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----Forwarded email begins.----
Dana Beal <dana@...> wrote:
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2005 10:32:06 -0500
From: Dana Beal
Subject: ``GMM 2005 #8: Nazis on Speed!; Athabasca, Rineyville Make 124
Cities on the Global Marijuana March May 7, 2005!
Important: get your city on the list for the Global Marijuana March, May 7, 2005!So far we have confirmed 124 cities:AlbanyAlbuquerqueAshevilleAthabascaAthensAtlantaAucklandBskersfieldBergenBerlinBirminghamBooneBoulderBristolBudapestBuenos AiresBurlingtonCapetownCheltenhamChicagoChicoChristchurchCincinnatiColorado SpringsColumbiaDarwinDes MoinesDetroitDoverDublinDunedinEast LansingEau ClaireEugeneFayettevilleFrankfurtFt. SmithGrass ValleyHachitaHalifaxHartfordHiloHoustonHullJerusalemKansas CityKristiansandLethbridgeLexingtonLondonLos AngelesLyonMadridMexico CityMinneapolisMissoulaMontrealMoscowNashvilleNewarkNew PaltzNew YorkNimbinOgdenOrlandoOsakaOsloOuluPaiaParisPeoriaPhiladelphiaPhoenixPortlandPortlandPotsdamPragueRaleighRapid CityRenoRichmondRineyvilleRoanokeRomeRosarioRostockSalemSan AntonioSan FranciscoSan MarcosSanta BarbaraSanta CruzSapporoSarasotaSavannahSpokaneStavangerStevens PointSt. LouisStockholmTallahasseeTampaTel AvivThunder BayToledoTokyoTorontoTraverse CityTromsoeTrondheimTucsonTupeloTurkuTwin OaksUpper LakeVancouverViennaVisaliaWaikikiWarsawWashington, D.C.Wilkes-BarreWilmingtonWinonaThere is also some international MMM networking going on at
this CannabisCulture.com message forum:-------------------------
Million Marijuana March. Banners, posters, handbills,
flyers. From 2004 MMM. Use for 2005 MMM ideas! Adapt foryour needs! Due to software upgrade problemsonly the full-size images and full-size image downloadscurrently are working-- go here:http://www.vienna2004.org/mmm/viewer.php?albid=510&stage=2
or if problems go to the home page URL:
http://www.vienna2004.org/mmm
and then click on "mmm2004"and then "Banners Posters Handbills"
Many of the MMM 2004 banners, posters, flyers, and
handbills were converted from PDF files to the gif and jpg
images found here. The freeware Adobe Acrobat Reader and the
freeware IrfanView were used.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.htmlhttp://www.irfanview.com - IrfanView is a free image editor
that is useful for adapting these flyers and banners for
your needs. Download the full-size gif images since they usefar fewer kilobytes compared to the 640x480 and 800x600 jpg
versions of the same image. JPG image files are mainly for
photos and images with lots of color gradation. GIF image
files are much better for flyers and banners. IrfanView can
easily edit, reduce, or enlarge gif and jpg images.
These flyer and banner images were found elsewhere in the
photo gallery, and by following links on the MMM 2004 city
list pages, report pages, image pages, etc.. Flyers and
banners for other MMM years can be found through the first
link below: MMM images:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmmimages.htm
2004 city list:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2004.htm
2004 reports:
http://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2004rep.htm*****!!!Global Marijuana March--May 7, 2005: Updates, Reports!!!*****Date: Mon, 7 Feb 2005 05:50:13 -0800 (PST)
From: Andre du Plessis
Subject: Re: MMM 2005 cities. Update, survey. Million Marijuana March worldwide.
HIGH ALL!
It's time to head toward something rather than fight
the past. In South Africa we are gearing up toward
holding the Soccer World Cup in 2010, in the aim to
have an audience left, the government has started this
AIDS propaganda campaign with the slogan 2010 Love to
be thereŠ
(the implied message is love to live that longŠ it's
misguided protracted and assumes people don't want to
live)
I will HIGHjack this slogan. BAM it's mine.
& now the world's:
2010(Twenty Ten) LOVE 2B LEGAL!
It's not there has never been a soccer player that has
smoked a joint, or grown a plant, it's just a good
place to start and a great theme to HIGHjack. I am
aiming to get as many soccer balls as possible and as
big as possible with a cannabis leaf in the white
parts of the ballŠ with a theme tuneŠ =) It would begreat if we could get more on board.
2010 Love to be Legal!
It has been years since the beginning of Cannabis
Prohibition, now is the time to announce its end.
Cannabis makes Sustainable development cents, it makes
Koyoto worthy clean air, it makes bio-economic homes,
clothes, cars, petrol. It has the potential to create
wealth in the most rural of villages and a difference
in the lives of the fire torn shanty town lives of
urban Africa. It has the potential to increase the
standard of living of those Africans afflicted with
AIDS, while showing promising results in Cancer
treatment.
This is the announcement that the people will claim
this god-given plant and right to be fruitful by the
year 2010 through the use of Cannabis.
Research available presently outstrips any information
and research available when Cannabis prohibition was
enacted. The community already involved with Cannabis
announces its coming of age. Law, policy and policy
makers are hereby informed of this; we invite informed
discussion so as to facilitate an amicable agreement
between informed logic and outdated, unenforceable
laws.
The health, housing, fiber and petroleum market
already requires more than can be produced in the
current status quo. Market forces demand a change;
this is your notice thereof.
Sing to the tune of Ave Maria ~
Ave Sativa;
Cannabaceae!
For Health and life and housing
For food and wealth and clothing
Gods plant, a life for us all
A plant, a way, a door
To a world enlightened
A future so much brightened;
Twenty Ten Love to be le~gal;
A life so much more re~gal
Sativa, Cannabaceae
Mary Jane, Swazi, cabbage and mari~juana
Makes you plant a seed and another
Grass, Pot, blow, skunk and many other
A name, a leaf we all recognize
Cannabis
Sativa you light up our eyes
Cannabis Sativa
You for us, are all this!
Our health, our homes, our bliss
A promise to unchain your potential
And unleash your ancient area
Sativa, Cannabaceae
Dagga, qanneb, canamo and bhang
Makes you plant a seed; and another
Ganja, kiff, weed, potiguaya, herb and many other
A name, a leaf we all recognize
Cannabis Sativa
Sativa you light up our eyes
Cannabaceae Cannabis, Sativa!
2010 LOVE TO BE LEGAL!
OHM
AMEN
BOM
ALLAH AGBAR
SO BE IT!
(Add those that you know, it's time for magic!)
Translate, transpose, or amend - (if anyone pro's
better - please help!-)-----------------From: Shadysatterfield@...How do I add my city to the MMM list. Who would take care of arranging it, me?I live in Rineyville, Kentucky. So email me back-----------------From: tents444@...Hey Dana,
Hope you are doing well. Since the
Cures-not-wars.org site was down awhile I don't think
you got this info when I first emailed it to you.
Here is another city to add to the 2005 city list:
Athabasca, Alberta, Canada.
----Forwarded messages begin----
Hey there eco2man,
... As for forwarding my message to Dana Beal...,of course, that would be great...
Hello eco2man,
It's Paul here in Athabasca,Alberta.
Just letting you know that we will be putting together another march/rally for this years event.
I feel that representing small towns and rural areas is vital in the protest of the backwards cannabis prohibition around the world.
Although our day was fairly low-key last year(we chose not to put up very many posters/flyers etc...),our group definately made a positive impact as we proudly marched thru our "downtown" 4 or 5 times,carrying our signs and banners. -remember that Athabasca is a small town...about 4500 people and our downtown consists of 5 square blocks...-I also did an interview for the local newspaper,which was good...( half page!! )
Since last years event,I am definately known around town as a cannabis activist... and proud of it!!
However,I found that my choice to be an activist was a concern to my bank when I applied for a small loan for my photography studio/lab of 12 years.
Well,a long story short,it was finally approved(I've got a great credit history...and 12 years with that bank!!).
I sometimes wear one of my pro-cannabis shirts when I do my banking(or other things around town),and usually get some smiles/smirks/stares, and even support!!
I was going to submit a few photos of our march to you (for the archives -MMM- site ),but all the digital pics that I had were lost when my computer had a major crash...We will be sure to get a few pics of this years event to you...
I did have a few prints that I sent into C.C.,however they didn't make it in the article in issue#51.
We were honoured to have a paragraph acknowledging our day in the global event.
Anyways, I wanted to ask if there was still time to get "Athabasca" added to the main posters/flyers that will be distributed around the globe...,and if so,who would I contact to get a few hundred of them... Marc?
We added our town too late last year to be included,although "Frank Discussion" did help us out by providing a small b/w flyer that we dressed up a bit and handed out,along with various pro-cannabis literature.
This year,our group will be much larger(hopefully 100+),and I do have a few more people that are taking on some of the organizing and preparation work this year...which will help a great deal.In fact,I am going to give you a contact name and email addy to be added to the list,as well as mine...Athabasca 2005 MMM contact info:
Curtis hellama@...Paul wizwuz2002@...
Well,I guess that's all for now...
Thanks... and have a great nite (or morning,or afternoon...)
Paul.
-----------From: philip@...Dana Beal,
Here is the contact information for Southern California NORML.Southern California NORML
President Philip A. Lujan
9000 West Sunset Boulevard Suite 704
Los Angeles, California 90069
(310) 972-0770 Office
(310) 888-1116 Facsimile
lujan@...www.socalnorml.org
I am in the process of finalizing a location for the event. As soon as
I secure a final location I will inform you and your staff A.S.A.P.
Take Care
Sincerely,
Philip A. Lujan
President/Founder
"A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles, upon which
our government was founded, because it seeks to control a man's
appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things which are not
crimes."
Abraham Lincoln------------
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-rx7feb07.storyTheir drugs of choice
Teens are turning to Vicodin, Ritalin and other easily obtained prescription pills.
By Daniel Costello
Times Staff Writer
February 7, 2005
Ryan SMITH remembers the night, during his junior year of high school, when a friend gave him his first Vicodin. "It felt so incredible. I remember thinking, 'I am going to do this for the rest of my life,' " he says.
Over the next year, Smith, now 22, and his friends moved on to other pills - Xanax, Valium, OxyContin and the attention deficit disorder medication Adderall, called "kiddie cocaine" for its ability to be crushed and snorted. "At the time, it felt like I knew more kids who were doing pills than who weren't," he says of his Utah high school days.
Daniel Smith, his younger brother, began using prescription drugs the same way when a friend offered him Vicodin while watching a school football game during his sophomore year. By that summer, he began taking "weak painkillers" such as Lortab and Percocet. Finally, he turned to highly addictive OxyContin, using it several times a week.
Although the brothers eventually went through an addiction program, they never considered themselves "druggies." They were using pills safe enough to be used by millions of Americans, drugs both legal and easy to get. Each generation typically finds a new illicit drug to make its own: LSD in the '70s, cocaine in the '80s and Ecstasy and heroin in the '90s. Today's middle and high school students are experimenting with prescription drugs.
Their drugs of choice are those often preferred by adults. After amphetamines such as Ritalin, they're turning to painkillers such as Vicodin and Percocet, then sedatives and tranquilizers. With illicit use tied to availability, California's share of the problem is considerable. Californians account for both 8% of the nation's population and 8% of the nation's prescription drug use.
Nationwide, prescription pills have become a societal force. Adults and children rely on them for a growing list of afflictions, including anxiety, depression, even shyness, for which few alternatives were available a generation ago. Nearly half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug.
Meanwhile, direct-to-consumer drug marketing that touts new and expanded uses has become widespread. Adults and children alike are exposed to print, television and radio ads promising happier, more fulfilled lives. For young people, experts say, all these factors appear to have blurred the line between the benefits and dangers of the medications.
As prescription drug sales have soared - up nearly 400% since 1990 - prescription medication has become the fastest-growing category of drugs being abused, with the biggest growth of abuse among people ages 12 to 24, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. After marijuana, prescription drugs are the drugs most commonly abused by teenagers, the federal agency says.
Nationally, an estimated 14% of high school seniors have used prescription drugs for non-medical reasons at least once in their lifetime, according to a 2004 University of Michigan survey that tracks drug trends among middle and high school students.
"It's a major concern to us that young people have the impression they can use medicine as a party drug," says Dr. H. Westley Clark, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment at the Department of Health and Human Services.
The rise in prescription abuse - or "pharming" as young people and drug counselors sometimes call it - worries treatment counselors and drug research experts. A national push to reduce drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and heroin has started to pay off, with overall drug use among young adults declining slightly in recent years. But abuse of prescription drugs - especially among younger people often dubbed the "Ritalin generation" - has been growing and could grow further as drug sales continue to increase.
"Pills are more seductive to kids because they see them as cleaner, safer and less illegal," says Carol Falkowski, a drug researcher at Hazelden, a nationally known treatment center in Center City, Minn.
Many younger users don't know what many of the drugs are for or which pills are more addictive than others, Falkowski says. Nor do they have much sense of what dosages are truly dangerous or how separate drugs interact. Are four Percocets worse than two Vicodin? Can Valium be mixed with Xanax? Treatment counselors say some young users take a fistful of different drugs at once.
Data from the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network show that visits to hospital emergency departments increased significantly from 1994 to 2002 for overdoses of drugs such as narcotic prescription pain relievers and other medications.Although the data isn't broken down by age group, overdoses of hydrocodone, or Lortab, for example, rose 170%; overdoses of oxycodone, or OxyContin, increased 450%; and overdoses of benzodiazepines such as Valium and Xanax rose 41%. Data also show that many were using more than one drug.
Easily available
In face-to-face and telephone interviews with students at several middle and high schools in California, students say prescription drug use is frequently talked about at school but rarely discussed elsewhere.
Prescription drugs are often more attractive than other drugs, they say, because the pills don't have the telltale signs of use, such as the smell of marijuana smoke or the disorientation of being drunk.
Girls in particular appear to see the pills as "cleaner" than other drugs. They're less likely to use marijuana or cocaine than boys but equally likely to take prescription medications.
Some students see the pills as a way to enhance sports performance. They say football players at some schools take opiates such as Vicodin before games to blunt the pain.
Researchers say many teenagers don't even have to leave the house to get high. In many cases, students filch drugs from their parents or family members - or they abuse their own medications. It is not uncommon these days, for example, for young patients to get painkillers for a sprained wrist or after a trip to the dentist. "If someone breaks their arm, kids will ask them the next day if they have Vicodin or something else they can sell," says Samantha Szelog, a 16-year-old junior at Malibu High School who says she does not use or sell drugs. Some kids, she adds, make a considerable amount of money selling their pills.
Many schools have sophisticated black markets with fixed prices for individual drugs and dosages that vary according to supply and demand.
The most abused drugs largely mirror those that adults commonly take, according to the University of Michigan survey. Most often misused are amphetamines, such as Ritalin, which are abused by 15% of students. Next are pain medications such as Vicodin and Percocet, used by 13% of students last year, up from 6% a decade ago. Sedatives and tranquilizers follow. They were used by 10% of students, nearly double the number over the same period.
An 18-year-old senior and varsity athlete at Burbank High School says she doesn't consider herself a "big druggie." But about once a month, when she and her friends can find some, they like to take Vicodin, or "vikes," after school or before parties. "I just feel calmer on it. Nothing stresses me out," she says. Her friends are less cautious. They've also tried codeine, Valium, Percocet and Xanax, sometimes mixing several at once.
A senior at Palo Alto High School, also 18, has been taking his friend's attention deficit disorder medication, Ritalin, for the last nine months. He started buying his own this summer and now takes several pills nearly every day. Although he recently started having problems sleeping, "I don't see it as a bad thing," he says, noting that he believes he has been able to study better on the pills. "Nothing bad has come from it, only good."
He adds that it's easier for people his age to get prescription drugs. "You can't go around the house and find a bag of cocaine in your parent's house, but you can find Vicodin," he says. Both students asked not be identified because of the illegal nature of their activity.Students say prescription pills can often be less expensive than other drugs such as marijuana and cocaine. Pain pills such as Vicodin sell for around $5, depending on the dose, while stronger medications such as OxyContin can cost several times that. Ritalin, one of the most widely available drugs, sells for $1 to $2 a pill, students say, but can be more expensive before midterms and finals, when students use them to cram.
A government solution
Under federal law, it's illegal to possess controlled substances without a prescription. But prosecutions for possession are rare, especially when minors are involved. Many schools bar students from carrying medications without a prescription, but enforcement can be difficult.
Response from state and federal governments and pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, has been limited. Last year, the Bush administration introduced an effort to control prescription drug abuse, but most of the plan centers on reducing sales of narcotic medications online or by doctors who write pain prescriptions too freely.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration have instituted a new print and television ad campaign, "The Buzz Can Take Your Breath Away," highlighting the dangers of prescription drug abuse among young people. And Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has introduced a public campaign about the dangers of abusing the drug after reports of misuse.
Makers of the other prescription drugs, including Vicodin's Abbott Laboratories Inc., Valium's Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. and Pfizer Inc., the maker of Xanax, say they have instituted public awareness campaigns about the dangers of prescription drug abuse, such as giving doctors and parents brochures about monitoring the pills.
Many parents have yet to address the issue at home. According to the Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 44% of parents believe that teens who abuse prescription drugs get them from their parents - yet 71% don't take any precautions with prescription drugs in their homes.Ryan and Daniel Smith both recently completed a rehabilitation program for prescription drug abuse. Now attending college in Arizona, they say they're trying to keep each other from relapsing.
Both have been sober for nearly a year, and they've each started part-time jobs and are dating. The two say they occasionally attend narcotics anonymous meetings but don't like going because some of the people who attend depress them."We weren't really druggies," says Daniel. "We just fell into something. The pills were all over the place."--------------------
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05.n170.a05.html
Newshawk: DrugNews Fast! http://drugnews.org/
Pubdate: Sun, 30 Jan 2005
Source: New York Times (NY)
Section: Magazine
Copyright: 2005 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@...
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Drake Bennett
Note: Drake Bennett is the staff writer for The Boston Globe Ideas section.
Photo: Alexander Shulgin. (Jeff Minton for The New York Times) http://www.mapinc.org/images/Shulgin.jpg
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Shulgin (Dr. Shulgin)
DR. ECSTASY
Alexander Shulgin, Sasha to his friends, lives with his wife, Ann, 30 minutes inland from the San Francisco Bay on a hillside dotted with valley oak, Monterey pine and hallucinogenic cactus. At 79, he stoops a little, but he is still well over six feet tall, with a mane of white hair, a matching beard and a wardrobe that runs toward sandals, slacks and short-sleeved shirts with vaguely ethnic patterns. He lives modestly, drawing income from a small stock portfolio supplemented by his Social Security and the rent that two phone companies pay him to put cell towers on his land. In many respects he might pass for a typical Contra Costa County retiree.
It was an acquaintance of Shulgin's named Humphry Osmond, a British psychiatrist and researcher into the effects of mescaline and LSD, who coined the word "psychedelic" in the late 1950's for a class of drugs that significantly alter one's perception of reality. Derived from Greek, the term translates as "mind manifesting" and is preferred by those who believe in the curative power of such chemicals. Skeptics tend to call them hallucinogens.
Shulgin is in the former camp. There's a story he likes to tell about the past 100 years: "At the beginning of the 20th century, there were only two psychedelic compounds known to Western science: cannabis and mescaline. A little over 50 years later -- with LSD, psilocybin, psilocin, TMA, several compounds based on DMT and various other isomers -- the number was up to almost 20. By 2000, there were well over 200. So you see, the growth is exponential." When I asked him whether that meant that by 2050 we'll be up to 2,000, he smiled and said, "The way it's building up now, we may have well over that number."
The point is clear enough: the continuing explosion in options for chemical mind-manifestation is as natural as the passage of time. But what Shulgin's narrative leaves out is the fact that most of this supposedly inexorable diversification took place in a lab in his backyard. For 40 years, working in plain sight of the law and publishing his results, Shulgin has been a one-man psychopharmacological research sector. (Timothy Leary called him one of the century's most important scientists.) By Shulgin's own count, he has created nearly 200 psychedelic compounds, among them stimulants, depressants, aphrodisiacs, "empathogens," convulsants, drugs that alter hearing, drugs that slow one's sense of time, drugs that speed it up, drugs that trigger violent outbursts, drugs that deaden emotion -- in short, a veritable lexicon of tactile and emotional experience. And in 1976, Shulgin fished an obscure chemical called MDMA out of the depths of the chemical literature and introduced it to the wider world, where it came to be known as Ecstasy.
In the small subculture that truly believes in better living through chemistry, Shulgin's oeuvre has made him an icon and a hero: part pioneer, part holy man, part connoisseur. As his supporters point out, his work places him in an old, and in many cultures venerable, tradition. Whether it's West African iboga ceremonies or Navajo peyote rituals, 60's LSD culture or the age-old cultivation of cannabis nearly everywhere on the planet it can grow, the pursuit and celebration of chemically-induced alternate realms of consciousness goes back beyond the dawn of recorded history and has proved impossible to fully suppress. Shulgin sees nothing strange about devoting his life to it. What's strange to him is that so few others see fit to do the same thing.
Most of the scientific community considers Shulgin at best a curiosity and at worst a menace. Now, however, near the end of his career, his faith in the potential of psychedelics has at least a chance at vindication. A little more than a month ago, the Food and Drug Administration approved a Harvard Medical School study looking at whether MDMA can alleviate the fear and anxiety of terminal cancer patients. And next month will mark a year since Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, S.C., started his study of Ecstasy-assisted therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. At the same time, with somewhat less attention, studies at the Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center and the University of Arizona, Tucson, have focused on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin (the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms"). It's far from a revolution, but it is an opening, and as both scientist and advocate, Shulgin has helped create it. If -- and it's a big "if" -- the results of the studies are promising enough, it might bring something like legitimacy to the Shulgin pharmacopoeia.
"I've always been interested in the machinery of the mental process," Shulgin told me not long ago. He has also, from a very young age, loved playing with chemicals. As a lonely 16-year-old Harvard scholarship student soon to drop out and join the Navy, he studied organic chemistry. His interest in pharmacology dates to 1944, when a military nurse gave him some orange juice just before his surgery for a thumb infection. Convinced that the undissolved crystals at the bottom of the glass were a sedative, Shulgin fell unconscious, only to find upon waking that the substance had been sugar. It was a revelatory, tantalizing hint of the mind's odd strength.
When Shulgin had his first psychedelic experience in 1960, he was a young U.C. Berkeley biochemistry Ph.D. working at Dow Chemical. He had already been interested for several years in the chemistry of mescaline, the active ingredient in peyote, when one spring day a few friends offered to keep an eye on him while he tried it himself. He spent the afternoon enraptured by his surroundings. Most important, he later wrote, he realized that everything he saw and thought "had been brought about by a fraction of a gram of a white solid, but that in no way whatsoever could it be argued that these memories had been contained within the white solid. . . . I understood that our entire universe is contained in the mind and the spirit. We may choose not to find access to it, we may even deny its existence, but it is indeed there inside us, and there are chemicals that can catalyze its availability."
Epiphanies don't come much grander than that, and Shulgin's interest in psychoactive drugs bloomed into an obsession. "There was," he remembers thinking, "this remarkably rich and unexplored area that I had to explore." Two years later, he was given his chance when he created Zectran, one of the world's first biodegradable insecticides. In return, Dow gave him its customary dollar for the patent and unlimited freedom to pursue his interests.
As Shulgin turned toward making psychedelics, Dow remained true to its word. When the company asked, he patented his compounds. When it didn't, Shulgin published his findings in places like Nature and The Journal of Organic Chemistry. Eventually, however, Dow decided that Shulgin's work wasn't something it wanted to endorse and asked that he not use the company address in his publications. He began to work out of a lab he had set up at home, eventually leaving Dow altogether to freelance as a consultant to research labs and hospitals.
All along he made drugs: 2,5-dimethoxy-4-ethoxyamphetamine, or MEM for short, was his Rosetta stone, a "valuable and dramatic compound" that opened the door to a whole class of drugs based on changes at the "4 position" of a molecule's central carbon ring. A compound he dubbed Aleph-1 gave him "one of the most delicious blends of inflation, paranoia and selfishness that I have ever experienced." Another, Ariadne, was patented and tested under the name Dimoxamine as a drug for "restoring motivation in senile geriatric patients." Still another, DIPT, created no visual hallucinations but distorted the user's sense of pitch.
Shulgin tested for activity by taking the chemicals himself. He would start many times below the active dose of a compound's closest analog and work his way up on alternate days. When he found something of interest, Ann, whom he married in 1981, would try it. If he thought further study was warranted, he would invite over his "research group" of six to eight close friends -- among them two psychologists and a fellow chemist -- and try the drugs out on them. In case of a truly dangerous reaction, Shulgin kept an anti-convulsant on hand. He used it twice, both times on himself.
Shulgin's pace has slowed recently -- the research group hardly meets anymore. Nevertheless, Ann figures that she's had more than 2,000 psychedelic experiences. Shulgin puts his own figure above 4,000. Asked if they had suffered any effects from their remarkable drug histories, they laughed. "You mean negative effects?" Ann said. In more than a dozen hours of conversation, her memory proved sharp. But Shulgin, while a nimble conversationalist, can have trouble with names -- of people and places, never chemicals. At one point, while explaining a mnemonic device he uses to remember world geography, he paused and asked me, "Where's that place where Ann is from?" (She was born in New Zealand.) He is, though, also nearing 80.
Once a Shulgin compound develops a reputation, it is almost invariably placed on the Drug Enforcement Agency's list of Schedule I drugs, those deemed to have no accepted medical use and the highest potential for abuse or addiction. It is therefore rather striking that Shulgin is not only still a free man, but also still at work. His own explanation is that, quite simply, "I'm not doing anything illegal." For more than 20 years, until a government crackdown, he had a D.E.A.-issued Schedule I research license. And many of the drugs in his lab weren't illegal because they hadn't existed until he created them.
Shulgin's knack for befriending the right people hasn't hurt. A week after I visited him, he was headed to Sonoma County for the annual "summer encampment" of the Bohemian Club, an exclusive, secretive San Francisco-based men's club that has counted every Republican president since Herbert Hoover among its members.
For a long time, though, Shulgin's most helpful relationship was with the D.E.A. itself. The head of the D.E.A.'s Western Laboratory, Bob Sager, was one of his closest friends. Sager officiated at the Shulgins' wedding and, a year later, was married on Shulgin's lawn. Through Sager, the agency came to rely on Shulgin: he would give pharmacology talks to the agents, make drug samples for the forensic teams and serve as an expert witness -- though, he is quick to point out, he appeared much more frequently for the defense. He even wrote the definitive law-enforcement desk-reference work on controlled substances. In his office, Shulgin has several plaques awarded to him by the agency for his service. (Shulgin denies that this had anything to do with his being given his Schedule I license.)
Nevertheless, in the early 80's, Shulgin began having grim fantasies of the D.E.A. throwing him in jail, ransacking his lab and destroying all of his records. At the same time, he was finding it harder to get his work published: journals were either uninterested in or leery about human psychedelic research. He decided to make as much of what he knew public as quickly as possible. He and Ann started work on a book called "PiHKAL" (short for "Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved," after a family of compounds particularly rich in psychoactivity), self-publishing it in 1991.
It is a curious hybrid work, divided into two sections. The first, "The Love Story," is a thinly fictionalized account of Sasha's and Ann's comings of age, previous marriages, meeting, courtship (to which nearly 200 pages are devoted) and many drug experiences. The second, "The Chemical Story," is not a story at all, but capsule descriptions of 179 phenethylamines. Each entry includes step-by-step instructions for synthesis, along with recommended dosages, duration of action and "qualitative comments" like the following, for 60 milligrams of something called 3C-E: "Visuals very strong, insistent. Body discomfort remained very heavy for first hour. . . . 2nd hour on, bright colors, distinct shapes -- jewel-like -- with eyes closed. Suddenly it became clearly not anti-erotic. . . . Image of glass-walled apartment building in mid-desert. Exquisite sensitivity. Down by? midnight. Next morning, faint flickering lights on looking out windows." "TiHKAL" ("Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved"), self-published six years later, follows the same model.
To date, "PiHKAL" has sold more than 41,000 copies, a figure nearly unheard-of for a self-published book. It introduced Shulgin's work to a whole new audience and turned him into an underground celebrity. An organization called the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics has an online Ask Dr. Shulgin column that receives 200 questions a month. On independent drug-information Web sites like www.erowid.com, you can find the "PiHKAL" and "TiHKAL" entries for dozens of drugs, along with many anonymously posted accounts of Shulgin-style self-dosing drug experiments, some of them harrowing in their recklessness.
With all of these fellow travelers, some very bad experiences are inevitable. In 1967, a Shulgin compound called DOM enjoyed a brief vogue in Haight-Ashbury under the name STP, at doses several times larger than those at which Shulgin had found significant psychoactive effects, and emergency rooms saw a spike in the number of people coming in thinking they would never come down. And while the number of psychedelic-related deaths is orders of magnitude smaller than the number due to alcohol, prescription drugs or even over-the-counter painkillers, they do occur regularly. In October 2000, a 20-year-old man in Norman, Okla., died from taking 2C-T-7, a drug Shulgin describes in "PiHKAL" as "good and friendly and wonderful."
When I asked Shulgin whether he remembered the first time he heard that someone had died from one of his drugs, he said he did not: "It would have struck me as being a sad event. And yet, at the same time, how many people die from aspirin? It's a small but real percentage." (The American Association of Poison Control Centers, whose numbers are not comprehensive, attributed 59 deaths to aspirin in 2003; most, though, were suicides.) Asked whether he could imagine a drug so addictive that it should be banned, he said no. With his fervent libertarianism -- he says the only appropriate restriction on drugs is one to prevent children from buying them -- he has inoculated himself against any sense of personal guilt.
Shulgin's special relationship with the D.E.A. ended two years after the publication of "PiHKAL." According to Richard Meyer, spokesman for the agency's San Francisco Field Division: "It is our opinion that those books are pretty much cookbooks on how to make illegal drugs. Agents tell me that in clandestine labs that they have raided, they have found copies of those books." In 1993, D.E.A. agents descended on Shulgin's farm, combed through the house and lab and carted off anything they thought might be an illicit substance. Shulgin was fined $25,000 for violations of the terms of his Schedule I license (donations from friends and admirers ended up covering the whole amount) and was asked to turn the license in.
To the extent that Shulgin is known to the wider world, it is as the godfather of Ecstasy: 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, or MDMA, was originally patented in 1914 by Merck. The byproduct of a chemical synthesis, it was thought to have no use of its own and was promptly forgotten. But Shulgin resynthesized it in 1976 at the suggestion of a former student. (He has never found out how she heard about it.) Two years later, in a paper written with his friend and fellow chemist David Nichols, he was the first to publicly document its effect on humans: "an easily controlled altered state of consciousness with emotional and sensual overtones."
Unlike many of its subsequent users, Shulgin did not find his MDMA experience transformative. For him the effect was like a particularly lucid alcohol buzz; he called it his "low-calorie martini." He was intrigued, though, by the drug's unique combination of intoxication, disinhibition and clarity. "It didn't have the other visual and auditory imaginative things that you often get from psychedelics," he said. "It opened up a person, both to other people and inner thoughts, but didn't necessarily color it with pretty colors and strange noises." He decided that it might be well suited for psychotherapy.
At the time, it was not such an unconventional idea. In the 50's and 60's, the use of LSD, psilocybin and mescaline in therapy was the subject of much mainstream scholarly debate. LSD was a particularly hot topic: more than a thousand papers were written on its use as an experimental treatment for alcoholism, depression and various neuroses in some 40,000 patients. One proponent was a psychotherapist and friend of Shulgin's named Leo Zeff. When Shulgin had him try MDMA in 1977, Zeff was so impressed that he came out of retirement to proselytize for it. Ann Shulgin remembers a speaker at Zeff's memorial service saying that Zeff had introduced the drug to "about 4,000" therapists.
In certain therapeutic circles, MDMA acquired a reputation as a wonder drug. Anecdotal accounts attested to its ability to induce in one session the sort of breakthroughs that normally took months or years of therapy. According to George Greer, a psychiatrist who in the early 80's conducted MDMA therapy sessions with 80 patients, "Without exception, every therapist who I talked to or even heard of, every therapist who gave MDMA to a patient, was highly impressed by the results."
But the drug was also showing up in nightclubs in Dallas and Los Angeles, and in 1986 the D.E.A. placed it in Schedule I. By the late 90's, household surveys showed millions of teenagers and college students using it, and in 2000, U.S. Customs officials seized nearly 10 million pills. Parents and public officials worried that a whole generation was consigning itself to a life of drug-induced depression and cognitive decay.
There is, in fact, little consensus about what MDMA does to your brain over the long run. Researchers generally agree on its immediate physiological effects: especially at higher doses, it can trigger sharp increases in muscle tension, heart rate and blood pressure. Hyperthermia, or raised body temperature, is a particular worry, along with the attendant risk of heatstroke or dehydration. MDMA also, at least temporarily, exhausts the brain's supply of serotonin (a neurochemical thought to play a role in memory and mood regulation). But as to the extent and duration of that depletion, and whether it has any measurable functional or behavioral consequences, there is fierce debate and surprisingly scarce data. Nationwide, fatality numbers are hard to come by, but a study by New York City's deputy chief medical examiner determined that of the 19,000 deaths from all causes reported to his office between January 1997 and June 2000, 2 were due solely to Ecstasy.
In the past couple of years, MDMA's opponents have backed off from some of their stronger claims. (In one particularly embarrassing instance, a study linking MDMA to Parkinson's disease was revealed to have instead been based on the use of methamphetamine, which is known to be much more neurotoxic.) Emboldened, a few psychiatrists are bringing MDMA back into the news in a role closer to the one Shulgin originally imagined for it.
With the F.D.A.'s approval of the Harvard cancer-patient study on Dec. 17, all that's still needed is a D.E.A. license for MDMA. John Halpern, the psychiatrist heading the study, anticipates that happening in the next couple of months. At the same time, he cautions against making too much of his "small pilot study": eight subjects undergoing a course of MDMA therapy, with another four receiving a placebo. The Charleston study is similarly modest, with 20 subjects.
Still, according to Mark A.R. Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at U.C.L.A., "there's obviously been a significant shift at the regulatory agencies and the Institutional Review Boards. There are studies being approved that wouldn't have been approved 10 years ago. And there are studies being proposed that wouldn't have been proposed 10 years ago."
The theoretical basis for MDMA therapy varies a bit depending on whom you talk to. Greer says that by lowering patients' defenses, the drug allows them to face troubling, even repressed, memories. Charles Grob, the psychiatry professor running the U.C.L.A. psilocybin study (also with terminal cancer patients) and a longtime advocate of therapeutic MDMA research, focuses more on the "empathic rapport" catalyzed by MDMA. "I don't know of any other compound that can achieve this to the degree that MDMA can," he said.
The medical community remains dubious. For Vivian Rakoff, emeritus professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, there is something familiar about the claims being made for psychedelics. "The notion of the revelatory moment due to some drug or maneuver that will allow you to change your life has been around for a long time," he said. "Every few years, something comes along that claims to be what Freud called the 'royal road to the unconscious."' Steven Hyman, professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, put it this way: "If you asked me to place a bet, I would be skeptical. In general, one worries that insights gained under states of disinhibition or mild euphoria or different cognitive states with illusions may seem strange and distant from the vantage of our ordinary life." Even so, both Hyman and Rakoff say that research should be allowed to proceed.
Shulgin has been credited with jump-starting today's therapeutic research, but he prefers to play down his role. While heartened by the MDMA studies and happy to play psychedelic elder statesman, he insists that he is not a healer or a shaman but a researcher. Asked why he does what he does, he replies, "I'm curious!" He is most animated when describing the feeling that accompanies the discovery of a new compound, no matter what its properties. Sometimes he compares the moment to that of artistic creation ("The pleasure of composing a new painting or piece of music"), and sometimes it sounds more like a close encounter of the third kind ("You're meeting something you don't know, and it's meeting something it doesn't know. And so you have this exchange of properties and ideas").
Shulgin's lab is in the concrete-block foundation of what used to be a small cabin, set into a ridge a few dozen yards from his house along a narrow brick path. On the door is a laminated sign that reads, "This is a research facility that is known to and authorized by the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, all San Francisco D.E.A. Personnel and the State and Federal E.P.A. Authorities." Underneath are phone numbers for the relevant official at each agency. He posted it after the sheriff's department and the D.E.A. raided the farm a second time a few years ago. (They later apologized.)
Shulgin gave me my tour late one afternoon. A weak light came in through the small, dusty windows. The smell -- synthetic and organic at once, like a burning tire doused in urine -- took some getting used to. Bulbous flasks were clipped into place above a counter crowded with glassware shaped like finds from the Burgess Shale. "Everything you need is right here," Shulgin declared, pulling out drawer after clattering drawer of test tubes, beakers, plastic tubing and syringes. At the far end of the room, beside the fireplace, was a small chalkboard covered with the traces of his brainstorming -- antennaed pentagons and hexagons ringed with N's, H's, C's and O's. Shulgin picked a short bit of scrap wood off the counter. He occasionally used it, he explained, to tear down the spider webs that festooned the rafters. "But the main problem is the squirrels," he said, pointing to where he had put up sheet metal to keep them out. "It doesn't look like the labs you see in the movies, but you get a chemist out here, and he'll say, 'Oh, my God, I'd love to have a lab like this."'
Of course, in a way, it's exactly the sort of lab that you see in the movies -- they're just movies in which the scientists wear frock coats, turn into monsters and abduct wan women in nightgowns. There's an undeniable romance to what Shulgin does. As he stood there with his spider-web stick, describing what it's like to be in the lab late on a cold night with the fire blazing and Rachmaninoff on the radio, it seemed to me that he realized it.
He might best be described not as a scientist in the modern sense but as a different type -- what Aldous Huxley, the novelist turned psychedelic philosopher, once described as a "naturalist of the mind," a "collector of psychological specimens" whose "primary concern was to make a census, to catch, kill, stuff and describe as many kinds of beasts as he could lay his hands on." Shulgin has on occasion run PET scans to see where in the brain some of his drugs go. He has offered theories as to mechanisms of action or, as with MDMA, even suggested an application for a drug. But his primary purpose, as he sees it, is not to worry about things like that -- much less about the political and social consequences of his creations. His job is to be first and then push on somewhere new. What to do with the widening wake of chemicals he leaves behind is for the rest of us to figure out.------------------Newshawk: CMAP http://www.mapinc.org/cmap
Pubdate: Mon, 31 Jan 2005
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Page: A1 - Front Page
Copyright: 2005, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact: letters@...
Website: http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168Author: Jane Armstrong
Cited: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health http://www.camh.net/
Cited: Canadian Institutes of Health Research http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?136 (Methadone)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Downtown+Eastside
IS FREE HEROIN JUST A QUICK FIX?
VANCOUVER -- On a warm, rainy Saturday morning, Debbie Woelke stops pushing her shopping cart long enough to discuss the pros and cons of a plan to give free heroin to drug addicts in Canada's poorest neighbourhood.
The heroin trial is all the talk of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside and Ms. Woelke, 48, thinks it's a good idea. She might even apply, herself. "They should have done this a long time ago," she said leaning on her cart, which contains all her worldly belongings -- not groceries.
Like other addicts, Ms. Woelke lives in a bleak rented room in a residential hotel. Far better to be outside in the rain, even if it means wheeling around your clothes all day.
"Sometimes you need something just to relax and get your mind together, instead of always being in a state of panic. That's what's killing everyone down here," she said, pointing to the throngs of bedraggled souls shuffling along East Hastings Street. Like Ms. Woelke, they must hit the pavement every day to raise enough cash for their drugs. Most steal. Many women work as prostitutes.
"They have to do things they wouldn't normally do."
This is exactly what some of Canada's top addiction experts want to find out when they begin the first heroin prescription trial in North America.
If heroin addicts are freed of their daily chase for drugs, if it is given to them three times a day like medicine, can they change their lives for the better?
In a couple of weeks, the research team will begin taking applications here in Vancouver and later in Toronto and Montreal from addicts who want to be part of the study.
Researchers are looking for hard-core addicts, people who have tried and failed at least twice to get clean. In the three cities, there are spots for 428 addicts, roughly half of whom will receive heroin for a year; the other half will receive methadone, an artificial opiate that controls the cravings for heroin.
In Vancouver, the trials are causing a stir on the syringe-littered streets of the city's skid row, home to more than 4,000 drug users. Among those who deal first hand with these chaotic lives, there's a feeling that Canada is breaking new ground in how it treats the most intractable of drug addictions.
Similar studies in the Netherlands and Switzerland have shown positive results for addicts.
"What if you could say to an addict, 'For the next little while, you're not going to have to get your drugs from Al Capone. You can get your drugs from Marcus Welby,' " said Dr. Martin Schechter, the project's lead researcher.
"You don't have to worry about this afternoon and this evening. And therefore, you don't have to go and break in to cars or be a prostitute. You could actually come and talk to a counsellor or . . . get some skills training."
It's a landmark study in North America, one that turns its back on abstinence as the goal.
But not everyone is thrilled with the prospect of free heroin for hard-core addicts. And even supporters have expressed concern about the ethics of offering heroin to addicts for a prescribed period of time. Is it fair to yank away their heroin at the end of the year?
Addiction experts in Canada have already expressed concerns about the risk of overdoses.
Last December, two staff physicians at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health wrote scathing critiques to the ethics adviser of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the agency funding the study.
Vancouver physician Stanley deVlaming is worried the trials are designed to garner positive results. In Vancouver, 88 subjects are to receive heroin, while 70 will receive methadone, the heroin substitute.
"How meaningful will it be to compare the group of 88 elated subjects that win the heroin lottery to the group of 70 who were also desperately trying to get the free heroin, but lost the luck of the draw?" asked Dr. deVlaming, who has treated addicts in the Downtown Eastside for more than a dozen years.
"The first group would likely be very motivated to give the researchers positive results, while the second disappointed and disgruntled group randomized to methadone would be much less motivated."
As expected, the plan has rankled U.S. drug officials, specifically the office of White House drug czar John Walters, where an official called it an unethical and "inhumane medical experiment."
Offering free heroin to addicts when there are proven treatments for addiction can't be justified if the addict's desire is to get off drugs, policy analyst David Murray said.
"What you're doing is making it easier to be a heroin addict," he said from Washington. "These people won't get that much better in the long run. They will still be heroin addicts."
Washington's disapproval was expected and hasn't deterred Ottawa from funding the study. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has committed $8.1-million for the trials.
In Vancouver, the plan has the support of top politicians and law enforcers, including the mayor and the police chief.
Mayor Larry Campbell, who was once a coroner and drug cop, said the trials are needed because current treatments aren't working for hard-core addicts.
"The critical thing is to accept this as a medical condition," Mr. Campbell said.
"The side effects of this medical condition is that it forces you to . . . do things that you would never do, be it work as a sex-trade worker, be a B and E [break-and-enter] artist or a purse snatcher. So if I can mitigate that by putting you on heroin, imagine the changes you could have."
Right now, the trial is waiting for Health Canada to grant the necessary exemption form the Canadian Narcotics Act.
Ms. Woelke said she plans to tell her friends to apply. She would be content to get on the methadone program."Methadone, whatever," she said shrugging her shoulders. "I need something every day."--------------------------------
Please forward widely! Million Marijuana March. MMM.
The MMM 2005 city links are always clickable at these mirrors below.
MMM world map with many more links. Frequently updated:
http://corporatism.tripod.com/mmm2005map.htm andhttp://www.corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005map.htm and
http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/y/mmm2005map.htm and
http://members.fortunecity.com/multi19/mmm2005map.htm
Click the region names in the left chart column to go to their city lists.
Click the "countries" link to go to the list of countries.Worldwide.
With less than 5% of the world's population
the USA has over 2.2 million of the world's9 million prisoners!:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/rates.htm and
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/world.htm
MMM (Million Marijuana March).
City list and world map:
http://corporatism.netfirms.com/mmm2005map.htmYahoo Group:http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction*************************BUSHWHACKED!!****************************From:tomo7@...
Subject:[Ibogaine]-OT only a little-Inauguration photos World-wide expressions of opinion...pretty colorful. Helps to keep the wars on drugs, terror, cancer, poverty, and aids all in perspective, doesn't it? Kind of a universal war on human freedom is more like it.
What response to Ibo therapy do you expect from world controllers? How might that response really Feel? Guess it depends on where in the pile you dwell.
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00001138.htm
Dr. Tom---------From:ptpeet@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism
Ken wrote >I admit that I do get a wee frustrated with the closed minded. I went
through the recent '3 month war on drugs' in Thailand where 2300 drug users
were systematically rounded up and shot.<
Below is what I published on this topic in Under the Influence- the Disinformation Guide to Drugs, an updated and revised reprint of a couple of articles originally published in High Times.
Attached are the photos that were published alongside this article.
While the US wosdu sucks and prison here is no joke whatsoever, Thailand really, really sucks when it comes to the whole wosdu thing.
[TITLE] Who Takes Responsibility for Thailand's Bloody Drug War 'Victory'?
[BYLINE] By Preston Peet
(published in Under the Influence- the Disinformation Guide to Drugs, October 2004- The Disinformation Company, NY.)
photos by Mathew McDaniel
-----
Editor's note- American ex-patriot and human rights campaigner Matthew McDaniel, quoted in the following article, was arrested by Thai immigration officials at the Mae Sai immigration office when he went to renew his visa on April 15, 2004. As this book goes to press, McDaniel has been thrown out of the country and is now living in the US. What will happen to his pregnant Akha wife and four children, still at home in their remote village in Chiang Rai province, is still unsure, but what is known is that the Thai government and its military and police do not like nor want interference from pesky, outspoken foreigners who publicize the atrocities they are committing against certain segments of their society. McDaniel has been particularly derisive of the Thai government's War on Some Drugs and Users, as is apparent from his comments which follow.
-----
[ILLUS. Akha Murder 2- "Akha man Leeh Huuh, murdered after police called him to the police station. He never made it."]
Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra inexplicably declared a victory in Thailand's recent all out War on Drugs campaign, on December 3, 2003 (simultaneously declaring a new War on Poverty), but there are still drugs, traffickers and users all over the country, despite the bodies of thousands of now-dead druggies, dealers and smugglers strewn throughout Thailand's cities and villages.
[PULL QUOTE- There are still drugs, traffickers and users all over the country, despite the bodies of thousands of now-dead druggies, dealers and smugglers strewn throughout Thailand's cities and villages.]
The first three months of the campaign, launched by Prime Minister Thaksin on February 1, 2003, became a murder spree, with police committing thousands of what many human rights organizations are calling "extra-judicial killings" of suspected drug dealers and addicts. Police and government officials counter that most of the more than 2500 known killings, 1500 in the first five weeks alone, were carried out by other drug dealers turning on one another in gang warfare or while trying to silence potential snitches, or by police acting in self-defense. Police officials claim that only 46 of the slayings were carried out by fellow officers. The slain include elderly people and children, some as young as sixteen months according to a recent report from Amnesty International titled "Thailand: Widespread abuses in the administration of justice."
There's no denying that widespread drug trafficking and sky-high addiction rates are a problem in Thailand. Over the last ten years, there has been a huge increase in the smuggling of methamphetamine pills, called ''ya ba'' by locals, becoming even more prevalent than the region's traditionally smuggled opium. Made extremely cheaply in neighboring Myanmar factories, the pills are then smuggled across Thailand's border. With the fifteen prisons across the country designed to hold just 90,000 currently overflowing with over 173,900 inmates, killing suspects rather than arresting and trying them in court would of course keep the prison population from further swelling. There were, as of May 31, 2002, a total 106,256 people in Thai prisons for drug offenses (77,970 men and 28,286 women), a whoping 66.46% of the total prison population, according to the Thailand Corrections Department website.
[PULL QUOTE- The police shooting to death drug dealers and users in the streets was probably not what Amnesty International had in mind for reforms.]
The human rights organization Amnesty International has for years voiced concerns with "the long-term problems of torture and ill-treatment, and by prison conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in Thailand." But the police shooting to death drug dealers and users in the streets was probably not what Amnesty International had in mind for reforms.
"The drug war was a smashing of people, targeting the local boys mostly, kids, the police informers, the mules the police used to make their job look good, people the police did not like," said Matthew McDaniel, founder and director of the Akha Heritage Foundation in Thailand, (www.akha.org). "It was just violence without due process. Many people were murdered, many clearly with no drug connection." Living and working with the Akha hill tribe people for over twelve years, US ex-patriot McDaniel has seen firsthand the results of both drug addiction and the violent repression of the poverty-stricken Akha people by police and military forces. He concedes that one result of the latest campaign has been "less drug activity" but that "there never was any effort to work with the villages which would have worked as well, besides just killing everyone. In addition the economic situation is now worse, as drugs bridged the gap for farm land taken from the Akha, and now there is neither farm land or a drug economy" for the struggling Akha. McDaniel points out that Thailand's government waged their anti-drug campaign with support from the US, the DEA having an office there. The US takes part in joint military anti-drug training operations every year with Thai forces called Cobra Gold. The US supplies the Thai military equipment as well as training, and US Special Forces has a small contingent of "advisors" working with Thai anti-drug forces.
Although Prime Minister Thaksin's stated reason for declaring the War was to bring about a drug-free Thailand by Dec. 5, 2003, as a birthday present for Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, McDaniel doesn't believe that is the real reason for this bloody campaign. "It's all War on Drugs but no emphasis on human rights. The prison population of the hill tribes is very high. Many people know this is just ethnic cleansing. But the police are not included, nor businessmen and government people. None of them were killed." Hill tribe people in Thailand number just under one million, including the Akha, Lahu, Yao, Lisu, and Karen groups. They do not have citizenship, and according to Amnesty International "face discrimination with regard to education, health care, and other basic rights. At the same time they are exploited as a tourist attraction while often being accused by the authorities and others of destroying the environment and using opium and other illegal drugs."
[PULL QUOTE- "The US absolutely supported this. The killings with US-made equipment are in violation of the Leahy Amendment."]
"I think the big operators wanted a consolidation," says McDaniel. "It also improved the control structure of the police and government, which is all central. Thai people tell me that because of the drug war killings they are now afraid to say anything at all about anything. So that was a success, now wasn't it. The US absolutely supported this. The killings with US-made equipment are in violation of the Leahy Amendment." The Leahy Amendment, first passed as part of the US Foreign Operations Appropriations Act in 1997, prohibits US military assistance to foreign military units that violate human rights with impunity, which aptly describes what has happened in Thailand.
Human rights workers and activists are not alone condemning the Thai anti-drug campaign. King Adulyadej himself stated in a 76th birthday speech that "The government reported about 2,500 people were killed. Some say more than 10,000 died. There must be some who were killed that we don't know about. In this country, who is going to take responsibility?" the king asked. "In the end, the prime minister must take responsibility."
[SUBHEAD] Postscript: Despite "Victory" Yet Another War on Some Drugs and Users Declared in Thailand
Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared yet another "new" War on Some Drugs and Users on Feb. 27, 2004, after declaring victory less than two months previously. Last year's 10 month "war on drugs," declared over December 3, 2003, left at least 2500, and possibly many more alleged druggies dead at police hands but did nothing to stop the flow of illegal drugs.
"Critics only focus on the death toll of bad people, rather than those officials who lost their lives for the public and the country. The criticisms are quite imbalanced," said Thaksin in response to the US government's annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003 (released Feb. 25, 2004), which decried the Thai government's violent anti-drug campaign. But official Thai figures put the number of police and military troops killed during the campaign at approximately 31, compared to the thousands of suspects killed in the streets by police and military forces. The US report described official blacklists of suspected drug criminals, from which police were expected to cull a "prescribed percentage," or they'd be fired. "The [Thai] Government threatened retaliation against local officials who did not produce results," notes the US report.
[ILLUS. Akha Murder 1- "Loh Pah (looking to his left) and Leeh Huuh (looking to his right) were both murder after Phrao police of Chiangmai Province of Thailand called them both in for questioning. They never made it to the station."]
"It's unacceptable to me the way the US came out with the report by citing media reports. What kind of friend are they?" said Thaksin, quoted in Thailand's Nation on Feb. 28. Considering previous and current US support of any and all anti-drug efforts around the world, one might understand Thaksin's frustration. "There were no human-rights violations during the 'war on drugs,'" said Rasamee Vistaveth, the deputy secretary general of Thailand's Narcotics Control Board, two days after Thaksin announced the resumption of the war.
"This operation is re-launched not because drugs are rampant again, but it is launched when enemies are retreating," said Thaksin when declaring the new campaign. "We must reinforce our attacks before they can recover and I am confident we will be able to contain them." A cynic might be forgiven for doubting this new War on Some Drugs and Users will be any more effective at ending drug use or abuse than the last.
-----From:drlee@... Subject:[Ibogaine] OT:Teen Claims Antidepressant Led to Murder
Teen Claims Antidepressant Led to Murder
By BRUCE SMITH, Associated Press Writer
CHARLESTON, S.C. - A teenager who shot and killed his grandparents as they
slept is "a shy, decent boy" who was led to kill by the antidepressant
Zoloft, his attorney said as the boy went on trial.
Photo
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050201/480/wxs11202011328>
AP Photo
<http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/050201/480/wxs11202011328>
AP Photo Photo <javascript:
rs("ss","http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/story/slideshow/ap/20050201/zoloft
_defense/14165874/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/020105pittma
nmurder&tmpl=sl&e=1",750,580);>
AP Photo <javascript:
rs("ss","http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/story/slideshow/ap/20050201/zoloft
_defense/14165874/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/020105pittma
nmurder&tmpl=sl&e=1",750,580);>
Slideshow<http://us.i1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/auctions/cam.gif>
Slideshow: Teen Claims Antidepressant Prompted Murder <javascript:
rs("ss","http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/story/slideshow/ap/20050201/zoloft
_defense/14165874/*http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?g=events/ts/020105pittma
nmurder&tmpl=sl&e=1",750,580);>
Christopher Pittman, now 15, is being tried as an adult for two counts of
murder in the November 2001 slayings of Joe and Joy Pittman with a
pump-action shotgun. Their house was set ablaze and the youth, then 12,
drove off in the family car.
Defense attorney Andy Vickery said Monday that Zoloft was to blame.
"This is a case about one drug that has taken three lives. When you hear the
case, you will have the power and opportunity to give one back," he said. "A
shy, decent boy was acting under the influence of a mind-altering drug."
Prosecutors contend Pittman shot his grandparents because they disciplined
him for fighting on a school bus.
"This is not a case about Zoloft. This is not a case about Pfizer,"
prosecutor Barney Giese told the jury in opening statements. "This is a case
about Chris Pittman."
Pittman, who had threatened suicide, was put on Zoloft three weeks before
the slayings, and his dose was doubled just two days earlier.
In October, the Food and Drug Administration (news
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/ap_on_re_us/zoloft_defense/14165
874/*http://news.search.yahoo.com/search/news?fr=news-storylinks&p=%22Food%2
0and%20Drug%20Administration%22&c=&n=20&yn=c&c=news&cs=nw> - web sites
<http://us.rd.yahoo.com/DailyNews/manual/ap/ap_on_re_us/zoloft_defense/14165
874/*http://search.yahoo.com/search?fr=web-storylinks&p=Food%20and%20Drug%20
Administration> ) ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black
box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about
increasing the risk of suicidal behavior in children.
Pfizer has vigorously fought cases claiming antidepressants cause violent or
suicidal behavior.
Pittman could be sentenced to 30 years to life in prison if convicted.
See Photos:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=533&e=3&u=/ap/20050201/ap_on
_re_us/zoloft_defense****!!!IBOGAINE TREATMENT NOW $1500 IN HOLLAND--CALL SARA, 0113134-624-1770 !!!****From:nick227@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] cynicism and ibogaine
Hi Preston,
Sorry if I come on a bit haughty, it's not my intention. I don't know it all
by a long shot. It's just that I used a lot of ibogaine a few years ago, and
it showed me my path to change, and now it would be frustrating for me to
interract with people but not communicate to them what I know. OK, so that's
my trip but I'm going to keep laying it on people because that is what I do.And I'm going to keep learning. I don't like to see people using opiates,
except for temporary pain control in crisis situations. That's my trip, man.
I wanna change the fucking world. Personally, if Ekki wants to complain
about the German government trying to fence addicts in, well, to me, it's
fair enough what they do. Freedom of speech and action is one thing, but if
you have to keep stuffing the world's most powerful painkiller into you
day-in-day-out simply to maintain your perspective on the world, then I
think it's fine the world pushes you to look deeper. I think it's totally
fine. I'm not advocating that junkies are made social scapegoats, that they
are victimized, but that they're pushed to look a little deeper, to go for
awareness, I think that's fine. In fact I think it's great and a sign of
rising world awareness. We are One, and at some point we all have to start
living that.
That's where I am. I'm pro-ibogaine and anti-heroin. I'm pro-awareness and
anti-numbing out. That's my position, and I am happy if you want to try and
shift me from it.
To me, when the Bwiti say "Break open the Head" what they mean is - thestranglehold of your personal perspective on the world is broken. You have
the choice to let other people in. You have the choice to let healing in.
You no longer have the sole option of choosing "I do this, not that. I hang
out with these guys and not these. THIS is who I am, and not this." The
whole fencing-in of the personal perspective is broken by the drug. For me,
I believe that's why they take it in Africa. For sure, it happened to me
when I took it in London, and in the Cameroun.
I'm not talking about you personally here, it's general.
Anyway, that's my position. I apologize if it seems haughty to you or anyone
else but this is my position. Che sera.
With loveNickFrom:vector620022002@... Subject:[Ibogaine] HSS violates first amendment
I forgot who posted all the HSS stock mail to the list this month, I
think it was Brett? (sorry if it isn't). The center for cognitive
liberties, is filing suits to stop the use of HSS as a violation of
freedom of thought and the first amendment.
Besides the potential use of HSS as a weapon, It looks like they feel
the same way as Dave Hunter did about the idea of advertising being
beamed into his head.
.:vector:.
http://www.cognitiveliberty.org/issues/first_amend_index.html
FREEDOM OF THOUGHT & THE FIRST AMENDMENT
The United States Supreme Court has recognized:
"Freedom of thought... is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of
nearly every other form of freedom. With rare aberrations a pervasive
recognition of this truth can be traced in our history, political and
legal" (Palko v. Connecticut (1937) 302 U.S. 319, 326-27.)
Without freedom of thought, the First Amendment right to freedom of
speech is moot, because you can only express what you can think.
Constraining or censoring how a person thinks (cognitive censorship) is
the most fundamental kind of censorship, and is contrary to some of our
most cherished constitutional principles.
In 2003, the CCLE filed a legal brief on the relationship between
Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, and psychotropic drugs in the
United States Supreme Court. We are now examining other aspects of the
First Amendment that protect freedom of thought. Scientists, forexample, are discovering that nearly everyone engages in what they are
terming "internal speech." We use language to navigate within our own
thoughts. The CCLE is examining whether the freedom of speech protects
"internal speech." (We think it does, and we're working to prove it).
In addition, while most people are capable of shutting their eyes and
thereby blocking out external images, it is not so easy to shut one's
ears. New technology like Hypersonic Sound -- which transmits a beam of
sound that is silent until you walk into it -- is raising the question
of what rights people have to internal auditory integrity. If the First
Amendment blocks the government from putting words in a person's mouth,
does it also block the government from putting words in a person'shead? (We think it does, and we're working to prove it).From:kn0m0n3@... Subject:[Ibogaine] I'm going to stick my dick in the mashed potetoes
Some Ibo Vids:
http://www.pot-tv.net/archive/archive.cgi?q=ibogaine
"stick mY dick in tha mashed potatoes" sound comes
from ISBN: 724382859925 Trk 3
Fair Use Contact?
Try http://capitalrecords.com/contact.htm
to see, I dunno.
I figure they got it from someone else so Why Not?
Nick, I think the term "fencing in" comes across a
little threatening and sounds like coming from a
source that doesn't take it's own perspective with a
grain of salt. (Umm..I do that too if you can't
already tell)
I couldn't agree with "Hi Feds"Preston more re: it's
not as simple as heroin bad/ibogaine good, because,
well, it's just not.
Some almost conclusions I have reached through My
Limited experience is Prohibition of "drugs" (Ibo AND
Heroin too) caused/causes MUCH more damage then the
"drugs" themselves could ever cause. Way More. All
the way down to
Invoking ShameBecause they have some sort of self perceived moralauthority to invoke it.
In case you haven't noticed, Junkies don't like being
told what to do, just like non junkies.
I like people to give me my options then let me
decide.
How am I not supposed to see this as scarry?:
"a fencing-in tool"
"I think some people should just be
dragged
out of their homes and made to take part."
I couldn't disagree more with what is written here:
"I mean ibogaine IS
fencing-in,
basic principle of liberating consciousness - enclose
it."
HOw can you use fencing-in and liberating
consciousness together like that, dat dunt muk scaunse
2 me mohn.
You mention treatment centers that do this, well ok.
If they were that sucessful at it we wouldn't be here
talking about Ibogaine.
People aren't bad people just because they eat
chocolate, Same with Opiate users (moderate or
heavy).
I have been "clean" <-- see even that term is loaded
with SHame, to imply that if not meeting some
determined (by who) formula that I am somehow
"unclean", can we say bRa1NwA$h1nG?
Anyways without Methadone or opiates for going on 2
years now. I am Cynical as FUck, always have been. I
don't think that just because I choose not to, that
everybody in the world has to stop too, again, not
taking own perspective with a grain of salt.
I don't think hugging/saying fuck off, fuzzy
feelings/resentful feeling, some oneiric Christ
experience, overanalysing or underanaylsing is NOT
required, each has different goals when taking ibo.
If I could be arrested and given my prescribed
medication I wouldn't think twice about getting on and
staying on for life, but that ain't how it is, so I
don't.
Nick, I don't really have a problem with what you
are saying, I just think their may be a more workable
way to communicate what you are trying to get across,
that's all.
"I like it when I can see the whole person,"
You have to have trust first. Making LOve and
Fucking are not the same thing. If you want to see
the whole person...use the terms "ego" and "fencingin" More More More, or not.
Ok enough of dat.
<tucking sheets 'n bed>May I hear the Blue Pearl Story Please?
[* *]
(_)Sp^ce k0k0From:nick227@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism
-- Original Message --
Reply-To: ibogaine@...
From: "Preston Peet" <ptpeet@...>
To: <ibogaine@...>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 08:33:40 -0500
Subject: Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism
Nick wrote >Then I thought about this dialogue for while, and whether I'm
like
totally off for writing like this, and I realized I'm totally fine with
it.
If the German government wants to push addicts who are fucking up a bit
harder, I think it's ok. That's my position.<
And I still ask, so how do you feel about someone else who feels completely
opposite to you forcing you, or pushing you towards their viewpoint by
force? Is that cool too, or is it only cool to force other people to yourviewpoint Nick?
Hi Preston,
Well, my viewpoint is that it's fine for governments to introduce humane
coercive measures to bring socially errant addicts towards therapy and meaningful
change in their lives, to push them a bit, basically. I guess the opposite
to this is that it's not fine to do it, which would seem to be the position
that you're taking. So, how do I feel about that, well, I feel OK about
it.
LoveNickFrom:thethird@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism:Nick
Wow Nick, I keep feeling a bit stunned when I think about this whole thing. A lot of doctors think that addiction has to do with genetics, so pretty much whomever you were born to is a factor in weather you might one day become addicted to drugs and reading these posts I reflect on other times in history when people, just because they were born to certain people or practiced a certain religion were forced to hide from 'the enlightened community', lest they be dragged away from their homes. I can't say that I ever looked at the Holocaust as an enlightened society, but you can bet your ass that they thought they were. They thought they were doing the world (even the Jewish people) a favor. It's interesting how Hitler had Jewish blood isn't it, like he hated that part of himself so much that by forcing that part of society to go away, he could feel better about himself. I'm not saying you are the next Hitler, it's just that reading some of your posts I am reminded of that time in history. I would think that anytime someone has a desire to force other people into becoming something else, you have to seriously question if there is in fact any altruism in their motives. Finding out what life is all about will last a lifetime, and by forcing other people to do something they don't want to do, you are wasting your time and energy, which you could spend on yourself or people who really want help. The only time I can think of when forcing people to behave a certain way turned out for the better was forcing people to give up slavery, and the whole purpose of that was to GIVE freedom to people (slaves) not take it away. (Of course the reasons for the war were not quite as benevolent as that, but it helped.) I'm obviously not much of a history buff (or I would have come up with much better instances :) ), and maybe there are some cases which would show otherwise, but I can't imagine taking freedom away from a certain 'type' of people as being in any way a positive thing. And that, out of all of the things you implied, is what depressed me the most. I just don't get people who are so sure they have the right answers that they will actually bet someone else's life on it, which is what you do when you force someone else to do what you believe. I don't know, maybe you really think that you are giving addicts more freedom by forcing them out into your world, but shouldn't you respect their personal freedom and decision to find their own path? And, when you say you are all for the German government getting harsh with addicts, hasn't the drug war proven anything to you? I know all this is off topic, but it is pretty interesting, at least to me, and I appreciate you voicing your beliefs even though I don't agree with them. Damn, I didn't mean for this to be so long.From:nick227@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism:Nick I know it comforts you to make me out to be Hitler or something but actually all I'm saying is that I think addiction is a drag and that for governments to take a more pro-active stance against it is fine by me. There are now much better tools to fight opiate addiction available and it is my belief that it's fine to use them. Ibogaine detox backed up by 6 months in a therapeutic community rehab, I think it would be a great start.
BTW, it is not relevant to me whether an addiction has a genetic root. It is not about "blaming" someone because they are addicted to drugs and trying to find reason for it (beyond the use of that in undoing the addiction). It is about creating positive social change. A gene sequence might represent an inherited trait, a predisposition to chemical dependence. That does not mean you have to be like that forever. You have a choice. As a conscious individual you can choose to go for change, or you can choose to stay with your old position. You are not trapped by your DNA, unless of course you choose to believe that.
with love
Nick
From:chayco@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Sandberg" <nick227@...>
.
Listen 'ere folks, Nick is alright.....a wee misdirected, but he will
grow
out of it.
The reason we all go grey when we age ....and evolve through personal
experience...is because it helps us understand that there just
aren't black
and white answers anymore .......shades of grey.....different
prespectives.
I think someone should volunteer to go 'underground' and check out
Nick's
peace and love camp and report back to the group.
.......Ken
YES! This would be a great idea! How about you, Ken?
Love
Nick
Thank you for the offer Nick, but I am afraid that I might be too
disruptive. If I 'excorcised' my need to just yell and yell to cleanse
myself (aka child's tantrum) I might just become so enthralled with the
liberating feeling that I might feel the need to compliment the therapy by
throttling some therapist.....just a therapeutic throttle of course....to
free up the child within me.
Your new age nazi attitude has obviously shaken up some of your peers here.
I would have thought that iboga would have a calmed you. Obviously
not....think about it Nick, you have to scream out loud like a 7 year old
boy and you want to force change on those who don't see things as you do.
It looks like classic symptoms of severe arrested development ..to me.
I admit that I do get a wee frustrated with the closed minded. I went
through the recent '3 month war on drugs' in Thailand where 2300 drug users
were systematically rounded up and shot. Everyone was ratting on each other
as they were in fear of their lives. People were ratting on straight folk
who they just didn't like. The cops were put on a quota system...they had to
capture/kill x number of suspects or they were fired. Thousands were rounded
up and forced into army camp 'detox' centres...except the army did not know
how to detox people....so they caged them until the folks were believed to
be 'clean'. This was just a year and a half ago Nick.
I have a new word for you to meditate on.....................empathy......KenFrom:Jeffgd1@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism:Nick
if my thought dreams could be seen,
they'd probably put my head in a guillotine
mmmmJFrom:jfreed1@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism:Nick
well, i can't speak for other people, but i'm not making you out to be
hitler.
but, saying that government should coerce people into "positive" change in
their lives IS periously close to what the nazis did to the jews, gypsies,
homosexuals, disabled, and other undesirables of their time. there is a
significant difference between saying government should provide the
necessary tools to address addiction and saying that they should coerce
people into getting "help". the prior is merciful, the latter is
totalitarian.
which gets to the fundamental point, government has no business telling
anyone who isn't an active threat to other people how to live their lives.
any deviation from that begins a descent on the slippery slope of state
sponsered bigotry, which can often lead to state sponsered genocide.
Well, my viewpoint is that it's fine for governments to introduce humane
coercive measures to bring socially errant addicts towards therapy and
meaningful
change in their lives, to push them a bit, basically. I guess the opposite
to this is that it's not fine to do it, which would seem to be the
position
that you're taking. So, how do I feel about that, well, I feel OK about
it.
sure...that makes sense.... kind of like how the national socialist party
introduced coercive measures to bring those pesky socially errant jews
towards meaningful change in their lives....
damn those people who think they know how to best live their own lives.
thank goodness for governments, they always know what's best for
everyone's well-being. like those poor socially errants iraqis living
without democracy, i'm sure they're all so much better off now that unclesam has stepped in and shown them what's best for them. or those poor
socially errant native americans with all that beautiful pristine land to
worry about. good thing we took it off their hands for them.HSLotsof@... Subject:[Ibogaine] ibogaine Roundtable Report
A beta version of the ibogaine roundtable report of the Dora Weiner
Foundation from the Harm Reduction Conference is now available from,
http://www.doraweiner.org/aatod_hrc.html
The report consists of presentation reviews, written reports and powerpoint
presentations. Presenters are Patrick Kroupa, Jeffrey Kamlet, MD, Howard
Lotsof, Peter Cohen, Dana Beal, Dmitri Mugianis, Valerie Mojeiko and Jon
Freedlander.
Index
Introduction
American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence conference
Certified Methadone Advocate (CMA) Training Course
Risk Management in the OTP
Hepatitis C Treatment: Support, Empowerment and Education
Contingency Management
Analgesia in the Buprenorphine Maintained Patient
5th National Harm Reduction Conference
Pre-Conference Institute
Ethics and Clinical Harm Reduction
Junkies in the House of the Lord
Ibogaine Roundtable Overview
Written Presentations
PowerPoint Slide Presentations
Background Literature
Links
1. American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence
2. Harm Reduction Coalition
3. National Alliance of Methadone Advocates
4. Ibogaine Dossier
5. Cures-Not-Wars
6. Mindvox
7. Legal Action Center
8. National Advocates for Pregnant Womenhttp://www.doraweiner.org/aatod_hrc.htmlFrom:ms_iboga@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism
Re: Thailand executions.
This is VERY disturbing....and unsettling....I betcha
secretly GW Bush fantasizes about rounding up all
druggies, gays/lesbians, and any other 'subversive'
types, and going postal on their asses...JulieFrom:bcalabrese@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] 5-HTP
Try http://qhi.co.uk/ for ordering REAL l-tryptophan
and other goodies.
Bretttomo7@... Subject:[Ibogaine]-Provider question: Free will vs. Addiction
Hi Team Mindvox:
I've enjoyed the concepts lately squeezed from Preston and Nick's snarly
differences over libertarian defenses of junkie lifestyle choices. Both are
great writers and probably lovely people. Do the providers have input on Ibo
as treatment for addiction to help return users to "health", versus Ibo as
cool tool to help user down regulate freely chosen opiates as pain meds? I
can see Preston's point about "nobody gonna mess with my choice to use
because I'm free" (sorry for abbreviated words in mouth, here), and I can
see Nick's provocative fascist wake-up call to pull the covers off all the
self medicated sleepy minions of Morphia. That side sounds pretty wicked and
unpleasant, images of cops and home invasions roll out over network TV all
the time. The free will junkie lifestyle isn't exactly a picnic however.
The issue of addiction versus free will gets right to the central vein
(sorry, just had to..) of Ibogaine use. I like the practice of providing
this tool to people who want out of their addiction, and it seems unique and
powerful in it's value for that. Do you providers take on clients who are
not really looking for a way out of addiction? Maybe the mom or girlfriend
are ragging on people but, naw, they really just like that dope.."
Speaking only for myself, I can't see why it would be worth my time and
energy to help the junkie have a better commercial relationship to his
chosen pursuits. Yes, I bet Ibo would help a lot if used for that, but it
would feel like such a wasted tool for liberation...OK, help the opiate feel
better for a while, yawn, whatever...
Central question: Is addiction a disease or illness that providers hope to
treat? Or is free will use of great pain killers and ways to get high some
inherent right my neighborhood and I need to fight to protect? As long as
people aren't in my face they should do what they want to pursue and even
catch every happiness they can. No doubt. The Ibo list of PC thought from
Francis was precious. Too true.
Out here west of NYC, where gun control is a 4 inch group at 50 yards with
your one-handed pistol shot, the idea of a junkie's rights to use gets a
little abstract. My libertarian beliefs are ok, but when the drug cartel
reps show up at your daughter's high school prom, some of us get nervous and
tend to reach for something meaner than a good fence purchase. Dirty Harry
sold a lot of movies with the retribution schtick.
As for all the civil liberty issues brought out in the War on Drugs info,
there sure is a lot of sudden surprise and focus on the"dirty laundry" side
of the drug user "lifestyle". Dirt sells, for sure, but isn't it all
getting hard to be shocked and amazed for you grownups that addiction sucks?
Over 500 years since the Spanish Christian monarchs sent Columbus off to
eliminate everyone non Spanish and Christian to generate revenue, and the
war has been pretty world wide and constant for your mind, spirit, and soul
ever since. Addiction has been a favorite controller tool for a long time.
I don't know the experience of opiate addiction, thankfully, and no, I'll
pass on those mashed potatoes too. For the proud, freethinker junkies and
tweekers among us, does the free will model work for addiction or is there a
treatable illness there that loved ones might want to intervene with? When
do your decisions start to forfeit your claim to civil rights? Let me know.
Never mind the character jabs at me for asking, just come from your own
knowledge. As for the social critique of unaware drug policies, this war on
the drug user is just the sneak preview for what's coming at us in Century
21, IMHO. Get clean, wake up, or don't. Your choice. In the bright future
there will be a lot of available parking places, methinks.
I'm gone, thanks for reading.
Dr. Tomnick227@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] Francis and Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Carla Barnes [mailto:carlambarnes@...]
Sent: 28 January 2005 01:32
To: ibogaine@...
Subject: Re: [Ibogaine] Francis and Nick
Francis.......... you're being a grouch ;-)
Hi Nick, you haven't posted too much in the last year
but aren't you one of the people who might have a lot
of personal feelings about drug addiction due to one
of your family members being a junkie? I'm sorry I
don't remember if it was your son or your brother, but
there was someone in your family youve dosed with
ibogaine a lot of times and no matter what you tried
or wanted them to do they would not get clean.
In spite of all your self awareness, isn't it possible
you might have a teeny little bit of anger at them?
;-)
Hi Carla,
Yes, it's true, my adoptive brother Ken has had a long term heroin problem
in the past and in the late 90s I tried to help him with ibogaine.
Currently, he claims to be clean but I have my doubts, personally. Yes, I
did use to get very pissed off when I tried to communicate with him and felt
I couldn't really get through to him. However, this doesn't really drive me
crazy or anything, though it does still upset me at times. I mean, long
before he was a druggie he was spaced out and I learned to find people that
could communicate with me and not just put it on him that HE had to change.
Though for him, it's true I also think it would be fine if the government
took a stronger stance. And, yeah, if it happened, he would ring me up and
tell me they're being nazis or whatever.
Really, to be honest, I feel like I've learned a lot from these dialogues
about just where people who are coming toward ibogaine actually are in terms
of coming towards getting off drugs. Now that ibogaine's getting bigger in
the UK, I've people on at me daily to help them get it (I run a website on
ibogaine). What I see more and more is that a lot (by no means all) of the
people that ibogaine attracts just want something that's going to take all
their problems away without them having to move their whole position in life
even one millimetre. Well, in my experience it's not impossible that could
happen but it is relatively unlikely.
Same thing in these dialogues. Granted it's only a few people that respondbut basically all I have said is that I support the German government in its
moves to curb addiction and that sometimes I feel like dragging people out
of their homes to participate in life a bit more. From this it's like, I'm a
nazi or it's to do with the jews in the war or Christ knows what. To me, to
be honest, this is just the basic layer of resistance the psyche has to the
idea of change. I see it when I'm doing therapist work all the time. People
want to shoot me up with gear, well, so what, I could do with a bit more
rest at times anyway. Preston's there shaking his head so much it's about to
fall off or something, yeah well that's life.
And hey, Francis, I like what you write. You have guts, man. Yeah, this is
the IBOGAINE list, not heroin-excuses.net. It's true you can write anything
you want on this list but if you want to take a stand on addiction in a
meaningful way, then you have to be able to take a bit of shit. Keep doing
what you're doing, guy, cause you've got the guts and that's what's needed.
With loveNickFrom:HSLotsof@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] Francis and Nick In a message dated 1/29/05 6:04:03 AM, nick227@... writes:
Hi Nick,
Did you read Peter Cohen's writing in the HRC ibogaine roundtable report.
Peter got dana quite upset but, I think his writing may be directed more at you.
What do you think of his thoughts? http://www.doraweiner.org/aatod_hrc.html
(see ibogaine roundtable review and the link to his full article from there
if you wish). It seems to me that over the years you have gone from a "world
is doom" to a "world should be controlled" philosophy and that of course is not
an unnatural course or events. It is just that that control concept in the
US with prohibition and our prison industrial complex gives me a lot of
concern. And I guess it is not just the US but, I am here.
Howardnick227@... Subject:RE: [Ibogaine] Francis and Nick
Hi Howard,
Many thanks for the link. Personally, I do not agree with Dr Cohen's
viewpoint. I do not agree that it is valid to administer a high-powered
analgesic to oneself for a large portion of one's time on this planet,
(unless this is a strategy agreed on by medical professionals with regard to
the individual). My opinion is that this is a life-negating orientation and
I oppose it. I believe that doing so emotionally disenfranchises the
individual from society with overall deleterious effects on our planetary
life. Even worse, it's a fucking drag. That's my position!
with loveNickFrom:nick227@... Subject:[Ibogaine] Bwiti on BBC
Just wondered if anyone saw this programme, screened earlier in the week on
BBC 2 in the UK, and what they thought.
Nick
Tribe Ep 4/6
9.00-10.00pm BBC TWO
Explorer Bruce Parry faces one of his toughest tests yet as he is inducted
into Bwiti, a rainforest religion practised by the Babongo people of Gabon.
He's right to be worried - on occasion the ritual, which involves consuming
an overdose of a powerful hallucinogenic, Iboga, has proved fatal. Tribe
follows Bruce's build-up to the ceremony, as he goes hunting, collecting
forest honey and spends time getting to know his newfriends, before they
judge the time is right for his "rebirthing" ritual. The drug, Bruce
believes, acts on the areas of the brain where guiltand remorse lie buried,
allowing people to see themselves as they really are, warts and all. His
initiation starts as he is fed the tree root, prompting several hours of
vomiting, said to purge the soul. His tongue is pricked with a needle to
stimulate speech, while his Bwiti "father" feeds strips of the root to him,
singing softly. Bruce's recollection of the visions that follow include
vivid memories of childhood, harsh recollections of people he had hurt, even
inadvertently, throughout his life, and a sense of the Earth as a vast
living organism in which everything is connected. The final phase of the
journey sees the tribe dancing with fire and encouraging Bruce to make sense
of the shapes he sees in the flames. After reviewing his visions, Bruce isdetermined to revisit a few people whose point of view he saw more clearly
while under the influence of the drug, to apologise for any hurt he caused.
Of his emotional experience with the tribe he says: "They have given me
something so special, I shall take a piece of this village [with me]
wherever I go for the rest of my life."From:BiscuitBoy714@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine]-Provider question: Free will vs. Addiction
Dr. Tom, I read your post the other day and didn't have time to give it the
thought that it deserves, I have time now. First off, I'm not a provider but Iknow a few and I'd like to say something here. LOL I have to see that 4 inch
group offhand at 50 yards. I might be able to get 4 inch groups with a Ruger Mk
II but with 2 hands and a rest. 'Nuff' jokin', this is serious. This issue
needs to be addressed. When I had my treatment everyone, and I mean everyone
wanted to know about my aftercare and plans for the future to the point that it
irratated me. Turns out that they were right about therapy by the way. Nobody
that I know of will treat anyone just to make it easier to get high. This has
probably been hashed out allready, I haven't had time to read everthing on the
list for days now, but I have to say this. Have you ever met Preston? I have,
and maybe I'm just too sensitive, but I swear I could see the pain in his face
when he had to move around. Does he or anyone else with as many pain issues
as he has not have the right to try and make his life easier to deal with?
That's not a decision I would make carte blanch (where the hell is the spell
checker on this thing?) about anyone. Besides if I had my way Ibogaine would be
legal and this would be a mute point. If I was a provider I would have to take
all things into consideration on an individual basis. To me, Ibogaine is about
the choices it gives you and the best route out of addiction that I personaly
know of. I've been addicted off and on since the 70's to oppiates. This is the
first time I have felt good about being clean since I shot Morphine when I was
15 years old. I didn't really see how it could work for me but I tried
anyway. It worked. How do we know who it will work for and who it won't? There is a
screening process and I'd have to say that to the man everyone treated here of
late in the NYC area truly wanted to get clean. I hope Preston doesn't mind
me saying this but I would imagine if he could have been clean AND free of pain
he probably would have loved it. That didn't happen for him and I wish it
had. Ibogaine is medicine and should be treated that way. Oppiates are medicine
too, just look at all those 'scripts that get written for them. Dr.'s give out
an addictive substance all day long and the government won't let people who
want out of addiction have the single most effective way of dealing with that
addiction legaly obtain Ibogaine. That almost seems evil to me. There should be
Ibogaine information in every Dr.'s office and Methadone clinic in the US. I'm
covering my end on that, how 'bout you? I've said it before and I'll say it
again, I won't shut up until every addict that I know of at least knows that
there is another way out. I pay close attention to everything you say and I'm
glad that you brought this up. When I get back to the Catskills I'm gonna' workon my one handed shot.hehehehe RandyFrom:GardenRestaurant@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine]-Provider question: Free will vs. Addiction
Hi Preston !
I am going a bit out of the subject now, but do you believe for one moment
that our beautiful democraties are looking seriously in getting rid of drugz
?
Look at the numbers :
The Sager-Socolar study claims pharmaceutical industry profits would
increase by $139 billion, or 38 percent, between 2006 and 2013.
Not bad :-)
ADDICTED TO PROFIT : CAPITALISM AND DRUG
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj77/farrell.htm
God blessFrancisFrom:beatrizbrasil@... Subject:[Ibogaine] Buprenorphine (Tks Patrick)
Dear Patrick, Dear List members
I am enclosing herewith two links to articles on bupre published today atthe local paper. One of them is an interview with my son and his experience
with buprenorphine maintenance.
Thank you so much Patrick. What you once wrote about how you felt towards
the buprenorphine maintenance led me to further consider it as an
alternative for my son.
Thank you list for having me here.
I will let you know when we get to Ibogaine. And yes, I am a mom, too.
Beatriz
http://hongkong.scmp.com/hknews/ZZZEPF9HJ3E.htmlhttp://hongkong.scmp.com/hknews/ZZZM1YAHJ3E.htmlFrom:kn0m0n3@... Subject:[Ibogaine] Tribe
Couple of Nice Video Clips:
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.iboga.org%2Ffr%2Fcheyssial%2F1.htm&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_toolsFrom:bcalabrese@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] 5-HTP Schmooleyboy,
Not to offend but I read many of your posts where my understanding and experience is contrary to yours. It reminds me of being a patient, the good "DOCTOR" says whatever he says of how a certain medication./procedure is going to do or what "our" goals are, or the infamous "this won't hurt" and time after time it is like they read it in a book somewhere. I have tried Zoloft and very many other drugs, there is enormous variouation in effects and side effects in patient to patient. They told me I would be a "new man" on zoloft, in 8 days I was a new woman and starting to feel very uncomfortable from the medication. I normally get paradoxical reactions, dope makes me WIRED, time after time I tell doctors about my side effects, time after time I get ignored, time after time they do medicine "by the numbers" - xome dose of some drug, time after time they are wrong and I am right, time after time I suffer and they get a pay check. Time after time I se
THere is this comment;
"Please please do this..". All Ibo takers should be of meth for 72 hours prior to Ibo. Switch to short acting opiates. Morphine, hydro or oxy , all work well. Dilaudid works well"
For many addicts it switching to short acting opiates is a real BAD IDEA... everything needs to be in its context (the patient, the resources at hand), everything is not THIS WAY OR THAT. I also know many people who have been treated quite safely and successfully taking ibo long before 72 hours post meth, also small doses of ibo can be used ahead of the main dose to quite safely keep the patient more comfortable.
Or this
"Ibogaine does NOT reduce or relieve nicotine cravings but may reduce nicotine withdrawal physical symptoms. "
Sorry it didn't work FOR YOU that way (you did try it, you do know how it feels to quit smoking using ibogaine, RIGHT?). Ibogaine ABSOLUTELY, works for reducing cravings, that is why people spontainously don't smoke for a period of time (sometimes, not all the time), post ibogaine. Mileage on everyting varies. Lets see, in my case the first 8 or so times I dosed IBO I smoked right through a few times, stopped for period lasting from days to weels - TILL THE CRAVINGS CAME BACK, the last time I smoked through ibo session (left it alone) and a week later stopped, never looked back and only had moments of cravings. Oddly some weeks later (as the NOR-IBO levels went down ?) it got a little harder (more cravings) then eased back down.
Or my very favorite (in the same email)
"Post IBO pot initially appears to calm anxiety but it's sum total is actually to increase anxiety and only reinforces the mind set which we wish to break which is SYMPTOM= SUBSTANCE."
Some people do well with pot, some people don't do well with pot, everybody is different.
It is a perfectly natural thing for someone to take a substance if they have a symptom, the problems come in with intent, if the "symptom" is you want to get high, well then yeah, that is the one we have to break, if it is because you have say a pain, or nervous condtion, or maybe it is the 3rd day post ibo and you haven't slept then a substance may be indicated. I am not talking about every little ache or anxiety, WHEN IT WILL HELP - in the big picture as well as short term relief in a manner inconsistant with addiction and consistant.
I drink camomile tea to help sleep.I have valium and ristoril, rarely-occasionally use them in small doses (1.25mg valium mostly, sometimes 2.5mg - or 1/2 a valium, 15mg or ristori)..
I have pain and deep breath, do Yoga, go to the chiropractor - sometimes those things can actually hurt more than help, sometimes the answer isn't taking toxic amounts of ineffective NSAIDS and tylenol... and I take whatever, these days it is Dilaudid (break 2mg in 1/2 and take 1mg at a time - max about 5 mg), just discontinued oxycontin 2 weeks ago (just stopped, no ibo, no weaning), Actiq which is fentanyl citrate lolly-pops when it gets bad but fentanyl does bad things to my head, some SOMA (again 1/4th at a time). Absolutely nothing wrong with taking those meds in the way I do, typically very measured and methodical. 2 years ago when I landed at a pain management doc I had to ask myself "HOW?", the answer I got was "WHEN IT WILL HELP".
So, if it helps one should take it, if it won't help, then one should not take it - whichever way the scales tip is what is indicated, depending on that particular patient/person. When it will help then someone could possible use marijuana or maybe prescription drug, or whatever then it should be applied.I have good "doctors" keep trying to apply poisonous substances to me regardless of what I tell them (if they dont' listen they have zero probability of helping and nearly 100% chance of hurting me - but that is typically what happens, especially with pain patients and addiction medicine. I have doctors that want to keep giving me drugs doing more harm, that have failed in the past, that seems to make no difference to them. that I don't use "addictive" drugs seems to take priority over everything, real or imagined...
Brett
From:UUSEAN@... Subject:Re: [Ibogaine] ibogaine and scary fascism:Nick (long)
Hey list,
Queer junkie with AIDS here. This thread I must say first has been a blast. Haven't seen this much fire on this list in a good while. Wild enough that it brought me out of lurking!
I feel I must throw my two cents in here for harm reduction. Personally, ibogaine was one of the finest moves I have ever made from a h
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