Brazil doesn’t make the Top 10 of Transparency International’s annual list of the most corrupt countries–it’s tied with Cuba and Montenegro at No. 69 out of 178 — but you’d never know that after watching Elite Squad: The Enemy Within, a white-hot blast of cinematic righteousness that makes Rio de Janeiro look like ground zero for sleazy dealings, extrajudicial police executions and political chicanery. Directed by José Padilha, whose 2002 documentary Bus 174 detailed how police incompetence turned a Rio bus hijacking into a disastrous media circus. This film is a sequel to his ... Read More
More Evidence That MDMA Could Ease PTSD
October 26, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
British doctors want to repeat the findings of an American study that shows MDMA — the active drug in ecstasy — to be hugely helpful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder. The idea is not quite to hand combat veterans tabs of “E” for a night of clubbing, but the researchers do think a number of currently illegal drugs, like LSD or magic mushrooms, could help trauma-damaged brains. “I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs’ regulation,” Dr. David Nutt, a controversial ... Read More
U.S. Crackdown Highlights Mixed-Up World of Medical Marijuana
October 7, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
“The problem is that this is a multibillion dollar industry that literally has no guidelines. … Every time anybody goes before some city council somewhere or the county, nobody knows what the hell they’re doing. And every time the elected officials change, it’s all new. It’s a friggin’ nightmare.” So explains certified master gardener and marijuana farmer Kevin Jodrey, the cultivation director for the nonprofit Humboldt Patient Resource Center in Arcata, California, a city-regulated dispensary that distributes to its patients medical marijuana grown in the center’s own ... Read More
Ritalin Can Wake the Brain From Anesthesia
September 21, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Anesthesia is one of the most common surgical practices, and also one of the most mysterious. In the operating room, doctors have no reliable tools to reverse anesthesia once it starts, because no one understands the neurological mechanisms that switch on consciousness. The only way to pull a patient out of anesthesia is to let the drugs dissipate from the body. Now, a new study shows that Ritalin — the same drug used to treat attention deficit disorder in children — has the power to wake the brain from general anesthesia. The study, which will appear in the October issue of ... Read More
Class of Antipsychotics Ineffective in PTSD Treatment
August 10, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
A new era of psychopharmacology combined with two wars in Asia has created its own surge in treating combat stress with prescription drugs. For tough cases doctors have even prescribed antipsychotics. But all drugs are not created equal, and a new study claims that one class of antipsychotic is no better than a placebo for treating post-traumatic stress. The study underlines that there is no drug for PTSD symptoms. The researchers concentrated on one medication, Risperdal, but the results may apply to a whole class of antipsychotics that work on neurotransmission in the brain. "It ... Read More
Supervised-Injection Site in Vancouver Meets Big Hurdle
May 11, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
This week, the Supreme Court of Canada will hear a case that could come to affect drug policy in the United States. At issue: Is the use of hard drugs necessarily a matter for federal criminal law? Or can cities and provinces (or states, if you prefer) handle it foremost as a health issue — in accordance with science that finds the approach protects the lives and safety of drug users? The question has been playing out since 2003 in British Columbia, just steps from some of the toniest areas in one of the world's most expensive cities. In Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, the poorest urban ... Read More
Researchers Re-Open Their Minds to Psychedelic Drugs
May 5, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Mike is hunched over a pile of soggy wood chips at the bottom of a glade in Golden Gate Park. It's a clear winter afternoon and sunlight filters through the eucalyptus trees, landing on grass still damp from a recent storm. Mike sifts through the wood chips, slowly and deliberately examining the soil beneath. Two paper bags fill a pocket of his Patagonia fleece jacket. Mike is a 28-year-old engineer at a prominent software company in San Francisco. He is soft-spoken and self-possessed; on weekends he drives his Subaru Forester to his time-share in Tahoe to ski. He donates to public radio, ... Read More
College Costs Linked to Risky Teen Behavior
April 25, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Why do some teenagers engage in risky behavior such as drinking, drug use and multiple sex partners? Washington State University economist Ben Cowan has discovered a startlingly simple correlation that provides at least part of the answer. The more it costs to attend community college, the more likely it is that teens will act in self-destructive ways. “I find that lower college costs in teenagers’ states of residence raise their subjective expectations regarding college attendance and deter teenage substance use and sexual partnership,” Cowan writes in the Economics of Education ... Read More
Legalizing Pot: Will It End the Mexican Drug Cartels?
April 6, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
Willie Nelson's Texas prosecutor — a 78-year-old fan, who plans to let the country singer off on a marijuana charge as long as he performs a song in court (and pays a fine) — wants to decriminalize pot. Hudspeth County Attorney C.R. "Kit" Bramblett favors a bill before the Texas Legislature that would end jail sentences for minor marijuana possession. "That makes sense to me," he told the Raw Story website last week. Bramblett is otherwise a fairly conservative guy who wouldn't want to legalize heroin or cocaine. But his experience as a prosecutor has convinced him not to seek jail ... Read More
Is U.S.A. Drug Tourism Likely After States Drug Legalization?
March 30, 2011 • By • Leave a Comment
The attempt in California last year to legalize pot conjured wild images of stoned bus drivers, a balanced state budget, and Amsterdam-style coffeehouses from the Oregon to the Mexican border. All three images are exaggerated, but the Amsterdam coffeehouses in particular are a cliché. They're not quite the models for the legalization movement in the U.S., because in the Netherlands, drugs aren't legal. They're tolerated. The Dutch divide recreational drugs into categories, "soft" and "hard," and since 1976 police have not bothered to prosecute soft-drug offenses. Decades of trial ... Read More
