Thursday, 27 May 2010

Postscript:

Also, the AP article makes a botch of its attempt to connect heroin potency with a "spike in heroin overdose deaths across the nation." To begin with, 25 years of AP reporting indicates that high-potency heroin has been widely available for some time, so it's silly to start blaming it for a recent increase of deaths. And second, the AP gives no sense that its methodology, in which it counts 3,000 heroin deaths in 36 states in 2008, is the same as that used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to count 2,000 deaths a year at the beginning of the decade. The comparison could be apples to oranges—or apples to salamanders. We just don't know.

Another problem with the AP piece is that it never defines death by heroin overdose. Is that a death in which only heroin is consumed? Or does it include deaths in which other drugs are taken in combination with heroin?

The question isn't pedantic. As it turns out, death by heroin alone is relatively uncommon, according to a 2008 study by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Florida Medical Examiners Commission. The study (PDF) analyzed the cases of all 8,620 people 1) who died in the state during 2007; 2) whose death led to a medical examiner's report; and 3) who had one or more major drug (including alcohol) onboard when they died.

In only 17 of the 110 heroin-related deaths was heroin the only drug onboard. In most cases of heroin-related death, decedents take other drugs that depress the central nervous system—other opiates, alcohol, sedatives, etc. The dangers of "polydrug use," as some call it, have been well understood for some time. A survey of the medical literature published in Addiction in 1996 titled "Fatal Heroin 'Overdose': A Review" warns against attributing all deaths in which evidence of heroin is present as "heroin overdoses." The authors write:

In a substantial proportion of cases, blood morphine levels alone [the body converts heroin into morphine] cannot account for the fatal outcome of a heroin "overdose." It appears that a great many "overdoses" are in fact fatalities due to multiple drug use. ... For a substantial number of heroin-related fatalities, then, heroin "overdose" may be a misnomer.

Moral of the story: Don't take heroin, but if you must, never mix it with other drugs.

A final point. The AP story makes a big deal about how falling heroin prices make the drug irresistible. "To hook new users, dealers are selling heroin cheap—often around $10 a bag," the story reports. But there's nothing new about that price. As an AP story cited above reports, bags of "60 percent to 85 percent pure heroin" were selling for $10 in 2000.

A child's eye of life inside Yarl's Wood immigration removal centre

Wells Botomani with his mother and sister.

Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Dark, early morning, 6 January 2009. A big bang on the door woke me. The mailbox flapped and clanked. More bangs. My mother went downstairs, opened the door. I trembled in my bed. Two men came upstairs, into my bedroom, told me to get out of bed and go downstairs.

Downstairs, the room was full of people. My sister came down escorted by more people. A man carrying a big file was talking in a loud voice telling my mum about removal dates. My mum has always told us at prayer times every evening to be calm and always depend on God in difficult times. So we stayed calm and said silent prayers.

Another man appeared at the door with three sacks. I was taken to my bedroom to pack. I was confused, so I packed dirty and torn clothes; no underwear, no pyjamas. I did make sure to pack my school uniform because I thought we would still go to school. I was rushed downstairs without going to the toilet or brushing my teeth. I felt very bad.

My sister, who was almost 17, was escorted into her bedroom to pack her belongings. And finally, my mum was too. Like criminals, we were taken out of the house, put into a van and driven away.

We were driven to a nearby reporting centre. We were taken into a building with no carpet or heaters, with plastic chairs attached to the wall and a toilet. The door was locked and we sat there trembling. It was very cold. I wondered how long we were going to be there. My mum told us not to hate these people – they were carrying out orders. She said to keep praying to God for help. Soon my heart felt better and some strength came back.

A man with a bandage on his hand opened the door and asked us if we needed anything to drink. My mum asked for a cup of tea. The door was locked again. Then opened again. The same man pulled a huge heater towards the door. The flex was too short so the heater was left in the doorway. The warmth barely reached us, but I was thankful because the room was freezing.

At 8.30am our bags were loaded into a police cage van. We were taken into the van and told we were going to a very nice family detention unit, four hours away – "One of the best detention centres in the country." We were locked in the van. I felt like a criminal.

On the way, we could not talk to each other. I felt sick inside. I thought about friends left behind and wondered about my future. I felt like screaming. My lips and throat were dry, and my head was spinning. A woman and the driver watched us on a screen in the front of the van.

Everything was snowy white at Yarl's Wood. The van stopped outside a huge gate and we could see razor wire around the perimeter. It looked like a prison. It was very quiet and deserted. The gate finally opened and the van entered. Then, another black gate. The van stopped again. We waited anxiously. The female officer in the van came and opened the back door. "Wait here," she said.

She asked us: "Have you ever seen snow before?" I felt angry, as she seemed to be mocking us. My mum calmly said: "Ya, it also snows in Leeds." The woman sneered.

Then the gate opened and a woman came out. She searched the car and scanned our bags. Then we were handed over to the detention team, and were searched by officers wearing latex gloves.

We saw many detainees with sad faces. My mum told us not to wear sad faces or do anything stupid, but to be co-operative. It was hard. A day had gone without us being in school. I sobbed inside. They took us to a different room. We were kept there until 6.30pm. I had missed school for the first time in my life. I had never even been late for school before. Education was the only thing that promised a future for me, that would take me out of the many problems my family faced. But now it looked like that chance had gone.

An officer told my mum that we could take anything from the fridge or make a drink from the machine, but we were still frozen inside. He said: "Make sure you take fruit."

While we were waiting to be taken to our rooms, a woman came in. We went to the fridge, but suddenly she shouted: "WHO TOLD YOU TO TAKE FOOD FROM THE FRIDGE?"

I could see tears in my mum's eyes, and I felt traumatised. I was told to carry my own bag, which was too heavy for me. So I dragged it. Life had totally turned against me.

The officer strode off and told us to walk fast as she unlocked door after door. We dragged our heavy bags up the stairs. We entered our two-room accommodation. We chose where we would sleep and sat there like stones.

Meanwhile, my teachers had sent my mum text messages to find out what had happened to me. She told them that we were detained at Yarl's Wood, and that we were going to be deported back to Malawi on 11 January.

I've since learned that my friends cried when they were told about this, and that some told their parents, who started a big campaign for us.

That night I couldn't sleep. I just shook. My mum read us Bible verses and told us to be strong. It took a long time to get to sleep. I could hear footsteps all night. Officers kept locking and unlocking doors. Then, early in the morning, when I was falling asleep, I heard a loud, scary knock on the door. It was the teacher telling my mum that I had school.

The school was just one room for primary kids and another for secondary kids. The place was full of people, from pregnant women to teenagers. There were even babies.

When we had been told that there would be school we were very happy. But one teacher and all ages in one classroom – it was hopeless. We didn't learn anything and mostly played football.

Scary stories

We heard scary stories about how the immigration authorities were working hard to deport people. One day we heard that if you refused to go back to your country, they sometimes sent your parents separately – or even took you to social welfare homes.

I felt so scared. I imagined my mum being thrown into the plane, alone. I could not sleep and I didn't have the courage to tell my mother. But one day, I told her what some staff were telling us. She was very angry and told me that if anyone started on this again, we should tell them that they didn't have the right to terrorise our weak and bruised minds.

I stopped going to class. I felt I was learning nothing. I was having sleepless nights. I was also watching violent films, which the centre put on. My mum tried to make me sleep, but I couldn't.

During the first month, I became stick-like because I couldn't eat. My lips were dry and red, and my mum was scared. She used to force me to go into the dining room to eat, but I couldn't. I felt dead inside. Soon I got bad diarrhoea. I tried to get in to see the nurse, but we had to wait two days. I could drink, but couldn't take solid food. When we went to see the nurse, she just looked at me and said I looked OK, but my mum insisted. Then the nurse weighed me, and I had lost some weight. But she still said I was OK.

There was sickness everywhere: chickenpox, urinary tract infections, flu, diarrhoea and fever. Health staff didn't seem to care.

Forced to go back

Every day we heard terrible stories about how people were being beaten and handcuffed and forced to go back to their countries. Every day we saw people crying and being taken to the airport. Sometimes I felt death would have been better than being sent back to a place where I would end up living on the streets.

The nights are the worst in Yarl's Wood. Doors being banged and sometimes people crying. You always think they may be coming to your door. This fear lives in me, and I don't know how to get rid of it.

The 65 days I was in Yarl's Wood was hell. My plea to this government is please think of us children. We do not deserve this treatment. We deserve a future. Let immigration be hard on real criminals, not people who are seeking refuge.

It is my prayer that the British government shows mercy towards children. Detention for us is hell and detrimental to our fragile minds.

• The Botomani family are appealing a Home Office rejection of their asylum claim.

Wells Botomani (14) @'The Guardian'

Wednesday, 26 May 2010

HA! (For Calum!)

Pot and Pesticides: A Bustling Illegal Trade

Adithya Sambamurthy, for The Bay Citizen

Vials procured at Bay Area grow shops containing pesticides identified as Avid and Floramite

Pesticides not meant for use on consumable crops are available in “grow” shops throughout the Bay Area – a bustling market in which toxic substances are sold over the counter in unmarked vials.

A Bay Citizen reporter was able to purchase substances identified by vendors as the pesticides Avid and Floramite at hydroponic gardening centers in San Francisco and Berkeley. The reporter was offered a quart container of Avid at another Berkeley store for $400.

Three other grow shops said they did not carry the pesticides; two noted it would be illegal to do so.

State and federal laws dictate that pesticides should only be used on approved crops – which do not include pot – and that the pesticides must be sold in packaging that is labeled according to standards prescribed by the Environmental Protection Agency. It is illegal to sell pesticides without this label, which explains how to safely apply the substances.

The insecticides are considered powerful tools for killing pests that can destroy indoor marijuana gardens and ruin the lucrative crop, worth as much as $4,000 per pound on the street. Growers said use is common when dealing with serious infestation problems.

"When people are faced with a high dollar loss or taking a risk, they take the risk," said Sean Taylor, the owner of 3rd St. Hydroponics in Oakland, who says his shop refuses to sell the toxic substances. "I've had growers come in and I could smell it."

In interviews, growers and merchants describe an unregulated market for pest-control and growth-enhancement products, in which a kind of Wild West mentality prevails. Some novices confronting pest problems apply pesticides with a heavy hand, they said; posts in online cannabis forums include questions from growers confused about how much Avid to use.

"There's a lack of guidance on how to properly use pesticides," said one former grower who now works as a pest control specialist. "There's just a lot of guessing going on and a lot of misuse."

Floramite in particular is not designed for food crops, according to toxicologists, so it has not undergone studies to detect carcinogenic properties. Such studies are standard for pesticides used on edible plants. Also, because the pesticides are not intended for marijuana, there have been no studies about how pesticide residues might react if smoked.

"I don't have any data to tell me that it's safe or OK to use any insecticide or herbicide on cannabis," said San Francisco Agricultural Commissioner Miguel Monroy, who is charged with enforcing pesticide laws in the county. "There isn't anything that's registered for use on cannabis."

Marijuana is the state's biggest cash crop, worth as much as $14 billion annually by some estimates. But the drug is regarded as a Schedule I controlled substance by the federal government and is not regulated as a commodity. This means that pesticide companies and regulatory agencies do not supervise how it is grown or monitor pesticides that may be used for cultivation.

“We don’t regulate marijuana, we don’t take samples of it, we don’t test it and we don’t know anything about it,” said Lea Brooks, spokesperson for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

In recent months, concerns over the use of pesticides and other potentially dangerous ingredients in the Bay Area’s marijuana supply have created an expanding network of private, self-appointed regulators who do everything from certifying that organic marijuana is “clean green” to testing for contaminants. The new businesses have effectively assumed the government's regulatory role.

There are no quality-screening requirements for the 29 licensed marijuana dispensaries in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley, where pot in various forms is available with an easily obtained prescription.

The California Department of Public Health reports that there have been no complaints about illness or problems related to contaminated marijuana. No cases have been reported to San Francisco's health department either.

The Bay Citizen purchased glass vials of Avid and Floramite labeled "3 ml/gal" with permanent marker for $40 each at Berkeley's Secret Garden. A reporter was given a free glass vial that was identified as Floramite and labeled "FloraKill miticide (bifenazate)" at Grow Your Own in San Francisco.

Adithya Sambamurthy, for The Bay Citizen

Berkeley's Secret Garden, where a Bay Citizen reporter received glass vials of pesticides in an unmarked paper bag

"This is the stuff," said the man behind the counter at Grow Your Own as he fetched a glass vial of white material from a small refrigerator behind the counter. He warned that it was strong, and advised wearing gloves.

"The white one's Floramite," said the woman at Berkeley's Secret Garden as she handed the vials over the counter in a brown paper bag. She instructed that about 10 drops of the substance should be diluted in a gallon of water.

"We don't really do a lot related to the growth of illegal substances," said Steven Moore, one of the owners of Berkeley's Secret Garden, who denied that his shop sells products for marijuana cultivation or gets many requests for Avid or Floramite. He said it was legal to sell Floramite over the counter, but called the Avid sale "a mistake."

"That's something we use around the store," he said.

The owner of Grow Your Own, who was identified only as Brian, said of the unlabeled vial of Floramite: "The quarts are labeled and then we just break 'em down into smaller bottles. It's a benefit for the customers so that they don't have to buy a $500 pint of pesticide."

A spokesperson for the California Department of Pesticide Regulation said it is illegal to sell unlabeled pesticides or use them on pot, but was unable to confirm or deny the legality of selling Avid or Floramite over the counter.

"You're talking about products that are being sold without labels," said Veda Federighi, the department's assistant director of external affairs. "Somebody can put anything in it."

Avid and Floramite have a low toxicity to mammals, and have been legally used in Bay Area landscaping. But neither government regulators nor chemical companies have never evaluated these pesticides – or any others – for use on pot plants.

"The toxic risk is pretty low," said Ron Tjeerdema, chair of the department of environmental toxicology at UC Davis. "But you're dealing with people that are buying and using it in an unregulated fashion."

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation and the San Francisco Agricultural Commissioner, who are tasked with regulating the sale of pesticides, requested that The Bay Citizen turn over the names of the grow shops for an investigation. Neither had ever investigated the issue of pesticides in the cannabis industry.

It is unclear whether pesticide-tainted pot has made its way into Bay Area medical marijuana dispensaries. At least six dispensaries are starting to voluntarily use some form of safety testing – mostly for molds or potency – to screen marijuana before it goes out the door. To obtain enough marijuana to meet demand, the dispensaries often work with multiple suppliers, who by law must be members.

Many Bay Area pot dispensaries evaluate marijuana by looking at it, feeling it and smelling it, a process they call "organileptics."

"They really know what they're doing," said Larry Kessler, the San Francisco health inspector who checks the paperwork at the city's 22 dispensaries twice a year. "These people know a lot more about the quality than I could ever figure out, so at this point, no, we don't go there at all."

In the East Bay, there are two marijuana labs, Steep Hill Medical Collective and Collective Wellness, that will soon begin testing for pesticides, but because there are no established screening procedures, they are creating their testing methods as they go. Steep Hill is working on a method that screens specifically for chemicals such as Avid and Floramite; Collective Wellness is working on another approach, and a third lab sponsored by a trade group called the Medical Cannabis Safety Council is in development.

"Nobody really has these tests for cannabis," said Debby Goldsberry, director of the Medical Cannabis Safety Council. "We have to start from scratch."

The testing labs are new players in an expanding marijuana industry that now includes everything from insurance companies that cover dispensaries for potential liability to lobbyists who push marijuana legislation such as the November ballot measure.

“You don’t go into the grocery store and buy white cans of fluid not knowing what’s in them,” said Addison DeMoura, co-founder of Steep Hill, which already tests for mold and potency. “People just want cannabis that’s tested.”

The issue of pesticides and pot has become a concern throughout the marijuana industry. Last year, the Los Angeles Police Department bought pot from one L.A. store called Hemp Factory V and found residues of a pesticide called bifenthrin, a chemical that is moderately toxic to mammals when ingested. An L.A. Superior Court judge placed an injunction on the pot shop because it violated food and drug safety law, marking the first time such laws have been applied to marijuana. The L.A. City Council went on to pass an ordinance that included a requirement for pot shops to lab test the drug for pesticides.

Advocates from the medical cannabis industry said this was an isolated case. They said most dispensaries provide a safe product.

“It’s just really unfortunate if the entire industry is judged by the worst example that they can dig up from under a rock,” said Dale Clare, an advocate of legalization who is also a member of the Medical Cannabis Safety Council.

State agriculture and public health regulators do not keep data about pesticides used on marijuana. Narcotics agencies do not track the chemical containers they find when they raid marijuana grow operations, and law enforcement agencies seldom test confiscated pot for contaminants.

But authorities in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties, where some of the marijuana sold in the Bay Area originates, report finding an array of chemicals and pesticides at outdoor grows.

Mendocino Sheriff Thomas Allman, whose employees eradicated 541,000 plants last year, said he routinely sees 7-pound plants that he calls “marijuana on steroids."

“I just don’t believe a lot of end users at these dispensaries in the Bay Area have any idea what went in to this plant to get it to be as big as it was,” said Allman.

Allman, who supports medical marijuana, has been to many pristine pot gardens where growers used no pesticides or herbicides. He said he would even give pot to a sick family member if a doctor recommended it.

"But you can bet your bottom dollar that there's a lot of people here that I would never talk to," Allman said.

Kate McLean @'The Bay Citizen'

UPDATE:

First Pop Group dates announced:

Sept. 18 in Bologna and Sept. 20 in Turin.

Lucky Italians!

NO!

Law Firm Asks Alleged File-Sharers To Incriminate Themselves

Lawyers ACS:Law in the UK are now into their second year of threatening alleged pirates with legal action. Since they don’t have a good case when people deny their allegations, for some time now the firm has been sending out questionnaires which allow people to build a case against themselves. As a UK consumer magazine is pointing out, people don’t have to play this game.

After sending out thousands of letters to UK Internet users who have allegedly infringed their clients’ rights, lawyers ACS:Law have a couple of cracks appearing in their armor.
Davenport Lyons (DL), the law firm which pioneered the “pay-up-or-else” scheme in the UK, are facing disciplinary proceedings by the Solicitors Regulation Authority on allegations of misconduct. Knowing full well that they cannot make the same mistakes as DL, ACS:Law are trying to be a little more careful in the way they try to force money out of letter recipients.
According to ACS:Law owner Andrew Crossley, his company does not state that the people they send their letters to are guilty of anything, only that their connection has been used to infringe. He also goes on to say that his letters are merely an offer to settle any potential legal case in the future and people aren’t obliged to pay anything.
This is great news. Since Crossley admits he can’t prove the letter recipient has committed any infringement, that same recipient is under no obligation to pay a dime. So it’s all finished there then? Not a chance, ACS:Law don’t give up so easily.
Yesterday consumer magazine Which? reported on the questionnaires being sent out by ACS:Law. The law firm sends these out once people have written to them denying they did anything wrong. All they are designed to do is to enable the letter recipient to incriminate themselves or, in some cases, other people.
The advice from Deborah Prince, Which?’s head of legal affairs, is that people are under no obligation to fill in these questionnaires. These bits of paper simply amount to a fishing trip by a law firm clutching at straws in the face of a recipient who won’t be bullied and won’t pay up.
But these questionnaires aren’t new – ACS:Law have been sending these out for some time. Just after we published consumer group Being Threatened’s guide to dealing with letters from the lawyers back in January, they added a bonus section.
The Speculative Invoicing Handbook Bonus Chapter: Not replying to a questionnaire is available for download here and really shows these questionnaires for what they are.
“If you’ve ‘replied and denied’ and now received a letter from a law firm requesting further information: Congratulations! This kind of mailing demonstrates that at present they don’t have enough information to build a case against you,” explains the guide.
“Your straight denial has left them out in the cold. Now they’re hoping you’ll be kind enough to fabricate a case against yourself (or maybe someone else) on their behalf. Perhaps you’ll be good enough to suggest your own grandmother who surfs eBay for wool supplies when she pops over on Sundays? Maybe your younger brother, or your flatmate? Thankfully you’re not as stupid as they’d believe.”
Yet despite the wealth of information available to anyone with a web browser and a rudimentary grasp of Google, people continue to give ACS:Law money. In the first 11 months of their scheme they collected an amazing £1,000,000 from these letters. How many cases went to court? Zero.
One day people will see this cash cow for what it is and stop feeding it. Hopefully that will be before we see our first flying pig.

Enigmax @'Torrent Freak'

Fugn hell...this is progress?

This photo from Shack's site reminded me of me at my Nan's house in Liverpool (Except there was no tree!)

So I thought I would google my local park, 'de mizzy' and this is what I found...

It's obvious really isn't it?

The mystery being: where's the fugn park?

World Cup opera singer Siphiwo Ntshebe dies

A South African opera singer chosen by Nelson Mandela to perform at the World Cup opening ceremony has died from meningitis, his record label has said.

Siphiwo Ntshebe, 34, was admitted to hospital in Port Elizabeth last week and died on Tuesday, Epic Records said.

He was due to perform his new track Hope at the opening ceremony in Johannesburg on June 11.

Epic boss Nick Raphael said Ntshebe's death was "a tragedy for all those who believe in the power of music".

"He had a truly wondrous voice and his music was unique in its melodies and its messages of hope and compassion," he added.

Epic said Hope was "a soaring track", featuring "a special message of hope and compassion" written and spoken by Mr Mandela.

The track, and an album of the same name, were due to be released to coincide with the World Cup.

Epic said no final decision had been taken on whether the releases would go ahead but that Ntshebe's family wanted his music "to be heard by as wide an audience as possible".

Opening ceremony producer Lebo M said Ntshebe was "a true South Africa World Cup legacy, gone too soon".

"May his spirit lead us to 11 June 2010. May his soul rest in peace and may Siphiwo's spirit of hope centre us all," he added.

Ntshebe, who studied at London's Royal College of Music between 2004 and 2007, had performed throughout Europe.

Mr Mandela had previously praised the tenor as "a young South African with so much talent that has, despite challenges of the past, chosen to work hard at a better future".

@'BBC'