WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

There is an ongoing debate in the United States about the legalization or decriminalization of drugs by society. Several states have either passed laws or are considering laws that allow the use of marijuana for medical and possibly recreational purposes, but these laws are still controversial, and there is the additional problem that these state laws can be in conflict with federal laws. As a result, no one knows what the outcome will be even though it appears that federal officials are beginning to limit some prosecutions.

A number of prominent Americans—including the conservative Repub­lican senator Rand Paul—have concluded that the War on Drugs is leading to injustices. As this is being written, Senator Paul and Democratic senator Patrick Leahy want to change the law and have introduced the justice Safety Valve Act, which will allow judges more discretion in sentencing.

On the other side, many people believe that any effort to reduce the pressure on drug users and dealers will result in a flood of illegal sub­stances that, in their worst nightmares, will become readily available to children. Unfortunately, drugs are already readily available to anyone, including children, from all economic levels. So that nightmare is here right now.

To reduce demand, we need to increase education. As we have said elsewhere in this book, effective drug education is not just a matter of exhortations to refuse all drugs, because many individuals believe that the drugs they use are harmless. It is a matter of teaching the basic science that can help us appreciate what complex and delicate organisms our brains are, how body chemistry may vary from person to person, and how little we know about the many ways, both positive and negative, short-term and long-term, that the powerful chemicals we call "drugs" can affect us. Good education is expensive, but with it we will be healthier, and as a society, we will save the enormous costs of lost wages, law enforcement, and prisons that drugs have brought us.

ILLEGAL ACTS

The drug laws are complicated, and the states differ from each other and from the federal system. So, there is no easy way to explain them in detail. However, there are a few very powerful and relatively unknown aspects of the law that should be explained to everyone.

First is the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor. A misde­meanor is a minor crime that might result in a fine, public service, or a short prison sentence—typically less than one year (in the federal sys­tem)—and usually is associated with traffic violations, minor theft, or sometimes possession of a very small amount of an illegal drug. A felony (murder, armed robbery, sale of drugs) usually carries a sentence in excess of one year and is considered such a serious crime that convicted individ­uals lose many rights that ordinary citizens enjoy. This includes the right to hold many kinds of highly paid jobs. A felony conviction is truly a life-changing event. Understanding this is important for drug users because possession of some amounts of some drugs can be considered a misdemeanor, while larger amounts are always felonies.

The law always sets the level of punishment based on the amount of a drug that one possesses or distributes, and in this case size counts a lot.

For example, there is a current public controversy because the federal laws are terribly tough for possession of even a few grams of crack cocaine, but one would have to possess much more powdered cocaine to receive the same punishment. Anyone who contemplates drug usage should under­stand the severity of the penalties that various levels of drug possession invoke. (As we write this, the US Department of Justice has decided to modify the way US attorneys may charge cocaine/crack dealers. Now they can make the charge without stating the amount of drug, so that the pen­alties are more consistent between crack and powdered cocaine. The problem is that this is an executive decision and can be reversed in any case and at any time. The actual law regulating possession and distribu­tion of these drugs has not been changed.)

Most people know that conviction for selling drugs (distribution) results in stiffer penalties than for possession. What they don't know is that sim­ply possessing certain amounts of a drug can be considered an "intent to distribute" and thus may subject a person to the much stiffer distribution penalties. Moreover, money may not have to change hands for distribution to take place from a legal perspective. Simply handing a package of a drug from one person to another can be considered distribution.

Another obscure criminal area is conspiracy. In drug cases, there are many convictions for conspiracy to commit a crime because very often a drug deal involves much more than the simple transfer of money and drugs. The conspiracy laws are broad and powerful, and even people peripheral to the planning of a crime, who may not have participated in the crime itself, are often charged under these laws, sometimes in the hope that they will cooperate with the court officials to convict others. Anyone hanging around individuals involved in drug possession and dis­tribution should be aware of the risk of being charged with conspiracy for seemingly innocent acts, such as lending a boyfriend a car, cashing a check, or allowing a friend who is a dealer to use a telephone if it can be proven that in doing any of these seemingly innocent acts you knew why the person wanted you to do them. From the standpoint of law enforce­ment, drug dealing is considered a business (although it is illegal), and just as in a legal business, different people play different roles and have different levels of importance. In general, being around drug dealing is legally very risky.

Finally, there is the issue of the confiscation of property. Most of us have heard about auctions where the property of drug dealers is sold. This hap‑

pens because of forfeiture laws that allow property used in drug dealing to be confiscated and sold by the government. The particularly devastating aspect of this is that the property of a more or less innocent individual might be confiscated because it was being used in violation of drug laws. Imagine, for example, a student distributing cocaine from his father's home and car. Suppose the father knew something about this and told the student to stop it. If the prosecutor could prove that the father knew some­thing and allowed it to continue, it is possible that both the home and the car could be confiscated as part of the criminal prosecution.

What about marijuana? It's now legal, right? Some states have "legal­ized" marijuana possession for medicinal purposes; others have made the possession of small amounts for recreational use either legal or punish­able as a misdemeanor. But the US federal law makes it a crime in all fifty states. In general, federal law overrules state law, so you might well be in a state in which possession is legal but prosecuted under federal law. As we are writing this new edition, President Obama has asked the Department of justice to refrain from enforcing the marijuana laws in certain circum­stances for states that permit its possession. But that is an executive deci­sion that can he reversed at any time. Moreover, the specific conditions under which the federal law might be enforced may not be crystal clear. So, be aware that no matter what a state law says, federal law still has this drug illegal everywhere in the United States.

DRUG LAWS

DRUG LAWS

The drugs in this book are subjected to a variety of laws. Tobacco and alcohol are legal to possess and use in the United States, as long as you are at least eighteen years old (for tobacco) or twenty-one years old (for alco­hol). The same pertains for many of the over-the-counter cold medica­tions that can be used as precursors of methamphetamine and for dextromethorphan—if you show identification and are at least eighteen years old, you can possess amounts for personal use. Most herbal drugs we discuss (except ephedrine) can legally be purchased and possessed by anyone.

Most of the other drugs are covered by the Controlled Substances Act. According to this federal law, some substances cannot be purchased or possessed by anyone, while others can be used if they have a prescription from a doctor. There are different "schedules" that are based on the dan­ger of abuse, and the medical use. These are described in what follows. These drugs can be purchased and possessed only with an appropriate

license from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) or a prescrip­tion from a physician.

· Schedule I: Drugs in this class have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse. They cannot be purchased or possessed by anyone. Some of the drugs in this category are all forms of marijuana (natural and synthetic), heroin, all serotonin­related hallucinogens (LSD, psilocybin, and all their derivatives), MDMA and all its congeners, and all cathinone derivatives (bath salts). These can be possessed only for research purposes with an appropriate license.

Schedule II: Substances in this schedule have appropriate medical use but a high potential for abuse that may lead to severe psychologi­cal or physical dependence. This includes many opiates, such as methadone, morphine, opium, oxycodone, fentanyl, meperidine, and codeine; some sedatives like pentobarbital; and stimulants that are used clinically, including amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate.

· Schedule III: Substances in this schedule have a potential for abuse less than substances in Schedules I or II, and abuse may lead to mod­erate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence. Drugs in this class include combination products containing some opiates like hydrocodone with acetaminophen; buprenorphine for­mulated with naloxone (Suboxone), which is used to treat opiate addiction; the anesthetic ketamine; and testosterone.

·  Schedule IV: Substances in this schedule have a low potential for abuse relative to substances in Schedule III. Drugs in this category include many benzodiazepine sedatives, including diazepam (Valium), alprazolam (Xanax), and triazolam (Halcion).

·  Schedule V: Substances in this schedule have a low potential for abuse relative to substances listed in Schedule IV and consist primarily of preparations containing limited quantities of certain narcotics.

This list is not comprehensive, but it provides enough examples. The penalties that result from purchasing or possessing them vary by the schedule and by how much you have in your possession, so you should consider this only as an introductory guideline. You need to understand that if you purchase or possess anything in these schedules without a doc‑

tor's prescription, you are breaking the law. In addition, state laws may differ from federal laws. For example, marijuana is scheduled much lower by most states, but many states have broadly liberalized availability for medical purposes (although it is not completely legal in any state).

We have a word of caution about the scheduling of drugs. While this list describes the various schedules for drugs, placement at a given level in the list does not necessarily represent the degree of safety of the drug. For example, marijuana is a Schedule I drug, but it is almost impossible to die from it acutely. On the other hand, benzodiazepines are Schedule IV drugs, and with regular use over a period of time, an individual can become very tolerant to them. At that point, stopping their use can be almost impossible without medical help. If you take one of these drugs, get good information about it and don't depend on the level of scheduling to keep you safe.

Not all psychoactive drugs are controlled substances and, therefore, are on these schedules, but they do require a prescription. In most situations, you are breaking the law if you possess these drugs without a prescription and particularly if you give or sell them to another person.

GETTING SEARCHED

There's this joke about a very large canary: Where does an eight-hundred­pound canary sit? Anywhere he wants to! Likewise, a law-enforcement officer will search just about anywhere if he really wants to do it. Eventu­ally the courts could decide whether the search was legal, but if an officer has reason to believe that a crime is being committed, he may well initiate the search process and let the lawyers settle the issue later.

Laws in the United States on the subject of a search are extremely com­plicated, in part because the legal rights of individuals have been defined over the years by many different court cases. However, there are a few general principles that govern when someone can legally be detained and searched.

First is the "expectation of privacy." The expression "A man's home is his castle" applies here. To search a residence usually requires more strin­gent legal prerequisites than searching elsewhere. Often a search warrant signed by a judge is required, unless there is evidence of a major and immediate threat to public safety.

Next is the automobile. This is the place where most individuals con‑

front the law. An officer will see a traffic violation in progress, stop the vehicle, and then come to suspect that illegal drug activity is being car­ried out. If an officer reasonably believes that a crime is being committed, then he probably has the right to detain the occupants of the car until a legally proper investigation can be carried out. Remember, this officer can stop and hold someone if he believes that a crime is being committed, even if he is wrong!

A court official gave us an extreme example: Say a murder has been committed in the course of a bank robbery and the killer is driving away in a 2007 blue four-door sedan. In the heat of the moment, an incompe­tent 911 operator becomes confused and broadcasts that the killer is leav­ing the scene in a 2003 red pickup truck. An officer down the road sees a 2003 red pickup truck and stops it, removes the occupants, and searches the truck for weapons. He finds illegal substances. Was the search legal? Probably, because the officer had reason to suspect that the occupants were criminals. He was wrong, but with good reason, and the occupants may well be convicted for whatever offense they committed.

There are equally odd outcomes in which convictions are not possible because the officer was found to have no reason to search a vehicle. That is why most officers ask permission to search a car before doing so. That permission usually makes the search legal and any evidence is thus legally obtained. If permission is not given, then the officer may choose to detain the individuals further and call for a drug dog or other assistance to examine the vehicle. This issue then gets very complicated.

The practical side of all this is that a law officer has quite a lot of power to detain and arrest, because the lawmakers have decided it is in the pub­lic good to be able to temporarily detain potential criminals and, to some extent, to ask questions later. Even if an officer is eventually found in court to be wrong, the suspected individuals would have suffered loss of time and perhaps arrest, legal bills, and considerable life discomfort.

Finally, there is the situation when a person is out in public and walk­ing about. This is the least "private" act, and so there is the least expecta­tion of privacy. In this case a law officer has much more leeway in searching a person for the protection of the officer herself and for that of the general public. For example, imagine that an officer sees a person walking down the street in and out of traffic, in an erratic manner. She has the right to stop and talk to that person to ensure that he and the driving public are safe. If in the process of that stop the officer suspects

 that the individual may be carrying a weapon, she could search him by doing a pat down. If in the course of that search the officer feels some­thing she recognizes to be an illicit drug, the officer can seize the drug. Can the person be convicted of a drug-law violation? It is very likely that he can because the search was legal.

The same rules might apply at a concert. Let's say that two students are obviously intoxicated and fighting. An officer moves to stop the fight, the students resist, they are appropriately searched for weapons, and illicit substances are discovered. If the officer chooses to charge them, there is a good probability that the charges will stick.

Do law-enforcement officers have a pathological agenda to harass driv­ers and students at a concert, looking for drugs everywhere? Rarely. Most law officers see their work as a job, not a mission. Think of all the traffic laws that are broken every day and how seldom stops occur. Think of how seldom someone who is innocent of any law violation is stopped in a car or interdicted at a concert. By and large, the legal community just does its job.

WHAT HALLUCINOGENS DO TO THE BRAIN

WHAT HALLUCINOGENS DO TO THE BRAIN

It is extremely hard to portray what a man encounters under the influ­ence of these medications in light of the fact that each experience is so individualized. The personality and measure of the medication, how it is taken, the client's desires, and the client's past experience all assume a part. There are some regular impacts, in any case. Frequently, an outing starts with sickness; a sentiment unsteadiness; and gentle increments in circulatory strain, heart rate, and relaxing. At that point the client typically feels a slight twisting of tactile discernment. Visual impacts prevail, with faltering pictures and twisting of size (things may appear to be substantially bigger or littler than they are). 

At high measurements, clients encounter deceptions, pseudohallucinations, or hal­lucinations that are very individual and significantly impacted by the setting. They can run from basic shading examples to complex scenes, regularly with the medication taker feeling like he is watching his activities from out­side his body. The disarray of faculties, or synesthesia, for example, seeing sounds and hearing hues, is generally revealed. The feeling of time is twisted, so minutes can appear like hours. At the pinnacle of the medication encounter, the client much of the time depicts a feeling of significant understand­ing or illumination. Once in a while there is a feeling of unity with the world, which is once in a while kept up after the medication encounter is finished. Pro­found rapture or nervousness can happen. As the medication impact melts away, the client typically feels a kind of extraordinary sense and exhaustion. 

Albeit persuasive, phenomenal, and engaging reports possess large amounts of the writing, a standout amongst other portrayals of the stimulating background was composed by Dr. Albert Hofmann, the physicist who initially orchestrated LSD. The report is particularly convincing in light of the fact that Dr. Hofmann composed it when the impacts of the medication had at no other time been portrayed, so he couldn't have been affected by desires. 

This was in the period when logical self-experimentation was more com­mon than it is today, so after an unplanned involvement in the research facility that alarmed him to the significant impact of the medication, he took some of it deliberately and recorded what happened. He reports two encounters in his book LSD, My Problem Child that show the mind boggling scope of encounters that can happen even inside a similar person. 

Last Friday, April 16,1943,1 was compelled to intrude on my work in the lab amidst the evening and continue home, being influenced by an amazing fretfulness, consolidated with a slight dazedness. At home I set down and sank into a not disagreeable inebriated like condition, described by a to a great degree empowered creative energy. In a dreamlike state, with eyes shut (I observed the light to be offensively glaring), I saw a continuous stream of phenomenal pictures, exceptional shapes with extraordinary, vivid play of hues. After somewhere in the range of two hours this condition blurred away . . . 

The unsteadiness and vibe of blacking out turned out to be so solid now and again that I could never again hold myself erect, and needed to rests on a couch. My surroundings had now changed themselves in additionally startling ways. Everything in the room spun around, and the natural protests and household items expected peculiar, undermining shapes. They were in contin­uous movement, vivified, as though determined by an inward eagerness. The woman adjacent, whom I hardly perceived, brought me drain—over the span of the night I drank more than two liters. She was never again Mrs. R., but instead a malicious, deceptive witch with a hued veil. 

Far more terrible than these satanic changes of the external world, were simply the adjustments that I saw, in my inward being. Each effort of my will, each endeavor to put a conclusion to the deterioration of the external world and the disintegration of my personality, appeared to be squandered exertion. An evil spirit had attacked me, had claimed my body, brain, and soul. I bounced up and shouted, endeavoring to free myself from him, yet then sank down again and lay defenseless on the couch. The sub­stance, with which I had needed to try, had vanquished me. It was the devil that contemptuously triumphed over my will. I was seized by the frightful dread of going crazy. I was taken to a different universe, somewhere else, some other time. My body appeared to be without sensation, dormant, weird. Is it accurate to say that i was biting the dust? Was this the progress? On occasion I trusted myself to be outside my body, and afterward saw unmistakably, as an outside onlooker, the total disaster of my circumstance;

HAZARDS OF HERBAL DRUGS

HAZARDS OF HERBAL DRUGS

The greater part of the home grown arrangements that individuals utilize are harmless, and some are viable, particularly in individuals with lacks in the atom that is in the supplement. Moreover, there is some advantage in taking a milder, endogenous variant of an endorsed medicate that may have serious symptoms. Be that as it may, some have genuine threats. Of the gathering specified here, stimulants identified with ephedrine represent the most serious hazard, since individuals can without much of a stretch take enough to cause hypertension, stroke, or heart assault. Frequently, the advertisers of the natural arrangements prescribe taking exces­sive measurements. Such supplements are plainly perilous blade somebody as of now encountering hypertension or any sort of cardiovascular issue. 

A portion of the dietary supplements can be very hazardous for individuals with certain therapeutic conditions, or those taking certain medications. Taking anything that builds the creation of monoamine neurotransmitters (e.g., phenylalanine or tyrosine) is hazardous for somebody who is taking a specific sort of medication to treat misery (the monoamine oxidase inhibi­tor class, for example, Nardil or Eldepry1). These medications keep the breakdown of monoamine neurotransmitters, and unsafe hypertension can come about on the off chance that they are brought in mix with dietary supplements that expansion the generation of these same neurotransmitters. Further­more, taking phenylalanine can be unsafe for a man who experiences phenylketonuria, a sickness that keeps the typical digestion of phenylalanine, which can develop in the blood to risky levels. The long haul impacts in generally solid individuals of taking high measurements of numerous natural medications are not known. The present energy for natural cures will give the information that we require be that as it may, shockingly, at the presumable cost of unwary clients of these items. Our recommendation is to keep your eyes on the logical research about nutritious supplements and mind work, since science is making up for lost time quick.

HOW PEOPLE TAKE OPIATES

HOW PEOPLE TAKE OPIATES

Most opiate drugs enter the bloodstream easily from many different

routes because they dissolve in fatty substances and so can cross intocells. Heroin and fentanyl represent one extreme—they are so fat-soluble that they can be absorbed across the mucosal lining of the nose. Most other opiates are not quite that fat-soluble and cannot be absorbed well after snorting. However, some opiates including the natural ingredients of the opium poppy form a vapor if heated and can be absorbed into the body if they are smoked—that is the basis of the use of the "opium pipe" as the traditional device of ancient as well as more recent history. Almost all opiates can be absorbed from the stomach, although injection is a much more efficient route for some, like morphine, that are more poorly absorbed from the stomach than others.

Intravenous injection is the route that delivers opiates into the blood­stream the fastest. Because intravenous injection is more difficult and more dangerous than other routes, many users do not start this way. Instead, they start by skin-popping—injecting drugs subcutaneously (just beneath the skin). Heroin powder is dissolved and injected. Morphine, fentanyl, and meperidine almost always appear as legally prepared injec­tion forms that have been diverted from medical use. Snorting heroin has become a common route for new drug users. In part, users are avoiding the stigma—and risk of infectious diseases including hepatitis and AIDS—that come with injecting a drug. In part, they may believe mistak­enly that they cannot become addicted if they don't inject drugs. Pre­scription opiates like codeine, hydromorphone (Dilaudid), oxycodone (Percodan, OxyContin), meperidine (Demerol), and, of course, metha­done (Dolophine) are available as pills. Sometimes drug users resort to grinding up pills of codeine, hydrocodone, or methadone and injecting the suspension when they cannot get opiates any other way. This is an extremely risky business because the other pill components do not dis­solve in saline. Injecting particles into a blood vessel can irritate the blood vessel, thus setting off a chain of reactions that lead to vascular inflamma­tion and permanent damage. In addition, a pill particle can lodge in a small vessel and block off the blood supply to an area of the body.