No, this won’t be another edgy list of all the books everyone thinks are really “far out”, like
The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test, Food of the Gods or The Doors of Perception. This will be a list of incredible books that will force you to think about your place in the universe from a totally rational perspective, instead of relying on half-baked theories thought up by crazy bearded stoners.

I promise you that if you read all of these books on this list, not only will will feel a renewed sense of wonder at the world around you & universe at large, but you’ll also come away from it with a sound understanding of the scientific method and a perfectly tuned bullshit detector necessary to wade through the heaps of crap spouted by lesser mortals.

Click on any of the pictures to see the book on Amazon. Here goes, in no particular order:

Antimatter

Author: Frank Close

With the recent release of the Angels & Demons film, this book is essential reading, and weighing in at less than 150 small pages with big text, there really is no excuse. If you’ve ever wondered anything between “What the hell is antimatter?” and “I wonder if I can build an antimatter superweapon to take over the world?”, then this is the book for you.

What it’s about: This book gives a detailed, yet understandable history of particle physics and separates antimatter facts from antimatter fiction.

Why it will expand your mind: Humans have evolved to cope with things of average size, in average temperatures for an average length of time. This book forces you to think small – not down to the size of cells, or even the simplest biological molecules, but to atoms themselves and beyond. Because we’ve not evolved to deal with things on such a small scale, particle physics is almost an alien concept. Thankfully, this book is written with clarity in mind, peppered with plenty of helpful diagrams and examples.

The Selfish Gene

Author: Richard Dawkins

Heard about this crazy, heretical “Evolution” business? This book is chock full of solid evidence, impeccable logic and brilliant thinking that will leave you with no doubt about evolution’s roll in everything you can see around you. Forget religion – this is the book with all the answers, and the evidence to back them up.

What it’s about: This is the book Charles Darwin would have written if he knew what we know now. Dawkins fills us in on the details of modern evolutionary theory from a gene’s-eye view of the world.

Why it will expand your mind: Evolution explains everything. Everything! If aliens exist, they too would have evolved. This process is so universal, it provides a thread on which to hang every other fact we’ve ever learned, uniting them all with one common explanation. A solid understanding also allows you to easily explain absolutely anything you might encounter.

If this is your first foray into evolutionary biology, you might like to start with River Out Of Eden. Your brain won’t be torn asunder with logic and reason, but you’ll definitely get a glimpse of the bigger picture. If you’ve done any biology-related higher education, then I’ll also suggest The Extended Phenotype, arguably Dawkins’ most important work, after you’ve finished The Selfish Gene.

Bad Science

Author: Ben Goldacre

Bad Science is your defence against a world of horse crap where everyone is trying to rip you off. Ben Goldacre also blogs at BadScience.net and writes a column with the same name for The Guardian. You can read an entire chapter of this book here.

What it’s about: Confused about MMR jabs? Homoeopathy? Crystal healing? Fish oil? Then read this book.

Why it will expand your mind: You’ll learn the simplicity of the scientific method and why it’s so important to the world we live in. It will teach you to think for yourself and apply a healthy dose of scepticism to the next dose of health advice you might hear about from someone trying to sell you something. Not particularly mind expanding on its own, but it has a synergy with all the other books in this list.

The God Delusion

Author: Richard Dawkins

If you’ve heard of Richard Dawkins, this book is probably why, having already sold over 1.5 million copies. Even if you’re religious, you need to read it, because you should always hear the other side’s argument – if something challenges your beliefs, and your position remains the same, then your beliefs can only be strengthened.

What it’s about: While it’s not possible to unequivocally prove that God doesn’t exist, this book presents several cast iron arguments why all religions are (probably) wrong, the logical fallacies at the heart of faith itself, and the evils perpetrated in the name of religion every day.

Why it will expand your mind: As hard as it to imagine, the life of an atheist is not one of misery and pointlessness. The outlook on life presented in this book will encourage you to enjoy your life as much as possible, look after others and realise exactly where you fit into the universe. Combined with the other books in this list, there is no room left for unsupported speculation – there are rational answers out there to be marvelled at.

A Brief History Of Time

Author: Steven Hawking

Probably the most famous popular science book of all time, A Brief History Of Time has sold over 10 million copies. Funnily enough though, hardly anyone has actually read it!

What it’s about: While the first book in this list dealt with the miniscule, this book deals with the massive. From the Big Bang to black holes, and everything in between, this book covers the hot topics in cosmology with as much clarity as could be expected. While a little mind-boggling at times, persevering is totally worth it.

Why it will expand your mind: For the same reason as Antimatter – this book deals with things we haven’t evolved to comprehend.

If reading is not your thing, there are plenty of documentaries online about all the topics these worthy tomes cover. Perhaps I’ll make a list of those too one day.

Unfortunately, some of you may have seen this post before, as it was in Coffeesh0p’s news until now. Since I’ve had this blog though, this seems like a much better place to post it. I’ve also moved the news RSS feed to FeedBurner, which means there’s now the option to subscribe via email.

Since the last post (which has now been updated), I’ve also added a Latest Products page, so I don’t feel compelled to post about them all on here. That’s also got an RSS feed on FeedBurner, so you can subscribe to that by email if you wanted to too.

Oh, and before I continue, you can still win stuff, so if you haven’t read that yet, please do!

We’ve all seen how cats behave around catnip. It’s a mixture of hilarity and a small sense of jealousy that you’re not as high as that cat is right now. Well, this video below starts off with footage of a lot of cats around a lot of catnip, but that’s just the start. The next 30 minutes showcases a mixture of wildlife footage and special effects, carefully woven together to tell the story of how animals get high around the world.

This is the last episode in the six-part series, “Weird Nature“, entitled “Peculiar Potions“. Make sure you watch this in full screen mode!

While the other episodes in the series are not necessarily as fun, you should definitely check them out. Well worth a watch!

Please leave a comment below – I want to know what your favourite bit was!

Exam Results

Yesterday, me and the misses both got our degree results. We both got a 2:1, which we’re incredibly happy about, especially since we’ve always had Coffeesh0p to look after too. I know you’re probably here to read about drugs related stuff, but I don’t care – this is my blog and I’ll be smug all over it if I want to!

Mini Competition

Since I’m in a good mood and I’m still on the lookout for suggestions about any of the things I mentioned before, I’m going to raise the stakes a little bit. I’ll be giving away five bamboo shotgun pipes to the best five suggestions. If you’re not sure what I mean, please go back and read that post, then comment about any of the points raised in it at the bottom of this post. I’ll pick the five suggestions I like the most and give away a pipe to each person. Couldn’t be simpler, right? Just like Johnny 5, I need your input!

New Stuff

Since my last post, I’ve spent most of my time adding new products to the site. Tonnes of them, in fact – entheogens, smoking mixtures, pipes, grinders. All sorts. Since that’s all I’ve been doing though, I don’t want this to be another post full of links to new stuff, because, let’s be honest, it makes this blog look tacky. This isn’t supposed to be one big advert, blogging (I hate that word!) about what I do is just my hobby.

Hopefully, in the next few weeks then, I’ll be putting a couple of the latest products on the front page of the site, where the “Coffeesh0p Dev Blog Latest Posts” are now. I’ll also make an RSS feed available for anyone that wants to subscribe to that, keeping these blog posts relatively free of links.

Update:
Here’s the Latest Products page and RSS feed.

- Synchronium BMedSc (Pharmacology) & Mrs Synch BA

Since me ‘n’ the misses have finished our degrees (just waiting on the results now…) & almost finished moving house, hopefully we’ll be doing some cool blog & Coffeesh0p stuff soon.

For the blog, firstly I intend to do a couple of interviews with some interesting people. While I like to talk a lot about drugs, medicines, pharmacology, etc, I’m also a bit of a nerd, so I’m looking forward to talking to a few like-minded people who run drugs-related sites. I’ve also got a bong I’d like to give away, but I want to do it in a much more awesome way than the last competition. I’m thinking …joint rolling contest? Would that be something you guys would be interested in? The details (and legality) would need to be worked out, but that sounds like it might be a laugh. I figure before you should be granted bong access, you must first appreciate and master the art of rolling.

Any other suggestions? If you can suggest anything better, I’m all ears. Well… mostly.

Now uni has finished and we’ve moved into a bigger house, we can finally give Coffeesh0p a go full-time, something we’ve been looking forward to for ages. Firstly, now we have more space, we can start buying entheogens (such as Salvia & Kratom) by the kilo directly from their source. That should mean we’ll be able to sell them to you for much cheaper. Also, we’ve got the room to expand our range again, so keep an eye out for loads of new products. If there’s anything we don’t sell that you’d like, leave a comment and I’ll try and hunt it down.

Since I’ll now be making Coffeesh0p (and this blog, of course) my number one priority, I’ll be able to make some interesting changes. I’ve already done a bit of housekeeping stuff, like made the basket page look a little friendlier and put some cooler buttons on all the forms. I also had a go at adding a delivery address option on the checkout, but that’s not working right. (If anyone wants stuff sent to an alternate delivery address, btw, just email me. ) I’ve got a few ideas on what to do next, but I’d also reallllly like your input. In fact, here’s your chance to be a harsh as possible – what looks shit? What’s completely defunct? How could I make it look 110% more awesome? What essential, must-have features are we missing? If you can think of anything at all, please enter a comment below!

In case the idea hasn’t sunk in yet, I’m looking for your opinion on all these things. Leaving a comment couldn’t be simpler – just enter a name & email (don’t worry, no one but me will see your email address, and it doesn’t have to be a real name), and then pour your opinion all over the comment box. Hit submit and you’re done. Even if you’ve never left a comment anywhere in your life and this is the first bit of communicating you’ve done online, please write something!

© Synchronium – stealing other people’s ideas since 2006.

The funniest thing has happened. The internet has managed to make Neal’s Yard Remedies look like a complete tit.

Neal’s Yard Remedies sells “ethical skin and bodycare products” including a range of homoeopathic “medicines”. In what is being hailed (by me, at least) as the worst marketing move in all time, they asked readers of the Guardian to ask them questions – anything we like! Here is the post on the Guardian website:

Following last week’s spotlight on Fairtrade and food, this week we turn our ‘You ask, they answer‘ series to look at organics and beauty. For the next four days, ethical skin and body care products firm Neal’s Yard Remedies will be doing its best to answer your questions below.

Neal’s Yard Remedies started life back in 1981, with a focus on using natural herbs for health and beauty. Since then, it’s grown to 38 stores across the country, and started a range of green initiatives, including a number of certified organic products, bought carbon offsets to reduce its emissions and encouraged customers to recycle and reuse old packaging.

This is your chance to grill them: from the controversy surrounding the chain’s removal of a homeopathic malaria remedy to the benefits and reasons to switch to organic beauty products.

To get the debate rolling, just post your questions below.

(my emphasis)

Wow, what a great opportunity! An alternative therapy business is opening itself up to questions – this is certainly a rarity! Unfortunately for Neal & friends, no one wants to hear more info on why we should switch to organic beauty products. Everyone is farrrr more interested in the science behind their wacky claims. What follows is five pages of quality comments and not a single reply from Neal et al. A pretty interesting occurrence for a “You ask, they answer” feature…

Eventually, following a couple of promises from Guardian staff that they were cooking up some solid replies, we get this:

@ all

have just had a chat with NYR.

Unfortunately, despite previous assurances that they would be participating in this blog post, I’ve now been told they ‘will not be taking part in the debate’.

So yes, as several people have pointed out, this has become something of ‘You Ask’, rather than a ‘You Ask, They Answer’. I’m still hoping NYR will reconsider.

Alas, Neal & pals didn’t reconsider and the comments were eventually closed.

For your amusement, here are some of the best comments & questions:

Saltycdog

Have you ever been offered a natural remedy that was so obviously without any merit that you refused to bottle it and sell it to your gullible customers, or does pretty much anything go?

Do you see no problem with trying to be ‘ethical’ while at the same time selling snake oil for a living?

Puzzlebobble

you sell a multitude of products for a wide variety of medical conditions, some of which are serious or life threatening.

Please could you explain what level of evidence of efficacy you require before stocking any product?

If, as I suspect, the level of evidence of efficacy is poor then will you tell us what, if any, studies are done to look for harmful side-effects? How are these studies conducted? Furthermore please show us the power calculations for these studies.

Surely you don’t view it as ethical to sell products which are of unproven benefit and which you don’t even know are safe?

Benulek

Linked below is a book on ‘Homoeopathy for Mother and Baby’. Given that homoeopathy has never been shown to have any effect distinguishable from placebo, do you regard it as ethical to profit from publications which seek to exploit the anxiety of new mothers to sell pseudo-medicines?

[link removed]

takearisk

Your website states:

The correct homoeopathic remedy will stimulate a sick person’s vitality to send healing energy where it is needed, thus rectifying mental, emotional and physical imbalances.

Could you please explain how the ‘correct homoeopathic remedy’ is decided on and describe the qualifications of the people who make these decisions?

I’d also be grateful for a biological definition of ‘healing energy’ and an indication of where I can find the scientific evidence for its existence

I’m posting this, not only because it’s hilarious, but also to show the importance of being skeptical. If this business had answers, they’d have replied, but since they didn’t, I think it’s pretty obvious that even they think their products are bullshit. How ethical of them! While some alternative remedies are certainly effective (even if untested), homoeopathy has been shown time and time again that it is no more effective than a placebo.

Medical science tells us why drugs work the way they do. If something works, we’ll find out how and why, and it’s always understandable within the confines of our current scientific knowledge. If homoeopathy worked, we’d have to rewrite physics, chemistry & biology to try and understand it, because it just does not fit. If our understanding of these fundamental fields is so wrong, how the hell have we got this far as a species?

Remember, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Homoeopathy is certainly an extraordinary claim, but their evidence is non-existent.

The following post is an old essay written by the soon-to-be-misses about opium use and its representation in The Moonstone. Since we’ve both now finished uni, we’ve finally found the time to dig it out and blogiffy it. Enjoy!

Wikipedia may not be the best place to start a bibliographical essay; it is unpopular in academic circles due to a lack of citations and references and often unreliable information. However, it does offer a basic overview of many different topics; from people to places, from theories and concepts to events throughout history.  In the Wikipedia article about Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone, under the heading of ‘Literary significance and criticism’, it says that ‘one of the things that made The Moonstone such a success was its sensationalist depiction of opium addiction’. Although opium use and addiction is a prominent theme throughout the novel, and the novel does come from the ‘sensation’ genre, is the representation of opium addiction itself sensationalist?

Opium has been used in a medicinal context for around 6000 years, and its effects on the mind and body were taken advantage of in Greek, Roman and Arabic medicine (Berridge and Edwards 1981: xviii). Opium can have a euphoric effect, with an effect ‘not exactly equivalent to sedation’, but leading to a ‘tranquil pleasantness’ which ‘can be very positively enjoyable’ (1981: xxi). Following its introduction into Britain, ‘opium was first believed by many to be a medical miracle’ (Landow and Allingham, 2006) and marketed to the masses in various forms; Godfrey’s Cordial, Dalby’s Carminative, McMunn’s Elixir and Batley’s Sedative Solution are examples of just a few medicines containing opium, all sold without any regulation (Hayter 1971: 31). For many years, opium and its derivatives, including the popular laudanum, was enjoyed by the British public; young and old, rich and poor. Far from being a middle class pastime, opium was used in many households as a startlingly normal practise. It was seen as ‘central to medicine, a medicament of surpassing usefulness which undoubtedly found its way into every home’ (Berridge and Edwards 1981: xxv). It was even said that ‘The bulk of the medical evidence goes to support the verdict that it is not more injurious than the moderate use of alcohol, and that even its abusive use is less destructive to the victim and his friends than intemperance’ (Watt 1892).

Despite the fact that many people around Britain used opium regularly for purely medical reasons, historical emphasis has been placed on those who used it recreationally; ‘popular use always attracted most attention’ (Berridge and Edwards 1981: 49). Amongst those who became most famous for their use – and subsequent abuse – of the drug were the Romantic poets and writers. So why is there such a connection between the use of opium and such brilliantly creative minds? There are two main theories on this subject. The first claims that the use of opium can immerse the user into a dream world separate from Earth – ‘as different from this as Mars may be’ (Abrams, 1934: As cited in Hayter 1971: 13). The second, developed by Professor Elizabeth Schneider, aimed to refute this idea, stating that the idea ‘that Kubla Khan could have been composed entirely in a dream under the influence of opium’ (Hayter 1971:13) was a falsehood. This study had the following results:

…the opium habit does not of itself confer either imaginative stimulus or fantastic dreams and visions; all the effects attributed to it are in fact due to the previous mental and emotional make-up of the opium addict.
(1971: 13)

Thomas De Quincey, writer of the infamous Confessions of an English Opium Eater, shared these views, and repeated them often; ‘If a man “whose talk is of oxen” should become an opium-eater, the probability is, that (if he is not too dull to dream at all) – he will dream about oxen’. (1971: 107). On the surface, there does appear to be a correlation between creativity and the use of opium; after all, virtually all of the Romantic poets used it at one time or another. However, on closer inspection this hypothesis has little or no founding; there were an awful lot of people in Britain at that time who used opium medicinally or recreationally; and by no means did all of them become successful writers!

The joy of having discovered a wonder drug continued for many years, with users and doctors alike completely oblivious to the terrible effects addiction to and withdrawal from opium could have. In 1700 Dr John Jones published The Mysteries of Opium Reveal’d, featuring a seemingly endless list of the positive effects opium could have on your health, including such tempting sounding promises as ‘Euphory, or easie undergoing of all Labour…’ (1971: 24). Surprisingly, though, this book also showed that as early as 1700, people were aware of the risks of excessive doses of opium, or sudden withdrawal from it. The general consensus, despite this, however, was that there was not ‘any danger in moderate addiction, or any difficulty in gradual withdrawal.’ (24)

Wilkie Collins is an author who, like many others at this time, began taking opium (in his case, in the form of laudanum) for health troubles, including a rheumatic complaint (1971: 255). In June 1853, Collins’ close friend Charles Dickens wrote to him enquiring after his health; ‘I am very sorry indeed to hear so bad an account of your illness, and had no idea it had been so severe’ (Sayers 1977: 98). Collins’ health continued to be poor; eleven years later in 1864 Collins wrote in a letter to his mother, Harriet, that his rheumatic conditions had developed into a series of problems including ‘gouty irritation’ (Baker and Clarke 1999: 253), digestion problems and headaches (1999: 252).

Collins certainly was an excessive user of opium. Hayter relates a story about Collins’ addiction which has almost become the stuff of urban legends. Following a question about the amount of laudanum consumed by Collins on a daily basis, surgeon Sir William Ferguson replied that ‘this dose of opium, to which Wilkie Collins had habituated himself through long usage, was enough to kill every man seated at the dinner table’ (Bancroft, as cited by Hayter 1971: 256). The fact that Wilkie allowed such matters to be discussed showed that he was not ashamed of his habit; in fact, he was almost boastful of it at times (1971: 257). In 1865, a year after his letter to his mother detailing his still ailing health, it is clear to see that addiction has taken hold of Collins, as he wrote:

Who was the man who invented laudanum? I thank him from the bottom of my heart…I have had six delicious hours of oblivion; I have woken up with my mind composed; I have written a perfect little letter… – and all through the modest little bottle of drops which I see on my bedroom chimneypiece at this moment. Drops, you are darling! If I love nothing else, I love you!
(P. Haining, as cited by Berridge and Edwards 1981: 58)

As his addiction continued and worsened, it seemed to have a detrimental effect on his life and his work. Opium became a more and more prominent theme in his books. In 1862, he published No Name, in which Magdalen Vanstone contemplates her existence, with a bottle of laudanum in her hand should she decide to kill herself. Four years later in 1868, Miss Gwilt in Armadale echoes the very same words recorded by Collins himself; ‘Who was the man who invented laudanum? I thank him from the bottom of my heart, whoever he was’.

Collins’ most famous work in terms of opium use was The Moonstone, which brings me back around to my original question; is it true that the depiction of opium addiction in this novel is sensational? We have already established that the use of opium was common, and addiction to opium was by no means sensational at this time; so the only thing left that could possibly be described as sensational is this specific account of addiction.

The Moonstone’s opium addict, Ezra Jennings, is widely considered to be at least partly autobiographical (Berridge and Edwards, 1981: 58). Jennings is a strange character, with an unusual appearance. He is introduced into the narrative as an assistant to Dr Candy, the family physician. The main way in which Jennings addiction manifests itself is in the form of terrible nightmares. Part of the novel is written in the style of Jennings’ journals, and the following describes a particularly frightening nightmare:

June 16th.—Rose late, after a dreadful night; the vengeance of yesterday’s opium, pursuing me through a series of frightful dreams. At one time I was whirling through empty space with the phantoms of the dead, friends and enemies together. At another, the one beloved face which I shall never see again, rose at my bedside, hideously phosphorescent in the black darkness, and glared and grinned at me. A slight return of the old pain, at the usual time in the early morning, was welcome as a change. It dispelled the visions—and it was bearable because it did that.
(Collins, 1868: 447)

It may be argued that of course such a disturbing, terrifying passage is sensational; but in terms of what an actual addict went through, this experience seems to be quite normal. According to Hayter, it is common for ‘advanced addicts’ to experience horrifying nightmares:

They are often tortured by reptiles and insects – embraced by coiling snakes, trampled on by monsters, crawled on by worms, by ants, by microbes, thrust over precipices by tortoises or fiery dragons. Decaying things, still faintly touched with the likeness of beings once loved, stir beside them in rotting debris; their children, as they kiss them, turn to skeletons. Wandering through huge caves, they are forced to step on rotting corpses, and thousands of faces made of blood-red flames flash up and die out in the darkness.
(1971: 55/56)

This description is surprisingly similar to Collins’ portrayal of Jennings’ nightmares. Collins himself is not documented from having suffered from nightmares, although he did, in the later stages of his addiction, suffer from hallucinations. He believed that people were trying to push him down the stairs, and he spoke of ‘certain vagaries of the optic nerve, which persist in seeing a pattern of their own making’ (1971: 261).

Collins was going through a great many personal problems at the time of writing the novel. In fact, he didn’t write it; he dictated it to a secretary because he was, by this time, in too much pain to write. He was suffering physically from acute pain in his eyes, and mentally from his mother’s illness and inevitable impending death, as well as his own increasingly serious addiction (1971: 261). The Moonstone indeed seems to have some heartbreaking autobiographical elements, including the dream mentioned above. Perhaps the most poignant statement to be found regarding opium in The Moonstone is when Jennings tells Blake that he knows he is going to die following his years of using opium as pain relief:

To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am indebted for a respite of many years from my sentence of death. But even the virtues of opium have their limit. The progress of the disease has gradually forced me from the use of opium to the abuse of it. I am feeling the penalty at last. My nervous system is shattered; my nights are nights of horror. The end is not far off now.
(Collins, 1868: 430)

There is no doubt that passages such as this one, describing Jennings’ desperation at the progression of his addiction, are at times both harrowing and shocking. However, the autobiographical nature and scientific fact behind the images presented in the novel make it difficult to describe these depictions as ‘sensational’. The terrifying, depressing descriptions of drug addiction and withdrawal may seem like something ‘sensational’ or horrific; but that was the reality for addicts such as Collins.

Works Cited:

• Baker, William, and Clarke, William M., 1999. The letters of Wilkie Collins. Volume 1: 1838-1865, Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd.
• Berridge, Virginia, and Edwards, Griffith, 1981. Opium and the People: Opiate Use in Nineteenth-Century England, Frome: Butler and Tanner Ltd.
• Dr. Watt, 1892. ‘History of Opium, Opium Eating and Smoking (in Anthropological Miscellanea and New Books)’, The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 21. (1892), pp. 329-332.
• Gregory, E.R., ed and introd. 1977. Wilkie Collins: A Critical and Biographical Study. By Dorothy Sayers. Edited from the Manuscript Humanities Research Center, Austin, Texas. Texas: The Friends of the University of Toledo Libraries.
• Hayter, Alethea, 1971. Opium and the Romantic Imagination (1968), London: Faber and Faber Limited.
• Landow, George P., and Allingham, Philip V., ‘The Medicinal use of Opium in England’  (2 March 2008).
• Stewart, J. I. M., ed. and introd. 1986. The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, London: Penguin.
• Wikipedia Article on Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone;
• Zieger, Susan, ‘The Medical “Discovery” of Addiction’  (2 March 2008).

Someone should write a book about Kratom!

Out of my three final exams, I’ve taken the two hardest ones already, leaving one small one for next week. Since this is an ethics exam which I can’t revise for, I’ve finally found a bit of time to do some interesting Coffeesh0p work.

Navigation

If you’ve been on the site before now, you might have noticed the simple breadcrumb navigation at the top of each page under the search box. What we used to have was a simple list of pages all the way back up to the home page.  It helps not only with navigation, but also with search engine optimisation, linking the site together to give a much more structured feel. One problem though – it looked totally shit.

Today, I gave it a bit of a facelift:

As you can see, it now looks like it’s supposed to be there, instead of like it was tacked on as an afterthought. It also shows a drop down list containing all the subcategories for a particular category, hopefully making navigation a bit easier too as well as linking the site up more solidly.  I’ve also moved the search box to the left and brought the category jump menu up beside it to make more room. Unfortunately, it only works on the shop pages for now. I think a good potion of tomorrow will be spent applying it to the rest of the site.

Advert

I also got a bit of time this week to have a proper go on Photoshop in order to design an advert for the next edition of Wasted comic. We advertised in the first issue, but a) that advert looked worse and b) our old Photoshop guy no longer works for us, giving me the perfect opportunity to flex my skillz:

What do you think? Your criticism is more than welcome – it’s the only way I’ll learn.

Competition Winner

Oh, and before I forget, the final competition winner is Virusboy. Your pills will be shipped on Monday!

Everyone else: Don’t be too disheartened. I’ve got some more stuff to give away in the near future, I just need to decide on the most awesome way to give it away, so stick around!

This week’s competition winner is Synthetikal. Those pills will be shipped out tomorrow, the day of my first of three final exams.

Last week’s winner also never got in touch, so I still have one more pack to give away. It’s almost like you guys don’t want free stuff…

So, I was having a browse round Drug Education News – a blog all about the Drug Education Forum, who are apparently “an umbrella body for national organisations committed to improving drug education in England” – and came across a post about legal highs. Admittedly, this is a repost of a member’s briefing from DrugScope, so not their own words, but that’s not why I have a problem with them. Have a read:

Devon-based Children’s Society projects are concerned about an increase in the availability of these [legal highs] substances and the use of them by young people in their area. This increase in use has been mirrored by recent articles in national press and sector publications, putting forward a range of limited research and anecdotal evidence – with particular attention paid to a few users who have experienced sometimes lethal side effects.

Steven Hawker, Young People’s Drug and Alcohol Worker at The Children’s Society Checkpoint project in Torquay, expressed concern about the way young people view these drugs and the way professionals communicate about them. “While we feel there is some advantage in highlighting specific risks and effects of individual legal highs, it concerns me there is very little literature highlighting the general risks of these substances”, he said. “Of particular concern are inexperienced substance users who may take the view that legal equals safe and that this may impact on them consuming potentially large amounts of stimulants or hallucinogens.”

The Children’s Society would be interested if any organisation has:

• produced any awareness campaigns in their area
• seen significant rises in use
• become aware of specific negative effects of particular drugs.

The Children’s Society would also welcome any thoughts on how young people should be made aware of the potential risks of legal highs, particularly substances where research into the risks of short and long-term use is limited.

Fair enough, sort of. These people are concerned for their kids, but that still doesn’t excuse the hypocrisy subtly interwoven into the fabric of their terror. I’m all for education, raising awareness and semi-anonymously informing people of their mistakes via the internet, so I thought I’d post a little comment outlining my opinion. It went something like this:

What about alcohol and tobacco? By the same reasoning employed above, their legality also suggests to kids they’re safe. In a similar vein, no respectable retailer of these legal alternatives to illegal drugs would sell them to anyone under the age of 18.

I agree that more research into these types of substance should be done, so that we know what’s safe to take and what isn’t. I can assure you though, that acohol and tobacco would end up much further towards the unsafe end of the spectrum.

Am I being a dick? No. Am I being beligerant? No. Am I furthering discussion on the topic? Fuck yeah! So why the hell did they delete my comment?! It seems to me the Drug Education News blog (notice I’m not linking to them for this very reason) simply do not want to listen when it comes to differing opinion.

And here was me thinking education was all about listening to what other people had to say in order to reinforce or refute your current understanding. At the very least, they could have let the comment stay and responded to it with a well reasoned argument about why I’m wrong. A pretty poor show, overall.

Blog Commenting In General

Commenting on blogs is a great idea if you have a site or blog of your own. The majority of blogs allow you to leave your URL along with your comment, allowing visitors to click through to your site, particularly if you have something interesting to say. Unfortunately for this reason, a comment system is subject to a lot of spam, but plugins for your blog can help stop those. This blog gets tonnes of spam comments from unrelated sites, but interestingly, I do get the ocassional legal highs site in there. It’s just a shame that they leave the same spammy message on multiple blog posts that add nothing to the discussion. As a result, they end up being marked as spam not only by me, but any subsequent blog that uses this plugin! NextGenBuzz & SalviaSociety are two examples – their aggressive spam tactics have ended up not only being a waste of time, but actually hurting their site’s reputation. Great going, guys!

Competition Winner

This week’s Hypnotic Pills winner is BFitzpatric! Please email me back or comment on this post before May 9th to claim your prize. Also, last week’s winner never got in touch, so I still have one more pack to give away! For details on how these can be yours, check out this post.

Oh, and it was my birthday yesterday. Huzzah!

Wellllll, my dissertation is finally handed in, so I thought I’d write a bit of a long post about Kratom today. Kratom is probably my favourite entheogen, so I’m surprised I haven’t written about it before. Actually, it did get a brief mention in JWH-018, Spice & Me (to the disappointment of a couple of kratom vendors more interested in profit than helping to spread factual information), but I think it’s worthy of a post of its own. I also recently added a tonne of kratom products to Coffeesh0p that I want to talk about too, so a post about kratom is about due.

It’s a shame that I don’t have any more presentations to give (well, kind of, because I hate giving presentations) because Kratom would definitely be the subject of the next one. So…

What is Kratom?

Kratom refers to the leaves of the Mitragyna speciosa tree that’s native to Southeast Asia. A member of the Rubiaceae family, Kratom is also related to the Coffee plant (Coffea spp.) and Psychotria viridis, a hallucinogenic shrub used throughout the Amazon. It’s effects include analgesia (ie, it’s a pain killer), stimulation at low doses and sedation at higher doses accompanied by euphoria. Sounds awesome, right?

Kratom Use

So, how is kratom used? Traditionally, workers of Southeast Asia would chew on the fresh leaves for a mild stimulatory effect and also as a pain killer. Sounds like a perfect natural remedy to get you through a long day, but unfortunately, fresh leaves are pretty scarce outside their country of origin. Luckily for us though, dried leaf retains its potency, so can be shipped worldwide – just don’t try and chew it. Dried leaf can be be brewed into a tea, refined into an extract (which can also be brewed up or eaten) or smoked, although the effects of smoking it are limited.

Kratom tea is generally prepared by boiling your leaf (see below for dosage info) in water and lemon juice for about 15 minutes. This is then strained and more water/lemon juice added to the leaves and the process repeated. The lemon juice is important, as the citric acid present in it acidifies your tea, meaning more of the alkaloids present in kratom will be extracted into solution. Once the leaves are strained for a second time, they can be chucked away, leaving you with a murky brown liquid that doesn’t taste amazing. This large quantity of liquid can be boiled down further to reduce the volume, but it’s not essential. You might want to add some sugar or honey for taste though. My lab rat and his gerbil friend tend to make their tea up to the nearest 100 ml, so it can be taken as 50 ml shots throughout the evening. Turning your particular dosage of kratom leaves into approximately 200 ml of tea is enough for 4 shots. If you’re new to kratom, try spacing these shots out every half an hour to an hour. This way, you won’t take too much and you can experience all of the subtleties kratom has to offer instead of diving straight in at the deep end. Alternatively, some people just throw all of their crushed leaf into a glass of juice, stir it up and just knock it back. This can be just as effective if you’ve got the stomach for it.

As far as smoking goes, it’s really not that great. If you’re going to smoke kratom, it’s far more rewarding to smoke some alongside a cup of kratom tea than just smoking it exclusively.

Kratom Dosage & Effects

An effective dosage for one person may be completely different for another person, as a tolerance can develop, especially with daily use. Other factors can also affect how much you might need (more on that later), so the best thing to do is start off with a low dose and increase it by small increments each time until you arrive at a dosage you’re comfortable with. This advice should be followed whenever you try something new, not just for kratom.

Here’s a rough dosage guide:

Dosages greater than 15g can be too much for some people, while dosages above 25g will be too much for most people. It’s statistically likely that you are included in the “most people” group, so please be careful!

Kratom Pharmacology

Kratom contains a number of active alkaloids, including mitragynine, 7-hydroxymitragynine & mitraphylline, which are structurally similar to the hallucinogenic tryptamines (eg LSD, psilocybin), as if this plant wasn’t interesting enough! At low doses, these alkaloids are thought to act on the adrenergic system (the same sets of receptors that respond to adrenaline & noradrenaline), responsible for the plant’s stimulatory effects.

At higher doses, however, these compounds start to activate your opioid receptors. These are the same receptors that opiates such as codeine, morphine and heroin bind to which cause the same sedation, analgesia and euphoria associated with opiate use. 7-hydroxymitragynine actually appears to be 17x more potent than morphine at these receptors. Powerful stuff! It’s no surprise then that:

1. Kratom can be used to help opiate addicts overcome their addiction
2. An effective kratom dosage depends on any pre-existing opiate tolerance
3. Kratom itself can be habit forming, just like opiates (so don’t use it every day!)

Growing Kratom

Unfortunately, growing kratom will be more hassle that it’s worth. Mitragyna Speciosa prefers the warm, swampy conditions of Southeast Asia, which makes growing it outside impossible in most areas of the world. Even a green house won’t be enough. If you’re going to grow it, you need to be serious about it. You’ll need an area of your house set aside for climate control, lamps, etc. Here’s the final blow: the kratom you grow yourself will likely be of inferior quality compared to that grown natively. Sorry to disappoint.

If you still want to go ahead, you’ll need to find a rooted clone, as you won’t find any seeds commercially available, or if you do, they might be fake, and cuttings tend to be vulnerable to infection.

Kratom Products

There are a number of kratom products available for purchase. I’m always on the lookout for more because I think this plant is truly amazing, so if you find something you think I should be stocking, let me know! Anyway, here’s a quick rundown of what we’ve got so far:

Kratom Leaf This is just bog-standard, dried, crushed kratom leaf. This is also available in a prerolled joint to enjoy in conjunction with other kratom products.

Thai Dragonfly Liquid Kratom Extract Each bottle of liquid kratom extract contains 20 ml. I’m not sure what strength this extract is, but it suggests a dose of 5 to 10 ml will be sufficient.

Kratom 15x Extract This extract is 15x stronger the plain leaf. Each pack contains 2g of powered extract. Unfortunately, this is a little expensive compared to the rest of the kratom products available, because it comes in fancy packaging and I have to import it.

Freeze Dried Kratom 20x Extract This brittle, resinous extract is 20x stronger than plain leaf.

Kratom Gold 35x Extract Capsules Each pack contains 3 capsules of 500mg 35x extract. A convenient way to consume your kratom!

Krypton Kratom 50x Extract This is without a doubt my lab rat’s favourite kratom product. Being 50x stronger than plain leaf, 0.5g is plenty for an entire evening. Comes in a 3g and 1g pack.