About a year ago, I wrote about the case of a motorist who was found carrying a large sum of money. The police seized it, arguing that it just had to be drug money. They were allowed to keep it without ever bothering to prove an underlying crime, thus establishing the cherished legal principle that [...]

We owe our soldiers nothing less than the best health care in the world, but sadly that’s not the reality.

So how to combat PTSD? Well, 60 Minutes had an interesting story on last night about a pill that loosens people’s memories of particularly traumatic events…
(CBS) Pitman figured he could block that cycle by giving trauma [...]

We’ve written about dichloroacetate before, but I thought I’d point it out again because it’s a wonder why we’re not hearing about it the media at large.
From the University of Alberta:
DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an [...]

Cheese, in this case, is a potent combination of heroin and over the counter pain medication like Tylenol PM.
But seriously…6th to 8th graders are the main users of this stuff? Jeezus.
Reuters has the video.

Yet another sign that we need some new ideas about how to address the issue of drugs in America.
From the AP:
(AP) Cocaine prices in the United States have dropped and the drug’s purity increased, despite years of effort and nearly $5 billion spent by the U.S. government to combat Colombia’s drug industry, the White House [...]

It’s not as simple as that, but the math is pretty stark. GlaxoSmithKline, which spent decades and more than $400 million developing a meningitis vaccine, expects to sell it only in Africa, and at a price that will never cover the cost of development.
As the story notes, this is not an entirely selfless act. Some [...]

sleipner, one of our more frequent commenters on Donklephant had this to say on my recent post about drug toxicity…
Obviously, direct toxicity is obviously not the only measure of danger for a drug. In addition to that, some drugs have an additional psychological or environmental risk of death or injury, either to the user or [...]

(h/t: Sully)

Pretty interesting, no? I bet we can trace these numbers directly back to our failed, prejudiced “war” on drugs.
And maybe you’re saying right now, “Prejudiced? Prove it!” Well, you need look no further than the vast disparity between the prisons sentences for people who do crack and people who do cocaine…
Pharmacologically the same drug, crack [...]

The New Mexico governor and presidential hopeful is doing something that about 99.999% of other viable presidential hopefuls wouldn’t even think of. And maybe that’ll set him apart.
MSNBC has more:
SANTA FE, N.M. – Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, poised to sign a bill making New Mexico the 12th state to legalize medical marijuana, said Thursday he [...]

It sounds too good to be true. But everything I can find says this could be legitimate.
A molecule used for decades to combat metabolic diseases in children, may soon be available as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer, University of Alberta researchers are reporting.
In results that “astounded� school scientists, the molecule, known as [...]

I certainly don’t use the term “junky” lightly, but we’re talking about more than a decade long, hardcore addiction to incredibly strong painkillers. It certainly makes mild drug use by former and current Presidents (and any hopefuls) seemingly irrelevant.
From Law.com…
The FBI’s 1986 report on Rehnquist’s drug dependence was not released at the time of [...]

So not only is marijuana a $35 billion cash crop, it’s reportedly our country’s largest.
From LA Times:
A report released today by a marijuana public policy analyst contends that the market value of pot produced in the U.S. exceeds $35 billion � far more than the crop value of such heartland staples as corn, soybeans and [...]

in incarcerations.
From Reuters:
“A U.S. Justice Department report released on November 30 showed that a record 7 million people — or one in every 32 American adults — were behind bars, on probation or on parole at the end of last year. Of the total, 2.2 million were in prison or jail.
According to the International Center [...]

Afghanistan’s opium poppy crop is the largest on record. Junkies breath a collective sigh of relief.
From Wash Post:
Opium production in Afghanistan, which provides more than 90 percent of the world’s heroin, broke all records in 2006, reaching a historic high despite ongoing U.S.-sponsored eradication efforts, the Bush administration reported yesterday.
In addition to a 26 percent [...]

Acoording to his contemporaries, Haggard didn’t just buy meth…
The Rev. Ted Haggard agreed to resign as leader of the New Life Church after its independent investigative board recommended removal, saying he was guilty “of sexually immoral conduct.”
“We, the Overseer Board of New Life Church, have concluded our deliberations concerning the moral failings of Pastor [...]

…but not sex.
This is as I suspected. It’s much easier to live down a drug problem then a so-called sexual deviance. And unless any other evidence comes out, it will always be a he said/he said scenario. So it appears as if Haggard could be off the hook when it comes to the sex [...]

Listen, I don’t usually get into the politics of personal destruction, but this is one of those rare instances where somebody is revealed as an incredible hypocrite. Plus, this the guy who says he talks to the White House every Monday morning, and that’s non-trivial
From KKTV:
A sudden about-face in the scandal facing New Life Church’s [...]

And guess who smokes?
Barack Obama.
As the scrutiny of every little detai about the junior senator from Illinois begins, Michael Currie Schaffer writes in The New Republic that Obama’s nicotine habit could furnish a welcome populist touch in a party infamous for upscale, Whole(Foods)ier-Than-Thou elitism:
[A]mong the healthy living smart-set types who represent the elite of both [...]

Apparently, yes.
A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that if a motorist is carrying large sums of money, it is automatically subject to confiscation. In the case entitled, “United States of America v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit took that amount of cash away from Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez, [...]