A True Explaination

From my unpublished manuscript "Coca Forgotten Medicine"

Beyond David Musto

Cocaine basically is an alkaloid -- a nitrogen bearing molecule -- found in a plant in small quantities that serves as a CNS stimulant: a member of the same pharmacological family as caffeine and nicotine.

However, having been used in so many different forms -- a white powder taken up the nose or injected; a rock smoked, or a component of the original 1886-1903 vintage Coca-Cola, or something otherwise contained within the leaves of the plant where it naturally occurred: Coca -- cocaine has been seen in no less broad a variety of ways.

Damnation came with isolated cocaine via injection. Made available, sometimes as part of a kit to take hypodermically. Some began prescribing these injections, most prominently Sigmund Freud (May 6,1856-September 23,1939) This lead to disaster, as was the case with his first such patient, his friend, the physiologist Ernest Fleischl von Marxow (August 5, 1846- October 22,1891) Prescribed cocaine injections as an antidote to his morphine addiction, a habit picked up from an earlier prescription for morphine injections as a painkiller for an amputated thumb resulting from an accident in a dissection room, Fleischl may have felt good briefly before quickly escalating his usage, reportedly 1 gram of the hydrochloride daily, and experiencing a mind and body racking poisoning.

Additional criticism came with cocaine powders, available in varying concentrations, sold as hay fever and catarrh remedies to be taken up the nose. These sniffing powders, first appeared during the 1890s. Sold as hay fever and catarrh remedies, sniffing powders had a far lower abuse liability than cocaine injections, though nonetheless, could lead to similar – if less intense – such problems - and unknown with what had induced the praise: Coca.

The plant containing cocaine, generally from 0.5% to 1 of the dried leaf's weight, Coca is routinely used -- primarily chewed, though also drank as a 'tea" -- by millions of South Americans as a traditional remedy, its importance undeniable. Though not a widely well-known topic outside of South America -- where it’s primarily seen as the first half of the name of the world's currently best known soft-drink, or as the source of cocaine or even the cocaine problem -- Coca is of primary importance in the Andes, both culturally and out of sheer practicality.

Coca, a plant that grows in soils too poor to support many other crops, provides a valuable medicine, stimulant, indeed tonic that’s greatly appreciated; it’s featured upon Peruvian and Bolivian money and flags. Its leaves are consumed -- primarily chewed --by millions in the Andes where it is said to be the thing making life at such altitudes bearable, a fact attested by visitors to the region.

Tourists’ guidebooks invariably recommend Coca adjusting to the altitudes, customarily being served Coca tea upon dismemberment. Coca is traditionally taken as a specific remedy for soka (weakness, fatigue and malaise), fiero (a chronic wasting disease)," lucura (severe mental disturbances), sorache (G-I tract disorders, toothache, mouth sores), etc. Coca leaves are also taken regularly to safe guard health, its nutritional qualities and that of conserving body heat being specifically appropriate for life at high altitudes. Perhaps most commonly, Coca is a favored stimulant, the choice of Andean cultures much as others favor Coffee, Tea, or Tobacco. Routinely chewed, Coca is said to provide a more useful stimulant effect, making possible tasks that would ordinarily be far more tiring.

As noted, Coca is also drank: its most popular use outside South America prior to its prohibition, circular 1914. For half a century, Coca products were commercially available throughout much of the industrialized world, usually in beverage form. Such Coca products grew rapidly in popularity through the latter 1800s- this being the time of the original Coca-Cola. Made with the extract of Coca leaves and Kola nuts, amongst other things, this drink was advertised as a "brain tonic and nerve stimulant," and acknowledged -- in this pre-air-conditioning era -- as useful and refreshing in humid, South-Eastern U.S.; Coca beverages though reflected the full range of the things Coca leaf have been used- and more. Coca wines, initially offered as a restorative for overstressed stage performers in Paris, spurred a reputation for Coca, viewing its as preferable to infinitely more established stimulants, such as Tea, Coffee and even Tobacco.

Pharmacologically this made perfect sense. Coca's cocaine is dilute, and mixed with other leaf components said to modify its effect in good ways- quite the opposite of "cocaine" as twentieth century people conceived it as a concentrated drug of abuse. In light of the colloquial use of the term "caffeine" in meaning a beverage made with Coffee or Tea, the origins of the positive perception of "cocaine" were perfectly understandable- after all, to how many people does "caffeine" evoke images of snorting white lines of ground up No Doz?

Hmmm. Not simply "cocaine," Coca-Cola, or something like crushed up caffeine pills (which, in the case of No Doz, contains mannitol, a common adulterant for illicit cocaine powder), but rather Coca Leaf. Given the extent and importance of its recently acknowledged possibilities, Coca's place in medicine, and as a general stimulant would seemingly be assured, it being appreciated for any one of a variety of applications. First and foremost for a society up in arms over the spectra of cocaine abuse, or "addiction" -- or specifically habitual use with undesirable -- e.g. toxic -- consequences of the refined drug, should be a call to least a look at allowing Coca to serve as a substitute for refined cocaine (intranasal, freebase, injection and "crack"). This alone could be invaluable for weaning cocaine users away from concentrated forms of the drug, let alone an interesting alternative to other commonly taken stimulants, including caffeine containing beverages.

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David Musto's Over Simplicity

From my unpublished manuscript "Coca Forgotten Medicine"

Yale University's Over-Simplistic Accounts of History

The standard explanation of cocaine's volatile reputation at the time, portrayed it as a simple repeat of the events a century earlier, when Americans had seen cocaine favorably before experiencing its dark side and learned its lesson. Such was how it was defined by "the country's leading researcher on the cyclical history of American drug epidemics," Yale University professor of psychiatry and the history of medicine -- as described by the November 24, 1986 People magazine -- David Musto. As that article showcasing this mass-media popular conception of the history of the nation's relationship with cocaine elaborated:

"While the recent infatuation with drugs, especially cocaine may seem unique in the nation's history, Musto points out that what we are seeing is actually a repeat performance."

He goes on to say that "the recent discovery of cocaine's dangers were but a rediscovery, with recent history largely a mirror of the discoveries of cocaine's dangers a century previously, when the perception of cocaine was often favorable. For it was during the 1880s that numerous companies began supplying cocaine in various ways, enthusiastically promoting it almost as a panacea, and brewing up a storm of controversy. Advocated for a variety of ailments, "cocaine" was reportedly safe, effective, or a downright dangerous (and perniciously seductive) poison, depending upon who you read.

For me, this explanation had too many loose ends to suffice. Surely anti-cocaine sentiment came from viewing its abuse- such as the epidemic of crack.

But Musto's hypothesis was too simplistic; it did not explain a volatile reputation's evolution that was hardly linear: though it could be said that cocaine was first seen as good before being seen as bad, it was equally true that cocaine was seen favorably, and continued to be seen favorably by many others afterward: a reality not only in the 1970s when seemingly "recalled" in favorable terms, but during the preceding century.

Though condemned during the later 1880s, particularly in the disasters of Sigmund Freud's friend who became severely addicted, suffering horrible effects of cocaine poisoning, praise concerning the drug was not necessarily so short-lived; in fact, this praise extended twenty years earlier and later with the cocaine-containing products so available since the 1860s, specifically the wine of coca seen favorable including amongst the most prestigious, for the half century leading to 1914.

Said praise emanated throughout the medical profession, and amongst government officials. Not one, but two Popes -- Leo XIII in 1898, and Pius X in 1904 -- awarded a gold papal medal to the entrepreneur most responsible for popularizing a wine containing it as a "benefactor of humanity"- Angelo Francois Mariani. Was Musto's explanation more a reflection of history, or rather, the popular conceptions of the "historian's" day?

Reading between the lines of these accounts -- pun intended -- revealed why cocaine's reputation was so volatile: the wide variety of forms and modes of its use; each of these being most dissimilar in the consequences and likelihood of their misuse, with opinions of "cocaine" so correlating with its form and mode of use.

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Iboga/Ibogaine- A God Given Solution to Addiction/Toxic-Mania

Alas, as a natural substance, Iboga/Ibogaine is not patentable and hence ignored by officially sanctioned 'anti-addiction' persons as those included in the recent Newsweek article, other then being criminally made a US Schedule 1 controlled substance.

Useful Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibogaine
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/ibogaine/ibogaine.shtml
http://www.ibeginagain.org/

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UK PM Gordon Brown Bearing False Witness About "Lethal" Marijuanna

British Prime Minister Claims Marijuana Can Kill You

As British PM Gordon Browne prepares to ignore the recommendation of his own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and increase penalties for marijuana, he reveals once again how little he actually knows about the subject:

"I don't think that the previous studies took into account that so much of the cannabis on the streets is now of a lethal quality and we really have got to send out a message to young people -- this is not acceptable," Brown said. [Reuters]

Any way you look at it, this is just a total lie. The word "lethal" as defined by dictionary.com means the following:

–adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or causing death; deadly; fatal: a lethal weapon; a lethal dose.
2. made to cause death: a lethal chamber; a lethal attack.
3. causing great harm or destruction: The disclosures were lethal to his candidacy.

Even the 3rd definition, which may be the one Browne intends, is essentially figurative and is only used to describe non-living things, in this case a political campaign. The word is derived from the latin letalis, meaning death. It's just an incredibly poor adjective to describe a substance that has never killed anyone in human history. He says he wants to "send out a message to young people," but his message is just a big lie.

Thus, Browne is now expected to move forward with a plan to upgrade the criminal status of marijuana based on his own ignorant and wrong understanding of what the drug does, while disregarding the contrary advice of a whole council of experts who might actually know something about this.

This, my friends, is precisely how bad public policy gets made.

The Prime Minister of Great Britain lies through his teeth about Marijuana.

If pot is to remain illegal -- and become more illegal via being so rescheduled for being "lethal" - then what about the pharmaceutical 'anti-depressants' let alone the adulterated, misbranded cigarettes with all of their chemical accelerants which cause 400,000+ deaths annually in the US?

An honest government would investigate and prosecute cretins as Gordon Brown for racketeering for pharmaceutical and cigarette interests.

Some speculate that this man has severe brain damage:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown—Asinine Avenger?

Comment posted by Giordano on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 3:47am

More from Reuters: “Brown said he was particularly worried about the growing use of skunk cannabis, which he described as "more lethal".

It would be fascinating to know how PM Gordon Brown acquires his ideas about marijuana. How does someone remain that insulated from reality? It can’t be from smoking anything—which would no doubt improve his reality radar.

Searching the web about the PM reveals that Mr. Brown, a minister’s son (Church of Scotland), was kicked in the head in a school rugby match with a force that resulted in detached retinas, later corrected in one eye by surgery. Child abuse and brain damage may explain Mr. Brown’s later misgivings about marijuana.

Brown, a Scotsman, obtained a PhD in History (not chemistry nor biology nor neurology) from the University of Edinburgh. His thesis subject was The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland, 1918-1929.

Scotland…and Edinburgh no less. Think Train Spotting and Acid House and ponder why the Roman Emperor Hadrian built his wall….

With no other apparent job experience, Brown went directly from his alma mater into the British Labour Party, where he became the number-two-guy behind Britain’s former PM, Tony Blair. Mr. Blair, as you’ll recall, was popular when he brown-nosed for Bill Clinton, and unpopular when he brown-nosed for George W. Bush. Strange how situations change. Stranger still that Brown didn’t notice any change in American politics in the last few years. Again, an indication of brain damage.

Brown’s brown-nosing for the Neocon ONDCP/DEA agenda has potential consequences in 2009 when, if things go well, subpoenas, indictments and warrants rain from the sky onto Bush and his co-conspirators. Gordon Brown will end his career as a political fart.

Giordano

The part about him going straight in into politics without any apparent job experience suggests to me that Brown sold his soul to some sort of fraternal organization where its members utterly debase themselves in order to "get ahead", while making themselves utterly black mailable, hence controllable. That is the theme of the following Gordon Brown video:

Gordon Brown Sending a Message of Sheer Stupidity

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Big Pharm Addiction Cure Patent Medicine Hunt

OK with Big Pharm & Big Government- only if patentable: aka synthetic



Sadly, no patentable synthetic for big pharm.

Who appointed Rosenthal as perpetual spokesman?

It's like with drug history where a virtual monopoly is given to the likes of Yale's David Musto, known for his Readers' Digest type articles that deliberately confused the whole Coca-cocaine-concentrated cocaine issue.

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Kenneth Rau: Victim of Legislative Crime

Big Pharm Public Health/Liberty Subversion

Kenneth Rau, the first person to be kidnapped (arrested) and extorted (prosecuted) for possessing the herb Salvia needs lawyers to challenge these laws of criminal mercantilism.

An honest/ethical U.S. Federal Attorney General would launch a criminal investigation of these "legislative" bodies that are subverting freedom of medicine and diet.

He also tried salvia as a cure for depression. "I have some childhood issues to deal with. They had me on Paxil," he said. "They want you to take their pharmaceuticals, but if you want to take an herbal remedy, they want to throw you in prison. Are they going to save me from myself by throwing me in prison for years?"

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/04/criminal-apostate-north-dakota-1st.html

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Big Pharm 'Anti-Addiction' Quack-Remedy Failure

While the deceived hate the monolithic myth of "drugs", it's deemed OK to fight drugs with drugs when the latter are dubious yet patentable pharmaceuticals.

Lust for $$$ blinded pharm giants from foreseeing that a pharmaceuticals that blocks pleasure would cause depression.

Risk of depression dims hope for anti-addiction pills
By MARILYNN MARCHIONE The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Two years ago, scientists had high hopes for new pills that would help people quit smoking, lose weight and maybe kick other tough addictions such as liquor and cocaine.

The pills worked in a novel way, by blocking pleasure centers in the brain that provide the feel-good response from smoking or eating. It seems the drugs may block pleasure too well, possibly raising the risk of depression and suicide.

Margaret Bastian, of suburban Rochester, N.Y., was among patients who reported problems with Chantix, a highly touted quit-smoking pill from Pfizer that has been linked to dozens of reports of suicides and hundreds of suicidal behaviors.

"I started to get severely depressed and just going down into that hole ... the one you can't crawl out of," said Bastian, whose doctor took her off Chantix after she swallowed too many sleeping pills and other medicines one night.

Side effects also affect two other drugs:

• Rimonabant, an anti-obesity pill sold as Acomplia in Europe, was tied to higher rates of depression and a suicide in a study last month. The maker, Sanofi-Aventis, still hopes to win its approval in the United States.

• Taranabant, a similar pill in late-stage testing, led to higher rates of depression and other side effects in a study last month. Its maker, Merck, stopped testing it at middle and high doses.

The makers of the new drugs insisted they are safe, although perhaps not for everyone, such as people with a history of depression. Having to restrict the drugs' use would be a setback because it would deprive the people who need help the most, since addictions and depression often go hand-in-hand, doctors said.

A bigger fear is that the approach may be in trouble. Researchers said that blocking pleasure, especially the way the anti-obesity drugs do, might take the fun out of many things, not just the harmful substances and behaviors these drugs target.

It may be possible to improve the drugs so they act more precisely. Chantix targets a different pathway — nicotine pleasure switches — in a different way than the anti-obesity drugs, which aim at the same pathway that gives pot smokers the munchies. That is one reason many doctors are optimistic that any risks from Chantix will prove manageable.

But doctors are no longer talking about "superpills" for a variety of addictions.

"It certainly diminishes my enthusiasm" to see these side effects, said Mark Egli, co-leader of medicine development at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company

Regarding Rimonabant

Shortly after market introduction, press reports and independent studies suggest that side effects occur stronger and more commonly than shown by the manufacturer in their clinical studies. Reports of severe depression are frequent. This is deemed to result from the drug being active in the central nervous system, an area of human physiology so complex that drug effects are highly difficult to determine reliably.^[5]

Because the drug has the opposite effects of cannabinoid receptor agonists such as tetrahydrocannabinol, which is neuroprotective against excitotoxicity,^[6] it can be theorized that Rimonabant promotes the development of neurodegenerative diseases of the central nervous system such as Multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson's disease, and Huntington's disease in persons who are susceptible.^[7] The reported development of previously clinically silent multiple sclerosis in one patient taking Rimonabant suggests that any patients with an underlying neurological condition should not take Rimonabant, given the neuroprotective role of the endocannabinoid system in many experimental paradigms of neurological disease.

Just another quack pharm "remedy" that is being protected from God's gift of Marijuanna!

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