Greatest movie drug scenes
Without even looking, you could probably guess that scenes from Pulp Fiction and Requiem for a Dream would make a list of film’s greatest drug scenes. But there are 28 other worthy scenes on there as well.
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kottke.org posts about drugs
What’s prison like?
This is a fascinating post made by a man who has just gotten out of prison after serving two years for armed robbery. This is a bit rough in spots, so reader beware.
I joked to my cell mate on the first day that at least the GFC [global financial crisis] couldn’t fuck us inside. He’d been done for assaulting a cop when his house got taken by the bank. But within months ‘GFC N***er’ became the standard reply to any query as to how black market prices were suddenly going through the roof. The price of a deck of smokes tripled. There was an actual economic reason about this. I went away in Michigan, where a lot of people lost their houses, mostly poor people already. When they had to move away from the prison, it meant they couldn’t bring their loved ones as much contraband group, which meant the price of what there was sky rocketed. And the worse things got, the more the people who worked in the store would wonk and take home with them, which meant stocks ran low which fucked us even further.
Bet you didn’t read about that one in the Wall Street Journal.
Some over at MetaFilter think this is fake, so grain of salt and all that. (via waxy)
Social media for pot smokers
Leaf.ly is a social media site for pot smokers. You can keep track of all the types of bud you smoke (like Cork’d does for wine), check out the likely effects of smoking a new cannabis strain (these are good if you want to just play video games), and earn Foursquare-style badges. What, duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.de wasn’t available?
Opium Made Easy
From a 1997 issue of Harper’s, a Michael Pollan piece called Opium Made Easy. Written before even The Botany of Desire (and his later well-known books on food), the article explores the seeming illegality of growing poppies in one’s personal garden coupled with the relative ease of procuring poppies for growing and making them into a sort of opium tea once grown. A long but interesting read.
The language of the statute was distressingly clear. Not only opium but “opium poppy and poppy straw” are defined as Schedule II controlled substances, right alongside PCP and cocaine. The prohibited poppy is defined as a “plant of the species Papaver somniferum L., except the seed thereof,” and poppy straw is defined as “all parts, except the seeds, of the opium poppy, after mowing.” In other words, dried poppies.
Section 841 of the act reads, “[I]t shall be unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally … to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense” opium poppies. The definition of “manufacturing” includes propagating — i.e., growing. Three things struck me as noteworthy about the language of the statute. The first was that it goes out of its way to state that opium poppy seeds are, in fact, legal, presumably because of their legitimate culinary uses. There seems to be a chicken-and-egg paradox here, however, in which illegal poppy plants produce legal poppy seeds from which grow illegal poppy plants.
The second thing that struck me about the statute’s language was the fact that, in order for growing opium poppies to be a crime, it must be done “knowingly or intentionally.” Opium poppies are commonly sold under more than one botanical name, only one of which — Papaver somniferum — is specifically mentioned in the law, so it is entirely possible that a gardener could be growing opium poppies without knowing it. There would therefore appear to be an “innocent gardener” defense. Not that it would do me any good: at least some of the poppies I’d planted had been clearly labeled Papaver somniferum, a fact that I have — perhaps foolishly — confessed in these very pages to knowing. The third thing that struck me was the most stunning of all: the penalty for knowingly growing Papaver somniferum is a prison term of five to twenty years and a maximum fine of $1 million.
Kids getting high on digital drugs
No, this is not a story from The Onion or about a new Facebook game called Pharmaville. The state of Oklahoma is concerned about kids listening to audio files “designed to induce drug-like effects” because that might be a gateway to actual drug use.
“Kids are going to flock to these sites just to see what it is about and it can lead them to other places,” said OBNDD spokesperson Mark Woodward. The digital drugs use binaural or two-toned technology to alter your brainwaves and mental state. “Well it’s just scary, definitely scary. Just one more thing to look out for,” said parent Kelly Johnson.
I just got so wasted on this and then did a whole kilo of pure heroin; stuffed it right into my ears:
Look at that, I’m a drug dealer now! Now you’ll all be pounding on my door in the middle of the night looking to score some tunes. (via clusterflock)
Popeye admits to spinach use
Some breaking news that I missed the other day: Popeye admits to spinach use.
Popeye finally came clean Monday, admitting he used spinach when he delivered a savage and unlikely beating to romantic rival Bluto in 1998. Popeye said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Monday that he used spinach on and off for nearly a decade. “I wish I had never touched spinach,” Popeye said in a statement. “It was foolish and it was a mistake. I truly apologize. Looking back, I wish I had never sailed during the spinach era.”
A-gah-gah-gah-gah-gah-gah-a-skinnamarino-ahhh.
The last opium den in the world
In 2000, Nick Tosches went in search of something that he was told didn’t exist anymore: the opium den.
In the early decades of the 20th century, as the drug trade was taken over by the Judeo-Christian coalition that came to control crime, Jewish and Italian names became almost as common as Chinese names in the reports of those arrested for smuggling, selling, and den-running. While the old Chinese opium smokers died off, the new drug lords actively cultivated a market for the opium derivatives, first morphine and then heroin, two 19th-century inventions that offered far greater profit margins than opium itself.
…
The last known opium den in New York was a second-floor tenement apartment at 295 Broome Street, between Forsyth and Eldridge Streets, at the northeastern edge of Chinatown. It was run by the apartment’s tenant, a Chinese immigrant named Lau, who was 57 when the joint got raided and his ass got hauled away. There were a few old pipes and lamps, 10 ounces of opium. And 40 ounces of heroin. The date was June 28, 1957. That was it. The end of the final relic of a bygone day.
The mighty placebo effect
To the alarm of the big pharmaceutical companies, the placebo effect appears to be getting stronger. The reasons are many and interesting.
It’s not only trials of new drugs that are crossing the futility boundary. Some products that have been on the market for decades, like Prozac, are faltering in more recent follow-up tests. In many cases, these are the compounds that, in the late ’90s, made Big Pharma more profitable than Big Oil. But if these same drugs were vetted now, the FDA might not approve some of them. Two comprehensive analyses of antidepressant trials have uncovered a dramatic increase in placebo response since the 1980s. One estimated that the so-called effect size (a measure of statistical significance) in placebo groups had nearly doubled over that time.
From Taco Bell to drug kingpin
In the late 90s, it was easy to get good pot in Idaho…just drive across the border to Canada and pick some up. Nate Norman decided to take advantage of that situation and became an unlikely drug kingpin.
Having doubled their initial investment in roughly a day, Nate and Topher quickly planned a second run. This time, they bought two pounds. Before they knew it, they had gone from struggling to put gas in their cars to running a major pot enterprise that was bringing in thousands of dollars a day. “Within a few weeks I went from selling eighths to quarter pounds,” says Scuzz, who could pass for a pro snowboarder with his goatee and wraparound shades. “Our plan was to make 3 million and get out. When you crunch the numbers, that’s nothing. We figured out we could do it in fourteen months. But when you’re making twenty or thirty grand a week, why the fuck would you stop?”
It doesn’t even spoil the story to tell you that it all came crashing down, as these things inevitably do.
I’ll have a rum and Coke and coke
Route 36 is a cocaine bar located in La Paz, Bolivia and is understandably popular.
The waiter arrives at the table, lowers the tray and places an empty black CD case in the middle of the table. Next to the CD case are two straws and two little black packets. He is so casual he might as well be delivering a sandwich and fries. […] Behind the bar, he goes back to casually slicing straws into neat 8cm lengths.
Oxytocin != oxycontin
I recently learned that oxytocin and oxycontin are not the same thing. Oh, the strange assumptions I made based on that little bit of ignorance.
The short rise and deep fall of Todd Marinovich
Todd Marinovich was supposed to be the best quarterback of all time. Instead, his life got derailed by drugs and alcohol and even more drugs. His dad has to be the all-time worst sports parent in the history of horrible sports parents…it was difficult to get through page 2 without wanting to FedEx Marinovich Sr. a punch in the face.
For the nine months prior to Todd’s birth on July 4, 1969, Trudi used no salt, sugar, alcohol, or tobacco. As a baby, Todd was fed only fresh vegetables, fruits, and raw milk; when he was teething, he was given frozen kidneys to gnaw. As a child, he was allowed no junk food; Trudi sent Todd off to birthday parties with carrot sticks and carob muffins. By age three, Marv had the boy throwing with both hands, kicking with both feet, doing sit-ups and pull-ups, and lifting light hand weights. On his fourth birthday, Todd ran four miles along the ocean’s edge in thirty-two minutes, an eight-minute-mile pace. Marv was with him every step of the way.
Update: In 1988 Sports Illustrated ran an article about Marinovich while he was still in high school: Bred To Be A Superstar. (via josh)
Your brain on drugs: productive
Since I don’t use Adderall or Provigil, it took me a few days to get through this New Yorker article about neuroenhancing drugs. The main takeaway? Like cosmetic body modification in the 80s, mind modification through prescription chemical means is already commonplace for some and will soon be for many.
Chatterjee worries about cosmetic neurology, but he thinks that it will eventually become as acceptable as cosmetic surgery has; in fact, with neuroenhancement it’s harder to argue that it’s frivolous. As he notes in a 2007 paper, “Many sectors of society have winner-take-all conditions in which small advantages produce disproportionate rewards.” At school and at work, the usefulness of being “smarter,” needing less sleep, and learning more quickly are all “abundantly clear.” In the near future, he predicts, some neurologists will refashion themselves as “quality-of-life consultants,” whose role will be “to provide information while abrogating final responsibility for these decisions to patients.” The demand is certainly there: from an aging population that won’t put up with memory loss; from overwrought parents bent on giving their children every possible edge; from anxious employees in an efficiency-obsessed, BlackBerry-equipped office culture, where work never really ends.
The article is full of wonderful vocabulary. Like the “worried well”: those people who are healthy but go to the doctor anyway to see if they can be made more healthy somehow. Being concerned about how good you’ve got it and attempting to do something about it seems to be another one of those uniquely American phenomena caused by an overabundance of free time & disposable income and the desire to overachieve. See also the impoverished wealthy, the dumb educated, and fat fit.
Super cows!
Myostatin is a protein that, along with its associated gene, limits the growth of muscle tissue in some mammals. The Belgian Blue cattle breed has a natural mutation of the gene associated with myostatin that supresses the protein, resulting in lean and heavily muscled cattle.
A myostatin inhibiting drug called Stamulumab is currently undergoing testing for treating those with muscular dystrophy. If approved, use and abuse by human athletes will surely follow. (via siege)
Update: Stamulumab is no longer undergoing testing. But a pharmaceutical company called Acceleron is developing a similar drug called ACE-031. (thx, stephen)
Blow
Funny surname/subject collision from the Times over the weekend: Cocaine and White Teens by Charles M. Blow.
Update: See also nominative determinism and aptronym.
An aptronym is a name aptly suited to its owner.
I knew I’d posted something about this previously. (thx, mark)
Branded ecstasy pills
Photos of 99 different ecstasy pills with logos on them, including those with McDonald’s, Mercedes, MTV, Harry Potter, and Apple logos.
Interview with a former heroin dealer
An interview with the North London Turk, who was one of the biggest heroin dealers in Europe.
Me, my former brother-in-law Yilmaz Kaya, and an Istanbul babas [godfather] named the Vulcan founded the Turkish Connection — that’s a network that smuggles heroin from Afghanistan across Turkey into Europe. Up until the early 90s, Turks had been bringing it in piecemeal. An immigrant would bring in ten keys, sell it, buy a shop in Green Lane and pack it in. We were the first to start bringing it in 100-kilo loads. Stack ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap…
(via gulfstream)
Save lots with truly generic pills
Matt Thompson has some advice for you: stop buying cheap-ish pseudo-generic drugs from Walgreens, Rite-Aid, and Duane Reade and start buying really cheap true generics.
As you might know, Benadryl (available at Walgreens.com for $5.29 for a box of 24 capsules) and Wal-dryl ($3.99 / 24 capsules) are otherwise known as “25 mg. of diphenhydramine HCI.” Compare [with the true generic available at Amazon]. Yes, that is 400 tablets containing 25 mg. of diphenhydramine HCI, for about $10 when you factor in shipping.
Heed his words. Here’s 300 tablets of generic Claritin for $11.00, 100 tablets of generic Zyrtec for $6.99, 240 tablets of generic Zantac, 1000 capsules of generic Benadryl for $20.34, 1000 tablets of generic Advil for $11.70, and 1000 caplets of generic Tylenol for $13.91.
Update: It’s been brought to my attention that the Kirkland brand is Costco’s store brand so any Kirkland products sold on Amazon are being resold by people buying them from Costco. (thx, ivan)
David Carr, The Night of the Gun
NY Times columnist David Carr has written a book about his days as a junkie who cleaned himself up only when twin daughters came into his life. The Times has a lengthy excerpt; it’s possibly the best thing I’ve read all week.
If I said I was a fat thug who beat up women and sold bad coke, would you like my story? What if instead I wrote that I was a recovered addict who obtained sole custody of my twin girls, got us off welfare and raised them by myself, even though I had a little touch of cancer? Now we’re talking. Both are equally true, but as a member of a self-interpreting species, one that fights to keep disharmony at a remove, I’m inclined to mention my tenderhearted attentions as a single parent before I get around to the fact that I hit their mother when we were together. We tell ourselves that we lie to protect others, but the self usually comes out looking damn good in the process.
Carr’s book is not the conventional memoir. Instead of relying on his spotty memory from his time as a junkie, he went out and interviewed his family, friends, enemies, and others who knew him at the time to get a more complete picture.
A former colleague interviewed Carr two years ago in Rake Magazine. (via vsl)
Tomato salmonella
Tomatoes are currently spreading salmonella across the United States. In 1981, the culprit in a smaller outbreak was marijuana. Hey High Times, dude,
the NYer is totally bogarting your pot coverage on this…we need a potcast, stat!
Preliminary results from a small Swedish study
Rather than returning to their original proportions, the muscles of the steroid users who’d stopped taking the drug looked remarkably similar to those of the subjects who were still using. They also had larger muscle fibers and more growth-inducing “myonuclei” in their muscle cells than the nonsteroid users.
I don’t really want to imagine a 9
I don’t really want to imagine a 9-year-old heroin junkie.
Cheese heroin is Mexican black-tar heroin that has been diluted with crushed tablets of over-the-counter sleep medication such as Tylenol PM.
Sniffing heroin is not particularly new, but addiction experts say this outbreak in Dallas is unprecedented. Typically, people who inhale heroin are older and they’re white. In Dallas, however, users are mostly Latino, and they’re young.
“Reports that we were seeing were pretty striking. Kids as young as 9 or 10 years of age coming to the hospital emergency rooms or detox facilities in acute heroin withdrawal,” says Dr. Carlos Tirado, a psychiatry professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center and medical director of a drug treatment center in Dallas.
(via cameron)
A short article about coffee and its
A short article about coffee and its relationship to The Enlightenment, and smart drugs and body enhancements that may lead to a second Enlightenment. Short on details, but long on implications.
The placebo effect is real apparently even
The placebo effect is real apparently even when you know it’s a placebo, and, alternately, the possibility exists that cultural expectations of whether a drug works may have an effect on how well the drug works:
There are various possible interpretations of this finding: it’s possible, of course, that it was a function of changing research protocols. But one possibility is that the older drug became less effective after new ones were brought in, because of deteriorating medical belief in it.
The War on Drugs and scopolamine, the perfect drug
How America Lost the War on Drugs, a history of the United States government’s efforts to stop its citizens from using illegal substances, primarily crack, heroin, and methamphetamines. Quite long but worth the read.
All told, the United States has spent an estimated $500 billion to fight drugs - with very little to show for it. Cocaine is now as cheap as it was when Escobar died and more heavily used. Methamphetamine, barely a presence in 1993, is now used by 1.5 million Americans and may be more addictive than crack. We have nearly 500,000 people behind bars for drug crimes - a twelvefold increase since 1980 - with no discernible effect on the drug traffic.
It’s not that hard to see how things got off the rails here. Dealing with the supply of drugs is ineffective (it’s too lucrative for people to stop selling and too easy to find countries which seek to profit from it) but provides the illusion of action while attacking the problem from the demand side, which appears to be more effective, comes with messy and complex social problems. What a waste. The bits about meth & the lobbying efforts by the pharmaceutical industry and the medical marijuana crackdowns are particularly maddening.
Somewhat related is a 9-part series from VBS about scopolamine, one of the world’s scariest drugs (via fimoculous). Just blowing the powder into someone’s face is sufficient for them to enter a wakeful zombie state and become the perfect rape or crime victim.
The last thing Andrea Fernandez recalls before being drugged is holding her newborn baby on a Bogota city bus. Police found her three days later, muttering to herself and wandering topless along the median strip of a busy highway. Her face was badly beaten and her son was gone.
The description of the effect of scopolamine on people reminds me of what the Ampulex compressa wasp does to cockroaches:
From the outside, the effect is surreal. The wasp does not paralyze the cockroach. In fact, the roach is able to lift up its front legs again and walk. But now it cannot move of its own accord. The wasp takes hold of one of the roach’s antennae and leads it — in the words of Israeli scientists who study Ampulex — like a dog on a leash.
I wonder if the chemical reactions are similar in both cases.
A list of the leaked names from
A list of the leaked names from the Mitchell Report of MLB players that allegedly used steroids. The official Mitchell Report is here…many of the names on the preliminary list are missing. Any surprises here? Disappointments?
Update: Deadspin has the official list.
Jessica Dimmock’s The Ninth Floor
Jessica Dimmock’s The Ninth Floor is a series of photos taken of heroin addicts living in a ninth floor Manhattan apartment. The NY Times and New York magazine have slideshows with a little more context. Also available in book form. NSFW. (via clusterflock)
Tim Page, a classical music critic for
Tim Page, a classical music critic for the Washington Post and author of a recent New Yorker piece on growing up with Asperger’s Syndrome, has been placed on leave by the Post for criticizing Marion Barry.
Must we hear about it every time this Crack Addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new — and typically half-witted — political grandstanding? I’d be grateful if you would take me off your mailing list. I cannot think of anything the useless Marion Barry could do that would interest me in the slightest, up to and including overdose. Sincerely, Tim Page.
(thx, jamie)
The Erowid Experience Vaults are chock full
The Erowid Experience Vaults are chock full of people describing their drug experiences; all stories are reviewed by editors. This fellow ingested mushrooms and a bunch of mescaline:
At this point, with all the Canadian biting flys and other insects accumulating on my face, I experienced death and went through several stages such as decomposition, becoming earth, growth into new plants, and spiritual reincarnation in the depths of outer-space as almost a gasseous thought floating around and observing all the cycles of everything in, on or about earth. I at once understood everything. In the middle of the night I realized that I was myself again, and bluntly stated, ‘I’m done.’ to the other members of the group. They welcomed me back and I appologized for anything I may have said or done.
Wait, you can get high on nutmeg?
Chart of the price of cocaine in
Chart of the price of cocaine in countries around the world. Cheapest price is in Colombia ($2/g) while New Zealanders have to pay ~350 times that.
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