(NBC Bay Area) What used to be an unofficial cannabis celebration on April 20th (four-twenty in American cannabis culture) in San Francisco has grown into a huge, city-sanctioned free event, and just about anyone one walks up to is happy to expound on what he or she loves about it.
Entheogenic use of cannabis to 'bring out the divine': Marijuana [or Chinese Ma Huang, pronounced as if it were the Spanish name Marijuana/MaryJane, from Mexico] has served as an entheogen—a chemical substance used in religious or spiritual contexts [1] to bring to the surface inner divinity—in the Indian subcontinent since the Vedic period, dating back to approximately 1500 BCE, but perhaps as far back as 2500 BCE in ancient China. It was introduced to the New World by the Spaniards in 1530-1545... More
KROQ's Klein.Ally.Show, the Number 1 morning radio show in Los Angeles, takes pot-infused gummies in a cautionary tale to tokers
NBC News, Bay Area, April 25, 2023; Eds., Wisdom Quarterly
And the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize goes to indefatigable peacenik and activist...from the country Trump is killing so many people in: Venezuela's opposition leader Machado wins Nobel Peace Prize, dedicates it to Trump [so he won't have any hard feelings and will maybe stop bombing her country, extrajudicially killing its citizens, and threatening to invade so that the CIA can keep dealing cocaine unimpeded by the current administration]. Why would a leader in opposition to Venezuela's duly elected leader thank Trump? They're on the same team attempting to depose and destabilize the country until it falls under U.S. control in accordance with the regime change policies of the CIA as detailed in John Perkin's Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (3rd Edition)
He clearly wanted the Nobel Peace Prize like a hungry dog wants a biscuit, and how did the Norwegian Nobel Committee members reward his selfless self-promotion? They gave the prize to someone I’ve never heard of, Venezuelan opposition activist María Corina Machado. I don’t think she’s even an American!
BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand is further tightening control of cannabis by banning sales of the plant to those without prescriptions. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, in a move that boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming, and spawned thousands of shops. But the country has faced public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction. Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin signed an order Monday that bans shops from selling cannabis to customers without a prescription. It also seeks to reclassify cannabis buds as a controlled herb. Thailand further tightening controls on cannabis sales (AP News)
If Black don't crack and Asian don't raisin, could THC in cannabis be part of the reason?
Smoke THC, who TCH? (Thom in 2004)
Thom Hartmann or TCH (Thomas Carl Hartmann, born May 7, 1951) is now pro-THC? The American is a progressive radio personality, author, businessman, and nominal liberal [pro-Bernie, pro-Hillary, pro-Democrat] political commentator [1, 2]. Hartmann has been hosting a nationally syndicated radio show, "The Thom Hartmann Program," since 2003 and between 2010 and 2017 hosted a nightly television show, The Big Picture. More
AUDIO: Brain boost from THC in weed? When you think of cannabis, improving brain health might not be the first thing that comes to mind. In fact, you’ve probably heard the old trope that cannabis fries your memory... (The Mercury News)
(PBS Eons) When exactly did we start drinking other things and why? To find out, we have to look at the world’s oldest beverages – which are not what we expected.
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Should've stuck with water and milk, not fruit rot
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Good plant (hemp) gone bad by the addition of synthetic chemicals for capitalist profit.
The problematic rise of Delta-8
We call it "pot," but it's not. It's now synthetic
(BC Productions) May 2024: Seemingly out of nowhere, Delta-8 has become one of the most popular synthetic drugs among millions of Americans, appearing in thousands of gas stations, vape shops, and more (even where cannabis is not yet legal) in a matter of a few years.
WARNING: Delta -8 contains toxic heavy metal contaminants. Grow your own from heirloom seeds.
But with Delta 8's meteoric rise comes many questions: How is it legal? How unsafe is it? How is it even made?
All drugs should be legal in Utopia
(Tyler Oliveira) Decriminalize all natural drugs, Man. God made them
Today, let’s take a look at the controversial rise of Delta-8 THC products and how, thanks to a tiny loophole in a federal bill, a massive industry has blossomed, an industry that has many causes for concern.
What's a "neon pill"? It's a synthetic (fake) chemical not occurring in nature but made by man in a lab, full of toxic dangers and synthesized colors, with contaminants and excipients, and body-damaging, illness-inducing substances.
Double crossed by a "Neon Pill"
John Hill/Cage the Elephant (lyrics)
Drugs are one thing, poisons another
It takes one to know one/ Back at it again/ Birds of a feather/ Until the end/ Stitched, patched up, and sewed in/ I'll probably see you again/ Most certain, it's likely/ Around, no doubt, my friend
[CHORUS] It's a hit and run, oh no/ Double-crossed by a neon pill/ Like a loaded gun, my love/ Double-crossed, crossed by a neon pill/ (I lost control of the wheel/ Double-crossed by a neon pill)
The [synthetic] taste of your lip balm/ Blew me away/ Cherry pie ChapStick/ Just like back in the day/ I sail the Atlantic/ Bisou fatal le femme/ Mon chéri, exactement/ Knocked down, not out, let's roll [Chorus]
Out in the open, I'm thinking it through/ And it took so long to find you, to find you [Chorus]
It's a hit and run, oh no/ Double-crossed by a neon pill/ Like a loaded gun, my love/ I lost (I lost) control (Control) of the wheel (Of the wheel)/ Double-crossed by a neon pill/ Double-crossed by a neon pill Double-crossed by a neon pill...
Like BC's video? If so, check these out. 👇 Does weed (THC) affect gender? Fun with neo-pronouns.
BC Productions, May 4, 2024; Cage the Elephant, "Neon Pill"; Tyler Oliveira goes to Vancouver, B.C. (Canada) to see an experiment in legalizing all drugs; Crystal Q., Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Alejandro (TheHighestCritic, 11/20/20); Pat Macpherson, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
This cartoonish Fat Happy Buddha is NOT the Buddha of history. He is a bodhisattva named Putai, Budai, or Hotei. He was a kind, jolly, overweight monk who gave candy to children from a bag.
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Buzznik Alejandro over at TheHighestCritic.com has a question, which he has already answered quite sure that he's right.
Q: Did the Buddha Gautama use cannabis?
Let's examine this Q from the view of a pot leaf
According, to, like, some mystical sutra, Bro, you know, um, Siddhartha, who later became Buddha, used cannabis. He was all Buddhafied! But, check this out, NOT how you would think, not in the traditional sense.
I didn't use weed either. I was a good monk
It's said that prior to his Great Awakening [his Maha Bodhi, which means prior to when he was the Buddha, which means the "Awakened One"],Buddha Siddhartha lived on nothing but a single cannabis seed per day for SIX YEARS! 🤯
It's a beautiful legend, and we hope it's true because raw hemp seeds are a superfood, a miracle, a health-wonder full of Omega 3, 6, and 9 essential fatty acids in balance, which is extraordinarily rare in nature. Everyone should eat raw hemp seeds every day. Put them in a blender with pure water, and it's an instant healthy white nut-milk with no other ingredients necessary.
What’s interesting about this, is that cannabis only receives slight reference in Buddhist legends even though it is rather significant to the religion.
This is because it is not significant to the religion or the PRACTICE of the Ennobling (Enlightening) Eightfold Path the religion teaches. In fact, the only thing we can think of relating cannabis bud, flower, dab (hash exudations), or the plant as an entheogenic drug, has to do with Buddhism is that the Buddha was a Scythian (Shakyan) from neighboring Gandhara (now Afghanistan, nearby but not in magical Nepal, which is high in the Himalayas) from the foothills of the Hindu Kush, which is part of the Himalayan range, far to the west of Nepal. The Scythians were originally nomadic wandering in Central Asia before settling and adopting an agrarian way of life. They did not drink ordinary alcohol. They drank a special kind made of fermented mare's milk. A mare is a female horse, and the low-grade alcohol made from natural yeast falling on lactose and souring it makes a kind of less addictive alcohol than toxic grain-based alcohol. The Scythians had a drink called soma (haoma) into which they put cannabis to make a kind of mundane ambrosia (amrita). Some may have been a general name because the real stuff seems to have been the entheogen blue lotus, a DMT-type substance also popular in ancient Egypt. It's hard to imagine that Siddhartha, a prince of a Scythian group called the Sakas raised watching dancing girls and musicians, would never have tried it. Cannabis grows wild throughout the foothills, where it originated as a plant.
Prince Sidhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha Gautama, lived in Lumbini in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal, a region that’s rich in cultivated and naturally occurring Cannabis indica known as Nepali Indica.
Prince Sid, who became "The Buddha" by virtue of his spiritual awakening at the age of 35 after six or seven years of intensive endeavor on his quest to discover why we suffer and what can be done about it, was born in Lumbini Garden but he never lived there. He was raised in Kapilavastu (which Dr. Ranajit Pal has demonstrated must have been in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and its environs, which we feel safe to speculate were Mes Aynak and Kabul (Kabil, Kapil, Kapilavastu) because he lived in three different places, three seasonal capitals that relocated by season, hot, cold, and rainy. He awoke to the Truth. There is no record of him smoking or consuming cannabis to get high or anything else. If the seed was eaten as a food, he might have eaten it but only if it were provided to him as he was a wandering ascetic living on alms, having gone East to proto-India, just south of Nepal, in his pursuit of enlightenment.
As the story goes, Siddhartha the wandering ascetic (doing tapas or extreme austerities and self-mortifications as misguided penance to compensate for this anti-spiritual body, a common practice among yogis) became so weak because of excessive fasting, that he resumed eating because a woman named Sujata and her maid offered him food.
He recovered his strength and realized the body is not a hindrance to spirituality. In fact, it can be a vehicle to it. His strength and health regained, he began his legendary meditation under the Bodhi tree.
It is called the Bodhi tree because bodhi means "enlightenment" or "awakening." Prior to his great awakening, it was not called that. The tree (Ficus religiosa, a giant pipal tree, which is like a banyan) drops tons of fruit, small figs that are not eaten (and who knows why because they are delicious and nutritious) except as a resource during famine. Religious studies teachers in the US note that the chemical composition of these figs is one molecule different from acid, LSD. The implication being, Wouldn't he have eaten these under that tree and otherwise fasting because he was not getting up to go on alms. And though no one was offering this food, the Tree was. He called on the Earth, in the earth-witnessing mudra, to vouch for him. We know trees have dryads. That's why he was fed by Sujata. She and her maid were making offerings to the tree spirit near their house as she wanted to get pregnant. She became pregnant, and this was the big offering in gratitude. Seeing him with his long hair, possibly in dreads from not washing it, they mistook him for spirit of the tree.
Cannabis use linked to epigenetic changes, scientists discover
Is it a magic plant or a genetic coincidence?
Using cannabis [weed, pot, marijuana] may cause changes in the human body's epigenome [the top (epi-) portion of our genetic code that turns other instructions on and off], a study of over 1,000 adults suggests.
The epigenome functions like a set of [on and off] switches, activating or deactivating genes [instructions] to change how our bodies function.
"We observed associations between cumulative marijuana use and multiple epigenetic markers across time," says Dr. Lifang Hou, a preventative medical doctor and epidemiologist from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.
Cannabis is a commonly used substance in the United States, with 49 percent of people [admitting to] trying it at least once, Dr. Hou and a team of US researchers report in their published paper.
The researchers studied around 1,000 adults who had participated in a long-term previous study where they had been asked about their cannabis use over a 20-year period. Study participants provided blood samples on two occasions during that time, at the 15- and 20-year points.
They were aged between 18 and 30 at baseline, or "year 0." Using these blood samples from five years apart, Dr. Hou and her team looked at the epigenetic changes, specifically DNA methylation levels, of people who had used cannabis recently or for a long time. More
I'm cool. I smoke weed. - What happened to you as a kid? None of your f'n business, jackass!
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Cannabis abuse trends much higher in people who experienced childhood trauma
Artificial strains: too much THC, too little CBD
Young people are at a heightened risk of problematic adolescent cannabis [marijuana] abuse when they experience childhood trauma.
This is particularly true for kids who experience trauma between the ages 1 through 12.
Strikingly, these damaging experiences can range from witnessing parental drug misuse to enduring various forms of abuse.
Dr. Lindsey Hines, a psychologist at the University of Bath specializing in adolescent mental health, led this insightful research.
[And before him, Dr. Gabor Mate has been saying this for five decades, having worked with addicts and harm-reduction in Canada and now in the United States.]
The researchers considered a wide array of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that could influence future cannabis use.
The researchers examined factors such as physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
I've had a tough, tough life (Elon Musk).
The study also focused on emotional neglect and parental substance use. Lastly, they studied instances of parental violence, mental health struggles, and even criminal convictions.
The researchers closely studied these childhood misfortunes and compared them with the frequency of cannabis use.
The participants fell between the ages of 13 to 24.
The data was self-reported. The participants ranged from individuals who never used cannabis to those who regularly used it during their teen years.
Definitive link between cannabis abuse and childhood trauma
The findings are concerning. Individuals who went through four or more ACEs were over twice as likely to frequently use cannabis in their teenage years.
Their counterparts experienced much fewer ACEs.
Teenagers with a history of parents abusing intoxicants such as alcohol were most likely to end up as regular cannabis users, as were those whose parents struggled with mental health problems. More
No, I don't surf! I skate. Big difference, Baby. Surf Punks, that's totally something else.
Punk rock's reborn
Sure, there's Punk Rock Bowling. That's all well and good. Now we can be our parents, Mildred and Fatso, the happy couple. It might be better to make some trouble on the beach that's all about surf (n.), sand, and suffering. JFA (Jodie Foster's Army) knows about that. Ugh to the cops.
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