The drug consumption rooms of Denmark...

"... where adults with serious addictions can bring their illegal drugs and take them, legally, under the watchful eye of a nurse."

Inside, to the left, behind a huge window, is cluster of smokers with improvised pipes, enveloped in haze. To the right is a long, stainless steel table where several people sit, injecting themselves with heroin, cocaine or both. Some finish and leave quietly. A few slump over the table, asleep. One man gets up and paces frantically back and forth, swearing and shouting. In the middle of it all, sits a nurse in street clothes, calmly taking in the scene.

Every day, these nurses witness up to 800 injections.

Adderall for everybody. That's what the name means: A.D.D. for All.

"Modern marketing of stimulants began with the name Adderall itself."

Mr. Griggs bought a small pharmaceutical company that produced a weight-loss pill named Obetrol. Suspecting that it might treat a relatively unappreciated condition then called attention deficit disorder, and found in about 3 to 5 percent of children, he took “A.D.D.” and fiddled with snappy suffixes. He cast a word with the widest net.

All.

For A.D.D.

A.D.D. for All.

Adderall.

“It was meant to be kind of an inclusive thing,” Mr. Griggs recalled.

And what's to stop the trend toward prescribing it for everyone… to take for the rest of their life?

Lots more at the link, including the 6 question test used to see if you're likely to have A.D.H.D. I scored 14, which put me in the "likely" category, even though on a daily basis, I lock into the work I need and want to do and continue with great concentration for many hours, often to great excess. But there was no question about that, and no questions that subtracted points, so I got 4 points for saying I "very often" "fidget or squirm" when I "have to sit down for a long time." Now, I don't fidget when I'm working on my own reading or writing, but I didn't think about that, because the question said "when you have to sit down," and when I'm doing my own work, I don't have to sit down. I can get up whenever I want, and I often motorize my desk into the standing position. I only have to sit down at a meeting or when stuck in a vehicle on a long trip, so in those situations I do rebel against the constraint.

But obviously, I could get this drug prescribed easily. And anyone can. Is it still a weight-loss pill? Is that part of what's going on with Adderall?

Professor Nutt has a new drug, to get you drunk without drinking.

"Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College London and former drugs advisor to the U.K. government, said the drug would be consumed as a cocktail drink and targets neurotransmitters in the brain to mimic the pleasurable effects of drunkenness...."

"I’ve done the prototype experiments myself many years ago, where I’ve been inebriated and then it’s been reversed by the antagonist [i.e., antidote]," Nutt told the BBC. “That’s what really gave us the idea. There’s no question that you can produce a whole range of effects like alcohol by manipulating the brain.... I think this would be a serious revolution in health ... just like the e-cigarette is going to revolutionize the smoking of tobacco... I find it weird that we haven't been speaking about this before, as it's such a target for health improvement."

Nutt is seeking funding, but I don't think he'll get it. For one thing, wouldn't the government need to approve this drug and wouldn't it say no? Another thing is, drinking has a whole culture to it, which gives it a social and political acceptability that you'd never get for a new drug that gets you high. Drugs aren't supposed to get you high. That might be an acceptable side effect, but it can't be the end itself. You need some tradition behind your recreational drugs. That's why eventually they'll allow us to use marijuana and not just for the medicinal use. A tradition has developed around it over the years.

Based on these 45 self-portraits...

... and only these self-portraits, which drug would you pick if:

1. You wanted to produce the best artwork?

2. You had to take the drug all the time and would always feel the way it makes you feel?

3. You could take the drug sometimes, when you were in the mood for it, as a variation on normal, undrugged life?

Don't worry about the illegality of some of the drugs. The question is only about the drug experience as understood through the artist's depiction. Don't factor in other things you may know about the drugs. Restrict yourself to the evidence in the self-portraits. Pick ONE drug per question.

I won't ask which is the last drug you'd take on this list of 45, because more than half of them seem like an obviously very bad idea.

I'll give my answers later because I don't want you to be under the influence... of Althouse.

"I am in trouble here. I am dying, I am dead."

Last words of a man who took a swig of liquid that turned out to be liquid meth and not the "fruit-based drink" that we're told it "appeared to be," in this Daily Mail article that's decorated — semi-irrelevantly — with images from the TV show "Breaking Bad."

Oh, but the corporations! Those terrible corporations!

"Health care manufacturer Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries will pay more than $2.2 billion to resolve criminal and civil investigations over allegations that they marketed three drugs for uses that were never approved, and that kickbacks were paid to physicians and to a long-term care pharmacy provider, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said today in Washington."

A "Breaking News" email from CNN, received just now.

ADDED: Meanwhile, in the current pop culture, selling unapproved AIDS drugs, based on a true story: "Dallas Buyers Club."

Alex Rodriguez sues Major League Baseball for "tortious interference" with his contracts and business dealings.

Rodriguez, facing a 211-game suspension, accuses MLB of buying the cooperation of Anthony Bosch (the head of the clinic in the doping scandal).

"Buying marijuana in Denver is a downright pleasant experience."

"Customers wait in a well-appointed waiting room.... When their names are called, they will follow an attendant through an atrium where they can buy t-shirts or smoking paraphernalia, and into a quaint shop where they can peruse the wares."

There, they will find a wide array of aromatic marijuana flowers in glass jars, pot-infused products — mints, beverages, or something to satisfy the sweet tooth — as well as pre-rolled joints and servings of cannabis concentrates.

Customers are rung up on a computerized point of sale system. They get a receipt — a receipt! — after paying for their marijuana. They are free to walk out to their cars, drive their marijuana home, and smoke it.

It's a remarkably clean system. It doesn't feel like a violation of Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, the federal law that governs controlled substances, even though it is. It's a safe, stable, professional environment.

How incredibly strange! Would you feel free to violate federal criminal law like that? I note the line "when their names are called." You have to give your name? Would you give a fake name? We're in a transitional phase, and it can't go on like this. Can it?

I think it's unfair, but that's me, a scrupulous law-abider. I don't like this gray zone, where something is open as if it's legal, but the feds maintain the power to crush you whenever they want. The risk-takers get their drugs, and those of us who scrupulously limit ourselves to legal substances look on and wonder.

"What we are watching when we watch élite sports, then, is a contest among wildly disparate groups of people..."

"... who approach the starting line with an uneven set of genetic endowments and natural advantages," writes Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, which is so elite it puts an accent on the "e" in "elite." But don't let that stop you from reading this! It shifts from talking about the legs of Kenyan runners — who are genetically adapted to a particular environment and have thus lucked into an advantage — and the drug users in baseball and bicycling. That's some sleight of hand.

"It's more of a placebo, I think... There was not like, 'Oh my God; I'm a rocket right now!'"

Said a purchaser of an over-the-counter "male enhancement" drug.

Bodega clerks said their sky-high sales suggest otherwise.

"People come in and buy them all the time," said a lower East Side bodega worker, who refused to give his name. "I think they work because people keep coming in for them."

That deserves my tag "charming bad logic."

The bodega clerk's logic is fine, but the Daily News reporter and editor — whoever wrote "suggest otherwise" — are missing an element: Placebos work.

Madison's "Philosopher’s Grove" attracts crime.

For the annals of unintended consequences:

[T]he city is rethinking the physical design of the public space [at the State Street and of the Capitol Square], especially the “Philosopher’s Grove” next to the Wisconsin Historical Museum and the 100 block of West Mifflin Street that connects with the Central Library and Overture Center.

The problem:

The area, benign much of the time, has become a magnet for chronic alcoholics and others who use doorways and alleys as toilets, argue and fight, deal and use drugs, steal and cause other problems.

Although many who hang out at the junction are homeless, the area more recently has attracted an element who might be involved in gangs, engaged in the drug trade and more violent....

This "Philosopher’s Grove" appears at the vbeginning of one of our favorite videos from the 2011, with the memorable line "All the assholes are over on the other side," spoken by one of the "homeless" types. (I put quotes and "types" there because I don't know whether any given individual has a home.) The "assholes" in his locution were the protesters who were crowding the square, impinging on their environment.



It's all a matter of point of view. You may see the "chronic alcoholics" and drug dealers as the problem, but to them, you could be the problem.

Consider the likelihood that whoever you are — wherever you are — you're going to think all the assholes are over on the other side.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's multiple injuries.

"He was questioned for two days before this hearing, without being advised of his right to counsel. He was also being administered Diluadid, a potent pain killer, every three hours."

What Eric Holder said about drugs.

I held up on blogging the advance publicity on the speech because I wanted to see the text, which is now available here.

We will start [to recalibrate America’s federal criminal justice system] by fundamentally rethinking the notion of mandatory minimum sentences for drug-related crimes....

This is why I have today mandated a modification of the Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences...

Secondly, the Department has now updated its framework for considering compassionate release for inmates facing extraordinary or compelling circumstances – and who pose no threat to the public...

Finally, my colleagues and I are taking steps to identify and share best practices for enhancing the use of diversion programs – such as drug treatment and community service initiatives – that can serve as effective alternatives to incarceration.

"Elizabeth Mort never imagined that the last thing she ate before giving birth to her daughter - a poppy seed bagel - would lead to the loss of her newborn..."

"... but that is exactly what happened after the Jameson Health System failed to account for the possibility that her positive urine drug screen was due to her ingestion of poppy seeds...."

This is your brain/face on drugs/morphing.

How'd they do that?

"It turns out that the Gov't has no privacy either. So the joke is on them as much as it is on us."

Writes Richard Dolan in the comments to yesterday's post "Greenwald Says ‘There’s A Lot More Coming,’ Argues NSA Revelations Don’t Harm Security." Dolan continues (the boldface is mine):

The Gov't needs a giant bureaucracy to run its NSA and other 'data mining' projects, just as the State Dept and the IRS need giant bureaucracies to perform their functions. As recent events show, those Gov't agencies can't assure that their own secrets, their own attempts at controlling information, will succeed. Given the size of these bureaucracies, it seems quite unlikely that they possibly could.

In all the talk about how the citizenry is at the mercy of the Gov't's abuse of power, it pays to stop and note that the Gov't is also at the mercy of its own agents' abuse of their power -- the power to disclose, leak, or turn on the Man. So long as there is a market for the kinds of leaked information we are seeing -- not just the NSA stuff, but the State Dept report about shutting down investigations that CBS surfaced, to use just today's example -- these leaks will continue.

A comparison that comes to mind is the (failed) War on Drugs -- the market for illegal drugs doomed that War even before it got going, just as the market for illicitly leaked information will doom the Gov't's attempt to keep its own secrets 'private.' The difference is that the drug market relies on the usual profit motive, all payable in cash. The 'leaks' market has different incentives for the leakers and the leakees -- the leakees have the more traditional incentive since these stories add to a reporter's (or blogger's) reputation, and may even garner a Pulitzer. For the leaker, the incentives are different -- Snowden's were apparently a personal political morality that impelled him to act, as were Manning's -- and not so easily measured. But they are just as real.

Even as we have moved into electronic media and the government can look at us there, the government has become dependent on huge numbers of computer specialists. Who are these guys? Snowden is one of them, but there are masses of them, and they must be trusted to get to the material the government can now get to because millions of computer users have yielded to the charms of the internet. There are the masses of computers users — ordinary people doing social media — but there are the computer specialists — and most of us aren't that familiar with these people whose lives are about computers at the technical and not the social level.

What do you know about their thought patterns? Is there a geek syndrome? Are there notions of altruism and libertarianism that seem to resonate in the American tradition but are really something new and different in ways that we won't understand until it's far too late? Is it far too late?

Lou Reed gets a liver transplant.

His wife Laurie Anderson said: "It’s as serious as it gets. He was dying. You don’t get it for fun."

She described the operation as “a big surgery which went very well”, adding: “You send out two planes – one for the donor, one for the recipient – at the same time. You bring the donor in live, you take him off life support. It’s a technological feat. I was completely awestruck. I find certain things about technology truly, deeply inspiring.”

The linked article, in the UK Telegraph, brings up this old quote of Reeds':

"I take drugs just because, in the 20th century, in a technological age living in the city, there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman, just to bring yourself up or down. But to attain equilibrium you need to take certain drugs. They don’t get you high even, they just get you normal."

That made me think of the old Velvet Underground song "Train Round the Bend":

I'm sick of the trees
Take me to the city...
Hey, I am just a city boy
And really not the country kind
Oh, I need the city streets and the neon light
To see the train comin' round the bend...

Yes, I've heard about that light you see coming.

"When you’re in public, you’re in public. What happens in public, is the very definition of it."

"I don’t want you telling me that I can’t take pictures in public without your permission."

Jeff Jarvis, quoted in an article about the intrusions of Google Glass.

Mr. Jarvis said we’ve been through a similar ruckus about cameras in public before, in the 1890s when Kodak cameras started to appear in parks and on city streets.

The New York Times addressed people’s concerns at the time in an article in August 1899, about a group of camera users, the so-called Kodak fiends, who snapped pictures of women with their new cameras.

“About the cottage colony there is a decided rebellion against the promiscuous use of photographing machines,” The Times wrote from Newport, R.I. “Threats are being made against any one who continues to use cameras as freely.” In another article, a woman pulled a knife on a man who tried to take her picture, “demolishing” the camera before going on her way.

Interesting things about that old NYT article:

1.  The word "kodak" — with a lower-case k — is used repeatedly in place of the word "camera," and the word "camera" appears once, toward the end, and only after "photographing machines." Less attention was paid back then, it seems, to the interest in preserving the trademark in brand names. (The loss of "aspirin" and "heroin" as Bayer trademarks came after WWI.)

2. The word "fiends," used repeatedly, connotes evil and addiction. From the same time period, the OED quotes: "The autograph-fiend; the cyclist-fiend; the interviewer-fiend; the newsboy-fiend; the organ-fiend" (1896), "‘A dope fiend’... A victim of the opium habit" (1896).

3. The word "promiscuous" fits with the nature of the perceived harm: women are victims. The article refers to "married men" wanting to bring lawsuits against the photographers. One man is said to have consulted a lawyer about whether "an assault could be charged" if the photograph is taken "against the will." But how sexual is the word "promiscuous"? The etymology connected it to "mixed up," and the oldest meaning is, according to the OED: "Done or applied with no regard for method, order, etc.; random, indiscriminate, unsystematic." The OED has some great quotes for the specifically sexual meaning that seems so central to us today:

1804   S. T. Coleridge Coll. Lett. (1956) II. 1119   He is..addicted to almost promiscuous Intercourse with women of all Classes.
1879   Harlequin Prince Cherrytop 29   Better frig, howe'er the mind it shocks, Than from promiscuous fucking catch the pox....
1924   C. Connolly Let. Dec. in Romantic Friendship (1975) 32,   I am not promiscuous but I can't be loyal to an icicle....
1978   S. Herzel in P. Moore Man, Woman, & Priesthood viii. 119   It is precisely because men can compartmentalize that they are more easily promiscuous than women.

"What might it mean for conventional structures if women could control, with a prescription, the most primal urge?"

"So many things, personal and cultural, might need to be recalibrated and renegotiated, explicitly or without acknowledgment. The cumulative effect of all those negotiations could be hugely transformative, in ways either thrilling or threatening, depending on your point of view."

"Viagra meddles with the arteries; it causes physical shifts that allow the penis to rise. A female-desire drug would be something else. It would adjust the primal and executive regions of the brain. It would reach into the psyche."

Green stuff... a kick in the head... U R Dead... hypochondria on U.S. 93 South...

Let's take a break from our mundane cares to check out — as we often do on this blog — who's been calling the police in Montana:

An irate motorist on Helena Flats Road reported a big sprayer truck spraying green stuff all over and was adamant the [activity] be stopped. It was eventually discovered the truck was only spraying grass seeds and mulch.

A Martin City man was knocked unconscious when his daughter kicked him in the head. When he came to, she was kicking him in the face. He refused medical treatment....

An astute Elk Trail woman in Whitefish suspected her ex after finding “U R Dead” scratched into the hood of her vehicle....

A hypochondriac on U.S. 93 South asked a passerby to call 911 after he stepped on a thermometer, claiming he now had mercury poisoning. The passerby reported the man smelled like alcohol and was hard to understand, and all the passerby could see was wrong with the man was that he was dizzy.