A Potential Super Bowl Ad

Victory.

The War on Drugs is a war on human rights. The US government has limited our freedom of choice. To many other humans, both of our past and into the future, most likely would find the lack of freedom deplorable and unheard of. Yet some highly skilled IT guys have brought us one step closer to gaining back our freedom by creating The Silk Road. 

Before I get any more in depth with this post, I must disclose again that most drugs are controlled and highly illegal. All the information (and mounds more) are all public information and I am not enabling any reader to conduct in any behavior stated below. With that said, this is your life so take care of it, but also never let anyone tell you what's good or bad, you have the right to freely discuss and research this with yourself. Any curious mind would definitely try the below at home ;) I will say all the below is safe enough that there are students on this campus already using the site to compensate for the lack of available intoxicants in Winston. 

The Silk Road is an anonymous online black market which uses top of the line security features to create a virtually secure, unregulated place of commerce.   

If you are more of a history buff, you might remember that the Silk Road was a route that goods, culture, and even disease traveled from China to the rest of the land mass.  (Image) This path was essential to the evolution of man. IMO we can now relate our 21-century Silk Road as another "road" that has the potential to do just that. 

The Silk Road, which launched in 2011, did not start as a place for the largest online drug market, but rather a place for commerce that is able to not be regulated by any government. "Silk Road doesn’t really sell drugs. It sells insurance and financial products, says Carnegie Mellon computer engineering professor Nicolas Christin. It doesn’t really matter whether you’re selling T-shirts or cocaine. The business model is to commoditize security." (Forbes) SR has provided perhaps the best free-market that has ever been developed. 

HOW IT WORKS

From the leader of Silk Road, Dread Pirate Roberts (DPR)

"Greetings, and thank you for your interest in Silk Road! It is my dream to give individuals like yourself the freedom to do as you please, so long as you do no harm to others. Silk Road exists to give you that freedom, so you can buy and sell any substance you like, regardless of what anyone else wants. I believe it is your body, your money, and no one else's business but your own. Many innovative technologies, not to mention blood sweat and tears, have come together to make Silk Road possible, so please, be a part of my dream and take full advantage it.

That being said, extreme caution is warranted when using Silk Road. Powerful mind altering substances are available here and I encourage you to use them responsibly and with full knowledge of their effects. We have a vibrant community of helpful people and whole discussion boards dedicated to responsible use, computer security, legal concerns, and helpful customer support staff. Use these resources and educate yourself before jumping into your first purchase.

Simply using Silk Road makes you a part of this revolution, but I hope the curious among you will want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes. Silk Road is built on powerful technologies and profound philosophies, and is at the cutting edge of a trend in society that is empowering individuals to stand up for their basic human rights and throw off the shackels they were born into.

There are many ways to get involved and quickly make a positive impact on your own life and in the lives of others.

See you on the Road! DPR" 

BREAK DOWN

The Silk Road is not easy enough for say your grandparents to use, but anyone with a little computer experience and a desire to do so can easily access the network. The Silk Road is powered by The Tor network and bitcoins, providing an almost completely anonymous method for users of the market place.  

So now let's dive in. Silk Road offers a how-to site. This should be your first place to go to start in this community. 

Other than this site, everything else SR related must be accessed via The Tor network. It is basically an anonymizing mix network which sends your internet communications through random routers which makes it practically impossible for your IP to be traced back to your location. Bitcoins are a virtual currency which is a little more complicated to the new user because it involves more effort on your part and well, its your money and everyone is a little cautious to the security of it. Bitcoins is the only non-government regulated form of currency that is powered through a peer-to-peer network. It is not going away and again, this has the potential to change global society. Here is a brief on the ever-growing new form of finance.  

Below will be a plethora of resources to research more and how you can buy Bitcoins. I assume that you will do the research any way, so I'm not going to explain exactly how you should go about it. 

LOG ON

So once you follow the easy instructions on how to download the TOR bundle, which is both the control panel which enters you on to the network and then the browser. Once you are on the browser you go to silkroadvb5piz3r.onion, log in, and BAM you have what one could consider the Amazon of drugs. 

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

It really is a very simple process, so whats the catch? To be honest, as a small time user there is very little risk of getting in any trouble. The FBI, DEA, NSA, and US senators are well aware of the site and the funny part…they can't do a damn thing about it. It has been up for two years, they have moved very little in infiltrating the organization, they are actually concerned that it might not be able to be shut down. This is not just a problem the US government faces, but government agencies worldwide also have no control over.

As we have seen in previous posts, but also just in media, there is no law enforcement agency in the world that has the resources that could actually take down the drug war and the SR is no different. The SR actually is a very small portion of the black market, with an estimated annual $30-45 million annual revenue in 2012 compared to the 2003 UN estimate of $321.6 billion generated worldwide. 

The fact the drugs are sent through the mail and then delivered to your door worry many newbies that the package could get intercepted. To the Silk Road's estimates, less than 1% of packages are intercepted and usually these will result in customs or USPS from confiscating the package. There are no reports of any agency arresting anyone buying small amounts of drugs from the Silk Road. They are mostly interested in the merchants and people buying massive quantities of the drugs. Almost all of the prosecutions in the world involving the SR had to do with other mishaps not actually involving the site, such as drug dealing in the "real world" or users posting information on non-encrypted software, deviating from the Silk Road recommendations. 

A list of tips from an anonymous Redditor, presented for what they are worth (not all are necessarily important):

This guy’s mistakes:

• Getting 41 pounds of weed sent to him. That’s a lot of weed.
• Getting weed sent through the mail at all (it’s easy to detect).
• Signing under a false name.
• Signing for a package at all35.
• Had a scale in his house at the time of delivery.
• Never sign for packages. Never get them sent under false names. Do not open them immediately. Never have paraphernalia or anything incriminating in your house at the time of delivery. Always use bitcoin. Use PGP wherever possible. Always ask for a lawyer but otherwise don’t talk to cops.

General:

• Be sure to read both the guides for seller’s and buyer’s on Silk Road.
• Make sure that your vendor ships via USPS. Rationale: USPS must get a warrant to open your mail. Also, USPS handles much more mail than UPS or FEDEX. I don’t know this for sure, but I’d bet their screening/tracking of suspected drug importers is probably laxer than UPS/FEDEX.
• Order only from domestic sources. Rationale: If it doesn’t cross an international border, it doesn’t have to go through customs screening.
• If you must order from overseas, order from UK or Germany, not Netherlands or other common drug source country. Rationale: Anecdotal reports suggest that shipments from common drug source countries get closer screening.
• Order small amounts (gram or less). Rationale: Law enforcement has limited resources. Odds are, they’re not going to bother with small amounts.
• Use your real name and address on all forms. Rationale: Anyone (such as a vindictive ex, or an enemy) could send you drugs. If you get caught receiving mail with drugs in it, you can deny that it’s yours. A fake name destroys your plausible deniability, as it indicates an intent to deceive.
• Order normal stuff to your box on a regular basis. Rationale: You want to make your box stand out as little as possible.
• Refuse to sign for any drug package. Rationale: Remember, those drugs aren’t yours. If you sign for it, it’s evidence that you were expecting the package.
• Don’t order too many drugs at once. Rationale: Many vendors don’t include any identifying info., so you may end up with a bunch of packets of white powder, with little idea of what’s in each packet.
• Use GPG to encrypt your messages to the vendors. Rationale: While this doesn’t protect you if the vendor is compromised, it does prevent your name and address from being stored “in the clear” in Silk Road’s database.
• Don’t order out of escrow. Rationale: Your only protection from bad vendor behavior is their reputation and escrow. And some vendor’s don’t care about their reputation.
• Read up on vendor’s in the forums. Rationale: You’ll get a much better idea of their product quality than you can get from their official ratings/reviews alone.

NOW THE BALL IS IN YOUR COURT

As DPR stresses, one of the most important elements of buying from the SR is 

immersing yourself in the community through the forums. There is a wealth of information there which will both guide your experience but also give you a sense of peace to the current security status of the ever changing Internet. Between the sub Reddit and the forums directly on the SR you will be able to get far more information than you ever wanted. 

Far more important than the drugs themselves is the philosophy behind the whole Silk Road. 

I close this week with DPR himself in a conversation with Forbes, 

Do you feel any moral guilt about selling highly addictive and dangerous drugs to users and even to dealers? Don’t drugs like crack and heroin have harmful effects on your customers and on society? And couldn’t even children manage to get access to them through the Silk Road?”

On the contrary, I am proud of what I do.  I can’t think of one drug that doesn’t have at least some harmful effects.  That’s really not the point though.  People own themselves, they own their bodies, and it is their right to put into their bodies whatever they choose.  It’s not my place, or the government’s, or anyone else’s to say what a person does with their own body.  Giving people that freedom of choice and the dignity of self-ownership is a good thing.

If someone uses drugs, then goes on to hurt other people, then of course they should be held accountable for their actions, whether they were using drugs or not, but to paint all drug users as “harmful to society” and try to throw them all in cages is despicable and does much more harm to communities and families than drugs ever could.  Further, using children to appeal to people’s fears is irresponsible.  There are many dangers facing children, the least of which include obtaining Bitcoins, configuring their computer to access Tor and Silk Road, navigating the site to make a purchase, and getting the package delivered past their parents.  It is the responsibility of parents and those they trust to educate their children about drugs and everything else they will have to make decisions about in their life.  Again, not my place, or the government’s, or anyone else’s.

What we’re doing isn’t about scoring drugs or “sticking it to the man,” it’s about standing up for our rights as human beings and refusing to submit when we’ve done no wrong. Silk Road is a vehicle for that message. All else is secondary.

Do you see Bitcoin or other anonymous payment systems as as something that could fundamentally transform society? Or do you think it will always exist at the fringes?

It already is transforming society. We’ve won the State’s War on Drugs because of Bitcoin, and this is just the beginning. It’s really part of a larger transformation, driven by peer-to-peer technology and the internet as a whole. The people now can control the flow and distribution on information, and the flow of money. Sector by sector the state is being cut out of the equation and power is being returned to the individual. I don’t think anyone can comprehend the magnitude of the revolution we are in. I think it will be looked back on as an epoch in the evolution of mankind.

Celebration of Life

Something that has never been seen on the same level in the history of human civilization; perhaps only comparable to the Greek celebrations to the god Dionysos. 

Three hundred thirty-thousand people.

Ten million live youtube viewers. 

The largest Electronic Dance Music festival in the world.

Ultra Dance Festival, an annual celebration, took over Miami this past March and created one of the greatest staged event of EDM music since its inception in the early 1980's. If you are in the twenty-something category you know that EDM is our culture's musical genre, as disco was to those in the 1970's. Although I was unable to attend this event live, I was one of the millions watching this event on Youtube, even when I was in a lighting hang for my show in Patrons theatre. Although my education takes me to small black box theatres, I will eventually end up working these unprecedented spectacle musical events. 

So what does this dance music event have to do with drugs? Well everything… "In order to really understand Molly, you need to understand that Molly and EDM are hopelessly intertwined… EDM doesn't exist without club drugs, a majority of the culture and event is built around 'letting go' and 'rolling'…If you're attending a large EDM event…over half of the people will consume Molly…" (KISS). Molly has entered into our culture in an irreproachable manner, with little negative propaganda from the government. But what really is Molly? What is its history? How does it affect me? Why is it illegal? What are the negative effects? Is it scary? Where can I get some? And how can I safely take some?

Molly is a mind altering drug that is usually taken in conjunction with EDM music events. These events are typically attended by white youth between 17-25 worldwide. 

Some one hundred one years ago, Dr. Anton Köllisch of Merck Pharmaceuticals, in attempt to create blood-clotting medication discovered a new string of chemicals. As you might predict, one of those was 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine, or MDMA for short. 

Dr. Köllisch nor Merck had no idea the potential for the compound and it was stored in their records until 1953. During the US government's experimental drug exploration, the compound was taken out of storage and tested to be used as a weapon of espionage. It wasn't until 1978 when Alexander Shulgin and David Nichols published the first study of MDMA on humans. 

Shulgin in his lab, 1978

This is the first time doctors learned of the drug's potential for human therapy. There were thousands of therapy sessions where MDMA was used and then it jumped to recreational levels. At this time there were no controls on the drug and use of the drug began to skyrocket in the club scene. Dallas, Texas was one of the first cities that added MDMA to the party scene. 

In reaction to the widespread recreational use of a narcotic, the DEA used its emergency powers to classify MDMA as a schedule one drug. Keep in mind schedule one drugs hold the label as having a high level of potential abuse with no medical value. "Despite expert testimony and court recommendations, it became illegal to make or possess MDMA, so research into its therapeutic value all but disappeared" (Beckley). This obviously did not stop people who had the opportunity to get their hands on it from taking it. "Ecstasy became associated with the birth of Acid House music in the Spanish tourist resort of Ibiza. By the summer of ‘86, Ibiza was popularly known as 'XTC Island'. Returning tourists and disc-jockeys took the message back home. The UK’s rave scene was born. Hundreds of thousands of tablets were consumed each weekend in the famous “Summer of Love” (1988)" (Trans). Ecstasy at this point moved over to the other side of the pond along with a majority of the rave scene that the US first held. 

Meanwhile the US was doing everything in its power to hold MDMA as a brain melting drug. MTV aired a special showing what looked like holes in a heavy MDMA user's brain. In 2002 the infamous 'swiss cheese' or 'ice cream scoop' research hoax was released. Now the mind-alterent has resurfaced in the US both with the resurgence of EDM music in main stream culture but also in the medical arena. "Researchers and therapists are rediscovering the potential of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to transform the lives of men and woman suffering from PTSD" (Beckley). 

So what exactly does MDMA do? 

MDMA causes increased neurotransmitter activity by increasing the activity of the neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. "Taking MDMA causes both an increased neuronal reuptake inhibition of the neurotransmitter serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine, 5-HT) and also, critically, its increased synaptic release. The consequent additional flood of serotonin in the user’s synapses is soon followed by an increased release of dopamine especially in the reward centres of the striatum and nucleus accumbens. Release of oxytocin, the “cuddle hormone”, surges too via stimulation of the serotonin 5-HT(1A) receptors" (Trans). In laymen's terms, it is "penicillin of the soul"(trans). 

Leo Zeff, a psychologist from Oakland, California, dubs the drug "'Adam' for what he saw as its power to return patients to an Eden-like state of uncorrupted consciousness." (Oprah)

"MDMA can promote an extraordinary clarity of introspective self-insight, together with a deep love of self and a no less emotionally intense empathetic love of others. MDMA also acts as a euphoriant. The euphoria is usually gentle and subtle; but sometimes profound…. On pure MDMA, subjects feel at peace with themselves and the world. They discover an enhanced sense of self-worth, self-forgiveness and complete self-acceptance. Cynical thoughts and negative feelings disappear. Aspects of life normally too sensitive to talk about can be explored freely… MDMA acts to boost self-esteem and self-confidence, while paradoxically diminishing egotism. The user’s sense of social isolation vanishes. 'I love the world and the world loves me', affirmed one beneficiary of MDMA-assisted therapy" (Trans). 

There are 4 different stages of effects of MDMA. Comeup, peak, comedown, and afterglow. In comeup, one gradually begins to feel the effects spread around the body. Typically one will feel nauseous, but this period will only last from 15-60 minutes, dependent on many variables. Then the peak, which is when the intense effects are felt. Some feel a long plateau but others might receive a series of rushes, coming up and down. The comedown, as it sounds, is when the effects begin to wear off. Users will typically feel tired, sore, and potentially depressed; all these will be directly related to how the user performed before, during, and after administering drug. Preloading and post loading shall be discussed later. Afterglow is the state after the comedown, where some users will be in a state of happiness for days after or some will "crash". This can be lack of energy, weak muscles, depression, nausea, mental fuzziness, being overly tired, or unable to sleep; all which are able to be helped or even eliminated with good preloading and post loading practices. 

So if there is a drug that is considered "Adam… returning patients to an Eden-like state of uncorrupted consciousness" how is it that it could possibly be illegal? What the fuck right? 

Well obviously I'm right there with you. If you were along with the ride last week, you know about a bit about the failing  "Just Say No" campaign that the Reagans pounded into the American culture.Basically any mind-altering substance, other than those of corporate pharmaceuticals, were banned, despite any scientific evidence. 

It is pretty clear that Nancy Reagan wanted to stuff down the throats of Americans, God, rather than have them make their own decision of how to find internal satisfaction. 

Despite efforts from all sides, religious, scientific, medical, and even judicial review, the DEA administration went forward with placing it on the schedule I status in 1985, despite the efforts to place it on schedule III status. For the detailed story go here.  The entire process is a blatantly flawed, illegal, and inappropriate process of power by some of the highest levels of the US government. Basically, the DEA totally screwed the pooch on this one… At this point the only step to move this and really any drug off illegal status is to draft a new U.N. Convention which would give the power of decriminalization and personal possession, while including regulation allowances to individual countries. (Beckley) Obviously this will be no easy task.

But the fact is that MDMA is illegal and there is no getting around that. Obviously that isn't stopping the EDM culture from actually condoning its use. Even with its potential to "open up a direct channel to God", as a Benedictine monk explains, newton's third law has to come into play somewhere here; there has to be some kind of catch… 

Before we jump into negative effects I want to first mention something that Brad Burge of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies brings up. "MDMA has now (2012) been administered to nearly 550 participants in clinical research settings, without a single negative side effect happening as a result of the drug" (Beckley). But lets see what the US government warns about the drug… 

"MDMA is not a benign drug. MDMA can produce a variety of adverse health effects, including nausea, chills, sweating, involuntary teeth clenching, muscle cramping, and blurred vision. MDMA overdose can also occur—the symptoms can include high blood pressure, faintness, panic attacks, and in severe cases, a loss of consciousness and seizures. MDMA is associated with vigorous physical activity for extended periods. This can lead to one of the most significant, although rare, acute adverse effects—a marked rise in body temperature (hyperthermia)" (NIH). Yet it is not physically addictive, only physiologically. After the importance it can take on some people's lives, users might take it too frequently, which although there is no research to conclusively say this is unsafe, it will eventually lose its special effect.  (DanceSafe)

 A well known fact about Ecstasy is that you have to carefully examine your hydration. Too much water and you risk hyponatremia, too little you can slip into a state of hyperthermia- for me the "sipping" method works well. Drinking liquids high in electrolytes (i.e. Gatorade) to not deplete salt levels in the body also works well. For more detail on this important element of taking MDMA check out this Erowid brief. 

If you are diabetic, taking antidepressants, epileptics, too old or (too young), or overall just don't think you could handle the unlocking power of the drug, you obviously shouldn't take the drug… Like anything its just about self-control and just using common sense. 

Really the most unsafe part of taking MDMA is not actually the MDMA. According to Harvard Medical School's most recent study on MDMA, "Ecstasy consumption is dangerous because illegally made pills often contain contaminants that can have harmful side-effects. As the study shows, the major danger associated with the drug is not the drug itself but other contaminants that are included." (Beckley) 

To be clear this danger is being caused directly by the DEA and its failed scheduling programs.  "Adulterants found in MDMA tablets purchased on the street include methamphetamine, caffeine, the over-the-counter cough suppressant dextromethorphan, the diet drug ephedrine, and cocaine" (NIH). The easiest way to combat this issue is to purchase self testing kits, which shall be explained later. 

The recent MDMA deaths around the country that have been publicized by the media are most likely caused by dangerous mixtures with other drugs or adulterated MDMA.  Unfortunately finding exact information on the deaths is damn near impossible due to the innumerable variables that are in effect.

So with this drug doing so much in our brains, that has to be bad right?!?!

According to NIH, "Numerous studies in animals have demonstrated that MDMA can damage serotonin-containing neurons;1,3 some of these studies have shown these effects to be long lasting". They continue saying "improved imaging technologies and more research are needed to confirm these findings and to elucidate the exact nature of the effects of MDMA on the human brain…In humans, the research is not conclusive at this time…" (NIH) 

As with any drug, especially one that directly effects our brain, there needs to be bountiful quantities of research for any sort of conclusion to be met, but also for the US government to be satisfied with its classification system. One of the biggest excuses the DEA made for placing MDMA on schedule I is that it could not fully satisfy the FDA's regulations to be faithfully placed on the schedule III status. Ironically, the only people who have enough money to do the research required for the FDA are the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies, who have no interest in spending a billion dollars on a drug that has an expired patent, because well its just not in their best interests financially. 

For most of its popular lifetime, most people thought that MDMA was a lot worse than it actually is. It didn't help that in 2002 the "swiss cheese" research was published by Science magazine. In his article, scientist George Ricaurte "outlined the severe neurotoxic of MDMA on dopaminergic neurons, producing what looks like "holes" in the brain and causing Parkinson's-like symptoms in users" (Palm). This was a media frenzy. In a sick twist of fate, the article was later retracted as the test subjects, which were monkeys, were actually given methamphetamines, not MDMA. The publisher was criticized for clearly being apart of a "political scare tactic" (Palm). Obviously the retraction gained very little publicity and much of the "general public still believe that MDMA will 'eat holes in your brain'" (Palm). 

There are two major organizations that are supporting international research on MDMA for post traumatic stress disorder, better know as PTSD. "Against formidable odds, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) has been seeking funding and FDA-approval for controlled trials of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. If these trials are successful, then MAPS hopes that MDMA could eventually become a prescription-medicine" (Trans). The more world-wide organization is Beckley Foundation, which focuses on all drugs, not just MDMA. The  Foundation "has focused on using psychoactive substances as tools to alter cognitive function. By studying the impacts psychoactive substances, like MDMA, have on the brain, we gain a clearer understanding of brain flow, neural activity, and how the mind works" (Beckley). I find it fascinating how powerful this drug really is when it comes to how our brain works and how it has the potential to find far deeper understandings of the human mind than ever thought possible. A little bizarre still is how this is a schedule I drug in the eyes of the DEA and US government. (Probably why no one in their right mind actually listens to them for advice on drug use…)

The most recent and perhaps most scientifically valid study done on MDMA comes from Harvard Medical School. They first pointed out the many errors in previous research done on the controversial drug. "Previous studies had made over-arching conclusions from insufficient data, and that the drug's dangers have been greatly exaggerated…"(Beckley). "Too many studies have been carried out on small populations, while overarching conclusions have been drawn from them… Some previous research has studied users who were taken from a culture dominated by all-night dancing, which thus exposed these individuals to sleep and fluid deprivation – factors that are themselves known to produce long-lasting cognitive effects. Essentially we compared one group of people who danced and raved and took ecstasy with a similar group of individuals who danced and raved but who did not take ecstasy. When we did that, we found that there was no difference in their cognitive abilities" (Harvard). Other research's data was flawed because the problematic results came from other factors not related to MDMA itself. 

Okay so great. Now we can make a personal judgement here and say that it is relatively safe to use. Many first time users ask, "Is it scary?" Well obviously this is nothing someone can answer because everyone reacts to it differently. I would say the scariest part about it is the anxiety when it is first administered because of the feeling of your body "releasing" itself from the stressful grounds of humanistic sober reality. MDMA is not a powerful hallucinogenic like say mushrooms or LSD but it is a methoxylated amphetamine, which structurally emulates mescaline or better known as peyote. "MDMA may feel mystical, magical or sublime; but it doesn’t feel weird. The drug’s influence feels highly controllable. MDMA tends to enrich the user’s sense of self-identity, not diminish it. MDMA 'provides a centering experience, rather than an ego diffusing experience' (Dr. Philip Wolfson), though it may also cause a 'softening of the ego-boundaries'" (Trans). 

Okay so now I know how awesome it is… where can I get some? Well MISTER PINK, a EDM DJ promoter explains in an eye-opening article that MDMA can be readily found at any major EDM event (and most likely any smaller ones around the country). Also underground online marketplaces are the amazon of the drug trade, is a far more legitimate place to buy from than a sketchy guy in a dark club. This drug market will probably be brought up later on in this blog. 

So now you have your MDMA! Its either in a capsule, in powder form, or in a pill form. It can be administered either orally, sublingually, rectally, insufflation, or in a dangerous manner but still valid via injection. If you are able to, I would definitely research and perform a self test on the product so you know its purity. Erowid has great resources for where to start for these tests. If you don't know the site Erowid, it is the site for any type of drug information you might ever need. 

One of the most important part of your MDMA experience is the preload and post load. This is basically to prepare the body for the shock that MDMA performs so you can remain as healthy as you can. If done properly, one could avoid almost all of the side effects.  This is the best online resource I have been able to find to give you a good plan for this. As an MDMA user, this is the one area I really wish I could get advice from a medical professional, but until it becomes a controlled substance, good luck getting anything other than negative comments from your doctor. 

So all in all, as with any choice in life, the choice of taking MDMA is highly personal and up to each human to consciously decide if they want to dive into the realms that MDMA will allow them to go in. Despite any information you might have heard or inferred about the drug, I hope that you are able to make an unbiased, free decision about the drug. "But, all and all, most people still agree that they [feel] safer using MDMA than any other drugs, including drinking alcohol…. For those of you who have not seen the world of [MDMA], I recommend that you open your eyes to their world. "Hippies," during the '60s, can relate to this culture when they used to "expanded" their mind and shared their thoughts among a group of people who offer nothing but love and peace. [It] can be a utopia for just one night. But during this night, people forget about their worries and their unhappiness. Even though, [they] know that reality will hit them when they have to return to work on Monday, they will never forget the night before" (Wolfe).

A detailed guide can be found here: http://www.bluelight.ru/vb/threads/79027-MDMA-Essential-Guide-v1-00?s=&r=22

MDMA and SSRIs- http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/mdma/mdma_info9.shtml

Festival Guide: http://dancesafe.org/content/story/win-summer-festivals

PLUR: http://www.mdma.net/plur/index.html

Drug Science: http://www.drugscience.org.uk/drugs-info/

Do you use drugs? The issue with US health policy on legal drugs.

Prescriptions vs Profit

Do you use drugs? Most likely yes. 

There are about 75% of Americans being prescribed a drug from hospitals or their doctors. Nancy Reagan states say that all drugs are bad, so anything you are currently taking is bad.

You see an issue here?

The US drug war, specifically here with "Just Say No" is failing because we (DEA/DOJ) label and educate that all drugs are bad.That is just not the case, with a legal drug market in the United States topping 85 billion dollars in profit. This is just an element of the over 1 trillion dollar worldwide industry. Yet there are over 100,000 Americans dying from prescription drugs from known side-effects, with tens of thousands of people dying from taking drugs as per their doctors orders.

The ironic part? No one has ever died from taking marijuana (the most widely abused illegal drug in the US)

(Source: Sherry L. Murphy, BS; Jiaquan Xu, MD; and Kenneth D. Kochanek, MA, Division of Vital Statistics, "Deaths: Final Data for 2010," (Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control), Vol. 61, Number 4, May 8, 2013, Tables 9 and 10. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf - See more at: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.1sVJ8ESn.1XN4ggvl.dpuf)

So where has the medical industry gone wrong?

First we need to redefine what we are talking about here. Pharmaceutical drugs, or simply pharmaceuticals according to Princeton University is something that treats or prevents or alleviates the symptoms of disease. This definition takes into account both naturally derived products as well as products created in a lab. So what makes a certain drug illegal or legal to distribute? Its in the hands of one industry, and I'll give you a clue- its not the government.

Legal drugs are controlled by major multi-billion dollar companies.  Essentially this means that the corporate world actually controls our health and well-being. Wait what about all the government policies put into effect to look out for our best interests? FDA? DEA? Well…

From Michael Moore's SiCKO

How can we trust anyone with our intake of something to treat or alleviate our issues when facts and real data are not the most influential factor in our health but rather money? Big Pharma is a term critics of the corrupt industry coined for companies such as Pfizer and Merck. Physician Ben Goldacre has altered this in his book Bad Pharma. In his book he defends the following statement.

"Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques that are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials throw up results that companies don’t like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug’s true effects. Regulators see most of the trial data, but only from early on in a drug’s life, and even then they don’t give this data to doctors or patients, or even to other parts of government. This distorted evidence is then communicated and applied in a distorted fashion. In their forty years of practice after leaving medical school, doctors hear about what works ad hoc, from sales reps, colleagues and journals. But those colleagues can be in the pay of drug companies – often undisclosed – and the journals are, too. And so are the patient groups. And finally, academic papers, which everyone thinks of as objective, are often covertly planned and written by people who work directly for the companies, without disclosure. Sometimes whole academic journals are owned outright by one drug company. Aside from all this, for several of the most important and enduring problems in medicine, we have no idea what the best treatment is, because it’s not in anyone’s financial interest to conduct any trials at all. These are ongoing problems, and although people have claimed to fix many of them, for the most party they have failed; so all of these programs persist, but worse than ever, because now people can pretend that everything is fine after all."

To be clear, this is work done on legal drugs, getting financial backing by governments and inflated prices put on to the consumer by government action. If this is the way legal drugs are evaluated, created, and considered good or bad what happens with drugs that have been illegalized? They get blacklisted through United Nations treaties from 1961, 1988 and 1971. These treaties not only reduce the potential power of care for our health, it eliminates well-needed research for those drugs. Countries like the US have little power in changing their views on illicit drugs on a Federal level due to the treaties. The DOJ as well as the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy hide behind the immutable UN treaties instead of realizing what is most needed in our drug war, research. If you are interested in how the DOJ describes this, check out the recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on State vs. Federal marijuana laws.

As we try to find truth in our world through science, we need to be able to perform as many tests as we possibly can, on as much as we possibly can, to get anywhere closer to this truth. This truth is what has been lacking from the entire drug industry, legal and illegal, is unbiased- reasonable evidence behind it. Lets all stop acting like all illegal drugs are bad and all legal ones are good. That's just not the case and policy needs to change if we are going to do anything about strengthening our personal health.

I wonder how it all got so messed up? To be continued...


Along with the above links, check out this topic more in depth with the following.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/11/qa-ben-goldacre
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/its-time-for-true-transparency-of-clinical-trials-data/
http://www.wanttoknow.info/truthaboutdrugcompanies
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2004/jul/15/the-truth-about-the-drug-companies/?pagination=false
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=12014&page=13
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/category/pharmaceuticals/
http://suewidemark.freeservers.com/naturalsupplements.htm
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/?q=node/35#sthash.heAlHAB0.ybVuqPvW.dpbs
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1359644608002651
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/np040106y
http://www.michaelmoore.com/books-films/facts/sicko/facts
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2206236/
http://www.naturalnews.com/041768_Big_Pharma_death_epidemic_deadly_medications.html
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6101a3.htm
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-plant-vs-pharmaceutical-false-dichotomy/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicinal_product
http://www.economist.com/node/3429205

Why Should We Care?

I am quite glad to be doing this blog on human intoxication, with emphasis in America. This explanation to why we should care shall be expanded over the next 11 weeks. The goal is to make people start talking about the drug war, not as taboo but as a factual part of life that needs to be fixed. 

As humans, there is no getting away from drugs. Over the past century there has been rising taboo around drugs which has led to an unnecessary downfall in our society. A society that has moved away from caring for its citizens and relying on medical advice to criminalizing and removing respectable citizens from society. Economically, the country as a whole has already spend 28 billion dollars this year on the drug war and it is rapidly rising. Police agencies have made 1.1 million non-violent drug arrests this year which seems like a small number but imagine the amount of time the agencies are wasting on other, violent, society harming crimes. Social issues, economical outrages, intoxication history, as well as false information-all being in play in the failing drug war. 

If you have never been involved with drugs, you are lucky. Wait- what are drugs and what drugs are bad? According to Nancy Reagan all drugs are bad. “Just Say No” to drugs she insists. Yet millions of people around the world use illegal drugs and are a working element of the society. One of the most heinous part of the drug war to me is the lack of reliable research on drug effects. Ecstasy could be used to help PTSD, depression, and anxiety; LSD can work in similar ways; and the worst culprit of them all is Marijuana. The lack of marijuana research is appalling enough to disbelieve anything negative (or positive) about the holistic drug. 

550,000 members of our prison population are spending billions of dollars of tax money while only committing non-violent marijuana crimes. This, along with the hundreds of thousands more are causing broken up families, but worse creates a class of criminals. How much does this really effect society and what good might come out of treating drug users medically, in a state of rehabilitation, rather than criminally. 

What has fired my interest in this drug war is not due to my use or believe in their use, but rather an interest in the role of intoxication to the human race and potentially touch on a part of man that might lead to further truth.  You might have heard of theories of evolution, but there is a theory with potentially tangible evidence of human evolution, through drugs. There has been no time in human existence where there wasn’t evidence of intoxicants.  Why is it now we apply restrictions to ourselves, potentially eliminating toxins from our bodies which may elevate, enrich, expand, or even save us. 

None of this is really something you couldn’t easily heard on recent CNN. There is quite a lot you could say about the failing drug war, but there has been little given in terms of how to fix it. Supporters of legalization usually stop just short of giving any concrete ways to fix system. This needs to be addressed just as much as arguments for delegalization/regulation. Countries like the US should take example from European as well as South American countries that have implemented drug policy reform with mostly positive results. 

Data from drugsense.org