{"id":1008,"date":"2010-04-07T06:45:05","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T13:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/2010\/04\/07\/new-drug-hysteria\/"},"modified":"2010-04-07T06:45:05","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T13:45:05","slug":"new-drug-hysteria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/07\/new-drug-hysteria\/","title":{"rendered":"“New drug” hysteria"},"content":{"rendered":"

One more reason the mainstream media is dying. They’re still stuck back in the “reefer madness” days. Case in point: CNN (via an alleged new-media affiliate) discovers a “new” drug<\/a> that strips users of their free will. Gasp! OMG! The horror!<\/i><\/p>\n

But the name of the supposedly new drug sounded very, very, very, extremely, wildly familiar. And sure enough. It’s been around forever<\/a> and its been quite well known to science for 130 years.<\/p>\n

As to stripping away free will — dubious. But it’ll make you heave your guts out and hallucinate and it can kill you, as thousands of tribal shamans and would-be shamans have discovered over the centuries. About once a year, some young lad on a res, hoping to achieve shamanic visions, dies of its effects. It also has historic and current medical uses.<\/p>\n

As to this “new” drug coming from that oh-so-threatening country of Colombia … yeah, it probably does. But one source of it also grows in a desert wash about half a mile from where I sit right now. I recall another source of it growing against my schoolyard fence when I was a kid. The stuff is everywhere, quite likely even in your own garden. Or the weed patch next door. And here’s another source — the stunningly lovely plant (“Angel’s Trumpet”) that grows abundantly in the mountains of Panama. You can get a glimpse of it in the center of this photo I took on my recent trip, though this doesn’t show how spectacularly big and beautiful its blossoms were:<\/p>\n

\"Angel's<\/a><\/p>\n

So the CNN relay of the VBS story is not only hysterically hysterical. It displays an appallingly typical lack of research and an equally appalling and typical credulity. The VBS video itself is little more than a live-on-the-spot-in-Columbia retailing of urban legends (what a waste of an airline ticket!).<\/p>\n

Here’s a better photo of Angel’s Trumpet, taken by my friend Lorri. Still doesn’t adequately show what a gorgeous plant this is:<\/p>\n

\"Angel's<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One more reason the mainstream media is dying. They’re still stuck back in the “reefer madness” days. Case in point: CNN (via an alleged new-media affiliate) discovers a “new” drug that strips users of their free will. Gasp! OMG! The horror! But the name of the supposedly new drug sounded very, very, very, extremely, wildly familiar. And sure enough. It’s been around forever and its been quite well known to science for 130 years. As to stripping away free will — dubious. But it’ll make you heave your guts out and hallucinate and it can kill you, as thousands of…<\/p>\n

Continue reading“New drug” hysteria<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,19,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mind-and-spirit","category-miscellaneous","category-travels","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}