[ www.TruthAboutRave.com ]

Marijuana apparently helps some people in non-linear or abstract thinking, so thats probably why you might be able to play chess better stoned. Personally, I have never experienced enhanced thoughts on weed, which is why I consider it a pretty useless drug (at least for me).

But try any kind of work that requires more focused thinking, like reading an essay, solving math problems, or (as scotty p mentioned) doing technical music work, and you'll defintely notice a fairly substantial amount of impairment.

thats most def not kosher. bahahhaha

yo ian hook a brothah up with some of that gasoline shiznat

So, this weekend I'm planning on trying a mushroom + nitrous oxide combo, which I've heard great things about. And nitrous oxide is an unscheduled substance, found in wipped cream chargers, so I think it'll be easy to find, right?

I spend a full HOUR wandering Alexis Nihon mall looking for N2O. First Zellers. Then Canadian Tire. Then back to Zellers. Then to some other random stores. Nothing. A typical exchange with a store clerk went as follows:

ME: Do you have wipped cream chargers?

CLERK: *blank stare*

ME: Ya, you know, wipped cream chargers. The things you charge wipped cream with? Like the gas? I'm attempting to charge my wipped cream. Or something? *trying to make is seem perfectly ordaniry and everyday purchase like*

CLERK: ahhh..*in french accent* I'm not sure

so on I go to another clerk. same story. all dead ends.

anyone have any advice on where I should look?

Drugs are Cool, You May Not Be

by James Kent


Is it logical to blame a drug for the stupidity of humans, or do drugs continue to get a bad rap simply because of the assholes who use them? James Kent takes a look at what it means to be cool, and how drugs fit seamlessly into that definition.

..............

I'M SICK SICK SICK of all the propaganda and I can't take it anymore. Something must be said. Self-serving politicians and their hog-tied corporate conspirators have done a foul injustice to the reputation of one of the finest pleasures humans can experience: Drugs. Yes I'm talking about drugs, those vilified, demon-seed, baby-killing, life-thieving bastards that loom over our collective consciousness like Satan, Cancer, and the Grim Reaper himself. The 'powers that be' would have you believe that drugs are bad Bad BAD, not to be seen, heard, touched, or even talked about lest you succumb to their evil ways. They will take you down! They will ruin your life! Just look at what they did to poor Robert Downey Jr., he's on Ally McBeal now!

We poke fun, but in a way they are right: Drugs are bad. Anyone remember Shannon Hoon? Okay, bad example. Anyone remember River Phoenix? Of course you remember River Phoenix. And why? Because River Phoenix was cool (and for those of you who think Shannon Hoon was cool we remember him fondly as that tripped-out dude in the dancing bee-girl video). River Phoenix was cool but the drugs that killed him were bad bad BAD! They're evil! They ruin lives! They're... Wait a minute. Is it the drugs that were bad, or was it River Phoenix who was bad? Did drugs overdose themselves on Sunset Boulevard (or in the back of a tour bus)? Did drugs stumble into the wrong house and fall asleep on a stranger's bed? Of course not. People did those things. Sure, you can blame drugs for these pop-star travesties, but last time I checked drugs don't take themselves. In order to be effective drugs must be taken by someone, and unfortunately the people taking drugs are sometimes assholes.

Are you following me here?

Now I know what you're thinking, how can I imply that drugs are cool when they kill people? Well what if I said Porche Roadsters were cool, would you agree? It doesn't matter because Porsche Roadsters are cool, everyone knows that. Just because assholes like James Dean lose control and splatter themselves all over a highway doesn't mean we should all be denied the luxury of driving such a fine high-performance automobile. The same thing goes for drugs. The vast majority of people who use drugs are cool, and they use drugs because drugs are cool. Anyone who says drugs are not cool only does so because: a) they're lying; b) they haven't done drugs themselves; or c) (and most importantly) they are not cool themselves. I can't stress this last point enough. The first two reasons, as heinous and ignorant as they may seem, are at least somewhat forgivable. But for someone who is most decidedly not cool to bad-mouth the things that are cool, well that's just morally reprehensible. If someone says drugs are 'not cool' then they don't understand what 'cool' is in the first place. They probably think Republicans are cool too.

So how do we know for sure that drugs are cool? First of all they make you feel cool, so that's a good indicator right there. Secondly, drugs often give people cool thoughts and inspire people to create cool things. There must be some kind of connection there, right? Also, the way drugs work is cool — they are like little electro-chemical filters for altering your mood, perception, and consciousness. They open your range of feeling and emotion, and let you experience new levels of human existence in the comfort of your own home. They can deliver insight and euphoria, and will take you through tours of wondrous heavens and unimaginable hells. Now you have to admit, that's pretty damn cool.

Secondly, we must also consider the essence and origins of 'cool'. As a little experiment, please take a moment to picture in your mind cool people, cool works of art or music, or any social events that define 'cool' (and if you say 'Fonzie' I will slap you). After you have done that, expand your search to include everything you would call groovy, funky, ill, fresh, dope, down, def, or phat (if it is also 'chillin' or 'da bomb' you get bonus points). Now consider these cultural icons that you've just conjured for yourself — these avatars of cool — and tell me, do they have anything in common? Is it drugs? Well I'm shocked.

I'm not sure anyone knows precisely why drugs are cool, but they are. I'm inclined to blame Jazz — the birth of cool — and the fact that most (if not all) early Jazz musicians were notorious for being high on a lot more than 'the Jazz'. But that's just the point, drugs are intimately entwined with the creation of cool. Maybe cool people are just drawn to drugs, or maybe drugs help people get in touch with their inner cool. Either way, drugs were and are instrumental in the artistic evolution of the Blues, Jazz, Rock & Roll, Disco, Hip-Hop, House, and whatever the next cool movement will be. Whenever there's a new cultural explosion you can be pretty sure that drugs are the hidden cool culprits behind the scenes. They are like coolness divining rods, magical radioactive enablers of cool...

Admittedly, there has always been a certain danger to coolness, a kind of anti-establishment bad-boy mystique that typifies the essence of cool. Living on the wild side is pretty much a prerequisite for being cool. Being able to break social boundaries while maintaining the style and attitude to get away with it is almost the very definition of cool. So how can drugs not fit into that picture? They are a perfect match for the cool lifestyle. If you're looking for a senseless act of social rebellion what could be easier than taking drugs? Most cool people will just naturally wind up experimenting with drugs at some point in their life, it is inevitable. If you are cool then other cool people will seek you out and want to do drugs with you. It is a fact. The only question is, will you continue to be cool or will you become an asshole?

The major problem with drugs being so cool is that a lot of uncool people are attracted to them, even assholes. Yes, drugs seem to attract obnoxious, angry, annoying, lonely, depressed, self-indulgent, self-obsessed losers that desperately want to be cool at any price. These are the kind of users that take drugs — any drug — for the sole purpose of being cool, yet often only become more of an asshole. This is the type of individual most people envision when they think of a problem drug users — strung out, sketchy, alienated, creepy, always looking to 'score'... And then there are assholes who become dealers not to spread the cool vibes, but because they want to be all gangsta' and shit. They think hustling automatically makes them cool, but it's just the opposite. They become just another asshole trying to cash in on a jones. Here's a tip: Avoid these people at all costs! They are NOT COOL, they are trouble. They give drugs a bad name. They are assholes. Even if you happen to be standing near one you may become an asshole by sheer association.

And now for some Q & A

Can a drug-free person be cool?

Yes they can, but it is rare. Drug-free people are (on average) just a little too bland, uptight, or religious to be called cool. Either that or they're total hardcore straight-edgers. There's no in-between. There are many drug-free people who are perfectly nice, smart, talented, kind, good-hearted, fun, quirky, etc., but calling them cool would be a stretch. The exception to this rule is people who are drug-free/recovering or people who consciously choose to be sober and opt for radical non-chemical drug substitutes like rebellious music, extreme sports, tattoos, piercing, and/or trepanation.

Will taking drugs make me cool?

No. Unfortunately drugs do not work for everyone, and there is no guarantee that drugs will work for you. There may be insurmountable personal defects which will always keep you from becoming cool no matter how hard you try or how many drugs you take. If this is the case you must simply accept the fact that you are uncool and go with it into full anti-cool, or severely risk moving straight past cool into deep asshole territory.

Can someone be cool and an asshole at the same time?

No, they cannot. You can be many things in life — sweet, boring, laid-back, average, flakey, annoying, hard-ass, harmless — but it is impossible to be both cool and an asshole at the same time (except maybe for the Jack Nicholson exception). Cool and asshole exist at complete opposite ends of the personality spectrum. You can, however, be cool your entire life and then suddenly, tragically, turn into an asshole almost instantaneously. Unfortunately the opposite rarely happens.

How can I tell the cool people from the assholes?

Okay, here are a few pointers: Cool people don't piss themselves in public; Cool people don't recklessly endanger the lives of others; Cool people don't get wasted and vent their aggression on strangers and/or loved ones; Cool people don't lie, steal, or degrade themselves to feed their addiction; Cool people don't lead high-speed police chases; Cool people don't get strung out and let drugs consume their lives; Cool people don't collapse on the pavement from their own excess; and most importantly, cool people don't ever, ever choke on their own vomit.

Are all drugs cool?

Yes, but some drugs are far more dangerous and addictive than others. Find out for yourself which drugs are safe and which are risky before diving in, and always be cautious when trying a new drug. A powerful drug (like heroin) in the hands of an asshole is an accident waiting to happen, so make sure you have the facts and know what to expect before doing something you may regret.

Is being cool as cool as people say it is?

No. Just like everything else in life coolness is highly overrated. If your sole goal in life is to be cool then you can be fairly sure that you are uncool and may even be an asshole. Coolness is not a goal or an ambition, and you can't practice being cool. Coolness is a state of mind. You are either cool or you're not, and doing drugs just to be cool very rarely works. Most likely you'll end up an asshole.

I'm cool, will I like drugs?

Undoubtedly. Find some cool people to do them with and you'll be in the pink. Make sure you can trust the people you are with, and don't be in a hurry to try too much all at once. Remember, cool people will never pressure you to do something you don't want to, so keep a close eye out for the assholes — they're everywhere.

This guy is GOD. No, wait a minute, god aint got SHIT on this guy. You wanna know why? then read the article!

[ www.maps.org ]

haha those pics RULE!

And its a good thing too. You never know how far the U.S. government will go to shut down raves. Iz like, you can blast us with you mega bomb thing whatever but the party will go on!

if I ever did invent a style, i'd WANT people to copy it. isn't that the point?

I dunno..seems like a crass Hollywood attempt to cash in on the success of the LOTR trilogy by appealing to the same audience.

I see where you are going with this, but I don't totally agree. Marijuana, like all drugs, has side effects that may not neccesarily manifest themselves in all users, but affect some more than others. Paranoia is defintely one of the side effects of marijuana, but one that affects a minority of users: most people don't get paranoid ever, some get paranoid after repeated use, and a few people get paranoid no matter how little or infrequently they smoke. Every person reacts differently to a given substance, but enough people have reported paranoia on marijuana that its probably not a case of "they were all paranoid to being with". Personally, I've never got paranoid on weed, but know of several people who have.



I wouldn't suggest that marijuana neccesarily makes most people less productive overall, but I think the case can be made that at least while under the primary influence of weed (say, up till 2 hours after smoking) it becomes more difficult to perform mentally challenging work. Of course thats not neccesarily a bad thing, as long as theres no need to do any work in that time. When I choose to smoke, I know that theres no point in trying to work for the next 2-3 hours at least, so I only will smoke if I have no need to do any work in that timeframe - which isn't really any different than deciding to see a movie or do something else for fun in that timeframe.

the expression on matt's face is absolutely priceless

sooo cute...

.

A great party. I loved the location, as its always nice to have a sorta seperate chill area, even though I spent most of the night on the dance floor

I had the priviledge to be surrounded by a really great group of people...some of whom I hadn't seen for awhile, and wish I'd see more of, and others that I look forward to seeing at every party =)

The musical highlight for me was Endo's mix of the requiem for a dream theme..but I enjoyed nearly all the sets played that night.

On a personal note, this party was one of the few times in recent months that I went sober yet had an incredible amount of energy from start to finish..pure natural adrenaline rush all the way through..and this I attribute to the fact that this party was awesome!

The consensus on salvia is that there is no consensus. Many try salvia and experience little or no effects, and subsequently loose interest in the plant. Others "break through" and experience effects said to rival n,n-DMT in their intensity, often abandoning use of salvia due to its fearful power.

My first experiment with salvia occurred yesterday. I smoked about 0.1g of 10x extract out of a regular pipe, and immediately lay down on a mattress bracing myself for whatever might happen next. Disapointingly, I felt nothing more than a mild +1 on the Shulgin scale, a feeling quite comparable to being high on weed. I smoked another 0.1g soon after, and again nothing more than a feeling of being heavily stoned, with a slight dissociated effect. Listening to music was enhanced, but nothing spectuacular.

My friend, on the other hand, experienced far more profound effects than I had. While I cannot speak for his subjective experience, he defintely appeared to be in a severely altered/dissociated state for a good 10-15 minutes after smoking the extract. It was not his first time with salvia.

I still have not given up on salvia, and I have about 0.7g of the extract to continue to experiment with. Hopefully I will have something more interesting to contribute to this topic after my next experience.

what salvia will show me tonight...

chelsea was such a cute candykid!

And I was so naive to once beleive that education was the path to a fulfilling career..and after all its all about WHOZ YO' DaDDy

Actually, paranoia is a frequent side effect of pot for people who abuse it.

I'd still consider pot to be a "soft drug" at least relative to most other drugs, but its still not something I'd like to become dependent on or use every day. But its the only drug I feel comfortable using once or more every week, for example.

Yea, my brother is in a program with a similiar concept - for 7 weeks its all hardcore wilderness camping, no hot showers or oher such modern luxuries. Frankly, I doubt it will have any lasting effect - sure you may appreciate a comfortable mattress for the first week after, but once you become re-accustomed to modern luxuries, you will take them for granted once again.

I think the lesson is that you shouldn't sign into any program without first becoming aware of its nature, and what (if any) civil rights you maintain. Of course there is always the option of do-it-yourself detox:

[ www.erowid.org ]

After hearing so much about this movie, I finally went to go see it - and was really impressed.

"Les Invasions.." is a profound, deeply philosophical film concerning a radical Quebecois intellectual who is nearing his death. Stuck in an overcroweded hospital ward, the dying man begins to ponder his life's shortcomings, and face his inevitable demise.

If this makes it sound like a sad, depessing film, it is in some sense - but it also is a celebration of the joys of living: the company of friends, sexuality, and human relationships.

Its also a political movie, and one of the more interesting themes it explores is the way in which our society treats the dying. In the film, the wealthy son of the dying father comes to his rescue, whisking him from the chaotic hospital to a beatiful lakeside cottage, and procuring heroin for his father to ease the transition to death.

I found this a very moving and wonderful film, and recommend it :)

i hate genevieve cuz even when she's passed out and slobering she's still undeniably cute. How does she do it??

Neither of those terms returned any responces on Google, so I'm assuming the spelling is wrong.

Today is different: You're speaking to a psychiatrist—not in a sterile, fluorescent-lit hospital, but in a residential office on a peaceful, tree-lined street. You suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and you've talked for hours in this very room, but always skipping the violent chapter that keeps you up at night, giving you flashbacks and causing you to feel estranged from your loved ones. Now an emergency room doctor and nurse are stationed inside the house. You've brought an overnight bag. Today, you've been given 125 milligrams of Ecstasy, and maybe, just maybe, you'll finally be able to face your demons.

On February 24, the DEA issued Dr. Michael Mithoefer a Schedule I license to legally obtain Ecstasy for a study of its potential therapeutic effects in the treatment of PTSD. Researchers hope that the drug, which melts anxiety, will help PTSD patients talk openly about the experiences that scarred them. It is the first study of Ecstasy-enhanced psychotherapy ever green-lighted in the United States, one that's been in the making for almost two decades. "There's been so much struggle over this approval process," says Rick Doblin, director of MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the organization sponsoring the research.

Doblin's group stands to create a new landscape for Ecstasy, which has been at the center of the nation's war on drugs. The old one—with its hidden agendas, career-obsessed scientists, powerful patrons, and switched pills—has only recently been scorched. It all began in September, when the journal Science published a retraction from a group of Johns Hopkins scientists who'd discovered that a bottle they thought contained Ecstasy was in fact filled with methamphetamine, commonly known as speed. The mix-up corrupted the results of a study, published in Science in September 2002, which found that a single, recreational dose of Ecstasy was so damaging it could lead to Parkinson's disease. Another study, published in the European Journal of Pharmacology, would also be recalled.

The British journal Nature promptly published an editorial dubbing the incident "one of the more bizarre episodes in the history of drug research." Colin Blakemore, head of the U.K.'s Medical Research Council (the British equivalent of the National Institutes of Health), demanded that an independent inquiry be conducted into the affair. And The New York Times' Donald G. McNeil Jr. wrote a scathing indictment of the study's lead scientist, George Ricaurte, alleging "a pattern of shaky research supporting alarmist press releases."

Ricaurte did not respond to repeated messages left on his voice mail at Johns Hopkins or to an official request through Johns Hopkins representatives, but he has long been dismissive of his work's critics. In 2001, he told the Voice, "Everyone in the field has accepted [MDMA] is a neurotoxin. I think those [dissenting] arguments have to be put in perspective." It is this unyielding conviction that has been the hallmark of Ricaurte's career as the nation's foremost Ecstasy researcher.

But critics say the science has been less than convincing. Ecstasy promotes strong feelings of empathy by flooding the brain with serotonin, a feel-good neurotransmitter manipulated by drugs like Prozac. Once the high wears off, users register markedly depleted serotonin levels for about two weeks. What is not known—and thus is hotly debated—is whether these changes presage permanent brain damage.

That debate seemed settled when Science issued a press release in September 2002 announcing the devastating results of Ricaurte's study: After taking doses of Ecstasy akin to what teens might take at a rave, 60 to 80 percent of dopamine-related neurons in the test monkeys' brains were destroyed. The release was picked up in headlines around the globe. But some of those who got around to reading the actual study say what they found troubled them.

"The press release deliberately misrepresented the data," says Colin Blakemore. "There was no evidence of the 60 to 80 percent cell-death claim." There were other red flags: 20 percent of the monkeys had died; another 20 percent had gotten so sick they had to be withdrawn. Yet there simply aren't thousands of people dying from Ecstasy every weekend. Then there was the problem that the drugs were injected—not administered orally as suggested in the paper's introduction.

"The more I looked at it, the more I felt there was an agenda," says Blakemore, who immediately fired off a letter to Science editor in chief Donald Kennedy, complaining of "flaws so radical, so deep, they would have been picked up by any referee." But Science maintains it did everything right. "This study was peer-reviewed according to the same rigorous system used in all articles published in Science," says Ginger Pinholster, spokesperson for the Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes the journal. According to Pinholster, the prompt retraction proved that "science is self-correcting."

Public policy, however, is not so mutable. Weeks after the botched study was published, its conclusions were repeatedly invoked by witnesses at a House subcommittee hearing on the Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act (RAVE Act). The bill was quietly passed last April as the slightly reworded Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act. Aimed at quelling club drugs like Ecstasy and GHB, the law permits the prosecution of venue owners and club promoters for drug use on their premises. Only a month after it became law, it was used by a federal agent to shut down a benefit for Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And last weekend, it was used to shutter the Sound Factory nightclub in Manhattan.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


As easy as it is to paint Ricaurte as a rogue scientist motivated by ambition, the scientific establishment and its patrons also played key roles in the wider scandal, from merely ignoring critical flaws to blatantly promoting problematic studies. Alan Leshner, publisher of Science and former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), has come under fire for endorsing the botched study at its time of publication. "It isn't clear why an officer of the AAAS should be involved at all in publicly promoting a particular result published in its journal, least of all one whose outcome was questioned at the outset by several experts," wrote Nature. Pinholster says she called upon her boss "to serve as an expert source as a service to reporters," adding, "There was no conspiracy." Leshner declined to be interviewed.

Leshner has long railed against the dangers of Ecstasy. In 2001, when he was director of NIDA, he told the Voice, "We've known since the late '80s that MDMA can damage serotonin neurons, and if you give enough of it, they're blown away."

Rick Doblin, on the eve of his own study, says the payoffs for such shoddy science have been immense. "Leshner was willing to exaggerate findings to pander to politicians for money," he says. Leshner did help NIDA bring home the bacon: NIDA's budget for Ecstasy research has more than quadrupled over the past five years, from $3.4 million to $15.8 million; the agency funds 85 percent of the world's drug-abuse research. In 2001, Leshner testified before a Senate subcommittee on "Ecstasy Abuse and Control"; critics say Leshner manipulated brain scans from a 2000 study by Dr. Linda Chang showing no difference between Ecstasy users and control subjects. But NIDA insists it's independent from political pressures. "We don't set policy; we don't create laws," says Beverly Jackson, the agency's spokesperson.

NIDA wasn't the only benefactor of Ricaurte and wife Una McCann's research. "George and Una are cash cows for Johns Hopkins," says Doblin, who points out that every time a scientist receives a grant, money indirectly goes to the affiliated institution. While both NIDA and The New York Times have clocked Ricaurte's NIDA grant money at around $10 million, Doblin believes that's a low-ball figure. "Just this one study was $1.3 million, and he has done loads and loads of them." Johns Hopkins spokesperson Gary Stevenson declined comment beyond the official statement.

Another consequence of the retracted study and other discredited NIDA-funded findings is that they've helped obstruct legitimate research into the possible medical benefits of Ecstasy. Doblin believes Ricaurte and others are threatened by such research because it doesn't square with their drug-war agenda. In the past, Leshner has balked at those accusations. "It frankly bugs me," he told the Voice in 2001. "It's easy to say that the government isn't approving studies because they're politically incorrect. The government may say yes."

´ Now that the government—more specifically, the FDA—has indeed said yes, Doblin's research into the benefits of Ecstasy in treating post-traumatic stress disorder is under way. The $300,000 MAPS project, which is funded by private individuals and family foundations, has had some major setbacks since it initially received FDA approval in November 2001. The study was to have been conducted at the Medical University of South Carolina before that institution backed out; it will now be held in a private doctor's office. While Doblin believes the program would have gotten off the ground without Ricaurte's retraction, he says it's made all the players, including the institutional review board and insurance company, "feel a lot more comfortable."

A study under way in Spain examining the potential therapeutic effects of Ecstasy in rape victims hasn't fared as well. The Madrid Anti-Drug Authority pressured the sponsoring hospital to shut the study down in May 2002. Doblin largely blames Ricaurte for the mounting difficulties the research team has faced since then: Ricaurte, who was born in Ecuador, is fluent in Spanish, and gave four talks in Spain presenting his bungled findings.

As for the Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, Margaret Aitken, press secretary for Senator Joseph Biden, who sponsored the bill, said, "Senator Biden will not change his position based on this one [retracted] study." A Senate aide also confirmed the legislation would not be revisited, and that there's "no official process to go back and correct the record."

Blakemore, meanwhile, is still calling for a "full and open discussion" from Science, including the disclosure of the paper's referee reports. "If the referees didn't spot what I noticed right away, then what does that say about the quality of [Science's] referees?" asks Blakemore. "And if the referees did make negative comments [that went unheeded], what does that say about Science?" At press time, Blakemore and Leslie Iversen, an Oxford University pharmacologist, were drafting a letter that Don Kennedy has promised to publish in Science. That journal, NIDA, and Johns Hopkins insist there's been no evidence of foul play; no investigations were being conducted at any of these institutions at press time.

In the end, the ones most negatively affected by the studies may be those they purport to help. "I'm very concerned about drug use, but the way to tackle it is not to misrepresent scientific evidence," says Blakemore. "What's going to be the impact of these studies? Young people won't believe anything they read."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ecstasy Factor
Bad Science Slandered a Generation's Favorite Drug. Now a New Study Aims to Undo the Damage.
by Carla Spartos, Village Voice
March 10 - 16, 2004

shhhhh sharon you weren't supposed to tell it was us!!

BAHAHA making clothes out of grocery vouchers?! that would be like ghetto mama on crack steez

yeah you never really know what kinda meat your getting in a hot dog these days

Medical grade Ketalar (ketamine hydrochloride) available online!! like wtf

[ www.canadadrugstop.com ]

I don't suppose anyone has a script lying around for K, now do you?

really!? I thought it went like: Toronto, then more suburbs, then more suburbs, then Montreal. Where the hell does Nottowa fit into all of this?

heyyyy thats not ghetto, thats for the sake of science! its all about gettin paid to take weird-sketchy ass drugs on the weekdays..and then spending the money to consume weird-sketchy ass drugs on the weekends!

ALL for the sake of science, of course! *looks around*

pure GOLD.

Thanks for sharing that, and what you wrote really does seem to fit in with the article's theory of repression (in your case, using heroin to repress feelings of stress and being overwhelmed by life). It really does seem like heroin is a "consciousness-narrowing" drug, as it submerges conscious feelings (of stress, care for others, empathy, and so forth) into the subconscious. This is the opposite effect of psychedelics, which cause unconscious feelings to surface. Assuming this is true, it would make sense that those who are currently using heroin would not be inclined to use [ psychedelics...ca ] anyone verify or dispute this last suggestion?

That's a really insightful point, and I'm inclined to agree with you. Many of my high dose trips have resulted in some difficult periods involving the surfacing of subcouncious fears, which then provided me an oppurtunity to confront and overcome these fears.

P-Candy's note - The fascinating hypothesis contained in this article is that heroin use is caused by a desire to suppress painful memories and experiences. Particularly interesting is the author's contention that heorin reinforces the "gating" between the concious and unconscious mind - the opposite effect of psychedelics. Its a long read, but not particularly difficult to understand, and I highly recommend it if you or someone you are close to is currently using heroin.

And now, the article...

I hope this short piece about how repression occurs and the kinds of strategies our subconscious mind utilises to deal with it may shed fresh light on addiction issues.

Heroin, known medically as diamorphine, is in essence little more than an extremely powerful painkiller. The essential effect of heroin, like that of any opiate, is to render pain subconscious. To repress that which is causing us to experience negative thoughts, feelings or emotions. A person using heroin, therefore, is not engaging in self-indulgent behaviour, merely seeking to keep pain repressed.

Taking heroin is not a foolish action. It is not a stupid thing to do. It is a quite natural 'coping strategy' many people adopt to help them maintain a reasonably stable emotional state in the face of adverse conditions.

The use of 'coping strategies' is widespread in our society, and drug use is merely one example. Virtually everybody reading this, regardless of whether they use drugs or not, will be using coping strategies of one form or another on a daily basis. This happens because, in the typical Western childhood, we are all exposed to high levels of parental 'conditioning' - the restriction of our natural desire for personal freedom of expression by our parents or other adults charged with our care. This typically takes place via our parents only giving us affection when our behaviour is deemed 'good'. And having this affection withdrawn when our behaviour is deemed 'bad'. Parents typically condition their children because the overwhelming majority of cultural influences they're exposed to tell them it must be done or their children will not grow up to be 'civilised human beings'.

If we look a little deeper at what conditioning is, and what happens when it is applied to us, we will begin to understand the true reasons why so many people become drawn to heroin use. Conditioning takes place via the process of us being repeatedly compelled to block natural behaviour patterns. Conditioning is what happens to us whenever our parents, teachers or society compel us to behave in a way that is not natural to us, be it for our own good of otherwise. And conditioning can take place because of a primitive defence mechanism we all rely on when we are children - the repression response.

At the age of about 10 weeks the foetus begins to become aware of its environment. And it simultaneously develops a basic mechanism to protect itself from potentially damaging events in its new world. This mechanism is the repression response. Everything that is occurring around us is constantly being monitored by our subconscious mind, below the level of our conscious awareness. When something happens that the subconscious mind believes may be harmful to us, it activates the repression response. This response blocks our full awareness of the event and further suppresses the expression of any pain which may be associated with it. We therefore do not fully experience what it was that happened and do not express fully any accompanying pain.

The intention of the subconscious mind is to block our awareness of the event until such time as it is safe for us to experience what it was that happened and express the pain associated. To ensure that our conscious mind, as we go about our daily life, does not accidentally come across the block of memory and unexpressed pain, it covers it over with layers of fear. By doing this, our subconscious mind ensures that should our conscious mind experience anything that symbolically reminds it of the painful memory, it suddenly experiences fear, and quickly moves away.

Growing up therefore, naturally experiencing events which our young mind cannot yet comprehend and so feels slightly threatened by, the repression response will often be activated. This results in the storing up of a lot of these blocks of memory and pain, all covered over with fear to ensure we don't accidentally uncover them.

The repression response remains available to us throughout our lives. But, as we progress through childhood, so we naturally develop an improved system known as the grieving process. The term 'grieving process' does not apply solely to dealing with the death of a loved one, but to any event that has a negative effect upon us. The process of grieving a painful event runs through several distinct stages and allows the body to re-balance itself at an emotional level and thus soon return to life much as before. It does not involve the storing away of lots of little blocks of pain and memory. And the grieving process proceeds naturally as soon as we become aware of what it is that has happened and express the pain associated.

So growing up, we can release ourselves from the past if we progressively become aware of what it is that has happened to us, and liberate the repressed blocks of memory and pain inside, thus initiating the grieving process. It is a good idea that we do this, for if we do not then the blocks of memory and pain will mount up and anytime we consciously experience something that symbolically relates to one of the repressed memories we will experience fear.

And if we do not take steps to clear out our subconscious mind then so, pretty soon, our life will become increasingly stressful. If bad events have happened in our past, even minor things, so we will soon begin to experience high levels of stress as our mind constantly experiences the little warning bursts of fear that occur whenever it encounters something that in any way symbolically reminds our subconscious of a repressed memory. When this starts to happen, we will find that whole areas of natural thinking and behaviour become painful to us, and so we learn to avoid them. Learning subconsciously to make changes in our natural patterns of thinking and behaviour is called adopting coping strategies.

Back to conditioning. The process of 'conditioning' children; compelling them to divert from their natural behaviour pattern, for whatever reason; when it first occurs will cause the initiation of the repression response. The child develops a little block of memory and pain surrounded by fear. The conditioning action could be anything. Perhaps the infant reaching out for food because it is hungry and having it's hand gently slapped. The little block will be reinforced the first few times the action of conditioning occurs. And then the child will learn. It will learn that if it wishes to avoid the feeling of fear that now happens when it thinks of eating when its parents do not wish it to eat, it must adopt the changes in behaviour the conditioning is intended to induce. But, in doing so, the memory and pain that is associated with the original experience of the conditioning remains repressed. It remains hidden away surrounded by fear in the subconscious mind.

The degree to which we have to repress depends on not only the amount of conditioning we experience. But also on the kind of conditioning. The more painful the memory - the more it deviates from what our instinct tells us should be occurring - the deeper the repression needed to keep it down. And, if all the accumulating fear and pain repressed in the mind is not cleared out, then the child as he or she grows up will be subconsciously drawn to using coping strategies.

If we look around us, we will see that virtually everyone is using coping strategies of some form or another. Some are socially recognised as being such, others are simply regarded as being part of so-called 'normal behaviour'. I'll describe a few.

- the use of distractive thinking or behaviour - the frequent experiencing of a sudden need to change the subject or do something else in certain not obviously threatening situations;

- the retreat into a primarily left-brain lifestyle - the world of feelings is more accessible from the right-brain, so if feelings become painful to us then the world of logic and order seems very attractive. Many people in science and similar areas have moved into their chosen field not because it truly interests them, but because the orderly world it represented was comforting terrain.

- the adoption of antisocial or criminal behaviour - a person who experiences little real love from their parents may subconsciously insulate themselves from the memory of this with the fear that they cannot be loved, that they are simply innately unlovable. This is the deepest and darkest fear the human mind can carry and because it is so terrible, it will always be held subconsciously - away from our waking awareness. To escape from this terrifying subconscious fear, an individual will frequently attempt to prove to themselves and those around them that they are 'bad'. For if they are 'bad' then this was the reason they did not receive love, not because they are unlovable. This is the true root of much criminal and delinquent behaviour.

- acting out - the compulsion to symbolically recreate repressed early situations and attempt to alter the outcome. One common example being the girl whose father never showed her affection finding herself later attracted only to uncaring men who she attempts to get to love her;

- co-dependency - the seeking out of a partner who can symbolically satisfy the unmet and unrecognised needs of childhood. Our mind will store the deviation between what its instincts tell us should be happening in our young life and what actually happened. And this will form a powerful drive within the subconscious, dictating much behaviour;

- the devout belief in the Christian God - believing in an entity who refuses to prove He loves you but simply demands total faith can prove compelling to someone who did not experience the unconditional love of their parents they were biologically preconditioned to expect. If such a person can believe that it is normal for unconditional love not to be expressed, but to later manifest with faith then the deviation between what was expected and what was experienced will cease to cause deep pain;

- the craving for fame - very frequently it will be seen that a person who has not had a natural need fulfilled through childhood conditioning - usually the need to experience unconditional love and freedom of expression - will quickly learn not to seek the fulfilment of this need directly, for fear of the pain it knows will result if it is again refused. Instead, they will learn to seek mere symbols of the need. Thus, those who did not experience unconditional love from their parents will naturally develop a deep subconscious desire for fame, for the adoration that fame represents symbolises the love that they truly crave.

- the craving for material wealth or possessions - being wealthy may represent being insulated from the effects of painful events of the past. Furthermore, our parents frequently give us things when they are pleased with us and wish to demonstrate affection, and we thus subconsciously associate material possessions with being loved;

- the craving for personal power - if we found our natural attempts to express ourselves overly restricted by our parents, acquiring personal power and establishing boundaries in relationships will naturally become very important to us;

This is just a brief selection of some typical coping strategies. There are many others. It's important to remember that there is nothing wrong with any of the above behaviour. It is all quite natural, and simply occurs because as children we have been subjected to conditioning, an unnatural infringement on our innate desire for self-expression; and furthermore denied easy access to any strategy that can open up the subconscious mind and liberate the repressed material within. The other thing worth noting is that not one of the persons described above has any conscious awareness of what it is that is truly motivating their behaviour or thinking. Everything is being run at a subconscious level.

And now, heroin. The key to understanding heroin use is to realise that heroin is a drug that reinforces repression. The system that our mind actually uses to repress material is known to neurologists and psychologists as 'gating'. The better we can 'gate' the better we can hold material in the subconscious, away from our conscious awareness of it.

If we imagine that we are our conscious mind and that a zoo full of wild animals is our subconscious, then 'the gates' are the bars of the cages that keep the animals from scaring us. If the gates weaken then repressed material will begin to enter into our awareness where it will become projected onto the situations we encounter and cause us anxiety.

Our gating mechanism is regulated at the opiate receptor in the brain. Taking heroin will increase gating - strengthening the bars of the cage - thus allowing the user to experience less direct interference from the subconscious mind. And therefore less anxiety. People who cannot 'gate' sufficiently well to keep painful material repressed; either because their gating mechanism is not functioning properly, or because the material is just too painful; will begin to become increasingly vulnerable to using heroin or other opiates. For such persons, a chance encounter with heroin will frequently turn into a long-term relationship.

So, to sum up. Virtually anyone brought up in Western society will have experienced considerable conditioning as a child. Being conditioned is what our parents do to us in the belief that it is necessary if we are to become 'civilised' human beings. It typically consists of the witholding of affection when we behave in a manner deemed 'bad', and the granting of affection when our behaviour is deemed 'good'. Whilst conditioning does cause us to adapt our natural behaviour patterns to those which society deems 'civilised', it does so at the expense of us having to repress in our subconscious mind large amounts of painful material. This repression takes place via the neurological mechanism known as 'gating'. Gating may be thought of as the 'fencing off' of separate parts of our mind. In this case the conscious from the subconscious, the aware from the unaware.

As this material mounts up in our subconscious mind, so we will find ourselves increasingly compelled to alter our natural thinking and behaviour patterns to avoid any form of symbolic encounter with the repressed material. The adoption of these changes in behaviour or thinking is known as the taking on of coping strategies. It can be seen that virtually everyone in our society is naturally adopting coping strategies of one type or another. However, not everyone can keep painful material sufficiently repressed by this means. Either their gating system is not functioning adequately or the material they're trying to hold away is too painful.

Heroin, an opiate, operates at the receptors in the brain that mediate gating. And so, taking heroin will reinforce an individuals ability to repress painful material out of their conscious awareness. For a person whose subconscious mind is having trouble keeping repressed material down, the use of something to reinforce their minds gating system will be very attractive. For such a person, just one chance encounter with heroin could well turn into a lifelong relationship.

So, what can truly be done about heroin addiction? Well, from the above it can be seen that what is truly ailing addicts, and many non drug users, is the presence of repressed material within the subconscious mind, the natural result of all the conditioning we have received as children. And that persons using heroin are people who likely either do not have a particularly effective 'gating' system, (perhaps more sensitive or artistic individuals); or those for whom the material their subconscious mind is trying to keep repressed is so painful it keeps leaking through into the edges of awareness, (those who have suffered childhood abuse or similar deeply traumatic events).

In order that these problems be resolved permanently it will be necessary to make conscious the memories and pain repressed within subconsciousness. As a person learns how to approach and break through the barrier of fear that is surrounding the original repressed memory, so they will be able to experience the memory in it's original context and express the pain held within the system at that point. Once this is done, the natural grieving process will be initiated, and, after it has run its course, the person will be free of the need to repress. Thus heroin will no longer be an issue, for there will be nothing for it to do within the body.

Ibogaine's activity at multiple receptor sites within the body makes it an ideal basis for therapeutic interventions to counter heroin addiction. The drug can open up the subconscious mind, allowing slow exploration and integration of material and pain lurking within over the months after the treatment. This should happen ideally under the skilled guidance of a therapist, perhaps with ancilliary techniques employed to assist the process. Furthermore, ibogaine's activity at the opiate receptor ensures that the body's repressive system isn't shut down too quickly with the removal of heroin from the user's life. This provides a comfortable space between the states of being a heroin user and not being a heroin user and will also prevent most of the symptoms of heroin withdrawal, making detox a relatively painless process.



Nick Sandberg, April 2000.

[ www.viceland.com ]

"If it weren't for us Aspies, all you NTs would still be in caves." Aspies are people with Asperger's Syndrome, a mental disorder that allows its victims to concentrate on one thing, exclusively, forever and ever, hence important technological inventions like the phone and the car. NTs, on the other hand, are "Neuro-typicals," a.k.a. people like you and me that don't become obsessed with something, hence important inventions like "fun" and "hanging out." When Ted, the Aspie speaking above, pointed out the need for nerds, we felt compelled to reply, "True, but if it wasn't for dung beetles, Africa would be covered in shit. That doesn't mean anyone wants to be a dung beetle." Of course, Ted was too obsessed with his argument and wasn't about to stop. "The conventional motivators of the Neuro-typical world are power, wealth, and prestige," he continued, "but there's an additional motivator for Aspies, or at least for me, and that's to answer some nagging question in my head which threatens to overwhelm absolutely everything else unless I do something about it."




Every decade or so the world of psychology, and in turn the American public, adopts a new mental disorder that establishes itself as the hip diagnosis. In the 1980s we had Multiple Personality Disorder, with thousands of victims of childhood abuse trying to heal their inner child. In the 90s we had Attention Deficit Disorder, resulting in Ritalin becoming the single most prescribed medication for American children under the age of twelve. Now a new decade is upon us, and a new diagnosis is rearing its kooky head. Despite the fact that Asperger's Syndrome (AS) was first discovered around the turn of the century, and has been available as a diagnostic option for close to 50 years, 95 percent of the research conducted on AS has been done in the last ten years—in which time there has also been a 400 percent increase in formal AS diagnoses. Now, this could be as bullshit as the other massive mental-health "trends," but for the sake of this article, let's pretend the statistics are accurate this time and get super-into this new wave of AS that's taking over the country.

All I know is, people who suffer from Asperger's are taking one for the team, big time. In fact, every technological breakthrough you can think of was made by someone who wasn't quite "NT." When you have Asperger's, there's no going out for a quick beer or browsing at the video store. There is, however, categorically obsessing over archaic genres of music, memorizing the colors and years of every train on the Union Pacific Line, or (if you're lucky) frantically trying to conquer electronics and medicine for the rest of your life. Asperger's is the Elite Blue Ribbon Big Guy of Obsessive Disorders. As the DSM-IV (the Holy Qu'ran of mental disorders) states, folks with AS demonstrate an "encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal in either intensity or focus." For example, there's the young man with AS who became obsessed with Tom Cruise films. But he didn't just quote lines from Top Gun. His style was more about neverending lectures on the exact number of costume changes in Cocktail or cursewords in Days of Thunder. Young children with AS may be drawn to Pokémon and dinosaurs, but some choose obsessions as random as washing machines (you should hear these guys lecture about all the different washing-machine doors and who just got laid off from Maytag) and game shows (imagine a tiny version of the King of Comedy basement but with a new set every day). Adults, on the other hand, are more often attracted to nerd staples like science fiction and Japanese animation. Of course, these obsessions seem like passing interests when compared to the AS people who become enthralled with inanimate objects, like the man who spent countless hours researching the history and development of ziplock bags or Harriet, the girl pictured on the previous page. She is obsessed with buttons. "I spend a lot of time arranging them all in different groups and patterns," she explains. "I still haven't found the perfect pattern to make them all fit together, but I think about it constantly. If I had every single button in the world then the pattern would be easier to make but since there are new buttons coming in all the time and being invented all over the world, it constantly changes in my mind." Imagine what this girl could do for humanity if she eventually gets obsessed with cancer or hangovers.

What we should be doing is harnessing the powers and dedication of people with Asperger's to make the world a utopian garden where peace and health rule. These people could be the worker bees of a bright new future and America would be the leaders. Thanks to nerd inbreeding, California's Silicon Valley now boasts the most intense Asperger's victims there are. If we found a way to use them the way dams get power from water, you could forget about terrorists, AIDS, and any question you ever had about Apatosaurus or the 26th president. Once an Aspie gets locked into a pattern, rampaging demons couldn't drag him away. Even the littlest routine cannot be sacrificed. As our cantankerous pal Ted says, "It doesn't matter how late I'm running, I literally cannot go out the door without breakfast (cereal and orange juice) and without reading the funnies. Gotta read the funnies. The house could be on fire and I'd still get it done."

As it stands now, people with AS risk alienating themselves from the rest of the world because of their obsessions. A nine-year-old boy who doesn't want to talk about anything besides Catherine the Great isn't likely to be first picked for dodgeball. And a college-aged woman who has a self-made chart noting the key differences between gnomes and elves is not going to be a big hit at a kegger (although she should be).

Annie, a woman in her mid-20s with AS, found out the hard way that Neuro-typicals can't hang. For a while, her AS obsession was with Britpop and Big Beat music. "I even started going out to club nights for a while," she recalls, "and got together with a young man who was very impressed with my knowledge of the bands, venues, and music. But he soon realized that it was random facts, obsessively pulled from magazines like NME, not genuine passion or understanding. That was the end of that."

Asperger's is not a choice, either. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of these obsessions is that individuals with AS are unable to understand that other people do not necessarily give a flying fuck about their "special interests." Inherent in AS is the inability to read social cues or to interpret nonverbal communication. For example, if some Aspie is telling you about a game show like Match Game '74, and you yawn and slowly roll your eyes, he still will not get the clue that you are about to die of boredom. He doesn't care what you think. You weren't on Match Game in 1974.

Few people know just how biologically different those with AS are from Neuro-typicals. Psychiatric research generally looks at three factors as potential causes for mental disorders: chemical imbalances, structural abnormalities within the brain, and irregular genetic patterns. In recent studies, significant differences have been found between AS and non-AS subjects in all three of these areas. This means that Aspies are hardwired to be the human race's official problem solvers, question answerers, and go-to guys. As one anonymous Aspie told us, "Consider a group of people for whom the conventional social constraints don't apply, and for whom thinking seems to follow some yet-unknown associational paths in the brain. It would seem that these are the very building blocks of invention and innovation, no?"

Our pal Ted is a perfect example. His obsessions are aviation, Viking and Russian history, septic tanks (he gave a talk regarding the regulation of on-site wastewater treatment systems to an organization of lake management districts), and also Saint Paul and the relationship between modern Christianity and Mithraism. What's your hobby? Collecting fucking baseball cards? That's lightweight shit, bitch. Or consider Glen, an Aspie who is obsessed with fitness. "It's like exercise bulimia really," he says. "I'm working out two to three times a day, every day. Saturday is an hour of kickboxing, an hour of enduroflex, then a lunch break, and then an hour of weight lifting. I also run a fitness board—the largest on Yahoo—of 4,000 members." Glen does more for the world of fitness than a thousand NTs could do in a lifetime. He didn't exactly have a raging party during that time, but is that our problem?

Behavior like Glen's exhibits precisely the kind of singlemindedness and dedication that is lacking in Neuro-typicals. How can anyone deny that it's time to start a foundation that fosters the Aspie way (like the place in X-Men where all the mutants go to college)? With gentle diverting and coaching, we can get one team of Aspies obsessed with ending world hunger and another one cracking on a cure for hemorrhoids.

Aspies, if you let them, can save your ass.

BAahaha stop it your making me choke on my coke! Seriously, people like Martha Stewart are absolutely pathetic and a scourge on this planet. She's a millionaire, yet is still so greedy that she breaks the law for the sake of a few thousand dollars. I really hope she does end up in jail.

I think Ian needs sum love. Like, how about we make a thread for Ian? Here goes:

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