The War on Drugs .2b

Synthetic Cannabis, also known as K2 or Spice. It's smoked in the same way ordinary cannabis is, but the effects can vary wildly.

Producing synthetic weed is relatively easy. You don't need to have land, you don't need to have a very large space if you're doing it in the city, you don't need to have a very expensive lighting infrastructure & all the things that you need to do to produce weed. All you need is to secure certain chemicals & then you get whatever herb you want from the supermarket & just spray it with it.

There's a kind of specialised niche market for it, that haven't been well-served by regular weed. The trade-off is that, there is no mechanism for quality control. There's actually no accountability. It's very easy for one of these smaller, decentralized producers to make a mistake in one of the batches that they're making, & it translate to situations where you have these network of overdoses that happen in the cities. If you multiply natural cannabis like, a thousandfold, this huge hit on the brain.

The Spice gives a much bigger high because it's really tightly bound to our cannabinoid receptor. THC actually doesn't bind so fully to our cannabinoid receptors. Natural cannabis does not produce the toxicity in the body that the synthetics do. These synthetics, they're very potent, very powerful & they last a long time. So they can induce liver damage. You hear cases like heart damage. Also, they induce seizures & rarely will you see seizures with natural weed.

Initially, there was this idea that there will be no market for cannabinoids because the cannabis market already existed. It was very well-established. So, you ask yourself, why mess with something that already works? Now, the enormous portion of the 800 new psychoactive substances are synthetic cannabinoids.
The flood of new products has spawned a network of chemists who are working to identify emerging synthetic analogs & stay a step ahead of tragedy.

That there are so many analogs today is no coincidence. They circle back, as most things with synthetics do, to Alexander & Ann Shulgin, who in 1991, published a road map of modern psychoactives. Today PiHKAL & it's 1997 counterpart, TiHKAL are considered gospel.
There are very few scientific documents that are like PiHKAL & TiHKAL that tell the story of the development of the scientist, of the development of their ideas, but also give a very detailed understanding of the science itself. So detailed that you can actually replicate the experiment he conducted, create the chemicals that he synthesized yourself, if you follow the instructions that are presented.

The Shulgin's books demonstrated a new path to sharing chemical knowledge & understanding. That path led inevitably to a superhighway. The internet produced a globalization of information & globalized the chemical supply trade & democratised it in a way that had never existed previously. So, now, somebody can get pretty much everything human beings have ever written about a certain chemical in a few moments on their phone, if they want to.

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The War on Drugs .2a [MDMA]

 

Humans have been looking for ways to alter their consciousness by taking drugs that are found in nature since time immemorial. And it's really only in the last century that the labs have caught up to craft whatever kind of experience someone wants.
The use of chemicals to alter mood, both for therapy & for recreation, has created a shadow industry that law enforcement can't contain & pharmaceutical companies are desperate to control.

This, the century of the synthetic drug, begins but doesn't end here, in the shadow of the late Alexander Shulgin. It was in his lab in the 1960s, Alexander Sasha Shulgin, a renegade chemist, reimagine the study of drugs & by extension, human consciousness. He's recognized as the spiritual father of psychedelics, creating over 200 substances from scratch & experimenting them on himself with no absolute idea what the effects will be, not to mention the most important which is what dose to start with but he also, however inadvertently, set off a billion-dollar race to control the synthetics market.

The question that keeps coming to mind for me is; have we limited our access to potentially breakthrough therapies by making all these drugs illegal?
NB: Sasha had been working at Dow Chemical & had been very successful for them & made them quite a bit of money with developing one of the 1st biodegradable insecticides. They were sufficiently impressed with the success that they said; "well, what would you like to work on now?"
And at that time, the psychedelics were thought to be exciting new tools for psychotherapy but the problem then was that they were illegal at that time.
His most cited contribution came early in his career, when he took an experimental drug abandoned by a German pharmaceutical company & shared it with the world.

The substance is MDMA, Ecstasy, the most popular synthetic drug of all time. My curiosity is, if such a simple molecule can allow anyone this type of openness, this so called psychedelic experience, what modification of that molecule will modify, improve, change, redirect that type of introspection?
One of the most common ways to make MDMA is to start with the essential oil, Safrole. 

A substance found in sassafra which is a naturally occurring compound with a zero psychoactive property.
(So this is Safrole, start with a benzene ring, these 2 oxygen & a carbon out here. That's Safrole. Synthetic drugs start of with a precursor, in this case, Safrole which is combined with Methylamine hydrochloride to make MDMA).
Sounds easy, but it's not. There's some complicated chemistry to get to the end product.

Sasha Shulgin was the 1st person to recognise that MDMA could have that kind of therapeutic potential. Sasha's widow, Ann, was really his co-conspirator, & together, they tested a lot of substance on themselves, including MDMA.

If you take it for insight, what you also get is not just the ability to see where you are in your life & what your problems are & what your mistakes have been but the realisation comes without self-hate or anger at yourself. In some way which we don't understand, it allows you to have a true self-acceptance & a love for yourself. This is why MDMA is so extraordinarily valuable for PTSD.

MDMA is a mixture of stimulant & hallucinogens. It will make people feel this intense love & a huge part of that relates to the serotonin system. The serotonin impacts on our mood, so it gives these positive effects but before it's therapeutic uses could be explored, MDMA got derailed. It made it's way to the underground in the late '70s & early '80s, where it was packaged, branded & brought to the market as Ecstasy for people looking less for therapy & more for a straight-up good time but, the party didn't last.
Suspicious of it's popularity, the Feds made it illegal (a Schedule I drug) in 1985, effectively killing it's chance to be studied for therapeutic purposes as Shulgin had intended; something to create what we believe could be the final solution to this problem.

The WAR ON DRUGS was really the war on pharmaceutical research.
Here is how scheduling works, the DEA determines the legality of drugs in the United States, classifying new compounds into one of five schedules, depending on their medical uses & potential for abuse.
Numbered in reverse order, they start with things like certain cough medicines at Schedule V & go all the way up to I: fully illegal drugs for which the federal government acknowledges no therapeutic use. Globally, other institutions like World Health Organisation, provide guidance on the scheduling of substances.

While medical scheduling ground legal research to a halt, it did unleash an unintended global consequence: the rise of copycat drugs, known as Synthetic Analogs or NPS, New Psychoactive Substances. There are a small minority of users who sometimes call themselves psychonauts who want to try this new drugs that haven't been tested previously, or they want to push their boundaries of psychopharmacology in one way or another. They don't necessarily want to try these bizarre derivatives of controlled substances, but this is what happens in a prohibitionist market. Psychedelics serve as a key to unlock the door, exploring & pushing the boundaries of consciousness & the boundaries of what is real.

Psychedelics are interesting. They're definitely about the ego. They're about empathy, the closeness, being in touch. In fact, that's why psychedelics are being evaluated clinically because it opens up that person. They can now get beyond themselves, & psychedelics release all the walls that we all build up around ourselves & the emotions that are trapped inside.
The number of synthetic drugs has been estimated to be over 800. It's become huge. It's become bigger than I think a lot of people realise, because, to some extent, it's supplanted the traditional drug trade.

Because synthetics are designed in a lab, when they're put on the FDA's schedule for banned substances, it's technically the chemical formula that's made illegal. So, underground chemists will tweak the fomula just enough to make it a different compound while keeping the desired effects. Since it's not technically the same drug, it's legal again.
The problem with synthetic analogs is that every time you synthesize a new version, it has the potential to be stronger & more dangerous. And without sufficient lab controls, the end user is the unwitting test subject.

The MDMA mutes the fight or flight response, the physiological response to trauma in PTSD. FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy may sound like a long shot, but early clinical studies
on it's effectiveness for PTSD have been seriously encouraging. It eliminated the disorder in two out of three veterans & significantly reduced the symptoms in the rest.
The issue, in part, is what a shift to MDMA would mean to the existing $2.1 billion antidepressant industry. 

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The War on Drugs [Cocaine]

The producers & the early processors are not really living the Pablo Escobar lifestyle. The dealers on the other end, aren't either so as it keeps doubling & doubling & we hear these billions of dollars changing hands & then you wonder, who's making all that money?

The Mexican Cartel & the large criminal organisations that are managing the central part of the value chain.
These are part of the value chain, where in order to able to say that you can reliably deliver large amounts of a product that is illegal, that means that you have to control the territory through which its gonna be moving & the only way when you do it, if it's a Black Market, is through violence.

The Sinoloa Cartel, one of the largest & most dangerous drug cartels in the world responsible for smuggling hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States (after the fall of Escobar & the closure of the Caribbean route to Miami, the Mexican Cartels took over all transport to the United States & beyond. It is estimated that cartels profit an average of $24 billion a year, just from United States alone. And when it comes to the cartels, Sinaloa is the gold standard. It controls as much as 60% of Mexico's drug trade, with annual earnings reaching $3 billion. The product move north within Mexico, usually in small shipments, stopping at safe houses along the way, constituting a nearly indestructible path of Coke into the United States).

So how does Cocaine grow in value?
Based on the amount of risk that exists at each chunk & you see the profits kind of reflect that.
If you think about the chain, it's kind of like an hourglass, where it's very diversified at the top, where you're producing but from then on, it's very very centralized.
It becomes concentrated where you have to transport things in bulk & you have to be able to protect that.
And when you shift to the transportation where the risk is much higher, that's where the first kind of very big jump in profitability happens.

In Columbia, it cost $2,500 a kilo & in Manzanillo, its cost between $12,000 & $14,000 & then in Sinaloa, it's $17,000 & $26,000 in California.
From Sinaloa, it goes all by sea up to San Felipe to Baja. There, it is divided up & transported to the United States, little by little, by cars.

Every group has their preferred ways of smuggling & they're always looking for new avenues, to find a way to help get a higher percentage of their product into the country.
It's that access into the United States & from the United States, you have the Interstate Highway System. You can take it to wherever you want from that point.
So you get to a point where the Cocaine arrives in the United States & you describe this kind of opening of the hourglass & many different paths to distribution within the United States that last mile to the party.

You have a number of people who are kind of very committed to their habit of using cocaine.
They recognise that this is a Black Market & so therefore they recognise that it's a risky behaviour & that it requires a risky behaviour to serve the market.
& so, they're happy to pay large premiums to have the products delivered to them.

The Murders, the Kidnappings, the Brutal Violence is gonna continue as long as the Mexican Cartels are as powerful as they are & they're going to stay this powerful so long as they're servicing a demand that no legal company can compete with & that demand comes from us, from the United States.
Fridays & Saturdays, people are at the parties, they're at the clubs, they're ordering coke on their cell phones, buying blow on the street corner.
And what they don't know or refuse to acknowledge is that, ultimately, they're funding a chain of human suffering with that choice.
This is a Global Multibillion Dollar Business built on the backs of the poor.

In my experience, you can't doing the same thing over & over again when you keep seeing the data to show that it doesn't work.
America is 10 & a half billion dollar into the war on drugs in Columbia alone. Half a million Columbians have died & last year, more yayo shipped than ever before.
Legalisation might seem pretty extreme to most Americans but as long as the demand continues to climb & the prices remain astronomically high because of no legal competition, I can't help but wonder whether legalisation & regulation is the only real option.
& prohibition is just an illusion to make us all feel good. An illusion that's costing millions of dollars and thousands & thousands of lives.

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The Spaces We Give & Their Effects

What makes us humans is the fact that we can not do without each other, that's why we have families. The need for companionship, the relatives around us & the friends we keep. No man is an island meaning, we all need one another to co-exist, survive & live to see the next day because when you have nothing to loose, then you probably won't have a reason to live.

Take for example, the worst punishment you can ever give to let's say a criminal who is already serving time in a Correctional Facility for a crime he committed is Solitary Confinement. A dark room where he's cut off from every other inmates & all communications restricted. You find out that the longer it takes for that kind of privilege to be restored back, the aftermath of it all often takes a toll on them in the future. That is, if he is strong enough to silence the voices in his head or make sense of the images he creates in the dark & it will only be a matter of time before he cracks open.

Another example are those who recruit for Elite Special Forces like in the Agencies that specialize in Undercover Operations, Mercenaries for hire & Stone Cold Assassins who one of the keen qualities that make them good at what they do is the ability to have no strings attached to anyone, whether family or friend or the fact that they already have nothing to loose or live for before signing up for the job.

Why is it so? No Compromises! They wouldn't want any untied loose ends to trace them back home or wherever they call their safe haven. You wouldn't want the countless enemies the reputation (achieved from the number of the inexplicable acts done in the past or about to carry out) have created you to get to you either directly or through the people you got the least love for & once they're out there on any job, they're Expendables. Sorry to use the word but it comes with the job so once you get caught, you're on your own. No Backups is coming & No Rendezvous whatsoever but even with all that glory & how much is expected of them, the slightest ounce of warmth in them still finds a reason to relate with a fellow human asides from the new purpose the job has given them.
You find out that even as cold & hardened he or she claims to be, the slightest warmt & soft part of them feels the need to at least find themselves in the midst of the people they're already familiar with or have someone to look out for them & then also, the need to care for someone, whether family or friend.

Nobody is a loner, that is not who we are. That wasn't the purpose of creation, we should isolate. No, I don't think so. That is not how we are meant to live & to even think the most anti social individual do talk to someone if you look very closely. Come to think of it, it's your birthday & nobody wished you well or extended any regards to you, how does it feel? Are you aware that people calling to check up on you when you're down or coming to sit beside your sick bed don't make you whole again but it helps you recover quickly. Has it ever occured to you that when the body system is less troubled emotionally, the patient responds to treatment very quickly? Apparently, physical growth & development of every human solely depends on both mental & emotional state of the being that occupies the body.

Technology made it easier for us to relate even with the ones who are not there with us present but yet, people find it hard or feel so reluctant to see that as an advantage. Most people are in their best in terms of visual contact. They communicate better anytime they're around you. Some might make you believe that they can not do without your company, while the real reason for them being around is about the things you have to offer & not what you're bringing to the table.
However, you can only know the real ones & their motives when the hill gets stoney or the road gets bumpy. You find out that communication starts breaking up, if not lost with time.

They say; "sometimes give people space, let them come to you" & I say; "be very careful when you draw that line because most people find it hard to cross over when probably, you must've left so many lines in an unimaginable amount of space & the walls you build around you gets taller". You stand the chance of loosing them for life but when nature creates one so obvious that nobody could've done anything to fill in the gaps, do very well to reach out once in a while. Technology made it easier for us to communicate so why don't we make use of what we created in the first place? Sometimes, you don't have to wait for the other party to check up on you, make the call! Send a text message if you don't have much. Do something, you don't need to prove nothing to anyone.

I keep on saying these words; "goodwill & kind gesture goes a long way in this part of the world". Individually, we all sit in a pool of problems, that make us human too but even in a world this cruel, it feels good to know that someone out there (family or friend) does have you in mind & think good of you.
Even in a world this wicked, we still got good in each of us. You don't have to knock the lights out, let it shine so someone can see the clear path that leads to you.
If you got good in you, you don't force it out, let it come out naturally. You don't have to imagine everyone in your situation before you do the least good for them. Show people you really care with your actions & not just words, it don't make you any more vulnerable than you think to any attack whatsoever or any less self preserved, you're only achieving the purpose of creation.

Reach out to someone on your contact list, extend a hand. Let them know you have their best interests in mind because you never know, one text message from you can give someone a reason to want to wake up the next day & please, let's not get the wrong impression about all these words because I'm not trying to measure the value of the company we keep or how important you might be to someone you care about but to think this pandemic is really getting a lot of people messed up in the head as we all know.
My point is, if we can change the way we think, we can do some real good in this world & this goes out to all those whom by His Grace still got their minds right in this uncertain times, it's your job to check up on others. I'm not saying you should add their problems to yours or be their knight in a shining armour, just try to know how they're holding up. Show the least regard, it won't cost a thing.

You know, someone told me something that really stuck with me. "If you're not willing to fight for what you love, then you never deversed it in the first place".
Mind you! I'm not a Preacher, I only speak from the heart. The move you're making after you read this is not for them, you're doing it for yourself because I don't know about you but I can also attest to the fact that it feels good to know you made somebody happy. It's a thing of joy to see a smile on someone's face & you're the one who out it there.

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Respect & Fear

   

   I don't understand people's arrogance sometimes. I mean, does there have to be a WHY to it? Can't people just be nice to one another for once in their lives?

▪︎ Would you rather prefer everyone owes you favour, one way or the other to just being good as you come with a little bit of Good Will & Kind Gesture which of course goes a long way in this part of the world?

▪︎ Must everyone you do anything for has to pay you back or be of help to you in the future before you can come to their aid?

▪︎ Must everyone has something to offer before they will be allowed to have a sit at your table & dine with you?

▪︎ Must everyone has to come up to a certain standard even when most of them aren't civilised enough before they can walk the same path with you?
   If you can't be yourself around anyone you relate with, or feel like you're being tolerated anytime you come around them, then it's advised to give them space before it gets to a level where you wish you'd never met them in the 1st place.
In other words, you walk out the door with your Reputation & Dignity intact than stick around & feel ashamed of the mess you've made just because you want to be the good guy.

   Respect for one another is one good thing, I try my hardest to give everyone the much of it they deserved but what I won't do is to live in fear with anyone. Ranging from the Fear of what their next reaction to your joke would be to what would happen if you miss a step right in front of them.

   The only being I fear is God, what I owe to my fellow man, whether young or old is Respect.
It's rudely improper & unwise to think that people's dependence on you gives a room for them to be tolerated around you than celebrating their presence.

   It's also rather very selfish & unhuman to think there's some kind of future reward which is of course worldly from people you do good for, whether close relatives or friends than being just good to people because you got good in you.

   In conclusion, you haven't really lived if you haven't done anything for someone who would do you absolutely no good.
How we relate with one another, it has to change. As you wish other people should do onto you, do to them likewise. That's Golden!

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Forgiveness.

When you love somebody, you forgive them when they hurt you. It's called being Human, there's nothing wrong with that. It might take long depending on the deed because most times, it's a lot to process but in the end, you gonna have to let go of the grudge except of course somewhere along the way there's an act of betrayal. Its unforgivable, even God can relate with me on that.

Sometimes what hurts the most when people you care about offend you isn't just the act but the feeling of not wanting to have anything to do with the offender who happens to used to be your best friend or family, having to loose or break up communication with them for life when eventually you can't help seeing them around each an everyday. The grudge alone eats you up from the inside on a daily.

Pain & Anger, the aftermath of the grudge & punishment we inflict on ourselves for somebody else's mistake. I mean, how long do you think you can hold on to that before you let go? Worst case scenario, you appear soft & weak but then again your freedom from such a burden makes you stronger than they thought you look & freedom my friend, is a thing of joy. Most of the times overwhelming so before you contradict me on that just ask yourself this, "you don't like to be free?"
My whole life, I've been trying to figure out humans but you find out that why people think or act the way they do is a whole mystery even bigger than you because you see what they want you to see. You cannot get into their heads, all you have is a tiny window into their lives & that's the farthest you can go unless of course you're gifted with mind reading which another weird case altogether because it makes you look so unhuman.
My point, you can not control they way people think but you can adjust the way you relate with each & everyone of them.

If you understand the journey in this life then you will also know that some things that happen in life is either part of the plan or a way to test your patient, see how you react to things that happen around you & how you handle them. Don't get me all wrong but most people have the habit of daring you just to watch you respond to the cause.

People will always be who they are, I mean it's one thing we can not change. We all can relate to that fact.
They will love & resent you for either your good or bad deeds, that's normal.
Most of them will even resent you for being good. You don't blame them, it's who they are.
Few will love you regardless your flaws but one thing you will make sure of is not being the reason for the burnt bridges.
Keep your heart clean of that so that nothing they do or say behind your back in the hope of making themselves victims of the situation is ever gonna get to your conscience. It matters a whole lot.

It's a small world & everything goes round it, they have that connection in common. Nothing happens without a reason. Nothing goes for nothing. Words & Opposite, Actions & Consequences, Causes & Effects. It's a constant ever revolving chain of event, very inevitable for that fact. So you see, in order for you to indulge in the act of forgiveness then somebody has must have broken any one of the 2nd 5 of the 10 commandments because even the Holy Book can attest to that fact. We all are familiar with the particular Scripture verse that reads, "if there's no sin, there wouldn't be forgiveness." So it's also an act we owe to those who wronged us regardless of how much their deeds hurt. It doesn't matter how long it takes but one day, you gonna have to let go of the burden & by so doing, then you must have forgiven.

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Governor of California mourns Kobe Bryant

“In his 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers, he made history with raw talent and unparalleled dedication that raised the bar and paved the way for a newer generation of players,”

Gov. Gavin Newsom

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