'That humanity at
large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very
unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the
best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the
longing to transcend themselves if only for a few minutes, is and has
always been one of the principal appetites of the soul. Art and
religion, carnivals and saturnalia, dancing and listening to oratory -
all these haves served, in H.G. Wells' phrase, as Doors in the Wall. And
for private, for everyday use there have always been chemical
intoxicants. All the vegetable sedatives and narcotics, all the
euphorics that grow on trees, the hallucinogens that ripen in berries or
can be squeezed from roots - all, without exception have been known and
systematically used by human beings from time immemorial. And to these
natural modifiers of consciousness modern science has added its quota of
synthetics - chloral, for example, and benzedrine, the bromides and the
barbiturates.
Most of
these modifiers of consciousness cannot now be taken except under
doctor's orders, or else illegally and at considerable risk. For
unrestricted use the West has permitted only alcohol and tobacco. All
the other chemical Doors in the Wall are labelled Dope, and their
unauthorized takers are Fiends.' - The Doors of Perception, Aldous
Huxley, 1954.
One of my favorite phrases these days is 'Recreation is medicine'. This phrase, developed out of the recent confusion in most parts of the world between classifying cannabis as a medicine or a recreational drug, has unfolded in often amusing fashion, as politicians and physicians try to grapple with the twin horns of the dilemma.
See, in today's world, where there is an information avalanche with the technological revolution, where attention spans are decreasing, where populations are grabbing for limited resources, where everybody is working faster and faster and overtime to get rich, recreation is indeed medicine. The more recreation you have, the better medicine it is.
I believe that one of the key aspects of a healthy life is the ability to enjoy life i.e. to find joy in as many things as you can. It is to recognize the magnificent mystical miracle that existence is, and the wonders that are happening within and around you unceasingly. It is the ability to keep your mind in the sweetest zone for as long as possible. The sweetest zone is the here and now, the paradise on earth. Being able to do this will enable one to have an enjoyable life. That, I believe, directly translates to a healthy life.
See, in today's world, where there is an information avalanche with the technological revolution, where attention spans are decreasing, where populations are grabbing for limited resources, where everybody is working faster and faster and overtime to get rich, recreation is indeed medicine. The more recreation you have, the better medicine it is.
I believe that one of the key aspects of a healthy life is the ability to enjoy life i.e. to find joy in as many things as you can. It is to recognize the magnificent mystical miracle that existence is, and the wonders that are happening within and around you unceasingly. It is the ability to keep your mind in the sweetest zone for as long as possible. The sweetest zone is the here and now, the paradise on earth. Being able to do this will enable one to have an enjoyable life. That, I believe, directly translates to a healthy life.
Now, this is where the cannabis plant comes into the picture. For thousands of years the plant has enabled the user to take his or her focus off the accelerating wheels of existence, step back and see the big picture. It has helped one to slow down one's flow of time, to connect with the infinite beauty and reality of existence. It has helped one to free oneself from the whipping post and take a gulp of pleasure. It brings one's complete attention to the here and now. Some would say it enables one to reunite with the divine spirit and essence of nature.
This is the reason why the plant remains the world's most popular recreational drug, even today when it is prohibited worldwide. More than 250 million people are said to use cannabis, even though it is illegal, making it the world's highest consumed illegal drug. These numbers are a conservative estimate, given that most people hide their cannabis consumption given its legal status. It is preferred by people who are willing to take the risk of legal action and social discrimination. It is preferred over all the substitutes that modern society has tried to sell the individual, such as alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and novel synthetic cocktails. It is preferable to many things. It also makes many things infinitely more pleasurable and bearable.
This is the reason why the plant remains the world's most popular recreational drug, even today when it is prohibited worldwide. More than 250 million people are said to use cannabis, even though it is illegal, making it the world's highest consumed illegal drug. These numbers are a conservative estimate, given that most people hide their cannabis consumption given its legal status. It is preferred by people who are willing to take the risk of legal action and social discrimination. It is preferred over all the substitutes that modern society has tried to sell the individual, such as alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceutical drugs, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and novel synthetic cocktails. It is preferable to many things. It also makes many things infinitely more pleasurable and bearable.
Cannabis is the recreational drug of choice across the world. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime World Drug Report 2020 - 'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and
production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries,
cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation
of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018
– countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was
reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or
eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing
sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and
the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' This also means that cannabis is the most accessible and environmentally sustainable recreational drug. It can be grown locally anywhere, in each and every person's private garden and consumed or shared. Compare this with the prohibitive costs of heroin manufacture, and the carbon footprint of transporting it across the world and delivering it to markets. Heroin finally costs many thousand times more on the street than any locally grown cannabis, making it very lucrative for criminals and unscrupulous elements to benefit off it. The same applies to cocaine, methamphetamine, amphetamine and other synthetic drugs. This prohibitive cost, high carbon footprint and inaccessibility even applies to natural recreational drugs that are mostly local to specific geographies such as the natural coca plant, psilocybin and mescaline. Hence, the only truly universal, accessible, sustainable and low cost recreational drug is cannabis. Which is why, there are numerous forces very keen on keeping it prohibited, as that enables them to peddle their highly dangerous, expensive, inaccessible and environmentally damaging wares to unsuspecting populations the world over.
Today, in the places where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use or medical use, mostly in US states and Europe, it is used across age groups, with older persons i.e. people above 65 showing the most interest in recent times. In fact in the US, the elderly are the fastest growing age demographic that is embracing cannabis. These are people who are weary of all the substitutes that has been fed to them, especially opioids and synthetic prescription medicines, and have chosen to go back to the plant as their recreational drug of choice. It is used across all kinds of work profiles from judges, soldiers, politicians, musicians, scientists, technological experts, artists, actors, sports persons you name it. I don't think there is any category of occupation where the lovers of the plant do not exist. This is so much so that the stereotyped image of a recreational cannabis consumer created through misinformation, propaganda and intolerance is rapidly disappearing. In 2020, during the Covid pandemic, cannabis was declared as an essential service, along with food and medicine, indicating its increasing acceptance among the people of the US, the country that was instrumental in bringing about cannabis prohibition on a global scale.
Cannabis's potential for harm is among the lowest of all recreational drugs used by humans, and that includes the two most widely used legal but highly dangerous drugs - alcohol and tobacco. William S Burroughs, in his 1952 book Junk, wrote - 'In 1937, weed was placed under the Harrison Narcotics Act. Narcotics authorities claim it is a habit-forming drug, that its use is injurious to mind and body, and that it causes the people who use it to commit crimes. Here are the facts: Weed is positively not habit forming. You can smoke weed for years and you will experience no discomfort if your supply is cut off. I have seen tea heads in jail and none of them showed withdrawal symptoms. I have smoked weed myself off and on for fifteen years, and never missed it when I ran out. There is less habit to weed than there is to tobacco. Weed does not harm the general health. In fact. most users claim it gives you an appetite and acts as a tonic to the system. I do not know of any other agent that gives as definite a boot to the appetite. I can smoke a stick of tea and enjoy a glass of California sherry and a hash house meal.' Yet, the plant is illegal worldwide. It is inaccessible to the vast majorities of human beings, especially the poorest, the minorities, the indigenous communities, the elderly, the youth, the ill and women. Misinformation is constantly spread about it. People who have access to it fear using it because of social discrimination, law enforcement action and imprisonment.
The Cambridge English dictionary defines recreation as 'something done for pleasure or to relax, or such activities generally'. Recreational activities generally include playing sports, sex, meditation, drinking beer, reading, etc. done for pleasure, activities performed without the intent of making money out of it. They are generally meant to re-energize the individual and remove physical and mental fatigue. The Merriam-Webser dictionary defines a recreational drug as 'a drug (such as cocaine, marijuana, or methamphetamine) used without medical justification for its psychoactive effects'.
Now, many substances are taken for their psychoactive and rejuvenation effects such as tea, coffee, beer, tobacco and wine. All these fall in the category of natural drugs and their usage is unquestioned. The strange thing about cannabis is that, even though it is a natural plant, which logically should be categorized in the same bucket at tea or coffee, it has somehow been clubbed with cocaine and methamphetamine, two highly dangerous synthetic drugs made in laboratories. This error, deliberate according to me, in categorization also extends to plants such as opium and coca, as well as fungi such as psilocybin and mescaline. To classify all these as recreational drugs, in spite of their being natural flora and fungi, and to state that their use requires medical justification, whereas the use of tea or coffee or beer or tobacco does not, is a blatant discrimination against these plants and fungi, and their users, who come from a different cultural context to the tea, coffee and beer drinkers. Underlying this discrimination against the above listed flora and fungi is the discrimination against certain races, cultures, religious practices and ways of life. The inclusion of these flora and fungi into a list called 'recreational drugs' that need sanction from authorities, is an attempt to suppress, and if possible, eliminate other ways of life, and to absorb other cultures into the favored dominant cultures. The justification for classifying cannabis as a recreational drug is that it has no medicinal value, whereas there is abundant scientific evidence to show that it has vast medicinal properties, enough properties to have been labelled the queen of medicinal herbs, by none other than the eminent practitioners of the dominant medical systems of today, when they first came into contact with its usage in other cultures. Today, in the US, cannabis is prescribed for no less than 30 different medical conditions for which other forms of treatment and medicine are proving inadequate.
In an unbiased and non-discriminatory world, all natural recreational means, including sex, sports, cannabis, mescaline and psilocybin, is out of scope for any policymaker. Policy making, in this scenario, is restricted to man-made substances.
By stepping outside the jurisdiction of human policy making, the cultures and systems that have prohibited cannabis and other natural recreational plants and herbs, have constructed this cruel version of the world, where humans should suffer existence in the pursuit of wealth and social standing, taking the forms of, often lethal, recreation, approved by the dominant classes, while one of the most pleasurable means of their deliverance is kept forcibly away from them, with no scientific, logical or rational basis for doing so. Isn't this the worst kind of slavery possible for humans? Is it any surprise that we hurtle towards the worldwide suicide of not just the human race but of the planet itself?
'See this wide society of laboring men and women. We allow ourselves to be served by them, we live apart from them, and meet them without a salute in the streets. We do not greet their talents, nor rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopes, nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them. Thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king from the foundation of the world. See, this tree always bears one fruit.' - Man the Reformer, Emerson, The Basic Writings of America's Sage
The following set of articles from news media and journals briefly examine the usage of cannabis as a recreational drug and the opposition and problems that currently exist. Words in italics are yours truly's own thoughts and comments at the time of reading the respective article.
The following set of articles from news media and journals briefly examine the usage of cannabis as a recreational drug and the opposition and problems that currently exist. Words in italics are yours truly's own thoughts and comments at the time of reading the respective article.
'In Hong Kong however, where there is almost no marijuana use, the drug conjures up images of harder drugs, much as "grass" used to be considered the "devil weed" in the United States before its usage spread in the late 1960s. Police in Hong Kong, even now, tend to pay more attention to hash or grass, it seems, than heroin or opium, simply because the substances are less familiar and have come to be associated with the dreaded "hippie tourist Europeans" (anyone in Hong Kong who is not Chinese, and who has white skin, is called a European, just as all Japanese and Chinese are lumped together in America with Vietnamese and others as Orientals).' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974
'The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to become a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it is no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'No feats of heroism are needed to bring about the greatest and most important changes in the life of humanity; neither the arming of millions of men, nor the construction of new railways and machines, nor the organization of exhibitions or trade unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor dynamite outrages, nor the perfection of aerial navigation, and so forth. All that is necessary is a change of public opinion.
And for that change no effort of thought is demanded, no refutation of any existing thing, and no planning of anything new and extraordinary. All that is necessary is to cease acquiescing in the public opinion of the past, now false and already defunct and only artificially induced by governments. It is only necessary for each individual to say what he really thinks and feels or at least refrain from saying what he does not think.
If only men - even a few - would do that, the out-worn public opinion would at once and of itself fall away and a new, real, and vital opinion would manifest itself. And with this change of public opinion all that inner fabric of men's lives which oppresses and torments them would change of its own accord. One is ashamed to say how little is needed to deliver all men from the calamities which now oppress them. It is only necessary to give up lying! Only let men reject the lie which is imposed upon them; only let them stop saying what they neither think nor feel, and at once such a change of the whole structure of our life will be accomplished as the revolutionaries would not achieve in centuries even if all the power were in their hands.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'In the Western world visionaries and mystics are a good deal less common than they used to be. There are two principal reasons for this state of affairs - a philosophical reason and a chemical reason. In the currently fashionable picture of the universe there is no place for valid transcendental experience. Consequently those who have had what they regard as valid transcendental experiences are looked upon with suspicion, as being either lunatics or swindlers. To be a mystic or a visionary is no longer credible.
But it is not only our mental climate that is unfavourable to the visionary and the mystic, it is also our chemical environment - an environment profoundly different from that in which our forefathers passed their lives.'- Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
Happy Ganja Day to the lovers, friends and supporters of the divine herb. As we celebrate this day, let us not forget the millions who are imprisoned or face criminal action because of their association with the herb and its current worldwide illegal status. Let us not forget the millions who continue to suffer from physical and mental conditions and their lack of access to the medicinal properties of the plant. Let us not forget the millions who are addicted to heroin, methamphetamine, prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, novel psychoactive substances, synthetic cannabinoids and other dangerous substances without access to the natural, recreational herb. Let us hope that the opponents of the herb find reason and understanding in the coming days. Let us also look forward to the fast approaching inevitable day when the herb is finally free once again and available to every living being worldwide as it was always meant to be.
April 20, 2020
'The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?
The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to become a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know what junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it is no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'No feats of heroism are needed to bring about the greatest and most important changes in the life of humanity; neither the arming of millions of men, nor the construction of new railways and machines, nor the organization of exhibitions or trade unions, nor revolutions, nor barricades, nor dynamite outrages, nor the perfection of aerial navigation, and so forth. All that is necessary is a change of public opinion.
And for that change no effort of thought is demanded, no refutation of any existing thing, and no planning of anything new and extraordinary. All that is necessary is to cease acquiescing in the public opinion of the past, now false and already defunct and only artificially induced by governments. It is only necessary for each individual to say what he really thinks and feels or at least refrain from saying what he does not think.
If only men - even a few - would do that, the out-worn public opinion would at once and of itself fall away and a new, real, and vital opinion would manifest itself. And with this change of public opinion all that inner fabric of men's lives which oppresses and torments them would change of its own accord. One is ashamed to say how little is needed to deliver all men from the calamities which now oppress them. It is only necessary to give up lying! Only let men reject the lie which is imposed upon them; only let them stop saying what they neither think nor feel, and at once such a change of the whole structure of our life will be accomplished as the revolutionaries would not achieve in centuries even if all the power were in their hands.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'In the Western world visionaries and mystics are a good deal less common than they used to be. There are two principal reasons for this state of affairs - a philosophical reason and a chemical reason. In the currently fashionable picture of the universe there is no place for valid transcendental experience. Consequently those who have had what they regard as valid transcendental experiences are looked upon with suspicion, as being either lunatics or swindlers. To be a mystic or a visionary is no longer credible.
But it is not only our mental climate that is unfavourable to the visionary and the mystic, it is also our chemical environment - an environment profoundly different from that in which our forefathers passed their lives.'- Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
Happy Ganja Day to the lovers, friends and supporters of the divine herb. As we celebrate this day, let us not forget the millions who are imprisoned or face criminal action because of their association with the herb and its current worldwide illegal status. Let us not forget the millions who continue to suffer from physical and mental conditions and their lack of access to the medicinal properties of the plant. Let us not forget the millions who are addicted to heroin, methamphetamine, prescription drugs, alcohol, tobacco, novel psychoactive substances, synthetic cannabinoids and other dangerous substances without access to the natural, recreational herb. Let us hope that the opponents of the herb find reason and understanding in the coming days. Let us also look forward to the fast approaching inevitable day when the herb is finally free once again and available to every living being worldwide as it was always meant to be.
April 20, 2020
'Cole did not have a habit at this time and he wanted to connect for some weed. He was a real tea head. He told me he could not enjoy himself without weed. I have seen people like that. For them, tea occupies the place usually filled by liquor. They don't have to have it in any physical sense, but they cannot have a really good time without it.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'According to the survey, 81 percent of respondents believe that tobacco cigarettes are "very harmful." Fifty-one percent of respondents similarly view alcohol as "very harmful." By contrast, only 26 percent of those surveyed ranked marijuana as "very harmful." '
https://norml.org/news/2019/08/29/poll-americans-view-cigarettes-and-alcohol-as-more-harmful-than-cannabis
'The overall displacement or cannibalization of tobacco by cannabis products in California alone amounted to $84.5 million overall from 2017-2018 (not including 2017 e-cigarettes, figures for which were not available). The shifts amounted to $33.8 million for cigarettes, $8.3 million for non-cigarette tobacco, and $42.6 million for e-cigarettes (in 2018 only).
Across the U.S. overall, the 2018 spending shifts amounted to $4.3 billion for alcohol: (1.54% of that market), $1.3 billion for pharmaceuticals (1.10%), and $219 million (0.22%) for tobacco.'
https://newfrontierdata.com/marijuana-insights/altria-pmi-merger-confirms-longtime-predictions-marks-industry-progression/
'The negative visionary experience is often accompanied by bodily sensations of a very special and characteristic kind. Blissful visions are generally associated with a sense of separation from the body, a feeling of deindividualization. (It is, no doubt, the feeling of deindividualization which makes it possible for the Indians who practise the peyote cult to use the drug not merely as a short cut to the visionary world, but as an instrument for creating a loving solidarity within the participating group.) When the visionary experience is terrible and the world is transfigured for the worse, individualization is intensified and the negative visionary finds himself associated with a body that seems to grow progressively more dense, more tightly packed, until he finds himself at last reduced to being the agonized consciousness of an inspissated lump of matter, no bigger than a stone that can be held between the hands.' - Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
'Suddenly I remembered about that letter. The friend in New York who'd written it was a tea head and he pushed weed from time to time. He'd written to me asking the price of good weed in New Orleans. I asked Pat, who quoted me a tentative price of forty dollars per pound. In the letter on the table my friend made reference to the forty-dollar per pound price and said he wanted some at that figure.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Fifty years ago, cannabis was known as the drug most emblematic of counterculture. Today, many people promote it as a fount of treatments for almost any ailment imaginable. This immense about-turn is reflected in changes in legal regimes: medicinal use of cannabis is now permitted in many countries, and some also allow the drug to be used recreationally. The times, they have a-changed.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02523-6
'For years, the popular image of cannabis growers has been scruffy hippies getting high on their own supply in a disorganized underground economy, rather than shiny white industrial agriculture facilities. Even larger-scale operations involved minimal quality control or lacked formal record keeping.
But as legal medical — and increasingly, recreational — cannabis becomes more widespread, the cannabis industry is becoming more professional. By adopting the methods and rigour of plant science and analytical chemistry, it is ensuring that it can produce safe, consistent and high-quality products for a fast-growing and lucrative market.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02527-2
'Fifty years ago, cannabis was known as the drug most emblematic of counterculture. Today, many people promote it as a fount of treatments for almost any ailment imaginable. This immense about-turn is reflected in changes in legal regimes: medicinal use of cannabis is now permitted in many countries, and some also allow the drug to be used recreationally. The times, they have a-changed.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02523-6
'For years, the popular image of cannabis growers has been scruffy hippies getting high on their own supply in a disorganized underground economy, rather than shiny white industrial agriculture facilities. Even larger-scale operations involved minimal quality control or lacked formal record keeping.
But as legal medical — and increasingly, recreational — cannabis becomes more widespread, the cannabis industry is becoming more professional. By adopting the methods and rigour of plant science and analytical chemistry, it is ensuring that it can produce safe, consistent and high-quality products for a fast-growing and lucrative market.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02527-2
'A junkie runs on junk time. When his junk is cut off, the clock runs down and stops. All he can do is hang on and wait for non-junk time to start. A sick junkie has no escape from external time, no place to go. He can only wait.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Under the new law, which takes effect on January 30, 2020, adults may possess up to 50 grams of cannabis and cultivate up to four plants per household without penalty. Public cannabis consumption, or use within close proximity to children, will remain prohibited. Under the territory's existing law, low-level marijuana offenses are punishable by civil fines.'
https://norml.org/news/2019/09/26/australia-capital-territory-becomes-first-jurisdiction-to-legalize-marijuana-for-personal-use
'Members of the state's Cannabis Control Commission decided this week in favor of regulations to establish licensing for retail cannabis deliveries and for limited on-site consumption facilities.'
https://norml.org/news/2019/09/26/massachusetts-regulators-vote-in-favor-of-cannabis-deliveries-on-site-consumption-facilities
'The stereotypical image of a cannabis smoker is someone who sprawls on the sofa for hours surrounded by a haze of smoke and half-eaten snacks. The scene is played up for laughs in films, but social psychologist Angela Bryan thought it could be cause for concern. After all, cannabis is known to increase appetite and aid relaxation, which might put people at risk of health conditions such as obesity, says Bryan, who is at the University of Colorado Boulder.
But digging into health trends revealed the opposite. Nationwide US studies report that, compared to non-users, cannabis users actually have a lower prevalence of obesity.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02529-0
'Under the new law, which takes effect on January 30, 2020, adults may possess up to 50 grams of cannabis and cultivate up to four plants per household without penalty. Public cannabis consumption, or use within close proximity to children, will remain prohibited. Under the territory's existing law, low-level marijuana offenses are punishable by civil fines.'
https://norml.org/news/2019/09/26/australia-capital-territory-becomes-first-jurisdiction-to-legalize-marijuana-for-personal-use
'Members of the state's Cannabis Control Commission decided this week in favor of regulations to establish licensing for retail cannabis deliveries and for limited on-site consumption facilities.'
https://norml.org/news/2019/09/26/massachusetts-regulators-vote-in-favor-of-cannabis-deliveries-on-site-consumption-facilities
'The stereotypical image of a cannabis smoker is someone who sprawls on the sofa for hours surrounded by a haze of smoke and half-eaten snacks. The scene is played up for laughs in films, but social psychologist Angela Bryan thought it could be cause for concern. After all, cannabis is known to increase appetite and aid relaxation, which might put people at risk of health conditions such as obesity, says Bryan, who is at the University of Colorado Boulder.
But digging into health trends revealed the opposite. Nationwide US studies report that, compared to non-users, cannabis users actually have a lower prevalence of obesity.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02529-0
'There was a raw ache in my lungs. People vary in the way junk sickness affects them. Some suffer mostly from vomitting and diarrhea. The asthmatic type, with narrow and deep chest, is liable to violent fits of sneezing, watering at eyes and nose, in some cases spasms of the bronchial tubes that shut off the breathing. In my case, the worst thing is lowering of blood pressure with consequent loss of body fluid, and extreme weakness, as in shock. It is a feeling as if the life energy has been shut off so that all the cells in the body are suffocating. As I lay there on the bench, I felt like as if I was subsiding into a pile of bones.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Proponents and doubters agree that further research, including double-blind clinical trials, is needed to confirm whether the entourage effect exists and, if so, to understand how it works. “That way, you are taking out bias and expectation,” Wilson-Poe says.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02528-1
'Proponents and doubters agree that further research, including double-blind clinical trials, is needed to confirm whether the entourage effect exists and, if so, to understand how it works. “That way, you are taking out bias and expectation,” Wilson-Poe says.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02528-1
'It is worth remarking that many of the punishments described in the various accounts of hell are the punishments of pressure and constriction. Dante's sinners are buried in mud, shut up in the trunks of trees, frozen solid in blocks of ice, crushed beneath stones. The Inferno is psychologically true. Many of its pains are experienced by schizophrenics, and by those who have taken mescalin or lysergic acid under unfavourable conditions.
What is the nature of these unfavourable conditions? How and why is heaven turned into hell? In certain cases the negative visionary experience is the result of predominantly physical causes...If the liver is diseased, the associated mind may find itself in hell. But what is more important for our present purposes is the fact that negative visionary experience may be induced by purely psychological means. Fear and anger bar the way to the heavenly Other World and plunge the mescalin taker into hell.' - Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
'For many adults, researchers say, moderate use is probably fine. “I compare it to alcohol,” says Earl Miller, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge. “Too much or the wrong situation can be bad, but in other situations it can be beneficial. I think we’re going to find the same thing with cannabis.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02530-7
What is the nature of these unfavourable conditions? How and why is heaven turned into hell? In certain cases the negative visionary experience is the result of predominantly physical causes...If the liver is diseased, the associated mind may find itself in hell. But what is more important for our present purposes is the fact that negative visionary experience may be induced by purely psychological means. Fear and anger bar the way to the heavenly Other World and plunge the mescalin taker into hell.' - Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
'For many adults, researchers say, moderate use is probably fine. “I compare it to alcohol,” says Earl Miller, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge. “Too much or the wrong situation can be bad, but in other situations it can be beneficial. I think we’re going to find the same thing with cannabis.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02530-7
'The doctor asked a few questions and looked at my arms. Another doctor with a long nose and hairy arms walked up to put in his two cents.
"After all, doctor," he said to his colleague, "there is the moral question. This man should have thought of all this before he started using narcotics."
"Yes, there is the moral question, but there is also a physical question. This man is sick." He turned to a nurse and ordered half a grain of morphine.
As the wagon jolted along on the way back to the precinct, I felt the morphine spread through all my cells. My stomach moved and rumbled. A shot when you are very sick always starts the stomach moving. Normal strength came back to all my muscles. I was hungry and sleepy.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'And, it’s only fair according to DeAngelo. “The cannabis industry currently pays the federal government over $5 billion in taxes each year,” he said, “and it deserves to get the benefits all other business have access to, namely safe banking.”'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2019/09/27/cannabis-executives-cheer-congress-approval-of-pot-business-banking/
'Marijuana activist and poet John Sinclair, although older now at 78, is no less the rebel he was in 1969.
“I knew they were going to be after me, but you can’t let them determine your life,” he said of his 1971 release from prison for possession of two joints.
About 9:49 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, at Arbors Wellness in Ann Arbor with a happy line of hundreds wrapped around the block, Sinclair made what was likely the first-ever licensed recreational retail marijuana sale in Michigan.'
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2019/12/activist-and-poet-john-sinclair-among-first-to-purchase-legal-recreational-marijuana-in-michigan-50-years-after-his-historic-arrest.html
https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/nba-insider-tom-haberstroh/marijuana-and-nba-erasing-stigma-and-healing-league
'A majority of Americans say that adult-use marijuana legalization has been a success in those states that have implemented it, according to nationwide polling compiled by YouGov.com.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said that statewide laws allowing recreational marijuana use have been either fully or mostly successful. Nineteen percent of respondents said that the laws have been largely unsuccessful. Twenty-six percent voiced no opinion. '
https://norml.org/news/2020/04/23/poll-majority-of-americans-say-adult-use-legalization-policies-have-been-a-success
"After all, doctor," he said to his colleague, "there is the moral question. This man should have thought of all this before he started using narcotics."
"Yes, there is the moral question, but there is also a physical question. This man is sick." He turned to a nurse and ordered half a grain of morphine.
As the wagon jolted along on the way back to the precinct, I felt the morphine spread through all my cells. My stomach moved and rumbled. A shot when you are very sick always starts the stomach moving. Normal strength came back to all my muscles. I was hungry and sleepy.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'And, it’s only fair according to DeAngelo. “The cannabis industry currently pays the federal government over $5 billion in taxes each year,” he said, “and it deserves to get the benefits all other business have access to, namely safe banking.”'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/julieweed/2019/09/27/cannabis-executives-cheer-congress-approval-of-pot-business-banking/
'Marijuana activist and poet John Sinclair, although older now at 78, is no less the rebel he was in 1969.
“I knew they were going to be after me, but you can’t let them determine your life,” he said of his 1971 release from prison for possession of two joints.
About 9:49 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 1, at Arbors Wellness in Ann Arbor with a happy line of hundreds wrapped around the block, Sinclair made what was likely the first-ever licensed recreational retail marijuana sale in Michigan.'
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2019/12/activist-and-poet-john-sinclair-among-first-to-purchase-legal-recreational-marijuana-in-michigan-50-years-after-his-historic-arrest.html
https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/nba-insider-tom-haberstroh/marijuana-and-nba-erasing-stigma-and-healing-league
'A majority of Americans say that adult-use marijuana legalization has been a success in those states that have implemented it, according to nationwide polling compiled by YouGov.com.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said that statewide laws allowing recreational marijuana use have been either fully or mostly successful. Nineteen percent of respondents said that the laws have been largely unsuccessful. Twenty-six percent voiced no opinion. '
https://norml.org/news/2020/04/23/poll-majority-of-americans-say-adult-use-legalization-policies-have-been-a-success
'I was too weak to get out of bed. I could not lie still. In junk sickness, any conceivable line of action or inaction seems intolerable. A man might simply die because he could not stand to stay in his body.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Hey junkie, this dope is not against you. Of course he believes that his dope is a much better intoxicant, more versatile medicine and more useful to the planet than your junk but that doesn't mean he intends to ban your junk in retribution for you helping to get his dope banned. What he does want, however, is that you start growing your own plant at home like him. In this way, you source your junk directly from the plant instead of putting money in the pockets of chemists who increasingly make more and more toxic stuff that destroy you, me and the planet. Your money is making the chemist pay the government to arm itself and protect him while pushing you and me closer to death. Growing your own plant will give you organic healthy junk in the best possible way, directly from the plant, like how it used to be for thousands of years, making you sustainable and the planet sustainable..yes, you can go green too..don't remain snowblind..we need your eyes too, to steer the planet away from man-made chemical disaster...
'In 2013, the Government of Uruguay approved legislation (Law No. 19.172) regulating the cultivation, production, dispensing and use of cannabis for different purposes, including non-medical use. In accordance with the legislation, Uruguayan citizens or foreigners with permanent residence aged 18 and older can obtain cannabis for non-medical purposes by registering with the national Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis and by choosing one of three options: (a) purchase in authorized pharmacies; (b) membership of a club; or (c) domestic cultivation. The quantity of cannabis permitted per person, obtained through any of the three mechanisms, cannot exceed 480 g per year. Initially, the Government of Uruguay set THC content at 2 per cent and CBD content at 6–7 per cent. In 2017, the Government introduced two new varieties, with a maximum THC content of 9 per cent and CBD content of no less than 3 per cent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'A study on the impact of cannabis legalization on alcohol sales in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, the three states with the longest history of legal nonmedical use of cannabis, showed that there was no evidence that legalization had had any impact on the sale of spirits or on total alcohol sales, which are generally considered a good proxy for alcohol consumption in the United States. The study showed that the per capita sale of spirits had increased by 3.6 per cent in Oregon, 5.4 per cent in Washington and 7.6 per cent in Colorado in 2018, after the measures allowing the non-medical use of cannabis were implemented in those states. Consistent with national trends, per capita sales of beer had declined by 3.6 per cent in Colorado, 2.3 per cent in Washington and 3.6 per cent in Oregon. The sale of wine increased by 0.7 per cent in Oregon, declined by 3.1 per cent in Washington and increased by 3.2 per cent in Colorado. Overall, per capita sales of alcoholic beverages were fairly stable, as they increased by 1.7 per cent in Colorado, declined by 0.2 per cent in Washington and declined by 0.5 per cent in Oregon' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'More than half of the studies, however, have shown that cannabis and alcohol are substitutes, meaning that the increased use of one substance reduces the use of the other. Other researchers have also suggested that cannabis, especially cannabis for medical use, may serve as a substitute for alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, including prescription drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
Hey junkie, this dope is not against you. Of course he believes that his dope is a much better intoxicant, more versatile medicine and more useful to the planet than your junk but that doesn't mean he intends to ban your junk in retribution for you helping to get his dope banned. What he does want, however, is that you start growing your own plant at home like him. In this way, you source your junk directly from the plant instead of putting money in the pockets of chemists who increasingly make more and more toxic stuff that destroy you, me and the planet. Your money is making the chemist pay the government to arm itself and protect him while pushing you and me closer to death. Growing your own plant will give you organic healthy junk in the best possible way, directly from the plant, like how it used to be for thousands of years, making you sustainable and the planet sustainable..yes, you can go green too..don't remain snowblind..we need your eyes too, to steer the planet away from man-made chemical disaster...
'In 2013, the Government of Uruguay approved legislation (Law No. 19.172) regulating the cultivation, production, dispensing and use of cannabis for different purposes, including non-medical use. In accordance with the legislation, Uruguayan citizens or foreigners with permanent residence aged 18 and older can obtain cannabis for non-medical purposes by registering with the national Institute for the Regulation and Control of Cannabis and by choosing one of three options: (a) purchase in authorized pharmacies; (b) membership of a club; or (c) domestic cultivation. The quantity of cannabis permitted per person, obtained through any of the three mechanisms, cannot exceed 480 g per year. Initially, the Government of Uruguay set THC content at 2 per cent and CBD content at 6–7 per cent. In 2017, the Government introduced two new varieties, with a maximum THC content of 9 per cent and CBD content of no less than 3 per cent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'A study on the impact of cannabis legalization on alcohol sales in Colorado, Oregon and Washington, the three states with the longest history of legal nonmedical use of cannabis, showed that there was no evidence that legalization had had any impact on the sale of spirits or on total alcohol sales, which are generally considered a good proxy for alcohol consumption in the United States. The study showed that the per capita sale of spirits had increased by 3.6 per cent in Oregon, 5.4 per cent in Washington and 7.6 per cent in Colorado in 2018, after the measures allowing the non-medical use of cannabis were implemented in those states. Consistent with national trends, per capita sales of beer had declined by 3.6 per cent in Colorado, 2.3 per cent in Washington and 3.6 per cent in Oregon. The sale of wine increased by 0.7 per cent in Oregon, declined by 3.1 per cent in Washington and increased by 3.2 per cent in Colorado. Overall, per capita sales of alcoholic beverages were fairly stable, as they increased by 1.7 per cent in Colorado, declined by 0.2 per cent in Washington and declined by 0.5 per cent in Oregon' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'More than half of the studies, however, have shown that cannabis and alcohol are substitutes, meaning that the increased use of one substance reduces the use of the other. Other researchers have also suggested that cannabis, especially cannabis for medical use, may serve as a substitute for alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, including prescription drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'He asked the question they all ask. "Why do you feel that you need narcotics, Mr Lee?"
When you hear this question you can be sure that the man who asks it knows nothing about junk.
"I need it to get out of bed in the morning, to shave and eat breakfast."
"I mean physically."
I shrugged. Might as well give him his diagnosis so he will go. "It's a good kick."
Junk is not a "good kick." The point of junk to a user is that it forms a habit. No one knows what junk is until he is junk sick.
The doctor nodded. Psychopathic personality.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'In Washington state, the past-month use of cannabis among high-school students of different grades has generally remained stable, although it increases by grade, with the highest past-month prevalence found among twelfth grade students, as in Colorado. The perception of risk relating to cannabis use among high-school students has also declined since the nonmedical use of cannabis was legalized, with nearly three quarters of twelfth grade students seeing no or low risk in trying cannabis a few times and less than half perceiving no or low risk in the regular use of cannabis in 2018. Similarly, some 38 per cent of twelfth grade students considered that it was fairly easy to get cannabis.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'While the daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students in Colorado has declined, the prevalence of occasional users, that is, those who report having used cannabis one or two times in the past month, has increased since legalization. Nevertheless, 4.7 per cent of high-school students reported using cannabis daily or nearly daily (20 or more times in the past 30 days) in 2017. Moreover, although the share of high-school students smoking cannabis declined from 92 per cent in 2015 to 84 per cent in 2017, there was an increase in the share of those who reported using edibles with high THC content (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 36 per cent in 2017) or “dabbing” cannabis extracts and concentrates (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 34 per cent in 2017) in the past month.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'One concern about legalizing the non-medical use of cannabis for adults (21 years and older) is that its use could also increase access to cannabis and its use among adolescents. Based on national data, cannabis use among high-school students remained stable overall, whereas the risk perception of the occasional use of cannabis declined in the United States over the period 2012–2018. In Colorado, although there has been a decline in daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students, they are now consuming and exposed to cannabis products with far higher THC content than was available or used earlier. In 2017, about 20 per cent of high-school students in Colorado reported non-medical use of cannabis in the past month; that rate is comparable to the national average among high-school students.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
When you hear this question you can be sure that the man who asks it knows nothing about junk.
"I need it to get out of bed in the morning, to shave and eat breakfast."
"I mean physically."
I shrugged. Might as well give him his diagnosis so he will go. "It's a good kick."
Junk is not a "good kick." The point of junk to a user is that it forms a habit. No one knows what junk is until he is junk sick.
The doctor nodded. Psychopathic personality.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'In Washington state, the past-month use of cannabis among high-school students of different grades has generally remained stable, although it increases by grade, with the highest past-month prevalence found among twelfth grade students, as in Colorado. The perception of risk relating to cannabis use among high-school students has also declined since the nonmedical use of cannabis was legalized, with nearly three quarters of twelfth grade students seeing no or low risk in trying cannabis a few times and less than half perceiving no or low risk in the regular use of cannabis in 2018. Similarly, some 38 per cent of twelfth grade students considered that it was fairly easy to get cannabis.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'While the daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students in Colorado has declined, the prevalence of occasional users, that is, those who report having used cannabis one or two times in the past month, has increased since legalization. Nevertheless, 4.7 per cent of high-school students reported using cannabis daily or nearly daily (20 or more times in the past 30 days) in 2017. Moreover, although the share of high-school students smoking cannabis declined from 92 per cent in 2015 to 84 per cent in 2017, there was an increase in the share of those who reported using edibles with high THC content (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 36 per cent in 2017) or “dabbing” cannabis extracts and concentrates (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 34 per cent in 2017) in the past month.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'One concern about legalizing the non-medical use of cannabis for adults (21 years and older) is that its use could also increase access to cannabis and its use among adolescents. Based on national data, cannabis use among high-school students remained stable overall, whereas the risk perception of the occasional use of cannabis declined in the United States over the period 2012–2018. In Colorado, although there has been a decline in daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students, they are now consuming and exposed to cannabis products with far higher THC content than was available or used earlier. In 2017, about 20 per cent of high-school students in Colorado reported non-medical use of cannabis in the past month; that rate is comparable to the national average among high-school students.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'After a junk cure is complete, you generally feel fine for a few days. You can drink, you can feel hunger and pleasure in food, and your sex drive comes back on you. Everything looks different, sharper. Then you hit a sag. It is an effort to dress, get out of a chair, pick up a fork. You don't want to do anything or go anywhere. You don't even want junk. The junk craving is gone, but there isn't anything else. You have to sit this period out. Or work it out. Farm work is the best cure.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Colorado and Washington were the first two states in the United States to legalize the production of cannabis for non-medical use, in 2012. However, prior to legalization, those states and others, such as California, had various regimes in place that permitted or tolerated the production and sale of cannabis for medical use, which allowed people with a range of conditions that were not well-defined to gain access to cannabis. The states of Colorado and Washington, for which more long-term trend data are available, are interesting case studies for examining the public health and public safety outcomes that have emerged in the years since the production of cannabis for non-medical use was legalized.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In addition to Vermont, Illinois is another state in which measures allowing the non-medical use of cannabis were passed through the state legislature rather than through voters’ initiatives, as was the case in the other states that have legalized the nonmedical use of cannabis. In May 2019, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, which was signed by the state Governor in June. The sale of cannabis for non-medical use began on 1 January 2020. Under the law, adults aged 21 and older are allowed to purchase and possess up to 30 g of cannabis flower, edibles with a maximum of 500 mg of THC, or 5 g of cannabis concentrates. Non-residents of Illinois will be allowed to purchase half of those amounts. As in some other states, individual cities, villages and municipalities have the option to decide whether to allow the non-medical use of cannabis in their jurisdictions by passing ordinances. Nonetheless, local governments may neither prohibit home cultivation of cannabis nor “unreasonably prohibit” its non-medical use.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In the United States, a total of 33 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, had approved or had in place a comprehensive programme for medical cannabis by the end of 2019. As at December 2019, 11 state-level jurisdictions in the United States, plus the District of Columbia, allowed the nonmedical use of cannabis, and most also allowed commercial production by for-profit industry. It is worth noting that all the states that have legalized the non-medical use of cannabis previously had measures in place permitting the medical use of cannabis.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Although the Cannabis Act introduced a variety of classes of cannabis licences, including for smaller producers, the federal Government requires that a potential supplier have a production facility in place, meaning that the supplier will have already made a substantial investment prior to applying for a licence. Some have speculated that this has contributed to deterring small entrepreneurs from applying for licences and may have favoured the emergence of a market dominated or even monopolized by a relatively small number of large, multi-billion-dollar businesses. There have also been reports of the alcohol, tobacco and finance industries investing in companies involved in nonmedical cannabis production. For instance, according to media sources, in October 2017 Constellation Brands, a major international producer of wine, beer and spirits, invested $4 billion to acquire a 9.9 per cent stake in Canopy Growth, the leading Canadian producer, to develop cannabis-based beverages. By the end of December 2019, Constellation owned a 35 per cent stake in Canopy. In December 2018, the tobacco company Altria made a $1.8 million investment in Cronos Group, a cannabis production company, giving Altria a 45 per cent interest in Cronos. Earlier in the year, Molson Coors Brewing, another multinational alcohol company, signed a joint venture with Quebec-based HEXO to develop and market cannabis-infused beverages. Market analysts have predicted that the alcohol industry will also invest in companies that plan to produce beverages that combine cannabis and beer and, in particular, they predicted that by the end of 2019 two of the largest cannabis companies in the world would be owned by two of the largest alcohol and tobacco companies' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Colorado and Washington were the first two states in the United States to legalize the production of cannabis for non-medical use, in 2012. However, prior to legalization, those states and others, such as California, had various regimes in place that permitted or tolerated the production and sale of cannabis for medical use, which allowed people with a range of conditions that were not well-defined to gain access to cannabis. The states of Colorado and Washington, for which more long-term trend data are available, are interesting case studies for examining the public health and public safety outcomes that have emerged in the years since the production of cannabis for non-medical use was legalized.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In addition to Vermont, Illinois is another state in which measures allowing the non-medical use of cannabis were passed through the state legislature rather than through voters’ initiatives, as was the case in the other states that have legalized the nonmedical use of cannabis. In May 2019, the Illinois General Assembly passed the Cannabis Regulation and Tax Act, which was signed by the state Governor in June. The sale of cannabis for non-medical use began on 1 January 2020. Under the law, adults aged 21 and older are allowed to purchase and possess up to 30 g of cannabis flower, edibles with a maximum of 500 mg of THC, or 5 g of cannabis concentrates. Non-residents of Illinois will be allowed to purchase half of those amounts. As in some other states, individual cities, villages and municipalities have the option to decide whether to allow the non-medical use of cannabis in their jurisdictions by passing ordinances. Nonetheless, local governments may neither prohibit home cultivation of cannabis nor “unreasonably prohibit” its non-medical use.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In the United States, a total of 33 states, as well as the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, had approved or had in place a comprehensive programme for medical cannabis by the end of 2019. As at December 2019, 11 state-level jurisdictions in the United States, plus the District of Columbia, allowed the nonmedical use of cannabis, and most also allowed commercial production by for-profit industry. It is worth noting that all the states that have legalized the non-medical use of cannabis previously had measures in place permitting the medical use of cannabis.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Although the Cannabis Act introduced a variety of classes of cannabis licences, including for smaller producers, the federal Government requires that a potential supplier have a production facility in place, meaning that the supplier will have already made a substantial investment prior to applying for a licence. Some have speculated that this has contributed to deterring small entrepreneurs from applying for licences and may have favoured the emergence of a market dominated or even monopolized by a relatively small number of large, multi-billion-dollar businesses. There have also been reports of the alcohol, tobacco and finance industries investing in companies involved in nonmedical cannabis production. For instance, according to media sources, in October 2017 Constellation Brands, a major international producer of wine, beer and spirits, invested $4 billion to acquire a 9.9 per cent stake in Canopy Growth, the leading Canadian producer, to develop cannabis-based beverages. By the end of December 2019, Constellation owned a 35 per cent stake in Canopy. In December 2018, the tobacco company Altria made a $1.8 million investment in Cronos Group, a cannabis production company, giving Altria a 45 per cent interest in Cronos. Earlier in the year, Molson Coors Brewing, another multinational alcohol company, signed a joint venture with Quebec-based HEXO to develop and market cannabis-infused beverages. Market analysts have predicted that the alcohol industry will also invest in companies that plan to produce beverages that combine cannabis and beer and, in particular, they predicted that by the end of 2019 two of the largest cannabis companies in the world would be owned by two of the largest alcohol and tobacco companies' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'When a junkie off junk gets drunk to a certain point, his thoughts turn to junk.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'The sale of non-medical cannabis through legal sources represents only a portion of the cannabis market, as it appears that a substantial proportion of users still rely on illegal sources to obtain cannabis (42 per cent in 2019). Moreover, cannabis prices on the illegal market have remained considerably lower (and have been declining) compared with the prices on the legal market. In the second quarter of 2019, based on 236 submissions, the average price per gram of cannabis on the legal market was Can$10.65, compared with Can$5.93 per gram on the illegal market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'After the cannabis regulations were adopted and sales began in October 2018, retail sales of nonmedical cannabis online and in cannabis stores up to September 2019 totalled some 908 million Canadian dollars, or an average of Can$24 (approximately $18) per capita. Although Ontario had the smallest number of retail outlets, it had the highest retail sales (Can$216 million), followed by Alberta (Can$196 million) and Quebec (Can$195 million), by the end of September 2019. Out of the total of Can$908 million, most sales were made through bricks-and-mortar stores (Can $788 million), while online retail sales (Can$120 million) accounted for 13 per cent. Direct-to-consumer trade by wholesalers, which includes retail sales by public sector stores classified as wholesalers, accounted for 1.9 per cent over the same period.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The sale of non-medical cannabis through legal sources represents only a portion of the cannabis market, as it appears that a substantial proportion of users still rely on illegal sources to obtain cannabis (42 per cent in 2019). Moreover, cannabis prices on the illegal market have remained considerably lower (and have been declining) compared with the prices on the legal market. In the second quarter of 2019, based on 236 submissions, the average price per gram of cannabis on the legal market was Can$10.65, compared with Can$5.93 per gram on the illegal market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'After the cannabis regulations were adopted and sales began in October 2018, retail sales of nonmedical cannabis online and in cannabis stores up to September 2019 totalled some 908 million Canadian dollars, or an average of Can$24 (approximately $18) per capita. Although Ontario had the smallest number of retail outlets, it had the highest retail sales (Can$216 million), followed by Alberta (Can$196 million) and Quebec (Can$195 million), by the end of September 2019. Out of the total of Can$908 million, most sales were made through bricks-and-mortar stores (Can $788 million), while online retail sales (Can$120 million) accounted for 13 per cent. Direct-to-consumer trade by wholesalers, which includes retail sales by public sector stores classified as wholesalers, accounted for 1.9 per cent over the same period.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'An addict may be ten years off the junk, but he can get a new habit in less than a week; whereas someone who has never been addicted would have to take two shots per day for two months to get any habit at all. I took a shot daily for four months before I could notice withdrawal symptoms. You can list the symptoms of junk sickness, but the feel of it is like no other feeling and you can not put it into words. I did not experience this junk sick feeling until my second habit.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'By the end of July 2019, about 400 retail outlets had been opened across Canada. The opening of retail outlets has been slower in some places than in others. Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, with a population of 14 million, began with a retail system in which licences were issued to operators by way of a lottery. At the end of July 2019, the province thus had only 24 outlets, fewer than 2 outlets per 1 million population, whereas Newfoundland and Labrador had the same number of outlets per 500,000 population. The province of Alberta permitted the opening of the largest number of retail outlets, with 176 private retail outlets for a population of 4 million.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In most provinces, the retail licensing regime is similar to that regulating the sale of liquor, and cannabis is sold through licensed retailers (private sector), provincial retail stores (public sector) and online. Many provinces have adopted a hybrid model that allows either public or private physical retail outlets together with online retail controlled by regulatory authorities, or a combination of all three. With the exception of the Nunavut territory, all the provinces and territories allow retail sales of cannabis products online. British Columbia and Yukon are the only province and territory that allow all three modes, while Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan have allowed private bricks-and-mortar retail stores.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'By the end of July 2019, about 400 retail outlets had been opened across Canada. The opening of retail outlets has been slower in some places than in others. Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, with a population of 14 million, began with a retail system in which licences were issued to operators by way of a lottery. At the end of July 2019, the province thus had only 24 outlets, fewer than 2 outlets per 1 million population, whereas Newfoundland and Labrador had the same number of outlets per 500,000 population. The province of Alberta permitted the opening of the largest number of retail outlets, with 176 private retail outlets for a population of 4 million.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In most provinces, the retail licensing regime is similar to that regulating the sale of liquor, and cannabis is sold through licensed retailers (private sector), provincial retail stores (public sector) and online. Many provinces have adopted a hybrid model that allows either public or private physical retail outlets together with online retail controlled by regulatory authorities, or a combination of all three. With the exception of the Nunavut territory, all the provinces and territories allow retail sales of cannabis products online. British Columbia and Yukon are the only province and territory that allow all three modes, while Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan have allowed private bricks-and-mortar retail stores.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'There are lots of secrets in the tea business, and tea heads guard these supposed secrets with imbecile slyness. For example, tea must be cured, or it is green and rasps the throat. But ask a tea head how to cure weed and he will give you a sly, stupid look and come-on with some double-talk. Perhaps weed does affect the brain with constant use, or maybe tea heads are naturally silly.
The tea I had was green so I put it in a double boiler and set the boiler in the oven until the tea got the greenish-brown look it should have. This is the secret of curing tea, or at least one way to do it.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'While most cannabis users had used more than one product, over three quarters of users purchased and consumed dried cannabis flower or leaf for smoking. Although the sale of edibles and extracts started only at the end of 2019, a substantial share of cannabis users reported using edible cannabis products (26 per cent), cannabis oil or vape pens (19 per cent), hashish (16 per cent) and solid cannabis concentrates (14 per cent) during the same year.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The transition from the illegal market to legal sources of cannabis has been a gradual one. The proportion of cannabis users sourcing their products from the legal market increased from around 25 per cent in the second and third quarters of 2018 to about 50 per cent one year later, and in 2019 nearly 30 per cent relied solely on the legal market for their cannabis (compared with 10 per cent in 2018). Many users relied on multiple sources to obtain their cannabis, with about 40 per cent of cannabis users still getting their product from illegal sources.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
The tea I had was green so I put it in a double boiler and set the boiler in the oven until the tea got the greenish-brown look it should have. This is the secret of curing tea, or at least one way to do it.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'While most cannabis users had used more than one product, over three quarters of users purchased and consumed dried cannabis flower or leaf for smoking. Although the sale of edibles and extracts started only at the end of 2019, a substantial share of cannabis users reported using edible cannabis products (26 per cent), cannabis oil or vape pens (19 per cent), hashish (16 per cent) and solid cannabis concentrates (14 per cent) during the same year.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The transition from the illegal market to legal sources of cannabis has been a gradual one. The proportion of cannabis users sourcing their products from the legal market increased from around 25 per cent in the second and third quarters of 2018 to about 50 per cent one year later, and in 2019 nearly 30 per cent relied solely on the legal market for their cannabis (compared with 10 per cent in 2018). Many users relied on multiple sources to obtain their cannabis, with about 40 per cent of cannabis users still getting their product from illegal sources.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'C[ocaine] is hard to find in Mexico. I had never used any good coke before. Coke is pure kick. It lifts you straight up, a mechanical lift that starts leaving you as soon as you feel it. I don't know anything like C for a lift, but the lift lasts only ten minutes or so. Then you want another shot. You can't stop shooting C - as long as it is there you shoot it. When you are shooting C, you shoot more M[orphine] to level the C kick and smooth out the rough edges. Without M, C makes you too nervous, and M is an antidote for an overdose. There is no tolerance with C, and not much margin between a regular and a toxic dose. Several times I got too much and everything went black and my heart began turning over. Luckily I always had plenty of M on hand, and a shot of M fixed me right up.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Along with the increase in prevalence, the frequency of cannabis use also increased marginally. At the beginning of 2018, some 5 per cent of the population aged 15 and older were daily users of cannabis products; by the third quarter of 2019, this proportion had increased to 6 per cent. Increases in the proportion of daily users of cannabis were observed mainly among males, young people aged 18–24 and those aged 65 and older. Daily or near-daily use of cannabis is more frequent in younger users than in older ones. Nearly 8 per cent of people aged 15–24 and 9 per cent of those aged 25–44 were daily or near-daily users of cannabis, compared with 4 per cent of people aged 45–64 and nearly 3 per cent of those aged 65 and older. Men were twice as likely as women to be daily or near-daily cannabis users. A commonly observed pattern of use is that regular and frequent users of cannabis, such as daily or near-daily users, represent a small proportion of all cannabis users, but they account for the bulk of cannabis products consumed. It is estimated that in 2018, for example, around half a million people in Canada consumed some 810 tons of cannabis, of which half (426 tons) were consumed by daily or near-daily users and another 355 tons by those who reportedly used cannabis at least once a week.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'There is a considerable level of overlap between the medical and non-medical use of cannabis products in Canada, although the proportion varies by age group. In the second and third quarters of 2019, 52 per cent of cannabis users aged 65 and older reported using cannabis for medical purposes (with or without proper documentation for such use). On the other hand, nearly 60 per cent of cannabis users aged 15–24 reported the use of cannabis products for non-medical purposes, and one third of respondents in that age group reported using those products for both medical and non-medical reasons.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The process is part of an experiment in the Netherlands to legalize for the first time – though it’s limited in scope and time – the production of marijuana destined to be sold in coffee shops.
Only applicants that demonstrate the capability to cultivate at a large scale – a minimum of 6,500 kilograms (14,330 pounds) per year – will be considered.
But the government’s newly released FAQ specifies that the winners won’t necessarily have to grow that amount.
Up to 10 growers will be selected to supply roughly 80 coffee shops in 10 municipalities during a period of at least four years.
The government estimates a minimum production of 65,000 ki-lograms per year will be needed, considering that each of the 80 coffee shops has an average turnover of about 1 kilogram per day – 20% of which is hashish.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/netherlands-clarifies-process-for-applications-to-grow-legal-adult-use-cannabis/
'Where data are available, they show a steady decline in the use of NPS in Europe, but such substances have established themselves in some marginalized groups in society, such as the homeless or people in prison, among whom the smoking of synthetic cannabinoids has been identified as a problem. In Europe, the use of NPS in prisons was reported by 22 countries, with synthetic cannabinoids identified as posing the main challenge and health risks (16 countries), whereas the use of synthetic cathinones in prisons was reported by 10 countries, NPS with opioid effects by six, and new benzodiazepines by four countries. In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Along with the increase in prevalence, the frequency of cannabis use also increased marginally. At the beginning of 2018, some 5 per cent of the population aged 15 and older were daily users of cannabis products; by the third quarter of 2019, this proportion had increased to 6 per cent. Increases in the proportion of daily users of cannabis were observed mainly among males, young people aged 18–24 and those aged 65 and older. Daily or near-daily use of cannabis is more frequent in younger users than in older ones. Nearly 8 per cent of people aged 15–24 and 9 per cent of those aged 25–44 were daily or near-daily users of cannabis, compared with 4 per cent of people aged 45–64 and nearly 3 per cent of those aged 65 and older. Men were twice as likely as women to be daily or near-daily cannabis users. A commonly observed pattern of use is that regular and frequent users of cannabis, such as daily or near-daily users, represent a small proportion of all cannabis users, but they account for the bulk of cannabis products consumed. It is estimated that in 2018, for example, around half a million people in Canada consumed some 810 tons of cannabis, of which half (426 tons) were consumed by daily or near-daily users and another 355 tons by those who reportedly used cannabis at least once a week.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'There is a considerable level of overlap between the medical and non-medical use of cannabis products in Canada, although the proportion varies by age group. In the second and third quarters of 2019, 52 per cent of cannabis users aged 65 and older reported using cannabis for medical purposes (with or without proper documentation for such use). On the other hand, nearly 60 per cent of cannabis users aged 15–24 reported the use of cannabis products for non-medical purposes, and one third of respondents in that age group reported using those products for both medical and non-medical reasons.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'The process is part of an experiment in the Netherlands to legalize for the first time – though it’s limited in scope and time – the production of marijuana destined to be sold in coffee shops.
Only applicants that demonstrate the capability to cultivate at a large scale – a minimum of 6,500 kilograms (14,330 pounds) per year – will be considered.
But the government’s newly released FAQ specifies that the winners won’t necessarily have to grow that amount.
Up to 10 growers will be selected to supply roughly 80 coffee shops in 10 municipalities during a period of at least four years.
The government estimates a minimum production of 65,000 ki-lograms per year will be needed, considering that each of the 80 coffee shops has an average turnover of about 1 kilogram per day – 20% of which is hashish.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/netherlands-clarifies-process-for-applications-to-grow-legal-adult-use-cannabis/
'Where data are available, they show a steady decline in the use of NPS in Europe, but such substances have established themselves in some marginalized groups in society, such as the homeless or people in prison, among whom the smoking of synthetic cannabinoids has been identified as a problem. In Europe, the use of NPS in prisons was reported by 22 countries, with synthetic cannabinoids identified as posing the main challenge and health risks (16 countries), whereas the use of synthetic cathinones in prisons was reported by 10 countries, NPS with opioid effects by six, and new benzodiazepines by four countries. In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'I knew that I did not want to go on taking junk. If I could have made a single decision, I would have decided no more junk ever. But when it came to the process of quitting, I did not have the drive. It gave me a terrible feeling of helplessness to watch myself break every schedule I set up as though I did not have control over my actions.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'For the third year in a row, the largest quantities of plant-based NPS [new psychoactive substances] seized in 2018 were of kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), a substance that has both opioid-like and stimulant-like effects. This was followed by khat, a stimulant, as well as smaller quantities of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink made from the stem and bark of the tropical liana Banisteriopsis caapi and other botanical ingredients, and Salvia divinorum, another hallucinogen, the leaves of which are consumed by chewing or smoking or in the form of a tea. In previous years, the plant-based NPS seized also frequently included kava, which is used to produce a drink with sedative, anaesthetic and euphoriant properties, and Datura stramonium, a hallucinogen. None of those plants are under international control; they are regulated in some jurisdictions only. Kratom, for example, is available online in a number of countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'For many adults, researchers say, moderate use is probably fine. “I compare it to alcohol,” says Earl Miller, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge. “Too much or the wrong situation can be bad, but in other situations it can be beneficial. I think we’re going to find the same thing with cannabis.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02530-7
'For the third year in a row, the largest quantities of plant-based NPS [new psychoactive substances] seized in 2018 were of kratom (Mitragyna speciosa), a substance that has both opioid-like and stimulant-like effects. This was followed by khat, a stimulant, as well as smaller quantities of ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drink made from the stem and bark of the tropical liana Banisteriopsis caapi and other botanical ingredients, and Salvia divinorum, another hallucinogen, the leaves of which are consumed by chewing or smoking or in the form of a tea. In previous years, the plant-based NPS seized also frequently included kava, which is used to produce a drink with sedative, anaesthetic and euphoriant properties, and Datura stramonium, a hallucinogen. None of those plants are under international control; they are regulated in some jurisdictions only. Kratom, for example, is available online in a number of countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'For many adults, researchers say, moderate use is probably fine. “I compare it to alcohol,” says Earl Miller, a cognitive neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory in Cambridge. “Too much or the wrong situation can be bad, but in other situations it can be beneficial. I think we’re going to find the same thing with cannabis.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02530-7
'Negative emotions - the fear which is the absence of confidence, the hatred, anger or malice which exclude love - are the guarantee that visionary experience, if and when it comes, shall be appalling. The Pharisee is a virtuous man, but his virtue is of the kind which is compatible with negative emotion. His visionary experiences are therefore likely to be infernal rather than blissful.' - Heaven and Hell, Aldous Huxley, 1956
'There were three shots a day. One at seven a.m., when we got up, one at one p.m., and one at nine p.m. Two old acquaintances had come in during the afternoon, Matty and Louis. I ran into Louis as we were lining up for the evening shot.
"Did they get you?" he asked me.
"No. Just here for the cure. How about you?"
"Same with me," he answered.
With the evening shot, they gave me some chloral hydrate in a glass. Five new arrivals were brought to the ward during the night. The ward attendant threw up his hands. "I don't know where I'm going to put them. I've got thirty-one dope fiends in here now." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
"Did they get you?" he asked me.
"No. Just here for the cure. How about you?"
"Same with me," he answered.
With the evening shot, they gave me some chloral hydrate in a glass. Five new arrivals were brought to the ward during the night. The ward attendant threw up his hands. "I don't know where I'm going to put them. I've got thirty-one dope fiends in here now." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
The urban legend of 420..
https://thedcapage.blog/2020/04/21/california-dreamin-or-the-tale-of-420/
'When it comes to withdrawal, Armentano said research has found symptoms to be mild and short-lived.
“Like with most matters specific to cannabis,” he said, the new findings “need to be placed in appropriate context.”
He compared cannabis withdrawal to withdrawal symptoms when someone stops using tobacco or alcohol.
“The profound physical withdrawal effects associated with tobacco are so severe that many subjects who strongly desire to quit end up reinitiating their use. In the case of alcohol, the abrupt ceasing of use in heavy users can be so severe that it can lead to death,” Armentano said.
“Simply withdrawing from caffeine can lead to a number of adverse side effects, like rebound headaches,” he added. “But we do not arrest 600,000 Americans annually for their use of caffeine.”'
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/marijuana-withdrawal-symptoms-are-real-for-regular-users
'When you're sick, music is a great help. Once, in Texas, I kicked a habit on weed, a pint of paregoric and a few Louis Armstrong records.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953 - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Cannabis is a mind altering substance. So is air, water, food and thought...
Apr 29, 2020, 8:38 PM
Cannabis is a mind altering substance. So is air, water, food and thought...
Apr 29, 2020, 8:38 PM
Cannabis analogies:
Bhang, ganja and charas are like milk, butter and ghee involving the same base source. If you're a Malayalee, maybe ripe jack fruit, jack fruit halwa and jack fruit velaichathu may serve as an additional analogy to aid in your better understanding...
May 5, 2020, 4:12 PM
Bhang, ganja and charas are like milk, butter and ghee involving the same base source. If you're a Malayalee, maybe ripe jack fruit, jack fruit halwa and jack fruit velaichathu may serve as an additional analogy to aid in your better understanding...
May 5, 2020, 4:12 PM
'I had never been able to drink before when I was on the junk, or junk sick. But eating hop is different from shooting the white stuff. You can mix hop and lush.
At first I started drinking at five in the afternoon. After a week, I started drinking at eight in the morning, stayed drunk all day and all night, and woke up drunk the next morning.
Every morning when I woke up, I washed down benzedrine, sanicin, and a piece of hop with black coffee and a shot of tequila. Then I lay back and closed my eyes to piece together the night before and yesterday. Often, I drew a blank from noon on. You sometimes wake up from a dream and think, "Thank God, I didn't really do that!" Reconstructing a period of blackout you think, "My God, did I really do it?" The line between saying and thinking is blurred. Did you say it or just think it?' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Living in alternate and man-made virtual realities may be appealing and attractive. It may spur creative thought, exploration of the mysteries of the universe and momentary escape from pain. However the longer one stays away from reality, the more jarring and painful the transition back to it is going to be. This transition will happen inevitably and cannot be escaped. The ultimate reality as we know it is the natural world in which we live, our bodies and minds and the life and death of these...
May 23, 2020, 11:49 AM
I started off seeking to legalize recreational use of cannabis but now I seem to be increasingly thinking as well about the legalization of opium, coca, palm toddy, peyote, psilocybin and all the other natural intoxicants that have been curbed. The principle is the same in all these cases. A natural intoxicant that took care of the majority of the world in a safer way being replaced by man-made intoxicants that are harmful but yielding more revenue for its manufacturers and supporters. Natural intoxicants have stood the test of time and social usage for thousands of years which is why they are so widespread and popular. Any harmful natural intoxicant is sidelined by the evolutionary processes of society seeking to identify and sustain what is safe and beneficial. Plants like dhatura are an example of harmful intoxicants that society has shunned even though it is freely available. The moves in the last 200 years by certain sections of society to curb these time tested natural intoxicants and replace them with the synthetic intoxicants is a false step in the evolutionary path that will not stand the test of time. The sooner we correct this mistake the better it is. Forcing people to intake man made poisons in place of what nature created and balanced out for human and animal consumption will surely result in a heavy price paid for profits made...
May 23, 2020, 11:53 AM
'"This polling data reaffirms that most voters do not experience 'buyer's remorse' following marijuana legalization," NORML's Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. "In the minds of most Americans, adult-use marijuana regulations are operating as voters intended and in a way that is consistent with their expectations.'
https://norml.org/news/2020/05/21/poll-respondents-in-adult-use-marijuana-states-say-legalization-has-been-successful
Scrap the 1961 Single Convention focusing on natural plant medicine, legalize the natural plants and focus on the more harmful synthetic substances. Promoting harmful synthetic medicines causing wide spread abuse and poisoning and keeping universal plant medicine illegal is the biggest joke on world health. The nations who have been dictating what should be legal and illegal medicine and laughing all the way to the bank so far, are reaching only the graveyard on the way back home..unfortunately the world's majority are the unwilling passengers...
'International scheduling of existing medicines puts in conflict two important public health objectives: protecting people from the health harms certain substances may pose and ensuring the adequate availability, accessibility and affordability of medicines that contain those substances. It also engages potentially competing drug control and human rights obligations, at a time when human rights are becoming more and more mainstreamed in international drug policy discussions, and system-wide coherence within the SDG framework is a central concern. The current process for international scheduling of medicines has an important normative deficit in the absence of shared principles of decision making to weigh these interests. It has a related democratic deficit given such decisions can be made by a minority of States creating legal obligations for all States parties. A human rights-based legality, effectiveness and proportionality test can help address these deficits and bring the decision-making process more into line with good governance standards.'
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7171726/
At first I started drinking at five in the afternoon. After a week, I started drinking at eight in the morning, stayed drunk all day and all night, and woke up drunk the next morning.
Every morning when I woke up, I washed down benzedrine, sanicin, and a piece of hop with black coffee and a shot of tequila. Then I lay back and closed my eyes to piece together the night before and yesterday. Often, I drew a blank from noon on. You sometimes wake up from a dream and think, "Thank God, I didn't really do that!" Reconstructing a period of blackout you think, "My God, did I really do it?" The line between saying and thinking is blurred. Did you say it or just think it?' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Living in alternate and man-made virtual realities may be appealing and attractive. It may spur creative thought, exploration of the mysteries of the universe and momentary escape from pain. However the longer one stays away from reality, the more jarring and painful the transition back to it is going to be. This transition will happen inevitably and cannot be escaped. The ultimate reality as we know it is the natural world in which we live, our bodies and minds and the life and death of these...
May 23, 2020, 11:49 AM
I started off seeking to legalize recreational use of cannabis but now I seem to be increasingly thinking as well about the legalization of opium, coca, palm toddy, peyote, psilocybin and all the other natural intoxicants that have been curbed. The principle is the same in all these cases. A natural intoxicant that took care of the majority of the world in a safer way being replaced by man-made intoxicants that are harmful but yielding more revenue for its manufacturers and supporters. Natural intoxicants have stood the test of time and social usage for thousands of years which is why they are so widespread and popular. Any harmful natural intoxicant is sidelined by the evolutionary processes of society seeking to identify and sustain what is safe and beneficial. Plants like dhatura are an example of harmful intoxicants that society has shunned even though it is freely available. The moves in the last 200 years by certain sections of society to curb these time tested natural intoxicants and replace them with the synthetic intoxicants is a false step in the evolutionary path that will not stand the test of time. The sooner we correct this mistake the better it is. Forcing people to intake man made poisons in place of what nature created and balanced out for human and animal consumption will surely result in a heavy price paid for profits made...
May 23, 2020, 11:53 AM
'"This polling data reaffirms that most voters do not experience 'buyer's remorse' following marijuana legalization," NORML's Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. "In the minds of most Americans, adult-use marijuana regulations are operating as voters intended and in a way that is consistent with their expectations.'
https://norml.org/news/2020/05/21/poll-respondents-in-adult-use-marijuana-states-say-legalization-has-been-successful
Scrap the 1961 Single Convention focusing on natural plant medicine, legalize the natural plants and focus on the more harmful synthetic substances. Promoting harmful synthetic medicines causing wide spread abuse and poisoning and keeping universal plant medicine illegal is the biggest joke on world health. The nations who have been dictating what should be legal and illegal medicine and laughing all the way to the bank so far, are reaching only the graveyard on the way back home..unfortunately the world's majority are the unwilling passengers...
'International scheduling of existing medicines puts in conflict two important public health objectives: protecting people from the health harms certain substances may pose and ensuring the adequate availability, accessibility and affordability of medicines that contain those substances. It also engages potentially competing drug control and human rights obligations, at a time when human rights are becoming more and more mainstreamed in international drug policy discussions, and system-wide coherence within the SDG framework is a central concern. The current process for international scheduling of medicines has an important normative deficit in the absence of shared principles of decision making to weigh these interests. It has a related democratic deficit given such decisions can be made by a minority of States creating legal obligations for all States parties. A human rights-based legality, effectiveness and proportionality test can help address these deficits and bring the decision-making process more into line with good governance standards.'
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7171726/
'Ike took a very severe view of my drinking. "You're drinking, Bill. You're drinking and getting crazy. You look terrible. You look terrible in your face. Better you should go back to stuff than drink like this." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'This article explores the nature of psychedelically induced anomalous experiences for what they reveal regarding the nature of “expanded consciousness” and its implications for humanistic and transpersonal psychology, parapsychology, and the psychology and underlying neuroscience of such experiences. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this essay reviews the nature of 10 transpersonal or parapsychological experiences that commonly occur spontaneously and in relation to the use of psychedelic substances, namely synesthesia, extradimensional percepts, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, entity encounters, alien abduction, sleep paralysis, interspecies communication, possession, and psi (telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance and psychokinesis).'
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022167820917767
'This article explores the nature of psychedelically induced anomalous experiences for what they reveal regarding the nature of “expanded consciousness” and its implications for humanistic and transpersonal psychology, parapsychology, and the psychology and underlying neuroscience of such experiences. Taking a multidisciplinary approach, this essay reviews the nature of 10 transpersonal or parapsychological experiences that commonly occur spontaneously and in relation to the use of psychedelic substances, namely synesthesia, extradimensional percepts, out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, entity encounters, alien abduction, sleep paralysis, interspecies communication, possession, and psi (telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance and psychokinesis).'
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022167820917767
'Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity, is, to genius, the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter, where moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars. He who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions. "In the morning - solitude," said Pythagoras; that nature may speak to the imagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought.'T is very certain that Plato, Plotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live in a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors; and the wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul in the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and habits of solitude.' - Culture, Emerson The Basic Writings of America's Sage
'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries, cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
- 'Among CBD consumers, about 1 in 5 (21%) use it daily, while 40% do so weekly.
- One quarter (25%) of CBD consumers reported having tried it only once or twice.
- Men reported being likelier than women to consume CBD on a daily and weekly basis, as did older consumers (i.e., ages 55+) rather than younger consumers (i.e., ages 18-34).
- More recent adoption of CBD correlates with more habitual consumption of it'
'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries, cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'There has been a lot said about the aphrodisiac effect of weed. For some reason, scientists dislike to admit that there is such a thing as as aphrodisiac, so most pharmacologists say there is "no evidence to support the popular idea that weed possesses aphrodisiac properties." I can say definitely that weed is an aphrodisiac and that sex is more enjoyable under the influence of weed than without it. Anyone who has used good weed will verify this statement.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Most countries do not have a comprehensive system in place for monitoring areas under illicit cannabis cultivation. At present, the information available is insufficient to produce scientifically accurate global estimates of the area under illicit cannabis cultivation. In addition, most of the estimates of the areas under illicit cannabis cultivation reported to UNODC do not generally meet scientific standards.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The largest quantities of cannabis herb seized in 2018 were those reported in the Americas (61 per cent of the total), with South America alone accounting for 43 per cent of the global total. Of note is the marked decline in the share of seizures made in North America, which had long been the subregion reporting the largest cannabis herb seizures: on average, 50 per cent of the global total over the period 2008–2018, falling to 17 per cent of the global total in 2018, that is, to less than the total for Africa that year (19 per cent). The next largest regional reported seizure totals in 2018 were those for Asia and Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Morocco, with 47,500 ha reported to be under cannabis cultivation in 2018, continues to be the most frequently mentioned source country for cannabis resin worldwide in the annual report questionnaire, being mentioned in more than a fifth of all cases as the main country of origin of cannabis resin seized worldwide over the period 2014–2018; Morocco was followed by Afghanistan, where, a UNODC survey found, in 2010 an area of 9,000–29,000 ha was under cannabis cultivation. Cannabis resin produced in Morocco is mainly destined for other markets in North Africa and markets in Western and Central Europe. Some cannabis resin of Moroccan origin is also trafficked to Eastern Europe and South-Eastern Europe. Most cannabis resin of Moroccan origin destined for Europe is first shipped to Spain, from where it is smuggled to other markets in the region. For many years, including in the period 2014–2018, Spain has been identified by other European countries as the principal country of departure and transit for cannabis resin, followed by the Netherlands.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Most countries do not have a comprehensive system in place for monitoring areas under illicit cannabis cultivation. At present, the information available is insufficient to produce scientifically accurate global estimates of the area under illicit cannabis cultivation. In addition, most of the estimates of the areas under illicit cannabis cultivation reported to UNODC do not generally meet scientific standards.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'The largest quantities of cannabis herb seized in 2018 were those reported in the Americas (61 per cent of the total), with South America alone accounting for 43 per cent of the global total. Of note is the marked decline in the share of seizures made in North America, which had long been the subregion reporting the largest cannabis herb seizures: on average, 50 per cent of the global total over the period 2008–2018, falling to 17 per cent of the global total in 2018, that is, to less than the total for Africa that year (19 per cent). The next largest regional reported seizure totals in 2018 were those for Asia and Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Morocco, with 47,500 ha reported to be under cannabis cultivation in 2018, continues to be the most frequently mentioned source country for cannabis resin worldwide in the annual report questionnaire, being mentioned in more than a fifth of all cases as the main country of origin of cannabis resin seized worldwide over the period 2014–2018; Morocco was followed by Afghanistan, where, a UNODC survey found, in 2010 an area of 9,000–29,000 ha was under cannabis cultivation. Cannabis resin produced in Morocco is mainly destined for other markets in North Africa and markets in Western and Central Europe. Some cannabis resin of Moroccan origin is also trafficked to Eastern Europe and South-Eastern Europe. Most cannabis resin of Moroccan origin destined for Europe is first shipped to Spain, from where it is smuggled to other markets in the region. For many years, including in the period 2014–2018, Spain has been identified by other European countries as the principal country of departure and transit for cannabis resin, followed by the Netherlands.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf
'Rollins listened to my account of the previous evening. "You're going to get your head blown off carrying that gun," he said. "What do you carry it for? You wouldn't know what you were shooting at. You bumped into trees twice there on Insurgentes. You walked right in front of a car. I pulled you back and you threatened me. I left you there to find your own way home, and I don't know how you ever made it. Everyone is fed up with the way you've been acting lately. If there's one thing I don't want to be around, and I think no one else particularly wants to be around, it's a drunk with a gun."' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'The power of the governments rests on public opinion and possessing power they can always support the sort of public opinion they require by their whole organization, officials, law courts, schools, the Church, and even the Press. Public opinion produces power , power produces public opinion; and it seems as if there were no escape from this position.
And that would really be the case if public opinion were something fixed and unchanging and if governments could always produce the public opinion they desired.
But fortunately that is not so. In the first place, public opinion is not something constant, unchanging and stagnant, but on the contrary is something continually changing and moving with the movement of mankind. And secondly, public opinion not only cannot be produced at will by governments, but is what produces governments and gives or deprives them of power.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamine. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM
'Demand-driven dynamics of drug markets are the result of changing patterns of drug use and the desire of users to experiment with new substances, which may lead to an increasing number of users starting a new habit. The establishment of the tramadol market for recreational use in certain regions may have initially been generated by an increased demand based on the supply available for medical use. But once a demand was generated, a new supply-driven phenomenon further expanded the market with illicitly manufactured products that were not part of the medical market' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
And that would really be the case if public opinion were something fixed and unchanging and if governments could always produce the public opinion they desired.
But fortunately that is not so. In the first place, public opinion is not something constant, unchanging and stagnant, but on the contrary is something continually changing and moving with the movement of mankind. And secondly, public opinion not only cannot be produced at will by governments, but is what produces governments and gives or deprives them of power.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamine. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM
'Demand-driven dynamics of drug markets are the result of changing patterns of drug use and the desire of users to experiment with new substances, which may lead to an increasing number of users starting a new habit. The establishment of the tramadol market for recreational use in certain regions may have initially been generated by an increased demand based on the supply available for medical use. But once a demand was generated, a new supply-driven phenomenon further expanded the market with illicitly manufactured products that were not part of the medical market' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'I finally slept a little and woke up next morning with a terrific alcohol depression. Junk sickness, suspended by codeine and hop, numbed by weeks of constant drinking, came back on me full force. "I have to have some codeine," I thought.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Increases in drug use have at times also been supply driven, as users react to growing supply and the attendant falling prices by increasing their consumption of those drugs. This was the case with cocaine in recent years, among other drugs. Some of the recent changes in drug markets, such as the opioid crisis in North America and the rapid emergence of a synthetic drug market in the Russian Federation and Central Asia, can also be defined as supply driven phenomena. The expansion of the synthetic drugs market in the Russian Federation seems to be mainly linked to the Hydra darknet platform. While there may now be an established user-based demand for synthetic drugs, the initial trigger was new suppliers. The rise of fentanyl in North America was not defined by a new demand either but was the result of opportunities seized by drug suppliers to reduce costs and thus increase profit margins.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'While the main drug treatment interventions in Asia and Europe continue to be linked primarily to opiates, in Africa to cannabis, and in South America to cocaine, in North America there has been a shift over the past decade from the predominance of cocaine to an increasing importance of opioids. Marked shifts in the main drug for which patients receive drug treatment can also been observed at the subregional level. In a number of countries in East and South-East Asia, for example, methamphetamine has emerged as the predominant drug; in the Near and Middle East, “captagon” tablets (amphetamine), and along the eastern coast of Africa, heroin, have emerged as the predominant drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Although in Europe opioids continue to be the predominant main drug for which people seek drug treatment, cocaine has become more common in Spain and methamphetamine remains the main drug of concern in Czechia. Within the amphetamines group, different patterns have developed in different subregions. For example, amphetamine continues to be the primary ATS of concern in Europe and in the Middle East, while methamphetamine has emerged as the primary ATS of concern in East and South-East Asia and in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Increases in drug use have at times also been supply driven, as users react to growing supply and the attendant falling prices by increasing their consumption of those drugs. This was the case with cocaine in recent years, among other drugs. Some of the recent changes in drug markets, such as the opioid crisis in North America and the rapid emergence of a synthetic drug market in the Russian Federation and Central Asia, can also be defined as supply driven phenomena. The expansion of the synthetic drugs market in the Russian Federation seems to be mainly linked to the Hydra darknet platform. While there may now be an established user-based demand for synthetic drugs, the initial trigger was new suppliers. The rise of fentanyl in North America was not defined by a new demand either but was the result of opportunities seized by drug suppliers to reduce costs and thus increase profit margins.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'While the main drug treatment interventions in Asia and Europe continue to be linked primarily to opiates, in Africa to cannabis, and in South America to cocaine, in North America there has been a shift over the past decade from the predominance of cocaine to an increasing importance of opioids. Marked shifts in the main drug for which patients receive drug treatment can also been observed at the subregional level. In a number of countries in East and South-East Asia, for example, methamphetamine has emerged as the predominant drug; in the Near and Middle East, “captagon” tablets (amphetamine), and along the eastern coast of Africa, heroin, have emerged as the predominant drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Although in Europe opioids continue to be the predominant main drug for which people seek drug treatment, cocaine has become more common in Spain and methamphetamine remains the main drug of concern in Czechia. Within the amphetamines group, different patterns have developed in different subregions. For example, amphetamine continues to be the primary ATS of concern in Europe and in the Middle East, while methamphetamine has emerged as the primary ATS of concern in East and South-East Asia and in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'When you give up junk, you give up a way of life. I have seen junkies kick and hit the lush and wind up dead in a few years. Suicide is frequent among ex-junkies. Why does a junkie quit junk of his own will? You never know the answer to that question. No conscious tabulation of the disadvantages and horrors of junk gives you the emotional drive to kick. The decision to quit junk is a cellular decision, and once you have decided to quit you cannot go back to junk permanently any more than you could stay away from it before. Like a man who has been away a long time, you see things different when you return from junk.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'England and Wales and Australia are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have competed for their share of the stimulant market over the past 20 years. Germany and the United States are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have together led the changes in the stimulant market
Within the stimulant markets, there are also examples of substitution effects in the “ecstasy” market. In England and Wales, for example, trend data on the use of “ecstasy”, mephedrone and NPS in the period 2005–2019 suggest that first mephedrone and later NPS filled the market space left by the decreasing supply of “ecstasy”, mainly due to a supply shortage, until 2012. Once “ecstasy” started to regain its previous share, the other substances declined sharply' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In the context of the long-term dynamics of the global drug market, there are many different changes that have affected selected geographical areas. Within the past two decades some regions have seen a gradual transformation of their drug markets: methamphetamine has become the predominant drug in South-East Asia, amphetamine (“captagon’’) in the Middle East, North America has been confronted with the opioid crisis, Africa has seen an expansion of its domestic heroin market, and countries in North and West Africa are now facing a tramadol crisis. More recently, two subregions, the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia and the Russian Federation/ Central Asia, appear to have been affected by rapid changes in their drug markets, with new drugs taking a substantial share of the drug market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'England and Wales and Australia are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have competed for their share of the stimulant market over the past 20 years. Germany and the United States are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have together led the changes in the stimulant market
Within the stimulant markets, there are also examples of substitution effects in the “ecstasy” market. In England and Wales, for example, trend data on the use of “ecstasy”, mephedrone and NPS in the period 2005–2019 suggest that first mephedrone and later NPS filled the market space left by the decreasing supply of “ecstasy”, mainly due to a supply shortage, until 2012. Once “ecstasy” started to regain its previous share, the other substances declined sharply' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'In the context of the long-term dynamics of the global drug market, there are many different changes that have affected selected geographical areas. Within the past two decades some regions have seen a gradual transformation of their drug markets: methamphetamine has become the predominant drug in South-East Asia, amphetamine (“captagon’’) in the Middle East, North America has been confronted with the opioid crisis, Africa has seen an expansion of its domestic heroin market, and countries in North and West Africa are now facing a tramadol crisis. More recently, two subregions, the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia and the Russian Federation/ Central Asia, appear to have been affected by rapid changes in their drug markets, with new drugs taking a substantial share of the drug market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf
'Withdrawal symptoms are allergic symptoms: sneezing, coughing, running at the eyes and nose, vomiting, diarrhea, hive-like conditions of the skin. Severe withdrawal symptoms are shock symptoms: lowered blood pressure, loss of body fluid and shrinking of the organism as in the death process, weakness, involuntary orgasms, death through collapse of the circulatory system. If an addict dies from junk withdrawal, he dies of allergic shock.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'What a convenient time for Mother Nature to bestow a perma-chillax cure that seems to tie together so many cultural threads at once: our obsession with self-care and wellness, the mainstreaming of alternative therapies and the relentless march of legalized marijuana.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/27/style/cbd-benefits.html
'The number of people participating in the medical marijuana program in Oregon has dropped by about 40% this year, as more people opt to get their cannabis from recreational outlets rather than navigate the complex medical marijuana system.'
https://www.thefix.com/medical-marijuana-participation-drastically-drops-oregon
'However much the governments try to excite in people the old public opinion of the heroism of patriotism - now no longer natural to them - men of our time no longer believe in it, but believe more and more in the solidarity and brotherhood of all nations. Patriotism does not now offer men anything but a most terrible future; while the brotherhood of all the people is an ideal which becomes ever more and more intelligible and desirable to mankind. And so the transition from the old, outlived public opinion to the new one must inevitably be accomplished. That transition is as inevitable as the fall of the last dry leaves in spring and the opening out of the young ones from the swollen buds.
And the longer the transition is postponed the more insistent it becomes and the more obvious is its inevitability.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'“Vendors and consumers of cannabis products should be aware that inhaling cannabis with a vaporizer could produce more pronounced drug effects and impairment than traditional smoking methods.”
That’s relevant information as the marijuana market continues to expand. More people are opting for vaporizers, and the study indicates that infrequent or new cannabis consumers should probably approach vaporizers with a bit more caution, start low and go slow.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/vaporized-marijuana-produces-a-stronger-high-than-smoking-it-study-finds/
And the longer the transition is postponed the more insistent it becomes and the more obvious is its inevitability.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
- Among the demographic range of cannabis consumer archetypes, frequency of use varies widely.
- Just over a third (36%) of cannabis consumers use it at least once per day, while nearly three-fifths (58%) do at least once per week.
- Among the heaviest-consuming archetypes (i.e., Traditional Lifestylers, Modern Lifestylers, or Functional Dependents), between 65%-79% use cannabis daily, and up to 93%-97% use it weekly.
- Men tend to use more frequently than do women: 64% of male consumers use cannabis at least once per week, compared to 53% of female consumers.
- Younger consumers generally use more often than do older ones: Two-thirds of those aged 18-34 use cannabis at least once per week, versus 44% of those aged 55 and older.
'“Vendors and consumers of cannabis products should be aware that inhaling cannabis with a vaporizer could produce more pronounced drug effects and impairment than traditional smoking methods.”
That’s relevant information as the marijuana market continues to expand. More people are opting for vaporizers, and the study indicates that infrequent or new cannabis consumers should probably approach vaporizers with a bit more caution, start low and go slow.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/vaporized-marijuana-produces-a-stronger-high-than-smoking-it-study-finds/
'It would seem that junk is the only habit-forming drug. Cats cannot be addicted to morphine, as they react to an injection of morphine with acute delirium. Cats have a relatively small quantity of histamine in the blood stream. It would seem that histamine is the defense against morphine, and that cats, lacking this defense, cannot tolerate morphine. Perhaps the mechanism of withdrawal is this: Histamine is produced by the body as a defense against morphine during the period of addiction. When the drug is withdrawn, the body continues to produce histamine.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Project CBD receives many inquiries from around the world and oftentimes people say they are seeking “CBD, the medical part” of the plant, “not THC, the recreational part” that gets you high. Actually, THC, “The High Causer,” has awesome therapeutic properties… [but] diehard marijuana prohibitionists are exploiting the good news about CBD to further stigmatize high-THC cannabis, casting tetrahydrocannabinol as the bad cannabinoid, whereas CBD is framed as the good cannabinoid. Why? Because CBD doesn’t make you feel high like THC does.
Project CBD categorically rejects this moralistic, reefer madness dichotomy in favor of whole plant cannabis therapeutics.'
https://www.leafly.com/news/health/why-cbd-works-better-with-thc
Just as the presence of a tiger is an indicator of a healthy, vibrant forest, the presence of legal recreational ganja is an indicator of a healthy, vibrant society.
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Project CBD receives many inquiries from around the world and oftentimes people say they are seeking “CBD, the medical part” of the plant, “not THC, the recreational part” that gets you high. Actually, THC, “The High Causer,” has awesome therapeutic properties… [but] diehard marijuana prohibitionists are exploiting the good news about CBD to further stigmatize high-THC cannabis, casting tetrahydrocannabinol as the bad cannabinoid, whereas CBD is framed as the good cannabinoid. Why? Because CBD doesn’t make you feel high like THC does.
Project CBD categorically rejects this moralistic, reefer madness dichotomy in favor of whole plant cannabis therapeutics.'
https://www.leafly.com/news/health/why-cbd-works-better-with-thc
Just as the presence of a tiger is an indicator of a healthy, vibrant forest, the presence of legal recreational ganja is an indicator of a healthy, vibrant society.
'Tea heads are not like junkies. A junkie hands you the money, takes his junk and cuts. But tea heads don't do things that way. They expect the peddlar to light them up and sit around talking for half an hour to sell two dollars worth of weed. If you come right to the point, they say you are a "bring down." In fact, a peddlar should not come right out and say he is a peddlar. No, he just scores for a few good "cats and "chicks" because he is viperish. Everyone knows that he himself is the connection, but it is bad form to say so. God knows why. To me, tea heads are unfathomable.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
If your neighbors are creating a din, you can't catch some much needed sleep, thoughts of surgical strikes and territorial incursions swamp your head, then there's a couple of things you can try to ease the situation.
One, lie on your back and take deep breaths. Focus on the inflow of breath, breath retention, outflow of breath, pause. Go through this cycle a few times and then breathe normally. You should be able to fall into sound sleep soon.
Two, smoke a joint. The joint smoking is actually the above action plus the entourage effect. When you smoke the joint you will invariably be breathing in deeply, retaining breath, breathing out slowly and pausing. Plus the cannabinoids and terpenes should calm and relax your mind enough to enable you to glide into a nice slumber. It may, however, in some cases lead you to finish that novel or create that masterpiece that you always wanted to.
These are simple steps for conflict prevention that can work at the individual, local, state, national and international levels.
If your neighbors are creating a din, you can't catch some much needed sleep, thoughts of surgical strikes and territorial incursions swamp your head, then there's a couple of things you can try to ease the situation.
One, lie on your back and take deep breaths. Focus on the inflow of breath, breath retention, outflow of breath, pause. Go through this cycle a few times and then breathe normally. You should be able to fall into sound sleep soon.
Two, smoke a joint. The joint smoking is actually the above action plus the entourage effect. When you smoke the joint you will invariably be breathing in deeply, retaining breath, breathing out slowly and pausing. Plus the cannabinoids and terpenes should calm and relax your mind enough to enable you to glide into a nice slumber. It may, however, in some cases lead you to finish that novel or create that masterpiece that you always wanted to.
These are simple steps for conflict prevention that can work at the individual, local, state, national and international levels.
'So one of the things that excites me most about psychedelics is, yes, there’s a treatment here, potentially, and it could be very important, and help us deal with one of the biggest problems we face as a civilization. On the other hand, they’re also very interesting probes to understand the mind. And way back when, Stanislav Grof, famous psychedelic psychiatrist, who did really great work in the ’60s and ’70s, he wrote this line, which actually got Robin Carhart-Harris started, and got me started, in a way. He said that “Psychedelics would be for the study of the mind what the telescope was for astronomy, or the microscope for biology.” Now that is an audacious claim. But I no longer think it’s crazy.' - Michael Pollan
https://tim.blog/2019/03/24/the-tim-ferriss-show-transcripts-michael-pollan-365/
'But yet in these apparently unimportant actions - in our indicating to the extent of our powers the unreasonableness of what we clearly see to be irrational and refraining from taking part in it - lies our great and irresistible power: the power which constitutes that unconquerable force which makes up real genuine public opinion - that opinion which with its own advance moves all humanity. Governments know this. They tremble before that force and strive in every possible way to counteract and overcome it.
They know that strength lies not in force but in the action of the mind and in the clear expression. And they fear that expression of independent thought more than an army. So they establish censorship, bribe newspapers, and seize control of the Churches and schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world eludes them. It is not in a book or a newspaper: it cannot be trapped but is always free, for it lies in the depth's of man's consciousness. This most powerful, elusive, and free force shows itself in a man's soul when he is alone and reflects on the phenomena of the world and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, his brother, his friend, and to all whom he accounts it a sin to conceal what he considers to be the truth. No milliards of rubles, or millions of troops, or any institutions, or wars, or revolutions, can or will produce what a free man can produce by the simple expression of what he considers right, independently of what exists and what is impressed upon him.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
What do I personally want in terms of ganja legalization in India? I want the freedom to grow my own plants for my personal consumption. I want the freedom to walk over to a shop and buy my ganja if I feel the need to. These are the personal freedoms that need to be in place first and foremost. Setting up large scale businesses, be it pharmaceutical, industrial or agricultural, are things that can happen subsequently.
There are people, who come in various guises and forms, who will tell you no alcohol, no ganja, no sex, no music, no meat. What they would like you to do is lie down quietly while they do different kinds of chemotherapy on you and take away all that you have to fuel their addictions.
They know that strength lies not in force but in the action of the mind and in the clear expression. And they fear that expression of independent thought more than an army. So they establish censorship, bribe newspapers, and seize control of the Churches and schools. But the spiritual force which moves the world eludes them. It is not in a book or a newspaper: it cannot be trapped but is always free, for it lies in the depth's of man's consciousness. This most powerful, elusive, and free force shows itself in a man's soul when he is alone and reflects on the phenomena of the world and then involuntarily expresses his thoughts to his wife, his brother, his friend, and to all whom he accounts it a sin to conceal what he considers to be the truth. No milliards of rubles, or millions of troops, or any institutions, or wars, or revolutions, can or will produce what a free man can produce by the simple expression of what he considers right, independently of what exists and what is impressed upon him.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
What do I personally want in terms of ganja legalization in India? I want the freedom to grow my own plants for my personal consumption. I want the freedom to walk over to a shop and buy my ganja if I feel the need to. These are the personal freedoms that need to be in place first and foremost. Setting up large scale businesses, be it pharmaceutical, industrial or agricultural, are things that can happen subsequently.
There are people, who come in various guises and forms, who will tell you no alcohol, no ganja, no sex, no music, no meat. What they would like you to do is lie down quietly while they do different kinds of chemotherapy on you and take away all that you have to fuel their addictions.
'In practice, pushing weed is a headache. To begin with, weed is bulky. You need a full suitcase to realize any money. If the cops start kicking your door in, then you are like with a bale of alfalfa.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
The ganja 'high' is not necessarily always a 'high'. It can be a 'low' or it can be a neutral. These effects are the psychotropic nature of the plant, the main reason why it has wrongly been included in banned substances lists worldwide. The most pronounced effects are felt by first time users or those using the plant after long intervals. I believe that the effects depend on an individual's state of mind, specifically the state of the ego. A person with a strong ego, whose world view is primarily centered around his identity and its consolidation, will experience the plant almost as a psychedelic with feelings of terror, of dying, of dissolution similar to ayahuasca experiences, etc. A person with a weak ego, fear or depression, is likely to feel elation, euphoria and calmness. A person with a balanced, universal world view or a frequent user is likely to find an increased sense of oneness with the universe. Even the same person can have any of these three effects depending on the state of mind at that time. In this sense, the plant is an ego stabilizer, bringing a person's ego to its baseline state. When this baseline ego state is reached, senses suppressed by the ego come back into their own states of optimum performance giving rise to a feeling of heightened senses.
Nicely summing things up. 'So maybe if we can make peace with cannabis, it can help start making peace with ourselves'
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Talk explores human beings' dynamic relationship with the cannabis plant and what recent developments might mean for our health and well-being. Zach Walsh is a clinical psychologist and substance use researcher who teaches at UBC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv2GG_csUc8
'The research didn't look at the sensations or behaviors that coffee produces compared to cannabis, only at the rise and fall of chemicals in the blood after coffee consumption. Endocannabinoids were just one set of the chemicals — or metabolites — that changed, the researchers found.'
https://www.livescience.com/62034-coffee-cannabis-opposite.html
The ganja 'high' is not necessarily always a 'high'. It can be a 'low' or it can be a neutral. These effects are the psychotropic nature of the plant, the main reason why it has wrongly been included in banned substances lists worldwide. The most pronounced effects are felt by first time users or those using the plant after long intervals. I believe that the effects depend on an individual's state of mind, specifically the state of the ego. A person with a strong ego, whose world view is primarily centered around his identity and its consolidation, will experience the plant almost as a psychedelic with feelings of terror, of dying, of dissolution similar to ayahuasca experiences, etc. A person with a weak ego, fear or depression, is likely to feel elation, euphoria and calmness. A person with a balanced, universal world view or a frequent user is likely to find an increased sense of oneness with the universe. Even the same person can have any of these three effects depending on the state of mind at that time. In this sense, the plant is an ego stabilizer, bringing a person's ego to its baseline state. When this baseline ego state is reached, senses suppressed by the ego come back into their own states of optimum performance giving rise to a feeling of heightened senses.
Nicely summing things up. 'So maybe if we can make peace with cannabis, it can help start making peace with ourselves'
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Talk explores human beings' dynamic relationship with the cannabis plant and what recent developments might mean for our health and well-being. Zach Walsh is a clinical psychologist and substance use researcher who teaches at UBC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv2GG_csUc8
'The research didn't look at the sensations or behaviors that coffee produces compared to cannabis, only at the rise and fall of chemicals in the blood after coffee consumption. Endocannabinoids were just one set of the chemicals — or metabolites — that changed, the researchers found.'
https://www.livescience.com/62034-coffee-cannabis-opposite.html
'When you are junk sick you dream about junk. A curious fact about junk dreams is that something always happens to prevent you from getting a shot. The cops rush in, the needle stops up, the dropper breaks. Anyway, you never get it. I have talked to other users, and I have never known anyone who ever got fixed in a dream.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Huxley probably didn't realize then that nature had already created the "efficient but wholesome substitute" thousands of years before..but then this essay was written at the time when the marijuana prohibition lobbying was at its peak in the US and the plant's incarceration in the minds and lives of mainstream society was more or less complete...
"Men and women feel such an urgent need to take occasional trips from reality, that they will do almost anything to procure the means of escape. The only justification for prohibition would be success;but it is not, and in the nature of things, cannot, be successful. The way to prevent people from drinking too much alcohol, or becoming addicts to morphine or cocaine, is to give them an efficient but wholesome substitute for these delicious and (in the present imperfect world) necessary poisons. The man who invents such a substance will be counted among the greatest benefactors of suffering humanity”- from A Treatise on Drugs(1931) by Aldous Huxley
'Too bright for tobacco, too cheap for booze, and too scared for hard drugs? You might just fit the profile of the typical Hyderabad pothead.
Hyderabadis use marijuana for all sorts of reasons: students smoke to fend off the loneliness of hostel life, youngsters loosen up with a joint before going to the pub; software engineers, doctors, bureaucrats and fashion designers, space out career stress with a reefer. Richie Richs have pot parties in outskirt farmhouses that last for days.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/Hot-pot-is-lot-of-smoke/article15381966.ece
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Huxley probably didn't realize then that nature had already created the "efficient but wholesome substitute" thousands of years before..but then this essay was written at the time when the marijuana prohibition lobbying was at its peak in the US and the plant's incarceration in the minds and lives of mainstream society was more or less complete...
"Men and women feel such an urgent need to take occasional trips from reality, that they will do almost anything to procure the means of escape. The only justification for prohibition would be success;but it is not, and in the nature of things, cannot, be successful. The way to prevent people from drinking too much alcohol, or becoming addicts to morphine or cocaine, is to give them an efficient but wholesome substitute for these delicious and (in the present imperfect world) necessary poisons. The man who invents such a substance will be counted among the greatest benefactors of suffering humanity”- from A Treatise on Drugs(1931) by Aldous Huxley
'Too bright for tobacco, too cheap for booze, and too scared for hard drugs? You might just fit the profile of the typical Hyderabad pothead.
Hyderabadis use marijuana for all sorts of reasons: students smoke to fend off the loneliness of hostel life, youngsters loosen up with a joint before going to the pub; software engineers, doctors, bureaucrats and fashion designers, space out career stress with a reefer. Richie Richs have pot parties in outskirt farmhouses that last for days.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/Hot-pot-is-lot-of-smoke/article15381966.ece
'As a habit takes hold, other interests lose importance to the user. Life telescopes down to junk, one fix and looking forward to the next, "stashes" and "scripts," "spikes" and "droppers." The addict himself often feels that he is leading a normal life and that junk is incidental. He does not realize that he is just going through the motions in his non-junk activities. It is not until his supply is cut off that he realizes what junk means to him.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Men have only to understand that what is given out to them as public opinion and is maintained by such complicated, strenuous, and artificial means, is not public opinion but a dead relic of what was once public opinion; they have only, above all, to believe in themselves - in the fact that what they are conscious of in the depths of their souls and what craves expression in each of them and remains unexpressed only because it runs counter to existing social opinion, is that force which transforms that world and to express which is man's vocation - they have only to believe that the truth lies not in what is said by the people around them, but in what is said by their conscience, that is, by God, - and the false and artificially maintained public opinion will instantly vanish and a true public opinion establish itself.
If only people would say what they think and refrain from saying what they do not think, all the superstitions bred by patriotism would fall away at once with all the evil feelings and acts of violence that are based upon them. The hatred and enmity of one country for another that is fanned by the governments would cease, and so would the glorification of warlike exploits, that is, of murder; and above all there would be an end of respect and subservience towards those in power and of the surrender to them of men's labour - for these things have no foundation but patriotism.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'“But the cheapest way to beat the heat is having a drink laced with Bhang or a few strokes of Ganja,” says Rabi Panda. Marijuana is a depressant which works on the central nervous system and relaxes it.
It makes the bhang and Ganja consumers less irritated by the heat. Consumers of these illicit narcotics say it stops sweating, a major irritant during summer.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/Cheap-ways-to-beat-the-heat/article15216637.ece
If only people would say what they think and refrain from saying what they do not think, all the superstitions bred by patriotism would fall away at once with all the evil feelings and acts of violence that are based upon them. The hatred and enmity of one country for another that is fanned by the governments would cease, and so would the glorification of warlike exploits, that is, of murder; and above all there would be an end of respect and subservience towards those in power and of the surrender to them of men's labour - for these things have no foundation but patriotism.'
- Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays
'“But the cheapest way to beat the heat is having a drink laced with Bhang or a few strokes of Ganja,” says Rabi Panda. Marijuana is a depressant which works on the central nervous system and relaxes it.
It makes the bhang and Ganja consumers less irritated by the heat. Consumers of these illicit narcotics say it stops sweating, a major irritant during summer.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/Cheap-ways-to-beat-the-heat/article15216637.ece
'A lot of nonsense has been written about the changes people undergo as they get a habit. All of a sudden the addict looks in the mirror and does not recognise himself. The actual changes are difficult to specify and they do not show up in the mirror. That is, the addict himself has a special blind spot so far as the progress of the habit is concenrned. He generally does not realize that he is getting a habit at all. He says there is no need to get a habit if you are careful and observe a few rules, like shooting every other day. Actually, he does not observe these rules, but every extra shot is regarded as exceptional. I have talked to many addicts and they all say they were surprised when they discovered they actually had the first habit. Many of them attributed their symptoms to some other cause.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Each of these sedative ‘laddus’ costs between Rs. 5 and Rs. 10. Sellers of these ‘laddus’ at times claim that they are ayurvedic medicine for better digestion and relaxation. When contacted, the excise officials have also accepted that some nefarious elements have been illegally manufacturing and marketing the ‘laddus’ laced with powder of marijuana leaves which is also called bhang.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/sale-of-marijuanalaced-laddus-thriving-in-ganjam-district/article4499613.ece
Exercise keeps you in control...that goes for all craving...
'In summary, we found that participation in a supervised moderate exercise program could decrease cannabis use in association with reduced cannabis cue-induced craving in cannabis-dependent young adults who were not seeking treatment. Taken together, the findings of this pilot study suggest that a larger, adequately powered controlled trial is warranted to test the efficacy of moderate exercise as a component of treatment for cannabis dependence under real-world conditions. Such a study should also test the efficacy of a longer exercise program to determine the duration of treatment effects. Additionally, these studies should include a more diverse (age, ethnicity) population of individuals and especially cannabis dependent individuals who are motivated to seek abstinence from cannabis.'
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0017465
'“Previously we had patients of all kinds,” he explained, “but now, it’s everyone. Professionals, blue-collar, all socioeconomic demographics included. We’re seeing everyone: Soccer moms come in at midday, with the older set – what you might think of as the grandparents – and then in the evening there is the [age] 21 to 35 crowd: Asians, African Americans, Latinos, whites, Middle Eastern people – everyone you might think of. We say it’s like french fries: Everyone loves them."'
Ganja - cutting the adult study curriculum down significantly in the age of the information avalanche, helping to focus on what's important and enhancing creativity...
'What gives cannabis “character,” in Holmes’s view, are the hundreds of other chemicals it contains. These include THC’s cousin cannabinoids such as cannabidiol, along with other compounds called terpenes and flavonoids. Whereas terpenes are generally credited with giving pot its varied fragrances—limonene, for example, imparts a snappy, citrusy perfume—the cannabis industry and some researchers have espoused the controversial idea that such compounds can enhance or alter THC’s psychoactive and medicinal properties.'
'Each of these sedative ‘laddus’ costs between Rs. 5 and Rs. 10. Sellers of these ‘laddus’ at times claim that they are ayurvedic medicine for better digestion and relaxation. When contacted, the excise officials have also accepted that some nefarious elements have been illegally manufacturing and marketing the ‘laddus’ laced with powder of marijuana leaves which is also called bhang.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/sale-of-marijuanalaced-laddus-thriving-in-ganjam-district/article4499613.ece
Exercise keeps you in control...that goes for all craving...
'In summary, we found that participation in a supervised moderate exercise program could decrease cannabis use in association with reduced cannabis cue-induced craving in cannabis-dependent young adults who were not seeking treatment. Taken together, the findings of this pilot study suggest that a larger, adequately powered controlled trial is warranted to test the efficacy of moderate exercise as a component of treatment for cannabis dependence under real-world conditions. Such a study should also test the efficacy of a longer exercise program to determine the duration of treatment effects. Additionally, these studies should include a more diverse (age, ethnicity) population of individuals and especially cannabis dependent individuals who are motivated to seek abstinence from cannabis.'
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0017465
'“Previously we had patients of all kinds,” he explained, “but now, it’s everyone. Professionals, blue-collar, all socioeconomic demographics included. We’re seeing everyone: Soccer moms come in at midday, with the older set – what you might think of as the grandparents – and then in the evening there is the [age] 21 to 35 crowd: Asians, African Americans, Latinos, whites, Middle Eastern people – everyone you might think of. We say it’s like french fries: Everyone loves them."'
Ganja - cutting the adult study curriculum down significantly in the age of the information avalanche, helping to focus on what's important and enhancing creativity...
'What gives cannabis “character,” in Holmes’s view, are the hundreds of other chemicals it contains. These include THC’s cousin cannabinoids such as cannabidiol, along with other compounds called terpenes and flavonoids. Whereas terpenes are generally credited with giving pot its varied fragrances—limonene, for example, imparts a snappy, citrusy perfume—the cannabis industry and some researchers have espoused the controversial idea that such compounds can enhance or alter THC’s psychoactive and medicinal properties.'
'Opium is formed in the unripe seed pods of the poppy plant. Its function is to protect the seeds from drying out until the plant is ready to die and the seeds are mature. Junk continues to function in the human organism as it did in the seed pod of the poppy. It protects and cushions the body like a warm blanket while death grows to maturity inside. When a junkie is really loaded with junk he looks dead. Junk turns the user into a plant. Plants do not feel pain since pain has no function in a stationary organism. Junk is a pain killer. A plant has no libido in the human or animal sense. Junk replaces the sex drive. Seeding is the sex of the plant and the function of opium is to delay seeding.
Perhaps the intense discomfort of withdrawal is the transition from plant back to animal, from a painless, sexless, timeless state back to sex and pain and time, from death back to life.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Hong Kong police, it's said, fear local youth might discover the pleasures of grass, and what is currently a minor problem might mushroom. They quickly grabbed the "killer drug" image of cannabis and tied it to Lee as an anti-drug message. Lee's image, of course, suffered for it.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974
'The top expert brought in on the case was Professor R D Teare, the professor of forensic medicine at the University of London. He ridiculed the theory that cannabis contributed to the collapse the actor suffered on May 10 or to his death on July 20. He said cannabis had been taken in various forms for centuries, and deemed it pure coincidence that shortly before the onset of Lee's collapse in May and his death he had taken cannabis. "It would be irresponsible and irrational to ascribe the causes of death to cannabis sensitivity, if over the years there had been no previous record of such a happening," the professor stated. Professor Teare said that his opinion was that the cause of death was acute cerebral edema (brain swelling) due to hypersensitvity to either meprobamate or aspirin, or possibly the combination of the two, contained in the drug Equagesic.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974
'Junk is a cellular equation that teaches the user facts of general validity. I have learned a great deal from using junk: I have seen life measured out in eyedroppers of morphine solution. I experienced the agonizing deprivation of junk sickness, and the pleasure of relief when junk-thirsty cells drank from the needle. Perhaps all pleasure is relief. I have learned the cellular stoicism that junk teaches the user. I have seen a cell full of sick junkies silent and immobile in separate misery. They knew the pointlessness of complaining or moving. They knew that basically no one can help anyone else. There is no key, no secret someone else has that he can give you.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, the the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experienced a strong feeling of fear. I had the feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving, as I turned my head, so that I quite never saw it. I felt nauseous. I lay down and closed my eyes. A series of pictures passed, like watching a movie. A huge, neon-lighted cocktail bar that got larger and larger until streets, traffic, and street repairs were included in it; a waitress carrying a skull on a tray; stars in a clear sky. The physical impact of the fear of death; the shutting off of breath; the stopping of blood.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'The top expert brought in on the case was Professor R D Teare, the professor of forensic medicine at the University of London. He ridiculed the theory that cannabis contributed to the collapse the actor suffered on May 10 or to his death on July 20. He said cannabis had been taken in various forms for centuries, and deemed it pure coincidence that shortly before the onset of Lee's collapse in May and his death he had taken cannabis. "It would be irresponsible and irrational to ascribe the causes of death to cannabis sensitivity, if over the years there had been no previous record of such a happening," the professor stated. Professor Teare said that his opinion was that the cause of death was acute cerebral edema (brain swelling) due to hypersensitvity to either meprobamate or aspirin, or possibly the combination of the two, contained in the drug Equagesic.' - The Legend of Bruce Lee by Alex Ben Block, 1974
'Junk is a cellular equation that teaches the user facts of general validity. I have learned a great deal from using junk: I have seen life measured out in eyedroppers of morphine solution. I experienced the agonizing deprivation of junk sickness, and the pleasure of relief when junk-thirsty cells drank from the needle. Perhaps all pleasure is relief. I have learned the cellular stoicism that junk teaches the user. I have seen a cell full of sick junkies silent and immobile in separate misery. They knew the pointlessness of complaining or moving. They knew that basically no one can help anyone else. There is no key, no secret someone else has that he can give you.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'I have learned the junk equation. Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, the the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experienced a strong feeling of fear. I had the feeling that some horrible image was just beyond the field of vision, moving, as I turned my head, so that I quite never saw it. I felt nauseous. I lay down and closed my eyes. A series of pictures passed, like watching a movie. A huge, neon-lighted cocktail bar that got larger and larger until streets, traffic, and street repairs were included in it; a waitress carrying a skull on a tray; stars in a clear sky. The physical impact of the fear of death; the shutting off of breath; the stopping of blood.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
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