Day: 05/22/2015

German Police Officers Take Off Helmets & Marched With Citizens Against Central Bank

https://makingsenseofcrazy.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/german-police-officers-take-off-helmets-marched-with-german-citizens-against-rothschild-european-central-bank-validated/

German police officers escort an anti- crony capitalism protest march with some 20,000 people in Frankfurt, Germany, Saturday, May 19, 2012. Protesters peacefully filled the city center of continental Europe’s biggest financial hub in their protest against the dominance of banks and what they perceive to be untamed crony capitalism, Frankfurt police spokesman Ruediger Regis said.

The protest group calling itself Blockupy has called for blocking the access to the European Central Bank, which is located in Frankfurt’s business district.

New Bill Would Allow Texas Teachers To Kill Students If Needed

https://makingsenseofcrazy.wordpress.com/2015/05/20/this-new-bill-would-allow-texas-teachers-to-kill-their-students-if-they-felt-it-was-needed-greenville-gazette/

In addition, teachers who shot someone under such circumstances would be granted “civil immunity,” which means they could not be held liable if the student they shot was injured or killed. Teachers in Texas already have the right to keep guns in the classroom…

Who’s Smoking Pot These Days?

http://www.hightimes.com/read/whos-smoking-pot-these-days

Over 115 million Americans have used marijuana at least once in their lives, about 44 percent of the total population…

Two-thirds of annual marijuana users (22 million) only use marijuana—that is they do not use other illegal drugs. More interestingly, 80 percent of monthly marijuana users do not use other illegal drugs, 15.9 million people out of the 19.9 million total…

PTSD Pot Study Could Force Uncle Sam to Eat Crow

http://www.hightimes.com/read/ptsd-pot-study-could-force-uncle-sam-eat-crow

Earlier last year, after receiving federal approval to proceed with her research, Dr. Sisley was terminated from her position at the University of Arizona, where the study was to be overseen. Fortunately, the state of Colorado came forward with a $2 million donation from the state’s recreational market to get this research off the ground.

Yet, Sisley and her team have since been forced to contend with the government’s inability to produce the caliber of cannabis required for the study. So they have been impatiently waiting for the University of Mississippi to harvest a crop specific to their potency demands.

However, in a recent article from Psychiatry Advisor, Dr. Sisley suggested that her highly publicized research on PTSD and pot is set to get underway. The six-week study will consist of 76 veterans who will be given four different strains of marijuana in order to gauge how different THC to CBD ratios affect the symptoms of this common anxiety disorder…

In her article entitled “Why Marijuana Is Critical For Research in Treating PTSD,” Dr. Sisley pointed out that a similar study, which was published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, proved successful back in 2014. After studying 80 veterans of the U.S. military, who were given cannabis to combat PTSD, psychiatrist George Green found a 75 percent decrease in the symptoms associated with the condition—an impressive number for a substance that continues to be hindered by the federal government.

Sisley said there is a desperate need to break down the governmental barriers to marijuana research, specifically the NIDA monopoly and the Public Health Service review process…

CVS Health gets more drug pricing clout with $12B deal for Omnicare

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/cvs-health-gets-more-drug-pricing-clout-12b-deal-omnicare/2015-05-21

Adding Omnicare to CVS’s pharmacy benefits management operations–with its substantial presence in Medicare Part D–will give the company control over a major swath of the market for senior prescriptions…

Already, CVS and its chief rival, Express Scripts ($ESRX), have used their market heft to press drug prices downward. They’ve set up formularies that specifically exclude dozens of drug brands…

Reaching For The Sun

“The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.”  Galileo Galilei

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain’t goin’ away.”  Elvis Presley

Delicate Yellow

“The sharp thorn often produces delicate roses.”  Ovid

“Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.”  Joseph Wood Krutch

“The more you worry, the more you throw off the delicate balance of hormones required for health.”  Andrew J. Bernstein

“All relationships change the brain – but most important are the intimate bonds that foster or fail us, altering the delicate circuits that shape memories, emotions and that ultimate souvenir, the self.”  Diane Ackerman

Ex-NFL Players Say Teams Conspired To Illegally Push Painkillers

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/21/nfl-painkillers_n_7396422.html

BALTIMORE (AP) — Hundreds of former players have filed a lawsuit claiming all 32 NFL teams, their doctors, trainers and medical staffs obtained and provided painkillers to players — often illegally — as part of a decades-long conspiracy to keep them on the field without regard for their long-term health.

The lawsuit reprises some of the allegations made in a federal lawsuit last year on behalf of 1,300 former players against the NFL. That complaint was filed in May, 2014 and dismissed in December by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. Northern District in California. Alsup wrote that the collective bargaining agreement between the league and the NFL Players Association was the appropriate forum to resolve such claims. That decision is being appealed…

Among other claims, the players contend prescriptions were filled out in their names without their knowledge.

The new lawsuit also claims that several former head coaches and assistants — among them, Don Shula, Howard Schnellenberger, Wayne Fontes, Mike Holmgren and Mike Tice — warned players they would be cut from their teams unless they took painkillers and returned to the field…

#ChickenFuckers

I love chicken.  But now, because of John Oliver’s reporting, I can’t eat it anymore. And that really pisses me off. If your state representative is on this committee (none from New Mexico), please take a moment to communicate your dissatisfaction with them by using this hashtag. Gracias.

License Plate Scanners Also Taking Photos of Drivers and Passengers

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/license-plate-scanners-also-taking-photos-drivers-and-passengers

The Drug Enforcement Administration is using its license plate reader program not only to track drivers’ locations, but also to photograph these drivers and their passengers, according to newly disclosed records obtained by the ACLU via a Freedom of Information Act request…

The DEA documents are just the latest indication that license plate scanners are not always focused just on license plates.

In December, theNewspaper.com reported that Vigilant Solutions, one of the main providers of ALPR technology, expanded the integration of facial recognition technology into its ALPR offerings… This software would not only allow law enforcement officials to photograph the occupants of a vehicle, but also to quickly and accurately identify individuals and enter them into the DEA’s database…

The War on Drug Tests (9/11/2014)

https://www.vice.com/read/the-war-on-drug-tests-911

Take Sue Bates, who in 2010 was fired from her job at Dura Automotive Systems after she tested positive for hydrocodone—a narcotic that she was prescribed for back pain. When she offered her prescription as an explanation for the test results, Dura argued that it was impossible to determine if she had been using the medication as prescribed or if she was a substance abuser, which would presumably affect her job performance. A similar thing happened to Chassity Brady, a Georgia woman who was fired when her bipolar medication showed up on a drug test; and Tim Sparr, a police officer in Arizona, who was let go for failing a drug test (he had been taking oxycodone, which he was prescribed after being shot in the arm on duty).

In 2011, Bates and six other Dura employees sued the company, and won when a judge ruled that their drug testing was not “job-related and consistent with business necessity.” Brady also sued, in 2013, and won…

But it’s not clear that marijuana users will have the same recourse. Some states—Connecticut, Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, and Rhode Island—have made it illegal to discriminate against medical marijuana users, but other states have ruled that drug discrimination is perfectly legal. In Florida, where an HIV-positive man named Gaylus Bailey was fired for using medicinal marijuana prescribed to him to alleviate HIV-related symptoms, a judge ruled that the company was well within its right to fire him, prescription or no prescription…

Can You Sue Your Employer if You’re Fired for Being an Alcoholic?

https://www.vice.com/read/a-woman-is-suing-this-restaurant-for-discrimination-after-she-was-fired-for-being-an-alcoholic-741

The lawsuit claims that despite her condition she was a good worker, and that she was fired because of her addiction. While that may sound frivolous to some, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) actually does cover alcoholism. Employers can prohibit employees from drinking on the job, of course, and if a worker’s drinking gets in the way of their duties they can be reprimanded or fired—but you can’t lay off someone for being an alcoholic if they are able to perform their job. In fact, if someone has a crippling alcohol addiction, employers may be required under the law to let them take time off to go to rehab. (These protections do not apply to people using illegal drugs.) …

Rise in Suicide by Black Children Surprises Researchers

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/19/health/suicide-rate-for-black-children-surged-in-2-decades-study-says.html?smid=tw-share&_r=1

The suicide rate among black children has nearly doubled since the early 1990s, while the rate for white children has declined, a new study has found, an unusual pattern that seemed to suggest something troubling was happening among some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens.

Suicide among children ages 5 to 11, the age range the study measured, is rare, and researchers had to blend several years of data to get reliable results. The findings, which measured the period from 1993 to 2012, were so surprising that researchers waited for an additional year of data to check them…

The way the children were dying seemed to provide some clues. Dr. Christine Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, who read the study, pointed out that gun deaths among white boys had gone down by about half while staying about the same for black boys, signaling that gun safety education may not be reaching black communities as effectively as white ones.

Suicides by hanging, on the other hand, roughly tripled among black boys, while remaining virtually unchanged for whites…