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Ed Dunkel

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  1. Ed Dunkel
    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.”‘
  2. Ed Dunkel
    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.”‘
  4. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article....RTICLE_ID=55800
    ‘A guest speaker at an assembly at Boulder High School in Colorado has told students as young as 14 to go have sex and use drugs, prompting school officials to say they will investigate.
    The instructions came from Joel Becker, an associate clinical professor of psychology at the University of California at Los Angeles.
    “I am going to encourage you to have sex and encourage you to use drugs appropriately,” Becker said during his appearance at the school as part of a recent panel sponsored by the University of Colorado’s Conference on World Affairs.
    “Why I am going to take that position is because you are going to do it anyway,” he continued. [..]’
  5. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/...80703145849.htm
    'Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery—what we see with the "mind's eye"—directly impacts our visual perception.
    "We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception," says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. "This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on."
    "These findings are important because they suggest a potential mechanism by which top-down expectations or recollections of previous experiences might shape perception itself," Pearson and his co-authors write.
    It is well known that a powerful perceptual experience can change the way a person sees things later. Just think of what can happen if you discover an unwanted pest in your kitchen, such as a mouse. Suddenly you see mice in every dust ball and dark corner—or think you do. Is it possible that imagining something, just once, might also change how you perceive things?' [...]
  6. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/stor...5006007,00.html
    ‘Just four per cent of US adults are virgins, but a fifth have tried hard drugs such as cocaine and crack, a new study shows.
    What most alarms researchers is how young they start.
    “We still have a public health problem in that we still see a lot of adults reporting their sexual debut at a pretty young age,” said Dr Kathryn Porter of the United States’ National Centre for Health Statistics, who led the survey of more than 6,000 people. [..]
    Ninety-six per cent of US adults have engaged in some kind of sex - including oral and anal sex - by the age of 20, according to the study published today.’
  7. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=dopami...tivation-reward
    'Researchers have for the first time found that the neurotransmitter dopamine is central to the human brain network governing motivation and a sense of reward and pleasure—and that it changes with age. The finding could provide clues to healthy, happy aging and pave the way to new treatments for neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease and schizophrenia as well as addictive behaviors from alcoholism and drug abuse to compulsive gambling.
    The U.S. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) team used two imaging methods, positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), to examine the normal human brain reward circuit, a complex neurochemical network that centers around a path from the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain (where dopamine is synthesized) to the nucleus accumbens in the forebrain (where it is released). Comparing brain activity in volunteers playing video slot machines, the researchers identified processes involved both in anticipating a reward and actually getting one—and discerned age-dependent changes in those processes.' [...]
  8. Ed Dunkel
    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles...-additives.aspx
    ‘Jock Doubleday, director of the California non-profit corporation Natural Woman, Natural Man, Inc., has offered $75,000 to the first medical doctor or pharmaceutical company CEO who publicly drinks a mixture of standard vaccine additives.
    The additives would be the same as those contained in the vaccines recommended for a 6-year-old according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, and the dose would be body-weight calibrated. It would include, but not be limited to:
    * Thimerosal (a mercury derivative)
    * Ethylene glycol (antifreeze)
    * Phenol (a disinfectant dye)
    * Aluminum
    * Benzethonium chloride (a disinfectant)
    * Formaldehyde (a preservative and disinfectant)
    On August 1, 2007, if no one has taken the challenge, the offer will be increased to $90,000 and will increase at a rate of $5,000 per month until someone accepts.’
  9. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22148...from=public_rss
    ‘Two men have been charged with attempting to smuggle 16kg of the illicit drug ice into Australia hidden in two marble tables. [..]
    Customs officers at Sydney Air Cargo discovered the drugs on July 10 after selecting for examination two packages which had arrived from Vancouver, Canada.
    An X-ray of the packages aroused suspicion of a possible concealment and prompted Customs officers to drill a hole in the marble slab.
    They found white powder inside.’
  10. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32778137
    ‘A Coatesville mother made her 6-year-old daughter drive a car because “[mom] was sleepy” after smoking “that stinky stuff,” according to police. [..]
    Officer Robert Keetch said he had to do a double take after seeing the little girl driving. “There were two white knuckles and a little head popping over the stearing wheel,” he said.
    The woman, Lakisha Hogue, was sitting in the passenger seat, laughing, when a patrol officer pulled her over, said police. Hogue told the Officer Keetch that she was teaching her daughter how to drive.
    “Mom made me drive because she was sleepy,” the girl told police.
    Then police say the aunt asked her niece, “Was your mom smoking that stinky stuff again?” The girl replied “yes,” say police.’ [...]
  11. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/article....l-way-to-reduce
    'Key Concepts
    * A new drug discovery approach focuses on a property known as allosterism.
    * Allosteric drugs attach to biological molecules at binding sites distinct from those usually targeted
    by medications.
    * Instead of activating or inhibiting the bound molecules, as classic drugs do, allosteric types can act more like dimmer switches and might, at times, cause fewer side effects.
    * Such agents may be able to treat disorders that lack drug therapies today.
    Despite what the overcrowded, overpriced shelves of your pharmacy might suggest, pharmaceutical companies struggle to find new drugs these days. The low-hanging fruit is long gone, and the main discovery method that served so well in past decades is generating far fewer hits today. But a fresh strategy, focused on a property called allosterism, is now invigorating many investigators. Some predict it will revolutionize drug discovery and could deliver treatments for diseases that so far remain intractable.
    Historically, scientists have developed drugs by finding molecules that mimic the behavior of our body's signaling molecules, such as hormones and neurotransmitters. The pharmaceutical doppelgangers of such endogenous substances latch onto cell-surface receptor molecules exactly where the native substances bind. If a mimic fits snugly into the binding pocket, known as the "active" site, it will activate the receptor, triggering a biochemical cascade within the cell. If the mimic has a slightly different shape, it will do the opposite, impeding the cascade. Most drugs on the market today—allergy medicines, beta blockers, antipsychotic drugs—act in one of those ways.
    Problem is, such drugs have an all-or-nothing effect. They stimulate or repress physiological pathways, leaving no room for normal fluctuations in activity. And because the body has evolved to use the same chemicals for multiple purposes, one endogenous molecule often binds to a range of receptor subtypes, each responsible for different tasks—so drugs intended to replicate the action of, say, a given neurotransmitter on just one subtype may end up affecting many subtypes, leading to side effects. These limitations have made it impossible for scientists to find safe therapies for some diseases.
    Thanks to a few serendipitous discoveries arising from an upgrade in technology, pharmaceutical companies are now moving beyond mimicry drugs. They are on the hunt for agents that interact with receptor regions that are geographically distinct from where a body’s chemicals bind. These allosteric drugs, as they are called—allosteric means “other site”—can interact with unique domains on receptor subtypes, thus limiting side effects by affecting only a narrow set of receptors possessing those domains. And the new agents are not mere on-off switches; they can have nuanced effects, ramping up or down the activity of a signaling pathway as needed.' [...]

    Therapeutic agents known as allosteric ("other site") modulators take aim at targets outside of where classic drugs, and the body's own substances, normally hit selected molecules in the body.
  12. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/f...lines-frontpage
    `The Czechs do like their weed. A 2005 report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction found that 22% of Czechs between 16 and 34 had smoked marijuana at least once during the previous year, the highest percentage in the European Union. The nation's cannabis culture is imbued with the whimsical ethos of the hippie movement: guys growing dope in fields, on balconies and in bathrooms, and sharing with friends. [..]
    "I've never paid for pot and I never would," said Filip Hubacek, a university student majoring in social sciences. "I don't mind paying for my gym, but not for my pot."'
  13. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...2/MNFOS3J6M.DTL
    ‘Firefighters battling a blaze at a home in the Oakland hills this morning discovered a marijuana-growing operation, authorities said.
    The two-story home at 4969 Stoneridge Court was being renovated so the entire second floor could be used to grow pot, fire Capt. Melinda Drayton said. Firefighters found more than 50 plants when they arrived at the home, which was otherwise unoccupied, around 3 a.m.
    The fire “appears to have started from electricity being used for the cultivation operation,” Drayton said. “I’m not going to say (the electrical wiring) was illegal, but it looked like it was not up to code.” [..]
    “This is becoming very common,” Drayton said of home marijuana-growing operations. She said electrical systems often pose a danger when they are altered for anything other than normal residential use.’
  14. Ed Dunkel
    http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/mpo.../mp060066m.html
    A Molecular Link between the Active Component of Marijuana and Alzheimer's Disease Pathology
    `[..] Computational modeling of the THC-AChE interaction revealed that THC binds in the peripheral anionic site of AChE, the critical region involved in amyloidgenesis. Compared to currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, THC is a considerably superior inhibitor of A aggregation, and this study provides a previously unrecognized molecular mechanism through which cannabinoid molecules may directly impact the progression of this debilitating disease.
    [..] Therefore, AChE inhibitors such as THC and its analogues may provide an improved therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease, augmenting acetylcholine levels by preventing neurotransmitter degradation and reducing A aggregation, thereby simultaneously treating both the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer’s disease.’
  15. Ed Dunkel
    http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2765576.ece
    ‘Jim Morrison lived life in the fast lane, blowing fans’ minds with his trippy lyrics and magnetic stage presence. So it has always seemed strange that according to official records he died in benign circumstances: from heart failure in a Paris bathtub. Now, a new book suggests the singer may have met his maker with a psychedelic bang after all.
    Sam Bernett, a former Paris nightclub manager, has claimed that the Doors frontman died on 3 July 1971 in a lavatory cubicle at his club. The suspected cause of death: heroin overdose.
    Although rumours of this have circulated since Morrison’s death 36 years ago, no witnesses have come forward, until now.
    The author, who managed the venue in question, believes two drug dealers carried Morrison out of the club and took him to his apartment. After arriving there, Bernett claims, Morrison was thrown into a bath in an attempt to revive him.’
  16. Ed Dunkel
    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.’
  17. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/01/2233186.htm
    'Instead, they say, the drink's reputation is down to nothing more exotic than its high alcohol content.
    German researcher Dr Dirk Lachenmeier of the Chemisches und Veterinaruntersuchungsamt Karlsruhe and colleagues publish their study online in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.
    Absinthe has been dubbed 'the green fairy' or 'the green muse' and was once widely used by 19th century Parisian bohemians, many of whom believed it could expand consciousness.
    Australian drug expert Dr Rodney Irvine of the University of Adelaide, who was not involved in the research, says there have always been many rituals surrounding its use.
    For example, the drink is sometimes poured through a sugar cube, goes cloudy, and some people set it on fire.
    But in its heyday many drinkers developed 'absinthe madness' or 'absinthism', a collection of symptoms including hallucinations, facial contractions, numbness and dementia.
    Absinthe soon gained a reputation as a dangerous psychedelic drink and was banned after growing reports of illness and violence.
    Some say artist Vincent van Gogh chopped off his ear and later shot himself in the chest after drinking it.'
  18. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/...90319102419.htm
    'New evidence by researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and researchers in Germany shows that drinking alcohol is the greatest risk factor for acetaldehyde-related cancer. Heavy drinkers may be at increased risk due to exposure from multiple sources.
    Acetaldehyde is ubiquitous in daily life in Ontario. Widely present in the environment, it is inhaled from the air and tobacco smoke, ingested from alcohol and foods, and produced in the human body during the metabolism of alcoholic beverages. Research indicates that this organic chemical plays a significant role in the development of certain types of cancers (especially of the upper digestive tract), and it is currently classified as possibly carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization.' [...]
  19. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/...90706090440.htm
    'Injections of THC, the active principle of cannabis, eliminate dependence on opiates (morphine, heroin) in rats deprived of their mothers at birth. The findings could lead to therapeutic alternatives to existing substitution treatments.
    In order to study psychiatric disorders, neurobiologists use animal models, especially maternal deprivation models. Depriving rats of their mothers for several hours a day after their birth leads to a lack of care and to early stress. The lack of care, which takes place during a period of intense neuronal development, is liable to cause lasting brain dysfunction.
    The study was carried out by Valérie Daugé and her team at the Laboratory for Physiopathology of Diseases of the Central Nervous System (UPMC / CNRS / INSERM).
    Valérie Daugé's team at the Laboratory for Physiopathology of Diseases of the Central Nervous System (UPMC / CNRS / Inserm) analyzed the effects of maternal deprivation combined with injections of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main active principle in cannabis, on behavior with regard to opiates.' [...]

  20. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.webmd.com/add-adhd/news/10101/a...es-stunt-growth
    ‘After three years on the ADHD drug Ritalin, kids are about an inch shorter and 4.4 pounds lighter than their peers, a major U.S. study shows.
    The symptoms of childhood ADHD — attention deficit hyperactivity disorder — usually get dramatically better soon after kids start taking stimulant drugs. But this benefit may come with a cost, says James Swanson, PhD, director of the Child Development Center at the University of California, Irvine.
    “Yes, there is a growth suppression effect with stimulant ADHD medications,” Swanson tells WebMD. “It is going to occur at the age of treatment, and over three years it will accumulate.”‘
  21. Ed Dunkel
    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. [..]’
  22. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/09/0...pies/index.html
    ‘In a small district in southern Afghanistan, U.S.-backed Afghan drug forces opened fire on farmers who were blocking roads and throwing rocks to protest the destruction of their poppy fields earlier this year. Scores were injured in the firefight.
    Poppy farmer
    Undeterred by the violence, a group of angry farmers gathered around Masood Azizi, the Afghan official supervising the eradication. They maintained that cultivating poppy for opium is the only way they can survive. “We are hungry, thirsty, and we don’t have any money. We are in debt,” one said.
    It’s a message that reverberates throughout this impoverished, war-torn country. [..]
    Eradicating opium poppies has been a key pillar of U.S. policy in Afghanistan since 2004, said Doug Wankel, director of the U.S. Counter-Narcotics Task Force in Afghanistan.
    Yet today, Afghanistan produces roughly 93 percent of the world’s illicit opium, according to the UNODC report, and the Taliban are making inroads in remote areas of the country thanks, in part, to proceeds from the drug trade.’
  23. Ed Dunkel
    http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=invent...trip&sc=rss
    'Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann, inventor of LSD, died yesterday at the age of 102, just 10 days after the 55th anniversary of his notorious bicycle trip while tripping on "acid". Hofmann, who suffered a heart attack at home in Basel, Switzerland, was the first person to synthesize lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, and the first human known to experience its mind-bending effects.
    The drug was the 25th he created from the basic chemical ingredients of ergot, a fungus that forms on rye, in his search for treatments for circulation and respiratory problems. He reports in his 1979 autobiography LSD, My Problem Child, that he became restless and dizzy when he accidentally ingested the compound while making it—and "perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors" for about two hours.
    The very next day (April 19, 1943), he swallowed 0.25 milligram of the acid to confirm that it had caused his odd symptoms. Overcome by dizziness and anxiety, he asked an assistant to bicycle him home; once there, he writes that he was overcome by feelings that he might die (prompting a later call to his physician), along with delusions that included perceiving a kindly neighbor transformed into a malevolent witch.'
  24. Ed Dunkel
    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")
  25. Ed Dunkel
    http://angryaussie.wordpress.com/2007/06/2...ny-side-effect/
    ‘There’s a “new” over-the-counter drug available in the US that’s apparently flying off the shelves. It’s called alli (note the way trendy lower case!) and I use the term “new” loosely because it’s apparently a lower strength version of a prescription-only drug (Xenical) that’s been around for a while.
    So what does this incredibly popular wonder drug do? Well, not to go all Bill Clinton on you, but it depends on what your definition of “do” is. You see, there’s (1)what the drug company markets it as, (2)the medical description of what it does and (3)the biggest effect you’re actually going to notice.
    The drug company markets it as a weight loss pill. They say it will give “safe, effective weight loss”. Because it’s FDA approved it must be good. What could possibly go wrong?’
    Check out the translations of the drugs warning information , very amusing.
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