Monk

Apparently, drug-use affects the way spiders spin their webs.



Different drugs had different effects on the shapes of the web. In high doses, almost every drug resulted in highly irregular webs. But at carefully chosen lower doses, there were some interesting differences. For example, under the influence of caffeine, the webs were vertically shorter but horizontally wider, as spiders made larger angles between the radial spokes of the web. The most striking was the effect of LSD-25. Yes, LSD. This is the only drug which resulted in webs being more carefully weaved and more perfect than the controls.

-- Bora Zivkovic

And thus spiders and their webs are used to see what kind of pesticides are being used in partiuclar fields and orchards. Funny thing about that LSD though, huh?

Came across a new drug in my reading. Sounds wild. The ultimate in mind control. Scopolomine. Also known as "The Devil's Breath".

_ _ _

VICE's Ryan Duffy went to Colombia to check out a strange and powerful drug called Scopolamine, also known as "The Devil's Breath." It's a substance so intense that it renders a person incapable of exercising free will.

[...]

The key seems to be that scopolamine blocks acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter essential to memory. Scans also reveal the drug affects the amygdala, a brain area controlling aggression and anxiety. This would explain scopolamine's pacifying effect. Evidence also suggests [robbery and sexual assault] victims tend to be confused and passive rather than unable to resist commands. Yet, until scopolamine's role in the chemistry of free will is fully explored, we can only speculate that the criminal underworld has unwittingly stumbled upon one of the greatest discoveries of 21st-century neuroscience.

-- Andrew Sullivan's Dish

A moving ending to "A Scanner Darkly". Philip K. Dick gives a list of some of his friends who died or were severely damaged through drugs, decrying the high price they paid for merely playing, and wishing that they could play again and play in some other way.

♠
Recreational drug users know the hazards of getting fake drugs, but apparently it is also a problem for medical drugs, including the life-saving ones, and China leads the way in these counterfeits:

Asia is seeing an “epidemic of counterfeits” of life-saving drugs, experts say, and the problem is spreading. Malaria medicines have been particularly hard hit; in a recent sampling in Southeast Asia, 53 percent of the antimalarials bought were fakes.

... China is the source of most of the world’s fake drugs, experts say. In December, according to Xinhua, the state news agency, the former chief of China’s Food and Drug Administration and two of his top deputies were arrested on charges of taking bribes to approve drugs.

I suppose one shouldn't be shocked, as there is a lot of money in medicines, but Monk (bless his heart!) cannot help feeling this is especially lowball. You just cannot trust anything in this Hobbesian world.

Even Viagra is hit! Is there nothing sacred?


(Source: Donald G. McNeil Jr. for The New York Times)

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