Archive for the ‘drugs’ Category
The Economist, a rather conservative publication, has come out strongly in favour of the legalisation, taxation and government regulation of drugs.
All drugs.
The article I am referring to is RIGHT HERE and is well worth a few minutes of your valuable surfing time because it lays out a very rational, sensible and persuasive argument for this radical suggestion.
As the UN meets in Vienna to decide the next decade’s drug policy, why won’t they listen to the experts?
There are so many intelligent, educated, thoughtful members of respectable society who believe legalisation is the only solution. There are loads of senior policemen who believe this, many civil servants and politicians do too, but they are too afraid to speak up because of the false hysteria surrounding the issue.
David Cameron, most likely the next Prime Minister of this country is sympathetic to the idea of radically changing our approach on the subject as mentioned in this, another well written and thoughtful piece on the subject from politics.co.uk
I’ve always thought we’ve had more of a chance of changing the laws under a conservative government, because it takes a strong party to take decisive action.
If David Cameron would take one key step in that direction, he could have my support.
Mr. Cameron, I implore you to shift your public position based on facts and science. Please consider decriminalising or legalising cannabis as soon as you are in power.
Finally, a government drug policy I agree with completely…
Illegal factory-style cannabis farms should be closed down.
Check out THIS REPORT from the BBC.
Factory cannabis-farms are often set-up in rented accommodation, with the landlords none the wiser until they receive a phone call from the police telling them their income property has been trashed.
Illegal cannabis farmers steal electricity from neighbours or from the an energy supplier; either way its theft and its wrong. Safety is ignored and fires are not uncommon. And saddest of all, they are frequently staffed by illegal aliens trapped in a type of hellish indentured servitude.
Where I split from the government is their choice of solution; police raids won’t make the problem go away, it will only make it relocate to yet another unsuspecting venue. The trade is far too lucrative for those involved to give it up. Raids are simply a calculated risk balanced against a very rewarding return.
Its supply and demand, the very cornerstone of our capitalist system. To ignore or deny this very simple truth, is to be blinkered and ostrich like.
There’s a better way.
There’s always a better way, but it would involve our leaders shifting their current position, which is one of disinformation and lies, towards a more open and honest approach.
Its time to legalise the industry and take it out of the hands of criminals. Its time to regulate and tax cannabis, bring the market under some sort of control.
To be against a legal cannabis industry is to be against the very heart and soul of capitalism.
Don’t let the conditioning the media has been force-feeding you colour your view on this. They’ve been systematically trying to discredit cannabis and pervert your perception of it for quite some time now.
Why?
Its easy to score points with the public by appearing tough on drugs. Also, it diverts your attention from more important issues, like Iraq, climate change or the economy.
The time is now for this unadulterated bullshit to end.
Back when Blair and Blunkett were in charge, cannabis was downgraded and they even toyed with a police policy of making arrests for possession of cannabis the lowest possible priority. Things were finally moving in the right direction, the government was listening to advisors and scientistis and using a bit of common sense.
Meanwhile in America, the “war on drugs” was still going strong, along with federal raids on medical marijuana clubs and imprisonment for possession. This wasn’t that long ago.
Under Obama, things have already changed with an end to federal raids and an official policy that secedes power to individual states with regards to cannabis.
California is now considering legalisation and taxation, because the state is nearly bankrupt. Desperate times clearly call for creative measures, this one will bring Cali an estimated annual tidy sum of $1.3 billion (with a B) dollars.
Many other states have decriminalised possession and have made it the lowest possible policing priority.
Our out-of-touch, out-of-step government is about as un-Obama as possible.
If people wonder why Obama didn’t make more time for Gordon Brown, they’re not really looking closely enough. They couldn’t be more polar opposites when it comes to genuine liberal thought and policy.
Legalising weed would create legitimate jobs, for legitimate farmers and distributors; jobs that already exist in the black economy, fuelling a rather sizeable black market that exists outside the tax and social security system.
A legal and controlled industry would insure that safety standards were met at the point of production, for the facilities, the staff and the product. You would know the weed you were getting was pure and unadulterated. You would know the person who grew it was paid a reasonable, taxable wage.
As much as I wish to see these dangerous and illegal cannabis farms closed down, I’m smart enough to realise that police raids alone are not the answer. If you really want to end the illegal cannabis trade, there is only one practical, workable solution: Legalise!
Even the UN may come to this conclusion as they prepare to finalise an agreement this week in Vienna, but as this report in today’s Guardian suggests, there are still deep divisions with some EU and Latin American countries favouring a more rational approach, with the US preferring to continue the pointless “war on drugs”.
Oh President Saviour Obama, are you listening? The “war on drugs” has been an abysmal failure and many knowledgeable and respectable people believe its been worse than the actual harm caused by the drugs themselves. Could you please call your minions in Vienna and sort this sorry mess out?
If you want to know more, please check out my Cannabis Truth Series
Promises, promises. Politicians make them all the time when they are campaigning, only to conveniently forget about them once in office, but not President Saviour Obama.
This week, US Attorney General, Eric Holder confirmed that federal raids on Medical Marijuana facilities would end and individual states could determine their own policies regarding my favourite plant. He said this is “now American policy”.
How cool is that?
This is a huge shift in the way the law deals with weed in America. I wish the UK could be equally enlightened, but the government here works very hard to be as un-Obama-like as possible.
And they don’t want to stop there either. Legislators in California are now considering taking it one step further, with a possible plan to fully legalise and tax cannabis to help bale out the financially destitute state. They say it could bring in $1.3 billion (with a B) in tax revenue to the state annually.
That’s a lot of greenbacks for a lot of greenery! Its common fucking sense! Prohibition doesn’t work, never has, never will. If you can’t beat ‘em, tax ‘em.
Obama’s motto throughout his campaign was “Yes, we can.” Now that he’s in office, the new motto is: “Yes, we cannabis!”
Roseanne Barr, domestic goddess, comedian and now radio talkshow host is selling some very cool tee-shirts in America with that very slogan on them, Yes, we CANnabis.
We should all order ourselves one to show our support for this long overdue change in policy. Let’s hope that it spreads out from America to the rest of the world.
Six months ago I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Disease, otherwise known as Chronic Thyroiditis. At the time I didn’t really grasp the significance or seriousness of my diagnosis.
I do now.
I’ve probably had this stupid disease for a while, longer than I’ve known. I had symptoms that I didn’t know were symptoms for at least a year prior to being told of the cause.
I just thought I was getting old.
I am getting old, but age was not causing my problems, my useless thyroid was…and is.
I’m still not well. I find myself saying that a lot lately, in response to people asking me why I look tired, or pale.
I’ve been undergoing treatment for Hashimoto’s since my diagnosis. Treatment comes in the form of a small pill taken daily to replace the thyroid hormone my body no longer manufactures.
The side effects caused by the pills are very similar to the symptoms of the disease. I get heart palpitations, breathlessness, headaches, dizziness, light-headedness and these get worse every time the dosage is raised.
The dosage gets raised every couple of months as I am still not on a therapeutically effective level yet. I started out on 25mg, then went to 50mg and now I am on 100mg of Levothyroxine. Its about to be raised again, probably to 150mg, though I am awaiting for the results of a blood test for confirmation.
Lately, extreme exhaustion and lethargy have been added to the mix. I constantly crave sleep, but I don’t sleep deeply or for very long. I get physically tired very easily and don’t have any of my usual stamina.
My normal walk to my local highstreet used to take me well under 10 minutes, it now takes me closer to 15 and the return journey is stretching to the 20 minute mark.
I’m having concentration problems too. “Brain fog” is another symptom and there’s a real pea-souper in my head most of the time. I find it difficult paying attention to people when they tell me anything complex, my mind wanders and I am easily distracted. The same is true of my reading comprehension, if a paragraph drags on too long, as this one seems to be doing, I forget what it says.
I get waves of nausea, my appetite vacillates between having none at all, to suddenly being ravenous and I’ve been having mood swings too.
All of this sucks the big one in a very real, demonstrable way and I am tired of it.
To complicate matters, I haven’t been having much fun with the NHS.
My GP referred me to a specialist and after waiting months for an appointment, I ended up leaving the clinic without seeing the consultant endocrinologist. The clinic was oversubscribed, there weren’t any seats in the waiting room, the nurses were surly and rude and after waiting way too long, I left.
I did receive a letter of apology from the consultant for my poor treatment, but that is a small consolation. The entire experience left me with a bad taste in my mouth and no desire to ever return to that clinic.
It gets even worse, my regular GP, who I have been seeing for nearly a dozen years has been having health problems of his own. He’s cut back his hours and for the last several weeks, I’ve been unable to see him. I finally gave up and saw the surgery’s senior partner.
The senior partner immediately said she would take over managing my care, which makes me think my regular doctor won’t be back full time any time soon.
Being sick seems to be hard work and I worry if I ever had something seriously big wrong with me that I wouldn’t have the patience to fight my way through the system to get the treatment I would need to survive.
And speaking of survival, people can and do die from Hashimoto’s Disease. One of the things it does to you is weaken your heart and one can suffer from heart failure. I’m not saying that’s what I am heading for, but quite often it does feel that way to me.
I’m told that once I am on an effective dose of medication, I’ll feel like a brand new person. I’ve heard that a lot for the last six months. I’d be happy if I could just feel like the old person I used to be, before I was diagnosed and on this stupid medication.
The exhaustion caught up to me this week and prevented me from getting to work. I’ve been living on adrenalin and my supply must have finally depleted, I sort of collapsed the other night. I’m now signed off work for a week to rest.
I feel like this is my life now and I’ll never feel like my old self again. I know I’m an impatient patient, but I just can’t see a path back to good health. Let’s hope my doctor’s vision is clearer than my own.
Hello. Welcome back. Did ya miss me?
Its ramble time. Woke up too early following too little sleep. Must focus.
On what?
Its a pleasant, relaxing day off, or rather it should be, but I’ve got heaps to do ‘round the house and I might even wander up to my local high street.
Do they call it a “high street” because you have to get high before you go there? No? Well, tough, because I will be high when I go.
It should be a rule that you have to be high before allowed onto your local high street. It would make the entire shopping experience more pleasant for everyone involved. The shop assistants would think all the customers were mellow and pleasant, the shop assistants would be helpful without being overbearing and I wouldn’t nearly get into fist fights with all the rude, surly people knocking into me and blocking my way.
Oh wouldn’t it be grand?
As soon as they start opening cannabis cafes around the country, this is the sort of relaxed Utopia we can expect. Until then it will continue to be no fun.
Did you see a group of former presidents from Latin America are urging the world to adopt a controlled and regulated cannabis market? Did you look here?
Even the UN is working towards this fairly obvious and sensible conclusion. In the good ol’ US of A, they are moving in this direction. President Saviour Obama has even said that federal raids against medical marijuana establishments must end and the federal government needs to start respecting laws passed by individual states.
Many states in America have already decriminalised weed. That means it is considered the lowest possible policing priority, with penalties for possession being the equivalent of a minor traffic or parking offence.
Why can’t we do that here?
We could and we were going to until Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith started mucking around with things. These two nincompoops believe laws should be used to “send a message” to people, rather than reflect the scientific evidence or the truth.
This week the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). the body that advises the government on drug policy stated that ecstasy (E, pills, MDMA), be re-classified from its current A grade, back into Class B, to reflect its relative harm to the user. Sounds sensible enough as E is not in the same league as coke and smack.
The head of the ACMD, Professor. David Nutt went on to say that taking ecstasy is no worse than horseback riding and an equivalent number of people die from both activities annually. You would have thought that he said Jesus was secretly Satan for the drubbing he took over the comments. He was even forced to apologise and his future on the ACMD has been questioned.
Just for telling the truth!
In America, MDMA has been used by mental health professionals to assist in the therapy process. Would medical doctors prescribe something potentially lethal when their first rule is to “do no harm”? What do they know that we don’t know.
Nothing! The difference is our government uses legislation to “send a message” rather than to treat people with respect. Legislating morality never works, because people have their own moral compasses and that counts for something.
The simple fact is that anyone who’s ever smoked a joint or necked an E knows that what the government is saying is bullshit. What do you reckon that does to the government’s credibility?
It knocks it into the toilet. When a government lies about anything, we all suffer.
Drug taking is a health issue, not a moral or legal issue and trying to force it only does a disservice to everyone. If I choose to ingest MDMA, or cannabis or chocolate or even broken glass, its my body and my choice.
Criminalising millions of people serves no one. If you’re having trouble with drugs, you should be able to seek help without worrying about ending up with a criminal record. And if you are enjoying them responsibly, it should be nobody’s business but your own.
Common sense and compassion will eventually rule the day, but for now we’ll have to just keep watching our leaders screw things up more and more. Its frustrating, annoying and unavoidable, for as long as politicians can use the debate over drugs to score points with Middle England, the senseless persecution of people who enjoy something other than booze will continue.
Gee, that wasn’t as nearly as rambling as I expected it to be. Lucky you, or maybe even lucky me.
A year ago, I spent far too much money on my coffee making set-up. I say that, sitting here a year later, sipping the finest cappuccino I’ve ever had.
Since yesterday.
Every day I drink the best coffee I’ve ever tasted and I have absolutely no regrets on how much money I spent.
I have an Izzo Vivi espresso maker and a Macap M4D grinder as well as various accessories that help me pursue the perfect coffee.
- the hippy’s izzo vivi espresso machine
- The hippy’s Macap M4D grinder
The Izzo Vivi is on the low-end of the pro-sumer coffee maker scale, but is an excellent piece of kit. Its been reliable, dependable and relatively easy to use and maintain. Most importantly, it cranks out shot after shot of delicious espresso and has plenty of steam power to turn your milk into light and pour-able mirco-foam.
The espresso maker, as I quickly learned, is not the most important machine component in coffee making, its the grinder. To really make good espresso, you need a grinder that is up to the task and whatever you think you should spend on one, its probably not enough. Any coffee website or forum will tell you exactly the same thing.
My espresso maker has no real controls on it, except for the lever that operates the pump. You fill the portafilter with freshly ground coffee, lock it into place and then lift the lever to the pump. When you’re done, flip the lever down and the pump stops. That’s really it.
All of your control comes from adjusting the fineness of the grind and once you find your espresso range, requires minimal tweaking depending on the type and freshness of your coffee beans.
Which leads me to what I think is the single most important component in coffee making: freshly roasted beans.
I’ve read of something called the “rule of twelve’s” when it comes to coffee which goes like this:
unroasted, green coffee beans stay fresh for 12 months
roasted coffee beans stay fresh for around 12 days
ground coffee stays fresh for 12 minutes
I buy my coffee online, about every fortnight, to insure I have the freshest, tastiest beans possible. I grind my beans directly in the portafilter, only seconds before I brew my espresso. You can’t get any fresher than that.
Coffee oxidises quickly and releases gasses which break it down and the flavour suffers for this. If you’re buying your coffee pre-ground, or you are buying roasted beans without knowing the roasting date, you are cheating yourself out of the best coffee you can drink.
And if you are using those pre-filled coffee pods, you are trading convenience for taste.
You don’t have to spend as much as I have, but you really owe it to yourself to grind your own coffee and there are plenty of more affordable options for grinders than mine.
And freshly roasted beans aren’t that expensive, a quarter kilo of a decent single estate or blend costs about the same as a tall cappuccino from one of the high street chains and you’ll get at least 8 double espressos from it.
And it doesn’t have to be espresso, a decent Bodum press-pot with freshly ground coffee will make an outstanding cup and if you are only grinding for filter coffee, you can find some real bargains on grinders. I promise you, you will taste the difference.
My grinder is used every day, but the same can’t be said for the espresso maker. When I don’t have the time to heat it up, or clean it down after use, instead I use an Aeropress.
The main feature of the Aeropress is that it will work with the same fineness of grind as the espresso maker, so no need to readjust the grinder. The Aeropress is made of plastic, very simple to use and clean and produces a very convincing espresso-like coffee. I heat up some milk in the microwave and use one of those battery-operated hand whisks to froth it and in less than 5 minutes, have something which approximates a cappuccino.
But when I have the time, I always make the extra effort to use the Vivi. It takes longer and requires more clean-up, but its worth it.
My daily coffee routine is something like this:
Switch on the Vivi
Wait 30–45 minutes for it to warm up
When ready, brew a double espresso
do a 2 second flush to clear loose grounds from the shower screen
backflush for 10–15 seconds to clear oils from the brew path
froth my milk
flush the steam wand to get any milk residue out
build my drink
enjoy
Most days, I have a second cup as well, after that, I switch the machine off to let it cool. Then I clean out the drip tray, wipe it down and every other day, I refill the water reservoir.
I also backflush with detergent occasionally, I soak the baskets and portafilters in the same detergent, I soak the tip of the steam wand in milk deposit remover and every few months I descale the boiler. None of this is difficult or time consuming.
My accessory collection includes 2x lined shot glasses to check I am getting the correct volume of espresso in the correct amount of time (2 ounces in around 30 seconds), a couple of shot pots, a stainless steam jug for milk frothing, a 58mm Reg Barber tamper, a portafilter holder for tamping, and a shot timer. The tamping stand and the shot timer are useful, but not essential, everything else I couldn’t do without.
I also have 4 portafilters; one with 2 spouts and a double basket, another with one spout and a double basket, a third with a blanking disk for backflushing and a fourth that’s bottomless with a triple basket. The bottomless portafilter was useful when I was learning how to pack a portafilter properly, as it showed me where to look for my mistakes.
I spent a good part of the year sampling different beans and blends, but for many months now, I’ve been sticking one particular bean, called Yemen Mokha Matrar which is the richest, tastiest of all I tried. It works particularly well in milk-based drinks, like my amazing cappuccinos.
You can get Yemen Mokha Matrar from a variety of suppliers, though the roaster I use, roasts to order. I place an order on his website and he roasts the beans for me and ships them out the same day. Its a great service and they arrive the following day.
If anyone wants the name of the roaster I use, please feel free to email me. I’d like to include a link to his site, but would you want to be known as my official coffee roaster? I’m not certain he would either.
Since I started making my own proper coffee at home, I haven’t had a coffee any place else that even comes close, not from the high street chains, not from the coffee vendor in my office, nowhere!
Life is far too short to be drinking sludge and you owe it to yourself to provide yourself with the finest coffee possible. Put it this way, if I had to pay high street prices for every cappuccino I’ve had at home in the last year, I could have bought three sets of coffee making gear.
And if you are wondering why an old trippy hippy like me digs coffee so much, its simple. Coffee is a drug, like anything else that has an effect on your mood and perception. Don’t believe me, read this and learn if you drink too much, you can have proper hallucinations.
Our stupid government went ahead and reclassified weed today, against the advice of the scientists, medical experts and drug advisors. Cannabis has been returned to Class B, which means penalties for simple possession have increased, but penalties for dealing and production remain the same, sort of…
While not in place yet, a 3-strike system is to be implemented later in the week. On your first offence, you will be given a warning, on your second, you will be fined 80 quid and on your third, you will be charged. Naturally, this new penalty system is not in place today and won’t be until at least midweek. The government couldn’t even co-ordinate the change in classification and the new penalties so they started on the same day and they’ve had over a year to plan it. Losers!
So why did they change the classification?
I don’t know, there isn’t a single good reason for the change. Laws regarding cannabis are even more muddled and confusing now than they ever were!
The advice from the various government advisory boards was to leave it in Class C, but if they did that, they couldn’t score any political points with our poorly informed electorate.
Check out this BBC report for more details.
No one in the UK government is interested in the truth, or doing the right thing where cannabis is concerned. I am so disappointed and depressed by this stupid outcome, words cannot begin to express my distress.
I found this list of Cannabis Myths from a drug organisation in the US state of Indiana. Even they know more about weed than Gordon Brown and his idiotic cabinet. Please read it so you can be armed with the truth being denied us by the media and the government here.
Gordon Brown may still not be long for politics as the current economic depression (someone has to say it) may sink his career yet. If it does, it will be the one good thing to come from an otherwise bleak financial outlook. Here’s hoping!
I think they located some of this hippy ancestor’s in China.
Go on, clicky the linky good! You know you wanna!
(The northlondonhippy apologises for any perceived racist humour in the above post. You can’t be too careful these days.)
Since receiving my diagnosis of Hashmimoto’s Disease and writing about it here, the word “Hashimoto” is appearing with greater and greater frequency, in various forms in the list of search terms plugged into Google that get you to my site.
Don’t worry, “northlondonhippy” remains the number one search term that finds me. I’m a proper online destination.
But very high up on the list, sits Dr. Hashimoto. Considering the first time I ever heard of it was as it passed over my doctor’s lips preceded by the words “you have…”, I’m somewhat surprised at how common it is.
It seems quite a few of you out there in internetland have Hashimoto’s Disease too, or at least you think you do.
People search for symptoms, search for cures, search for clues on how to live with this auto-immune disease.
I’m far from an expert, having only known of my own condition for several months, but I have been discovering loads of people I know who have thyroid problems.
Everyone wants to know what “your dose” is.
“What’s your dose?”, they all say to me, looking visibly disappointed when I tell them I am currently on a paltry 50 micrograms of levothyroxine, compared to their 150–200 microgram dose.
Its true my dose is currently low, but that is about to change, again. My GP is monitoring my thyroid levels at regular intervals and increasing my dose gradually. The key, he says, is to find the lowest therapeutic dose, because too much can cause different problems. I’m due for another blood test next week and I would expect my dose to go up again as soon as I receive the results.
With me, I didn’t know I had a problem for quite a while, I ignored or dismissed all the symptoms I now know I had. It wasn’t until my back seized up and my legs gave out that it dawned on me I might have a health problem.
Clever, eh? I had heart palpitations, breathlessness, nausea, dizziness, no appetite, no energy, aching joints and a slow heart beat and I just thought it was just the normal ageing process catching up to me.
My doctor assures me that all of this is very treatable and once my dosage is correct, I will feel like my old self again. I’ve felt crappy for so long, I’m not sure what that really means.
So if you’re already diagnosed, just be patient. Give the medication time to even you out, just like I am.
And if you think you have Hashimoto’s, just go see a doctor and you are a simple blood test away from diagnosis and treatment.
And if it turns out you don’t have Hashimoto’s Disease, perhaps this article in today’s New York Times, might give you pause for thought.
Why isn’t THIS WOMAN in charge of UK drug policy?
I’m talking about Lady Amanda Neidpath, the head of the Beckley Foundation, the group responsible for THIS REPORT which I wrote about recently.
Why are our elected official so afraid of the truth?
Why do we ignore experts on issues which are controversial? Certainly people with this sort of extensive knowledge and experience on any subject (including and especially drug use) should be embraced, as should their conclusions.
We don’t expect enough from our leaders, we should expect more. We should receive more too.
Let’s put Lady Neidpath in charge of the UK’s drug strategy. She’s already got my vote!

