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Police did indeed give Occupiers free pot, new evidence suggests; DRE program suspended
Last Thursday, we told you about explosive allegations made by a new video report — that state patrol officers and county deputies have been giving drugs to young people hanging out near Peavey Plaza as part of the State Patrol’s Drug Recognition Expert program.
Later that day, Eric Roeske, State Patrol public information officers, said, “there’s been no evidence or no information that has been presented to us that would substantiate any of the allegations.” It now appears he spoke too soon.
In a press release issued earlier today, Minnesota Public Safety Commissioner Mona Dohman announced that the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension has launched a criminal investigation into allegations that a Hutchinson police officer provided marijuana to a DRE program participant last week.
According to the release, an officer from another law enforcement agency witnessed the activity. The witnessing officer, also a DRE participant, then reported the exchange to the Minnesota State Patrol.
Dohman also announced the immediate suspension of the DRE program, which has been ongoing in Minnesota since 1991. The program is intended to provide officers with intoxication-recognition training so they can surmise what substances have been used by intoxicated people encountered in the line of duty.
“Training law enforcement officers to detect drug impairment helps to keep our roads safe, but we need to ensure that all participants follow guidelines and operate within the law,” Dohman said. “I have suspended the drug recognition evaluator training pending the outcome of these investigations and until we revisit and review the curriculum for the program.”
In summation, it appears there is at least some fire under the billowing cloud of smoke created by the video report, which is the work of local independent media activists and members of Communities United Against Police Brutality.
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Heart disease drug ‘combats racism’
A common heart disease drug may have the unusual side-effect of combating racism, a new study suggests.
Volunteers given the beta-blocker, used to treat chest pains and lower heart rates, scored lower on a standard psychological test of “implicit” racist attitudes.
They appeared to be less racially prejudiced at a subconscious level than another group treated with a “dummy” placebo pill.
Scientists believe the discovery can be explained by the fact that racism is fundamentally founded on fear.
Propranolol acts both on nerve circuits that govern automatic functions such as heart rate, and the part of the brain involved in fear and emotional responses. The drug is also used to treat anxiety and panic.
Experimental psychologist Dr Sylvia Terbeck, from Oxford University, who led the study published in the journal Psychopharmacology, said: “Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias.
“Implicit racial bias can occur even in people with a sincere belief in equality. Given the key role that such implicit attitudes appear to play in discrimination against other ethnic groups, and the widespread use of propranolol for medical purposes, our findings are also of considerable ethical interest.”
Two groups of 18 participants took part in the study. Each volunteer was asked to undertake a “racial Implicit Association Test” (IAT) one to two hours after taking propranolol or the placebo.
The test involved categorising positive and negative words, and pictures of black and white individuals, on a computer screen.
Afghan Air Force Probed in Drug Running
KABUL — U.S. authorities are looking into allegations that some Afghan Air Force (AAF) officials have been using aircraft to transport narcotics and illegal weapons across the country, a U.S. official said on Thursday.
“At this point allegations are being examined,” said Lt. Col. Tim Stauffer, spokesman for the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, which is setting up and financing Afghan security forces, including the Air Force.
“Authorities are trying to determine whether the allegations warrant a full investigation.”
The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the allegations, said the U.S. military is also looking into whether the alleged transporting of illegal drugs and weapons is connected to an April incident in which an AAF colonel killed eight U.S. Air Force officers at Kabul Airport.
A U.S. Air Force report about the deaths quoted American officials as saying that the killer was likely involved in moving illegal cargo, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Most of the victims had been taking part in an inquiry into the misuse of AAF aircraft, the newspaper said.
The allegations of drug running come from “credible” Afghan officers inside and outside the AAF and coalition personnel working within the AAF, it added.
An Afghan defense ministry official would not comment on the issue. But he did say that Afghanistan had come under pressure from the West to remove a senior AAF official over corruption allegations.
“They could not provide credible evidence,” he told Reuters.
Major General Abdul Wahab Wardak, the AAF commander, told Reuters the drug-running allegations were “baseless and they must be proven”. “We never do such things,” he added.
The allegations are likely to raise further doubts over the ability of Afghan forces to secure the country before foreign combat troops withdraw at the end of 2014.
The AAF was set up mostly with U.S. funds.
The United States poured in a record amount, near US$12-billion between October 2010 and September 2011, to train and equip Afghanistan’s security forces. Almost as much cash, some US$11-billion, is planned for the year through September 2012.
Afghanistan produces 90% of the world’s opium and the drug trade is often blamed by Western officials for hindering economic development.
The poppy economy in Afghanistan, which provides an income for insurgents in the country blighted by decades of war, has grown significantly in 2011 with soaring prices and expanded cultivation, a UN report said late last year.
© Thomson Reuters 2012
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How FDA and Big Pharma mislead millions into taking dangerous anti-depressants
(NaturalNews) The anti-depressant fraud toothpaste is out of the tube, at least partly. A Harvard Medical School psychologist, Irving Kirsch, who has been studying placebo effects for three decades, recently came up with the documented conclusion that pharmaceutical anti-depressants don’t work.
This is big news for many Natural News readers and writers. But this conclusion had the prescription-pad psychiatrists and FDA crying foul, loudly. Why? Kirsch’s conclusion was featured in a national CBS 60 Minutes television report.
Even more importantly, Kirsch’s conclusion was evidence based on documents from obtained using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Those documents were trial results from drug companies that were not published and presented to the FDA.
Drug companies pay the FDA for approving their drugs. But the FDA doesn’t do the trials or reports. They simply take them from the drug companies who all do their own trials and decide which reports to publish and submit.
Kirsch discovered that most anti-depressant trials showed no proof of efficacy. Those results were simply hidden from view. So if 12 tests were done, and only two showed any efficacy at all, those two would be submitted to the FDA, and the FDA would essentially say “pay your fee and go to market.”
After analyzing the results of all the tests he was able to procure via FOIA, Kirsch concluded that anti-depressant drugs had only a placebo effect on patients with mild to moderate depression. In other words, a sugar pill would suffice. He went public with this conclusion.
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CDC says Gardasil shots should be ‘routine’ for boys
Every male between the ages of 11 and 21 should get a Gardasil vaccine for cervical cancer, and those between the ages of 13 and 21 should also get “catch-up” shots later down the road. This is only the opinion of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), of course, which recently announced its final recommendations for the controversial vaccine.
CBS News reports that, as a followup to its earlier, but incomplete, recommendation back in the fall that boys be given HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccines in addition to girls, the CDC has now formalized its position in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, as well as in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The agency is basically now recommending that all young men and women get the Gardasil vaccine.
The CDC announcement comes just days after Canadian health officials made a similar announcement recommending that all boys between the ages of nine and 26 in that country be jabbed with Gardasil. Together, the two announcements could potentially double profits for the vaccine, that is if enough members of the public are foolish enough to actually comply with these new recommendations.
ACIP heavily influenced by Big Pharma
Many of ACIP’s members are nominated directly by the drug industry, and often have significant financial ties to vaccine manufacturers. So it is really no surprise that ACIP has made such egregious recommendations without considering the fact that Gardasil has been shown to be medically useless for its stated purpose, and a significant threat to health in many cases.
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Big Bucks, Big Pharma
Big Bucks, Big Pharma pulls back the curtain on the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical industry to expose the insidious ways that illness is used, manipulated, and in some instances created, for capital gain. Focusing on the industry’s marketing practices, media scholars and health professionals help viewers understand the ways in which direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical advertising glamorizes and normalizes the use of prescription medication, and works in tandem with promotion to doctors. Combined, these industry practices shape how both patients and doctors understand and relate to disease and treatment. Ultimately, Big Bucks, Big Pharma challenges us to ask important questions about the consequences of relying on a for-profit industry for our health and well-being.
Featuring interviews with Dr. Marcia Angell (Dept. of Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Former Editor New England Journal of Medicine), Dr. Bob Goodman (Columbia University Medical Center; Founder, No Free Lunch), Gene Carbona (Former Pharmaceutical Industry Insider and Current Executive Director of Sales, The Medical Letter), Katharine Greider (Journalist; Author, The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers), Dr. Elizabeth Preston (Dept. of Communication, Westfield State College), and Dr. Larry Sasich (Public Citizen Health Research Group).
