a pinch of psychedelic

During the kids’ Snow Break last week, we chanced to visit the Denver Art Museum’s Psychedelic Experience exhibit. Dozens of groovy rock posters from the late sixties, mostly advertising shows at San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium, were on display, occasionally retro-enhanced by black light. More interesting to the kids, however, was an adjoining exhibit where ancient artifacts were displayed in a seemingly authentic sixties pad. There were LPs (how they laughed!) and record players, a giant console television, magazines from the era (first man on the moon was a big hit), shabby furniture covered in tie-dyed material, and a couple old-fashioned telephone booths with rotary phones. One by one, the kids went into the graffiti-covered booth and closed the door, sat on the bench and tried to figure out how to dial the phone. Seriously, it wasn’t obvious to them.

The terms LSD and psychedelic were ubiquitous throughout the exhibit and the kids asked me their meanings. I think I was able to explain LSD satisfactorily but had a hard time defining psychedelic, although I know psychedelic when I see it. It turns out that today is a birthday of sorts for both LSD and psychedelic, a perfect time to answer my own question!

From Today in Literature:
LSD was first synthesized on this day in 1943 by Albert Hoffman, and the psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond coined the term “psychedelic” on this day in 1956, by way of a poetic exchange with Aldous Huxley. Huxley had enthusiastically volunteered himself as a guinea pig for Osmond’s drug experiments and, after some initial reluctance, Osmond had agreed — he said he didn’t “relish the possibility, however remote, of finding a small but discreditable niche in literary history as the man who drove Aldous Huxley mad.” The two felt that a new word was needed to capture the nature of the new experience; Huxley offered his coinage in rhyme:

To make this trivial world sublime,
Take half a gramme of phanerothyme.

Osmond replied with his improvement, and entered Far Out history:

To fathom hell or soar angelic,
Just take a pinch of psychedelic.

If it sounds too good to be true

...it probably is.

Jamaica's Usain Bolt won both the 100-meter and 200-meter sprints in world record time, something that hasn't been done in 32 years. The Jamaican women, led by Shelly-Ann Fraser, swept the 100-meter race. Today another Jamaican woman, Veronica Campbell-Brown won the 200 meter sprint. A single country winning gold in all four sprints hasn't happened since the USA did it in 1988.

All this metal begs the question, what the hell is going on with the Jamaican runners?

I'm much too sweet to have a taste for sour grapes, but it seems likely that the Jamaican sprinters are doping. Their current coach's association with Trevor Graham -- a Jamaican silver medalist in 1988 and coach of Beijing silver medalist Shawn Crawford -- who recently received a lifetime ban from the sport for helping athletes obtain performance enhancing drugs, further fuels suspicion.

Of course, the Jamaican Track Federation vehemently denies the doping charges pointing out that the athletes have been tested and retested and, according to team doctor, Herb Elliott, remain "ready at any time at any hour to be tested."

Sounds convincing...NOT. The dopers are always body lengths ahead of the U.S. Anti-Doping agency. It makes no difference how many times you test if you're not looking for what they're taking.

There is a Jamaican saying likkle likkle mek nuff nuff. Loosely translated it means "a whole lot of a little bit amounts to a whole lot." Or, more simply, it all adds up.

Yep, to a whole lot of gold.

Oaksterdam University

California is one of 12 states wherein the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is legal. But what happens when a cannabis patient applies for a job that requires a drug test? Surely an employer must overlook the level of THC in the blood of a legal pot user? Not so. California courts have ruled that employers are allowed to discriminate against legal stoners — something about federal law trumping state law. Jefferson must be turning over in his grave.

Even the law-abiding growers face unrelenting hassles from overzealous and holier-than-thou law enforcement officers. In our own state, where cultivating medicinal marijuana is legal, cops recently raided the home of a couple of medical providers, arrested them, and confiscated their inventory. Of course, once they’d shown their permit, the offenders were released. The plants, when they were finally returned, were dead on arrival. The couple asked for remuneration for their inventory and lost wages which was, not surprisingly, denied. Apparently the cops have no duty to take due care of personal property seized from law-abiding individuals.

In Oakland, California, a new university has been founded to help cannabis providers understand their legal rights, grow and distribute marijuana responsibly, and even prescribe different pot strains for specific maladies. The school is called Oaksterdam University, which I think is funny as hell. The following is one of the University’s course descriptions:

Budtending 101
Bartending for the cannabis industry. Train how to effectively and responsibly dispense cannabis to patients and consumers. Separate yourself from the other applicants for jobs at dispensaries. Learn about the different medical strains and their differing effects, and which strains are best for various medical conditions. Hear from a cannabis doctor regarding ethical and emerging political issues. Get information and details about the latest clinical studies.

Another course, one that is particularly relevant to all of us living in a police state, is Legal Issues 102:

Practice protecting yourself during police encounters. This course is a role-playing workshop that simulates encounters with law enforcement. Students will develop the knowledge learned in Politics/Legal Issues 101 through classroom practice asserting their rights in a police encounter. Examples and specific wording will be taught from instructors and students will be asked to participate in role-plays to solidify the knowledge. Most people give up their constitutional rights during encounters with law enforcement. These mistakes are avoidable, and this course should be a must for anyone working in the cannabis industry.

More information, as well as other course descriptions and an application for admission, can be found at OUs website.




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Can I bum a neurotransmitter?

I recently read a mean-spirited and narrow- minded post which blamed chemical imbalances in Hollywood, mental disorders if you prefer, on substance abuse. I agree that there is a strong link between the two; in the case of bipolar disorder, the correlation is astounding. Nearly 70% of those afflicted use drugs or alcohol as self-medication. But which came first, the disorder or the substance abuse? The chicken or the egg?

Lots of research shows a connection between bipolar disorder and creativity. Beethoven, Van Gogh, Oscar Wilde, even Kurt Cobain, suffered from the condition. Doesn’t it make some sense that, because Hollywood is full of creatives, there might be a greater population of bipolars? That said, the incessant partying and easy access to drugs by Hollywood’s young elites may both trigger the manifestation of bipolar disorder, and then provide some relief from it.

Because bipolar disorder is complicated, let me talk about a simpler and more widespread addiction–nicotine. Not only are the Hollywoods abusers of drugs and alcohol, they smoke like chimneys and slurp energy drinks like camels at a watering hole. Aniston, Pitt, Jolie, Hilton, Richie, Spears, Affleck, Damon, even Julia Roberts, are chain smokers. We know that nicotine is highly addictive. But why? And why is it not true for social smokers, who have a couple cigarettes, maybe even daily, but don’t get addicted? The addictive sorts likely possessed a different brain chemistry from the get-go.

Our brains are a tangled mess of neurons that make connections, fire impulses and respond to neurotransmitters at all times. What we perceive as emotion is largely chemical in nature. Dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin, epinephrine, norepinephrine, and melatonin regulate mood, emotion, concentration and creativity. Dopamine is one of the feel-good neurotransmitters. Certain situations trigger a dopamine response–a belly laugh, a big hug, or great sex to name a few. But because the brain likes to keep itself in a nice steady state, pretty soon the kill-joy neurotransmitter, monoamine oxidase b (MAOb), enters the mix to step on (re-uptake) the happy buzz.

Look at these brain scans. The top scan shows the amount of MAOb in the brain a few seconds after a happy dopamine moment. The brain is positively flooded with this stingy little chemical, racing in to mop up the dopamine and jealously guard it until another thrill wrests it from its greedy grasp.

The bottom scan shows the brain of a smoker in the aftermath of a happy moment. The dopamine lift stretches on and on, like an elastic ribbon of elation, not only allowing the positive feelings to continue, but also allowing the brain greater connectivity, thus, more focus, more creativity, greater sensitivity to the world at hand. To go one step further, if the brain’s steady state is unbalanced to begin with–as in a depressed person who has a paucity of key neurotransmitters–a morning cigarette and cup of caffeine positively impacts brain chemistry, and helps them feel like most of us do naturally.

This is self-medication. And self-medication is often counterintuitive. Do you know what they give hyperactive children to calm them down and help them focus? Speed! Alcohol is a known depressant. But to a depressed person, it has the opposite effect. It elevates mood and improves brain connectivity.

I agree that Big Pharma does not care a whit about Britney Spear’s mental state. Their main goal is profit, and many of the drugs that they push are over-prescribed, too expensive, and downright detrimental. But don’t dismiss the need to balance brain chemistry in the war on substance abuse–caffeine, nicotine, and Red Bull included. Without addressing root causes, it’s a war doomed to continued failure.

Some of the information in this post came through my friend, Jacques, at BlaBlaBlawBlawg: A Mysteriously Enchanted Evening with Dopamine-Soaked Truffles.




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Getting high with Darwin and Keynes

The war on drugs. Oh yes, it's a nasty endless little war, one that's filling our prisons with small-time users/entrepreneurs and costing the taxpayers billions. It's a war that hasn't helped our poor addicted countrymen one iota, and it's a war for which win-happy Bush has not yet declared victory. But neither has he hung his head in defeat, which he certainly should.

The DEA bigwigs ought to be lamenting the indisputable fact that its decades-long fight against drugs is not working. In fact, it's making things worse. After spending more than six billion dollars to cripple the Medellin and Cali cartels, the IBM and General Motors of the drug industry, cocaine production and trafficking in Colombia has actually increased. Hundreds of smaller and more efficient cartels have filled the void left by the blue chip cartels, kind of like the dot.com explosion, except the brilliant, creative, innovators happen to run drugs. And the DEA hasn't a clue who they are or how to stop them.

The war on drugs has penalized and incarcerated thousands of small-time drug dealers/users, the weak and dumb, the poor souls who would never be counted among the fittest in a Darwinian assessment. Years of artificial selection have given rise to the super drug-dealer, the one who, like the virulent bacteria that have arisen from overuse of antibiotics, is more efficient, more cunning, more innovative and much more difficult to eradicate. How can politicians hope to win a war with a strategy that ensures that only the most efficient and creative drug traffickers survive?

The relentless persecution of small-time drug dealers has decreased the supply of drugs on our streets. I suppose this can be seen as a good thing. However, the demand remains. Thus, according to accepted economic theory, interdiction has supported higher prices for the super dealers and provided incentive for more traffickers to enter the drug economy.

Alas, the war on drugs has been a complete waste of time and money. It's time for the DEA to huddle in the war room and come up with a new strategic plan. They should bring in some new generals, hopefully with public health backgrounds. They might even want to get off their moral steeds and decriminalize recreational drug use, thereby decreasing the demand for illegal drugs. They might decide to throw their allotted resources at dangerous criminals and our underlying social problems and let the small-time stoners be. That is if success is truly their goal.

After all, wouldn't it make sense to address the underlying demand for drugs? Shouldn't the DEA stop focusing on supply and address the unchanged demand for illicit drugs? Of course, this would mean funding public health initiatives and educational programs which are not nearly as fun as fighting a war against cagey dark-skinned enemies in exotic foreign locales. No, the men in suits aren't really interested in giving up their fat federal budgets in order to win the struggle against drug abuse. The war is too much fun.

So we will keep building expensive prisons and filling them disproportionately with people of color, too poor to make waves. We'll keep propping up the super-drug dealers we've created. We'll ask Congress for $1.4 billion to fight the drug-crazed Mexicans from Merida, the enemy du jour. And we'll rejoice that, as is true for all of our wars, there is no end in sight.

The war on war

This is your president.


This is your president on drugs.

Any questions?


Brought to you by the Partnership for a War-free America



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