http://www.clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=3207
‘In my previous life as a fed agent I was often asked to assist with some “undercover” sting operations all over the Northeast US. One of the most memorable was a op in northern Maine. I was to play the brother-in-law of our source who’s co-worker had recently asked him if he knew of any good dealers of crack.
Long story short they brought me in to sell him crack. We met the “Client” as planned and you should have seen this kids eyes when I pulled out this giant bag of crack we had obtained from a previous bust. He looked like he was going to start crying, like he had just come to know Jesus or something… anyway he wanted to buy it all, every last gram of it, but he had only brought $150.00 bucks with him. I thought for a second and asked him if had his checkbook on him and he did. [..]’
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=new-dr...mage&sc=rss
'A new drug may protect healthy tissue during cancer-killing radiation treatments or other exposures. Molecular geneticist Andrei Gudkov and colleagues report in Science this week that they protected mice from the cell-damaging effects of radiation by injecting them with a compound that helps cells resist apoptosis, or self-destruction.
Previous studies have found that cancerous cells use nuclear factor kappa-betaa transcription factor, or protein that turns on or off a gene's protein-making abilityto outlive normal cells and grow out of control. But healthy cells in the gut switch on the same transcription factor when they interact with benign and beneficial bacteria that reside there. Specifically, the protein flagellin in some of the microorganisms' whiplike tails (which they use for propulsion) binds with a receptor on the gut cell and triggers the production of the transcription factor.'
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=can-th...d-to&sc=rss
'Scientists for the first time have identified long-term changes in mice brains that may shed light on why addicts get hooked on drugs—in this case methamphetamines—and have such a tough time kicking the habit. The findings, reported in the journal Neuron, could set the stage for new ways to block cravings—and help addicts dry out.
Researchers, using fluorescent tracer dye, discovered that mice given methamphetamines for 10 days (roughly equivalent to a human using it for two years) had suppressed activity in a certain area of their brains. Much to their surprise, normal function did not return even when the drug was stopped, but did when they administered a single dose of it again after the mice had been in withdrawal.
Study co-author Nigel Bamford, a pediatric neurologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, says that if similar changes occur in humans, it will indicate that an effective way to fight addiction may be to design therapies that target the affected area—the striatum, a forebrain region that controls movement but also has been linked to habit-forming behavior.'
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/04/...ruise_camp.html
‘Tom Cruise isn’t getting any giggles from a new strain of medical marijuana being marketed as “Tom Cruise Purple.”
Word is that the actor’s lawyers are taking a serious look at the strong brand of bud after we brought it to their attention.
One of Cruise’s friends found it “outrageous” that licensed cannabis clubs in Northern California are selling vials of pot featuring a picture of Cruise laughing hysterically. [..]
Staffers at several California clinics we called said they were forbidden to discuss any of the herbal varieties in their “inventory.”
But one weed devotee said, “I heard it’s the kind of pot that makes you hallucinate.”‘
http://www.world-science.net/exclusives/08..._drug-evolution
'Why do people abuse drugs? It’s not only a question worried parents ask their wayward, substance-dabbling teenagers. It’s also a deeper question asked by biologists.
In general, nature has designed all creatures as exquisite machines for their own protection and propagation. Yet we’re easily and often drawn into self-destruction by nothing more than lifeless chemical lures. This weakness seems such a jarring exception, such a dismal Achilles’ heel, that it seems to demand explanation.
Scientists typically offer the following one. Drugs are chemicals that inappropriately trigger activity in brain circuits designed for very different purposes: to provide a sense of reward for having satisfied ordinary needs, healthfully.
The brain has few defenses against this chemical deception, the standard account goes, because drugs were unknown in the natural environment that shaped human evolution.
This traditional view, though, is coming under attack. A new study proposes the brain evolved to account for and even exploit drugs. Although their abuse is still unhealthy, the authors suggest it’s wrong to think they cheat the brain in the sense traditionally theorized.
“Evidence strongly indicates that humans and other animals have been exposed to drugs throughout their evolution,” wrote the scientists in the study. The research, by anthropologist Roger Sullivan of California State University and two colleagues, appeared March 19 online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.'
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=monito...de-7&sc=rss
'This week's The Monitor: What's in a name (why we aren't changing ours), hobbit or human, the Vatican's seven social sins, and drugs in our water, should we be worried?'
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnough...oddlyEnoughNews
'An American in Costa Rica was caught smuggling nearly a pound of cocaine (0.4 kg) in his stomach after he went into convulsions on a plane bound for Miami, police said on Friday.
The 22-year-old man swallowed dozens of capsules stuffed with the drug before boarding a plane on Thursday in the Costa Rican capital, San Jose.
Police said he started to vomit and convulse before the plane took off and was rushed to a hospital where he was still recovering on Friday.
"They had to open him up too remove the capsules," said police spokeswoman Marielos Barbosa.'
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=08...;show_article=1
‘High on Mount Sinai, Moses was on psychedelic drugs when he heard God deliver the Ten Commandments, an Israeli researcher claimed in a study published this week.
Such mind-altering substances formed an integral part of the religious rites of Israelites in biblical times, Benny Shanon, a professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in the Time and Mind journal of philosophy.
“As far Moses on Mount Sinai is concerned, it was either a supernatural cosmic event, which I don’t believe, or a legend, which I don’t believe either, or finally, and this is very probable, an event that joined Moses and the people of Israel under the effect of narcotics,” Shanon told Israeli public radio on Tuesday.
Moses was probably also on drugs when he saw the “burning bush,” suggested Shanon, who said he himself has dabbled with such substances.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb...medicalresearch
‘Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.
The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.
When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.’
http://www.boomj.com/articles/13730
‘Employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana even if it was legally recommended by a doctor, the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday, dealing the state another setback in its standoff with federal law enforcement.
The high court upheld a small Sacramento telecommunications company’s firing of a man who flunked a company-ordered drug test. Gary Ross held a medical marijuana card authorizing him to use the drug to treat a back injury sustained while serving in the Air Force.
The company, Ragingwire Inc., argued that it rightfully fired Ross because all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, which does not recognize the medical marijuana laws in California and 11 other states.
The justices upheld that argument in a 5-2 decision.’
http://www.google.com/patents?id=A4ktAAAAE...dq=bong#PPP1,M1
‘An improved smoking water pipe or bong comprising a chamber containing water in its lower portion, its upper portion serving as a smoke collection reservoir; a bowl for combusting tobacco or medicinal herbs, the smoke directed through a tube to the water chamber below the water [..]’
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health...line-news_rss20
'Smoking cannabis regularly can lead to gum disease in people in their early thirties – much younger than generally expected. Lifestyle factors associated with the condition are also linked to chronic diseases later in life, and some argue that gum disease itself may contribute to cardiovascular disease directly.
A quarter of people who had smoked cannabis regularly from 18 to 32 years old had established gum disease, found the study led by Murray Thomson at the Dunedin School of Dentistry in New Zealand.
In 2007, the same team showed that smoking tobacco also significantly raises the risk of gum disease in young people (Journal of Clinical Periodontology, vol 34, page 828)'
http://www.newsdaily.com/Science/UPI-1-200...othepatitis.xml
'Using marijuana daily may raise the risk of liver fibrosis nearly seven-fold in those with chronic hepatitis C, or HCV, infection, U.S. researchers said.
The study, published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, also found combining marijuana use with alcohol use in HCV patients significantly raised the risk of liver fibrosis.
The recommendation to avoid marijuana is of particular importance for HCV patients who are also infected with HIV -- because the progression to fibrosis is already greater in these patients.'
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/0...coast-news.html
‘Like a man on a mission, perennial cannabis protester Peter Till arrived at court in Brisbane yesterday with a large, green, leafy plant sticking out of his backpack.
His mission, he told anyone who would listen, was to campaign for the decriminalisation of cannabis in Queensland and show authorities the plant should not be classed as a ‘dangerous drug’.
As he strode through the doors of the Brisbane Magistrates Court, security guards calmly passed his bag and the plant, complete with roots and long stalks of pointed leaves, through the X-ray machine.
Mr Till, barefooted and wearing another one of his many colourful sarongs, walked through the gate shortly afterwards as security guards were familiar with his game.
The plant was then taken into a secure room while Mr Till, who lives in his car at Nimbin, made his way to the courtroom where he was facing a breech of community service order charge.
It is not the first time the stunt has played out in court with Mr Till already convicted and sentenced to two months’ jail, wholly suspended, for bringing a 90cm cannabis plant into court last year.’
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/health/2...amp;oref=slogin
‘Too much caffeine during pregnancy may increase the risk of miscarriage, a new study says, and it suggests that pregnant women may want to reduce their intake or cut it out entirely.
Many obstetricians already advise women to limit caffeine, although the subject has long been contentious, with conflicting studies, fuzzy data and various recommendations given over the years.
The new study, to be published Monday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, finds that pregnant women who consume 200 milligrams or more of caffeine a day — the amount in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea — may double their risk of miscarriage.’
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/loca..._border19e.html
‘A Canadian prostitute says she bared her cleavage and hiked up her skirt as she drove through the border at Blaine, where her “sure thing” always waved her through with a smile, even though her car was packed full of marijuana.
Minutes later, she’d fool around with the guard at a gas station down the road.
The border guard, Desmone Bastian, says it never happened.
“I’ve never failed to perform my duties,” Bastian told a federal jury Friday in Seattle. “I did my job with a lot of integrity, and a lot of pride.”
Bastian, 31, a U.S. citizen who lives in Surrey, B.C., worked as a U.S. immigration inspector for eight years before being charged in 2006 with taking a bribe — free sexual contact, and sometimes money — in exchange for turning a blind eye when the prostitute, Sandra Maas, would cross the border in his lane.’
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/sfo/301345524.html
‘OK, I am not going to lecture you about the dangers of narcotic pain medicines. We both know how addictive they are: you because you know how it feels when you don’t have your vicodin, me because I’ve seen many many many people just like you. However, there are a few things I can tell you that would make us both much happier. By following a few simple rules our little clinical transaction can go more smoothly and we’ll both be happier because you get out of the ER quicker.
The first rule is be nice to the nurses. They are underpaid, overworked, and have a lot more influence over your stay in the ER than you think. When you are tempted to treat them like shit because they are not the ones who write the rx, remember: I might write for you to get a shot of 2mg of dilaudid, but your behavior toward the nurses determines what percent of that dilaudid is squirted onto the floor before you get your shot. [..]’
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80109091102.htm
‘An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer’s disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer’s disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain’s immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. The authors hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF in Alzheimer’s disease interfere with this regulation. To reduce elevated TNF, the authors gave patients an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. Excess TNF-alpha has been documented in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer’s.’
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=new-di...le-of-the-bulge
'Want to lose weight but lack the willpower to just say no to fatty foods and sweets? Help may be on the way. The first clinical trials of an experimental weight-loss drug show that it helps curb appetite—and burn more fat—even at low doses.
Researchers report in the journal Cell Metabolism that taranabant, developed by drug giant Merck, is the second drug found to be successful in fighting flab by blocking cannabinoid receptors (responsible for the psychological effects of marijuana a.k.a. Cannabis sativa) in the brain's reward circuitry.
"The effects of marijuana on appetite have been known for millennia from its medicinal and recreational use," said study author Steven Heymsfield of Merck Research Laboratories. "The ingredient responsible stimulates cannabinoid receptors. When you block the cannabinoid system with an antagonist like taranabant, you suppress appetite."
The first indication that the cannabinoid-1 (CB1) receptor might be a prime weight-loss target came during studies of an earlier drug called rimonabant (manufactured by sanofi-aventis), which is now available as a diet aid in several European countries but has yet to receive the Food and Drug Administration's nod for use in the U.S.'
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h4s0F9R...RrPPQQD8TTC2N80
‘Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston are working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever medication to treat people hooked on the drug. “For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful,” said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. “At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won’t get high and will lose interest.” [..]
The immune system — unable to recognize cocaine and other drug molecules because they are so small — can’t make antibodies to attack them.
To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.
In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked drug when it’s ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.’
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=psychedelic-healing
'Mind-altering psychedelics are back—but this time they are being explored in labs for their therapeutic applications rather than being used illegally. Studies are looking at these hallucinogens to treat a number of otherwise intractable psychiatric disorders, including chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug or alcohol dependency.
The past 15 years have seen a quiet resurgence of psychedelic drug research as scientists have come to recognize the long-underappreciated potential of these drugs. In the past few years, a growing number of studies using human volunteers have begun to explore the possible therapeutic benefits of drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, ibogaine and ketamine.
Much remains unclear about the precise neural mechanisms governing how these drugs produce their mind-bending results, but they often produce somewhat similar psychoactive effects that make them potential therapeutic tools. Though still in their preliminary stages, studies in humans suggest that the day when people can schedule a psychedelic session with their therapist to overcome a serious psychiatric problem may not be that far off.'
http://cbs13.com/watercooler/Police.Pot.Ca...s.2.616128.html
‘A man being held in a Dutch police cell on suspicion of growing cannabis got an unintended treat in his lunch — a piece of hashish-laced cake, a spokesman said Thursday.
“It was an accident,” said Alwin Don, police spokesman in the southern province of Zeeland.
The hash cake had earlier been seized by police in an unrelated investigation and stored in a refrigerator — close to lunch packets served to suspects being held in cells at the police station in Goes, 110 miles south of Amsterdam.
“Clearly it looked a lot like the other lunch packets,” Don said of the hash cake, which was served with a cup of coffee on Sunday.
“Officers returned to the cell a half hour later and the suspect told them: ‘I think you’ve given me something you weren’t supposed to,’” Don said.’
http://psychcentral.com/news/2007/11/01/bi...espan/1477.html
‘A recent study has found that an older, commonly prescribed bipolar drug — lithium — can significant increase the lifespan of a certain type of worm. Researchers at the Buck Institute said nematode worms treated with lithium showed a 46 percent increase in lifespan.
It is not yet known whether people taking lithium might also benefit in a similar manner with an increased lifespan.
In the study, scientists discovered the worms’ longevity increased when the lithium reduced the activity of a gene that modulates the basic structure of chromosomes.
“Understanding the genetic impact of lithium may allow us to engineer a therapy that has the same lifespan extending benefits,” said Gordon Lithgow, the lead researcher in the study. “One of the larger questions is whether the lifespan extending benefits of the drug are directly related to the fact that lithium protects neurons.”‘
