Moving Stationery

The Denver Post dubbed him the “nerdiest meth king ever,” and with good reason.

Aaron Castro of Commerce City, Colo., was one of the leaders of a 41-person methamphetamine ring, which federal authorities said brought massive quantities of the drug into Colorado from Phoenix. He also apparently had a huge passion for comic books – he used his earnings to buy 18,753 of them.

You read that right: 18,753.

[…]

But an associate told detectives that Castro’s comic collecting also seemed to have turned into a kind of mania, and he “began to struggle with money because he would spend his drug money on comic books,” court papers said.

Meth dealing done right.

POLICE watched seven people sell drugs in Marshall Courts and Seven Oaks, two districts in south-eastern Newport News, in Virginia. They built strong cases against them. They shared that information with prosecutors. But then the police did something unusual: they sent the seven letters inviting them to police headquarters for a talk, promising that if they came they would not be arrested. Three came, and when they did they met not only police and prosecutors, but also family members, people from their communities, pastors from local churches and representatives from social-service agencies. Their neighbours and relatives told them that dealing drugs was hurting their families and communities. The police showed them the information they had gathered, and they offered the seven a choice: deal again, and we will prosecute you. Stop, and these people will help you turn your lives around.

The (short) article goes on to explain exactly why this intervention was necessary: drug policing doesn’t work. Only one in every 15,000 transactions results in an arrest. And if prison was a disincentive of any form, America would be the safest country on earth. So instead of targeting the drug user, they’re targeting the drug supplier.

In terms of time-improvement, steroids are twice as effective for women than men.

They’re also twice as difficult to detect. Considering this - as well as the eight-year statute of limitations on disqualifications for races - it comes as no surprise that the women’s records are far more stubborn than their male equivalents.

The average world record for a particular women’s event is twenty years old, while the men’s is seven. Sure, it’s almost certain that the record was set by someone using performance-enhancing drugs in the 80s, but nobody can prove it anymore.

The solution? Take the record book and throw it away.

Heavy marijuana users are far more creative than non-users, finding unorthodox connections between words much quicker.

And also, according to new studies, the very real effects on the brain caused by frequent pot smoking disappear quickly after use stops - generally as little as 28 days.

This is opposed to the months and months of recovery from alcohol addiction.

I have a daughter who will one day take drugs. Of course, I will do everything in my power to see that she chooses her drugs wisely, but a life without drugs is neither foreseeable, nor, I think, desirable. Someday, I hope she enjoys a morning cup of tea or coffee as much as I do. If my daughter drinks alcohol as an adult, as she probably will, I will encourage her to do it safely. If she chooses to smoke marijuana, I will urge moderation. Tobacco should be shunned, of course, and I will do everything within the bounds of decent parenting to steer her away from it. Needless to say, if I knew my daughter would eventually develop a fondness for methamphetamine or crack cocaine, I might never sleep again. But if she does not try a psychedelic like psilocybin or LSD at least once in her adult life, I will worry that she may have missed one of the most important rites of passage a human being can experience.

Sam Harris on the value of psychedelics as a part of the human experience. He gets a little nutty in the middle where he talks about the ‘untapped potential of the human mind’ but other than that it is a lucid and engaging defense of mind-altering substance-use.