 Barbiturates
4 Street methadone
5 Alcohol
6 Ketamine
7 Benzodiazepine
8 Amphetamines
9 Tobacco
10 Buprenorphine
11 Cannabis
12 Solvents
13 4-MTA
14 LSD
15 Methylphenidate
16 Anabolic steroids
17 GHB
18 Ecstasy
19 Alkyl nitrates
20 Khat
http://www.wbir.com/news/national/story.aspx?storyid=43141
‘Officials at the Grossmont Union High School District have sent letters home to parents, notifying them that a number of students have been caught on campus with medical marijuana cards.
District official Catherine Martin said they are concerned over the growing trend and the “apparent ease” with which teens are able to obtain the cards.
In the letters, parents, students and faculty are reminded that even if the cards are valid, it is against the law to have marijuana on school property.
Recently two East County teenagers were suspended for showing up at school high, with a medical marijuana card as their excuse, NBC 7/39 reported.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6438987.stm
‘An abandoned consignment of marijuana with a street value of $20m (£10.3m) was found in California when a policeman went to check on a lorry.
The vehicle was unlocked and the engine warm, but no-one was in the cab.
The patrolman found plastic-wrapped bundles of the drug in the back of the rental vehicle near Los Angeles after smelling marijuana, AP said. [..]
He suggested the engine might have overheated, causing the vehicle to be abandoned along with three tons of marijuana on a slip road in the city of Ontario late on Wednesday.’
http://www.drugtest911.com/
‘The following system is provided as a free service for anyone researching different ways to pass a drug test. This system explains how to successfully pass a standard urine drug test using simple items you either have at home or can purchase at a grocery or drug store. It also explains how to successfully pass a hair drug test. The system is mainly designed for low to moderate-level users who will be taking a drug test at least 8 DAYS in the future.’
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070301/ap_on_...tion_drug_abuse
‘Abuse of prescription drugs is about to exceed the use of illicit street narcotics worldwide, and the shift has spawned a lethal new trade in counterfeit painkillers, sedatives and other medicines potent enough to kill, a global watchdog warned Wednesday.
Prescription drug abuse already has outstripped traditional illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine and Ecstasy in parts of Europe, Africa and South Asia, the U.N.-affiliated International Narcotics Control Board said in its annual report for 2006.
In the United States alone, the abuse of painkillers, stimulants, tranquilizers and other prescription medications has gone beyond “practically all illicit drugs with the exception of cannabis,” with users increasingly turning to them first, the Vienna-based group said.’
http://www.metro.co.uk/fame/article.html?i...mp;in_page_id=7
‘As various parties continue to fight over the remains of Anna Nicole Smith and custody of her baby, John Travolta has stepped into the fray.
The Pulp Fiction star has decided to use her death as a chance to promote Narconon – the controversial Church of Scientology drug rehab programme – saying it could have saved the Playmate’s life. [..]
Travolta said: ‘It’s so sad. We could have helped her with Narconon but didn’t get a chance to. I wish we had.’ [..]
Scientologists claim Narconon is 85 per cent effective.
However, critics say it is a front to recruit vulnerable drug abusers into the religion.
Either way, it is sadly too late to help Smith now.’
http://cannabisculture.com/articles/2312.html
‘Making hash is easier than you think!
Making hash is an ancient art. The first proto-human who rubbed her fingers together after handling a mature cannabis bud was making hash in much the same way it is made today. Although the process of removing the resins from cannabis have become more refined, the essence has remained unchanged for millennia.
Making hash is the process of extracting and preserving the psychoactive resins from the cannabis plant. These resins are found primarily on tiny glands called trichomes, which under a magnifying glass look like mushrooms – a head on top of a stalk. These trichomes are part of what gives cannabis buds their “frosty” appearance.’
hmm, here is pics of my entry to grafting comp. i hope.
only putting some up to save time and space. can post more of any particular one next year if it ends up being a winner.
as of today 27/02/07 i have : 4 bursting into life. 13 possibles that arent growing but not dying. 16 failures.
not graet stats. most have been grafted onto pachanois. it is really hard to sit them on the vascular ring hence the bad results. the 4 good ones have all been on pachanois. the 5 or so on peres have just sat there. is this normal? never grafted to peres before.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/raid-leave...1733684470.html
‘Customs officials raided Sylvester Stallone’s harbourside room at Sydney’s Park Hyatt Hotel yesterday, as members of his party were seen throwing objects out of the window.
The Hollywood actor had already denied bringing steroids into the country when he was questioned on arrival at Sydney Airport last Friday.
A customs spokesman said last night he could not confirm the nature of the latest developments, but the Herald understands customs officers visited the 60-year-old about 3pm, when they issued him with a summons relating to prohibited substances. The summons would normally require him or his lawyer to appear in court.
Here to promote his new film, Rocky Balboa, Stallone flew out of the country last night with the blessing of customs, but not before its officers searched his private jet.’
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pot-no...1733640842.html
‘Smoking a joint is no longer cool among the young, according to a new poll, which found one in three regard it as unacceptable.
A study by the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre found marijuana had become socially unfashionable in the same way as cigarettes.
“Clearly, it’s not as acceptable as it once was to be stoned,” said Paul Dillon, a spokesman for the centre at the University of NSW.’
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...cs/16690783.htm
‘Medical researchers need more marijuana sources because government supplies aren’t meeting scientific demand, a federal judge has ruled.
In an emphatic but nonbinding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s own judge is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow a legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering from painful and wasting diseases, proponents believe.
“The existing supply of marijuana is not adequate,” Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled.’
