Methadone 'works and saves lives'

 

The long-term survival of drug users is improved by the use of the controversial heroin substitute methadone, academics have claimed.
The study led by Edinburgh University researchers said methadone treatment reduced the frequency of drug use.
It also led to a drop in the risk of death by 13% each year, the research suggested.
But the findings also showed the drug could prolong the number of years users continued to inject heroin.
The long-term study followed hundreds of heroin abusers in the Muirhouse area of Edinburgh over almost 30 years.
It found that those on heroin substitutes such as methadone led less chaotic lives - and lived longer.
The researchers also rejected calls for methadone prescribing to be reduced.
Roy Robertson, a GP who led the study at the University of Edinburgh, said: "This study confirms that methadone works and works best when prescribed for as long as is needed.
"Even though some users continue to occasionally inject while on methadone, they still gain substantial health benefits from their prescription.
"Suggestions that methadone prescribing should be cut back or confined to the short-term are clearly misplaced and would lead to poorer health for drug injectors."
Three months ago, a group of 40 experts from around the world said methadone should be "readily available" to addicts seeking help.
They argued that scrapping the treatment could lead to a rise in crime and drug deaths.
But its use has been criticised by Scottish Conservatives, who claimed addicts are "parked" on methadone.
The party has called for the underlying causes of abuse to be tackled, and for more addicts to be put into rehabilitation programmes, including in prisons.
The Scottish government's drugs strategy aims to "support people to move on towards a drug-free life as active and contributing members of society".
The new study, which also involved researchers from Bristol and Cambridge universities, suggested there was a "balance" between saving lives and achieving abstinence.
Almost 800 people took part in the study, of whom 571 were still alive when research was followed up. At the end of that process, five more had died, bringing the total deaths to 228, or 29% of the group.
The study will be published by the British Medical Journal on 17 July.

@'BBC'

ebertchicago Two words for Mel Gibson: Rehab now. 8 minutes ago via web

The Velvet Underground - A Symphony of Sound (1966)

The Velvet Underground And Nico (A Symphony of Sound) is a portrait of the band, recorded during a practice session at the Factory in January 1966. The soundtrack is an instrumental.

"This was never meant even as an experiment. It was meant as an item of wallpaper made for use behind the musical group as they set up and tuned their instruments. I had been using five different prints of silent footage, mainly screen tests, for simultaneous projection behind them. This was extremely effective while the music was played but in the long stretches between numbers when there was no sound coming from the stage, it was very boring.

I thought of recording the Velvets just making up sounds as they went along to have on film so I could turn both soundtracks up at the same time along with the other three silent films being projected. The cacophonous noise added a lot of energy to these boring sections and sounded a lot like the group itself. The show put on for the group was certainly the first mixed media show of its kind, was extremely effective and I have never since seen such an interesting one even in this age of super-colossal rock concerts."

Paul Morrissey

NB: This version is lacking the last 10 minutes or so when the police raid The Factory.

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WiredUK Our favourite email of the day: "I realise there's a typo in my last note, in the line 'I am high' which was supposed to read 'I AIM high'." 15 minutes ago via web

Smoking # 74

RapidShare Cheapens Pricing Scheme After User Revolt

RapidShare has made several drastic changes to its service in the last months. They began in March when it became apparent that the company was trying to get copyright holders on board in an attempt to convert pirates into paying customers.
A month later RapidShare ditched its CEO Bobby Chang on claims he was no longer the right person to successfully lead the company. And in a continued effort to avoid the pirate site stigma, RapidShare killed its reward program and went after sites that infringed their trademark to facilitate illicit downloading.
Two weeks ago premium users of the file-hosting site were informed about another upcoming change that was set to go into effect this month. RapidShare announced that it would stop the existing payment plans to introduce 5 new packages. These new packages would have daily usage limits and users would have to switch between them according to their daily download demands.
The result was that most users would be worse off than with their current plans, or would be forced to switch back and forth between the various packages on a day-to-day basis. Unsurprisingly, many premium users complained to RapidShare, urging the company to reconsider their offer.
“As a result of the recent adjustments to our product and pricing model we have received a lot of feedback from our users,” RapidShare communicated to its users yesterday. “There was also positive response but we want to be honest with you: most answers were negative.”
“With our adjustments we have alienated many users. As a matter of course, that was not our intention. Instead, it is our goal to introduce a system that gives our users more flexibility. However, we are happy about every single user response that we have received as this is the only way we can learn what our users really want,” the company added.
To accommodate the complaints of the revolting users, RapidShare changed its payment scheme to a simpler and much cheaper offer. For less than 5 euros users can now buy 4 months of premium access with 10 GB storage and a 30 GB monthly data limit. Heavy users can buy additional traffic and storage space if required.
The main benefit of the revised scheme, besides the fact that nearly every user will be better off, is the change from a daily limit to a monthly one. Under the old scheme, users with the cheapest account had a 1 GB download limit that they would have to upgrade even though they might never go over the 30 GB a month.
With these changes RapidShare thinks that there wont be any future revolts from users over the new pricing scheme. “We are convinced that we will meet our users’ needs with the new and simple model,” the company said.

Ernesto @'Torrent Freak'

The Real Sugar Hill Records Story: In-House Drummer Keith Le Blanc on the Myths Surrounding Rap's First Label

Saturation-level coverage of mass murder causes, on average, one more mass murder in the next two weeks

Johann Hari: Did the media help to pull the trigger?

Today's Daily Express stereotype

HERE

♪♫ The Woodentops - Why Why Why

Iran Unveils Approved Hairstyles

Iran has unveiled haircuts that according to officials are in line with Iranian and Islamic principles.

The new haircut models approved by Iran's Culture Ministry are aimed at preventing haircuts deemed "Western" among Iranian youth.

Barbers and men with haircuts considered "Western" and fashionable have been warned in recent years. 

The unveiling of the "Islamic" haircuts comes amid a new crackdown on "bad hijab" or veiling among women and also men.

Making Iranians, especially the young, follow state-imposed rules on their appearance has turned into a real challenge for Iranian officials, who often rely on force to fight what they describe as un-Islamic and immoral clothing and bad hijab.
 Many young Iranians have in the past 30 years rebelled against an Islamic establishment that tries to control their private and public lives through their appearance, including clothing, hairstyles, and make-up.
 Golnaz Esfandiari @'Radio Free Europe'

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Huffington Post publishes anti-Darwin smears from creationist think tank

At the Huffington Post, popular liberal news aggregator, nipple slideshow source, and intern slave market, you can get away with writing pretty much any old nonsense you like. Especially if you're famous, or a friend of Arianna Huffington. One thing you apparently can't do, though, is criticize the Huffington Post itself for publishing nonsense.
I've long been a critic of HuffPo's "Living" section, where fake doctors peddle snake oil cures and vaccine conspiracy theorists spread their poisonous misinformation. Those who read the Huffington Post solely for its (usually good) political content often don't even realize that a couple verticals away is a den of quackery and pseudoscience.
The HuffPo has, they claim, a specific editorial policy against promoting "conspiracy theories." It is selectively enforced.
But publishing the new agey holistic naturopath crystal-healing Beverly Hills quack-to-the-stars bullshit of Arianna's good friend's nutritionist is one (stupid, potentially dangerous) thing. Giving a platform to the anti-science creationist dingbats at The Discovery Institute is a step in a darker direction.
The Discovery Institute aims to make kids learn about "Intelligent Design," a thing evangelical Christians invented because they were sick of getting made fun of for saying out loud that they believe that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs. "Intelligent Design" has no basis in science -- indeed, it is a sick parody of science -- and the motivations behind getting into classrooms are purely political.
As part of their "Religion and Science" feature (which looks to be a lot of fashionable mysticism from the usual pop-philosophy hacks -- like good ol' Deepak Chopra) the HuffPo published a post from Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer blaming Darwin for eugenics and the Nazis.
This is cancerous bullshit. Professional anti-science propagandists like Klinghoffer are free to write and publish it, but no one with any respect for their readers or sense of responsibility to the truth should promote it.
Scientist and science writer Eric Michael Johnson responded to Klinghoffer, on the Huffington Post.
Here's how his last paragraph reads:

The Nazi policies enacted three-quarters of a century ago this month were certainly bad enough, we don't need to spread the blame onto those who had no connection with them. Creationists do a poor service to the memory of Holocaust victims by using their deaths in a politically motivated attack against science. David Klinghoffer, his fellow creationists, and those who give them a platform should be ashamed of themselves for pushing and allowing a tactic rejected by a US federal court judge as "breathtaking inanity" should be strongly criticized.

Here's how the last sentence originally read:

David Klinghoffer and his fellow creationists should be ashamed of themselves, and the decision by Huffington Post to give a platform to an organization pushing a tactic rejected by a US federal court judge as "breathtaking inanity" should be strongly criticized.

Giving a space to quacks to sell vitamin supplements to morons is insulting enough, but actually allowing a shameless asshole like Klinghoffer to use the Holocaust to promote his right-wing crusade to teach children lies is beyond the pale. Platform or no, there's no reason for anyone rational or even anyone with a sense of shame to continue giving Huffington free content.

Alex Pareene @'Salon'