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Cocaine, heroin, and LSD molecules become wearable works of art
08.07.2015
01:04 pm
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Cocaine molecular necklace
“Cocaine” molecular necklace
 
After working for a biotech lab in Vancouver, BC, science “nerd” Tania Hennessy, originally from New Zealand, decided to start making jewelry based on the molecular structure of various vices, such as cocaine, heroin, and LSD.
 
Overdose molecular necklace
“Overdose” molecular necklace
 
Hennessy laser-cuts her 3D designer drugs from lightweight stainless steel in various finishes, and the results are quite stunning. In some cases, Hennessy combines the addictive molecules, such as LSD and MDMA (a practice known as “candy flipping” if you’re into that kind of thing), to create a wearable drug cocktail without all the nasty side effects. Hennessy even created a piece called “Overdose” (pictured above) that combines the molecular images of the following drugs: LSD, psilocybin (psychedelic mushrooms), cocaine, DMT (the powerful psychedelic dimethyltryptamine), THC (marijuana), and MDMA (Ecstasy/Molly). Trippy.
 
LSD molecular necklace
“LSD” molecular necklace
 
There are also a few less life-threatening vices in Hennessy’s collection such as chocolate and caffeine, as well good-vibe neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin, among others. The pieces in Hennessy’s collection will run you anywhere from $25 to $95 and can be purchased on her website, Aroha Silhouettes. More images of Hennessy’s druggy designs follow. 
 
Cannabis molecular necklace
“Cannabis” molecular necklace
 
DMT molecular necklace
“DMT” molecular necklace
 
MDMA molecular necklace
“MDMA” molecular necklace
 
Psilocybin (magic mushroom) molecular necklace
“Psilocybin” (magic mushroom) molecular necklace
 
Heroin molecular necklace
“Heroin” molecular necklace
 
Methamphetamine molecular necklace
“Methamphetamine” molecular necklace
 
Ketamine (Special K) molecular necklace
“Ketamine (Special K)” molecular necklace
 
Oxycontin molecular necklace
“Oxycontin” molecular necklace
 
THC molecular necklace
“THC” molecular necklace

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Images of LSD, cocaine, meth and other drugs exposed to film

Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.07.2015
01:04 pm
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‘Cocaine In My Brain’: The greatest cocaine anthem of the ‘70s is NOT by Eric Clapton
06.22.2015
09:26 am
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There exists a rich musical history of recorded songs about cocaine use dating at least as far back as Victoria Spivey and Lonnie Johnson’s 1927 “Dopehead Blues,” or Dick Justice’s 1928 “Cocaine.” On one end of the spectrum are commendably classic tunes about nose-candy such as Johnny Cash’s “Cocaine Blues,” J.J. Cale’s (later made shitty by Eric Clapton) “Cocaine,” and Laid Back’s quirky “White Horse,” which advises the listener to ride the “white pony” (coke), rather than the “white horse” (heroin), and of course on the other end of the spectrum are absolutely dreadful blow anthems that will totally ruin your night at the club like Buck Cherry’s “Lit Up.”

Perhaps the greatest (or at least weirdest) joy-powder paean comes to us via Jamaican artist, Dillinger. 1976’s “Cokane in My Brain” from his CB 200 album is a funky slice of reggae/proto-rap, clearly recorded under the influence of—I don’t know—let’s say a kilo of the white stuff. The song’s “riddim” is based on the Gamble and Huff-produced Philly soul classic “Do It Any Way You Wanna” by People’s Choice. The refrain “I got cocaine runnin ‘round in my brain” comes from Reverend Gary Davis’ “Cocaine Blues” but the (apparently) nonsensical riddle about the correct way to spell New York:

“A knife, a fork, a bottle and a cork, that’s the way we spell New York, Jim!”

... comes from an actual Disney record!

Do go to the seven-minute mark and hit play. You will laugh:
 

 

“No matter where I treat my guests, you see they always like my kitchen best. Cause I’ve cocaine running around my brain.”
 
Incredibly, the song went to number one on the Dutch charts.

Here we have a video from the Dutch music program TOPPOP, broadcast in the Summer of 1977. TopPop was the first dedicated Dutch pop music TV show, broadcast weekly from 1970 to 1988. Hit songs were generally mimed by artists appearing on the show, but often times tracks were played to a dance routine by choreographer Penney de Jager and her troupe, as is the case with this particular clip.
 

TOPPOP choreographer, Penney de Jager
 
The feel of a ‘70s New York club is recreated here through a Dutch lens. The dancing seems a bit awkward, not through any fault of the talented dancers, but because the song itself is rather awkward in its coke-damaged delivery. Still, trust us, it’s an earworm you’re not likely to shake anytime soon.

A knife, a fork, a bottle, and a cork… That’s the way we spell New York
 

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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06.22.2015
09:26 am
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In the very near future there will be ‘home-brewed’ drug beer made from yeast
05.19.2015
10:04 am
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00brekbadbrewboyssdfgmyt.jpg
 
Well, here’s a thing: soon you may be able to brew your own drugs—that’s according to an article in the New Scientist which points out that:

Genetically engineered yeasts could make it easy to produce opiates such as morphine anywhere, cutting out the international drug smugglers and making such drugs cheap and more readily available.

This also means the Taliban-supporting Afghanistan poppy trade would no longer flourish and junkies could fix themselves a homegrown brew of smack, without even having to score. Or leave the house for that matter. This is gonna be HUGE.

However, there is one fairly major stumbling block: the genetically engineered yeasts capable of doing this do not as yet exist. That’s kind of a big one. But researchers hope to change this as they point to the “number of drugs, scents and flavours once obtainable only from plants can now be made using genetically modified organisms.”

Now they want to add opiates to that list because “they are part of a family of molecules that may have useful medicinal properties”:

Plant yields of many of these molecules are vanishingly small, and the chemicals are difficult and expensive to make in the lab. Getting yeast to pump them out would be far cheaper.

And about as easy as tending to a Kombucha SCOBY, something even a junkie could manage.

Of all the relevant researchers questioned by the New Scientist none doubted that brewing drugs would eventually happen.

“The field is moving much faster than we had previous realised,” says John Dueber of the University of California, Berkeley, whose team has just created a yeast that produces the main precursor of opiates. Until recently, Dueber had thought the creation of, say, a morphine-making yeast was 10 years away. He now thinks a low-yielding strain could be made in two or three years.

It might take many more years to produce a high-yielding strain. But once it exists, in theory anyone who got hold of it could make morphine in their kitchen using only a home-brewing kit. Merely drinking tiny quantities of the resulting brew – perhaps as little as a few millilitres - would get you high. “It probably is as simple as that,” says Dueber. “The beer would have morphine in it.”

We need to start thinking about the implications now, before such strains – or the recipes for genetically engineering them – become available, he says.

Other teams are working on producing tropane alkaloids – a family of compounds that include drugs such as cocaine. Cocaine-making yeasts are further off, as we still don’t understand certain critical steps that coca plants use to make cocaine. But there’s no reason we cannot engineer yeast to produce any substance that plants produce, once we understand the machinery, says biochemist Peter Facchini of the University of Calgary in Canada. “So indeed someone could potentially produce cocaine in yeast.”

 
000homebremeadoiufx.jpg
Mead homebrew, but one day it maybe possible to brew heroin or cocaine beer.
 
Brewing drugs would certainly “democratize” drug production and give bearded hipsters an, er, addictive new hobby. It would also be difficult to police, and as the law currently stands difficult to prosecute (Good luck outlawing a yeast!). Unlike crystal meth labs,  brewing does not create a toxic mess: waste products are just brackish water and some very mild chemicals like acetate.

The main concern is that such brewing techniques fall into “the wrong hands,” which is believed to be a major possibility.

REALLY??? YA THINK???

Read the whole article here.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
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05.19.2015
10:04 am
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On a scale of ‘one’ to ‘all of the’... how much cocaine is the singer of Kansas on here?
03.31.2015
10:06 am
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Whether or not you’re a fan of their unique brand of turgid hardboogie-prog, this recently uploaded video of Kansas performing their signature hit “Carry On Wayward Son” in 1978 at the Canada Jam is, to say the least, energetic.

Perhaps it’s unfair to make speculations about ‘70s rock band members cocaine habits—to firstly assume they are on the drug—and to further assume Scarface office desk levels of the white stuff being inhaled before the show, but holy shit THIS VIDEO. The band, or at least singer Steve Walsh, appear to have had some degree of chemical enhancement working in their favor.
 

 
A few online sources mention that years later, in the ‘90s, Walsh was supposedly arrested for possession and threatened with jail time. We also know from this 700 Club interview that guitarist Kerry Livgren and bassist Dave Hope were seriously addicted until they “found God.” In that particular interview, Hope admits to having spent $40,000 (in 1980 dollars!) on cocaine the year before his Christian rebirth. We can only guess what the differences would be between Dave Hope’s and Steve Walsh’s level of commitment to the white lady, but this performance seems to indicate Walsh was in imminent danger of flying off the stage and into the stratosphere at any second.

Me personally, I think “Carry on Wayward Son” is a killer ‘70s jam. It’s not even a “guilty” pleasure—and I don’t really care what was getting them through the show—to me, this totally rules. Your mileage may vary. If Kansas’ brand of arena rock is not exactly your cup of tea, you might just want to watch a guy completely out of his mind, going absolutely apeshit on what is probably a mountain of blow. In that case, proceed directly to 1:46 and 3:39 in this over-the-top performance.

There ain’t no dust in the wind here.
 

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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03.31.2015
10:06 am
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Empire of Drugs: Vintage ads for when cocaine and heroin were legal
02.06.2015
08:56 am
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010popwinecoke.jpg
 
Pope Leo XIII’s longevity as Pontiff of the Catholic Church (the third longest in church history) may have been down to his favourite tipple Vin Mariani. Pope Leo was so enamoured by this French tonic wine it is claimed he kept a hip flask hidden under his cassock, so he could enjoy the occasional snifter to perk up his spirits—which it undoubtedly did, as Vin Mariani was a heady mix of Bordeaux wine and coca leaves. The original drink had 6mg of cocaine per fluid ounce, which went up to 7.2mg per fluid ounce for the export market—mainly to compete with similar coke-filled tonics—such as Coca-Cola—sold in the USA.

It was claimed that Mariani wine could quickly restore “health, strength, energy and vitality,” and hastened convalescence (“especially after influenza”). In one of their ads, His Holiness the Spokesmodel decreed:

...that he has fully appreciated the benefit of this Tonic Wine, and has forwarded to Mr. Mariani as a token of his gratitude a gold medal bearing his august effigy.

Talk about a celebrity endorsement, eh? If God’s representative on Earth approved of the coca-infused tipple, that would have been quite a boon in marketing terms.
 
001marianncokewine.jpg
 
0234vinmariaco.jpg
 
013cocawine.jpg
 
0234vinincaco.jpg
 
Cocaine enhanced drinks were common in the late 1800s, and there is an academic paper to be written on the influence of cocaine and the rise of the British Empire—how else to explain the sound of grinding teeth among all those overworked lower classes whose labor put the Great into Britain?

But it wasn’t just adults who benefited from the restorative powers of cocaine, it was added to pastilles for teething children, throat lozenges for flu and colds, and as a cure for hay fever.
 
0234hayfevco.jpg
 
012cocedropkids.jpg
 
004tabloidcokeburr.jpg
 
005gibsoncoke.jpg
 
007pastillescoke.jpg
 
After the jump, heroin for kids and more…

READ ON
Posted by Paul Gallagher
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02.06.2015
08:56 am
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‘The Gourmet Cokebook: A Complete Guide to Cocaine,’ 1972
01.27.2015
02:53 pm
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I stumbled upon a reference to this marvelous book The Gourmet Cokebook: A Complete Guide to Cocaine, and I instantly knew I had to have it. I’ve never done cocaine, so how else am I supposed to learn about it, aside from watching Goodfellas or listening to Sticky Fingers?

The Gourmet Cokebook was published in 1972. There is conspicuously no author information provided, but the name “Daniel Chasin” appears on the copyright page, which was either a piece of misdirection or undermined the purpose of avoiding the attention of the authorities. I don’t know who Daniel Chasin is, but a Daniel Chasin is credited as acting on the movie Hussy from 1980, and a Daniel Chasin is also credited with writing and directing the 2003 It’s Tough Being Me, apparently a mockumentary about the inventor of the “Fart Machine,” which I suddenly absolutely HAVE to see. I know it’s a longshot, but I really hope those are all the same person.

The publishing company of The Gourmet Cokebook is listed as “White Mountain Press,” which I find hilarious and perfect. The book cost $2.95 at the time, which I know because the price is printed in rather large letters on the back. It has that Loompanics feel of a semi-clandestine operation designed to teach you how to pick locks or make a fake passport.

In truth, the idea of a “Gourmet Cokebook” is hilarious but in principle, the idea isn’t so bad. As the author (Chasin?) points out, there really wasn’t any proper resource around if you wanted to find out more about the drug—the authorities certainly weren’t going to help. There wasn’t any Internet, of course. The book is mostly sensible and helpful, supplying information about the history of the drug and some nuts and bolts information. But in 1972 cocaine was a new drug for mainstream America, and it would take a decade or so for the down sides of its excesses to become plain to all. The book has an idealistic edge to it that doesn’t sit well with the aura that surrounds cocaine today. There’s an appendix at the end addressing the relationship between cocaine and sex, and to the author’s credit the single paragraph is quite up-front about the fact that after excessive use, “the strong sexually stimulative nature of the drug changes to one of frustration, where erections and orgasms become almost impossible.”

Here are a few pages from the book. The bit that opens chapter 2 is an amazing piece of coke-writing that I love. Click on the image for a larger version.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.27.2015
02:53 pm
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Cocaine comedy from 1916: The deeply weird druggy slapstick of ‘The Mystery of the Leaping Fish’
12.15.2014
05:51 pm
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Douglas Fairbanks as “Coke Ennyday.” Note his sash of syringes.
 
The Mystery of the Leaping Fish is a deeply weird silent two-reeler comedy short whose hero—played by none other than the great Douglas Fairbanks—is the massively drug-addicted “scientific detective” Coke Ennyday, a parody of Sherlock Holmes. Not only did this odd little film employ the talents of Fairbanks, the story was written by Tod Browning (Freaks, Dracula) and an uncredited D.W. Griffith. The film’s intertitles were penned by novelist Anita Loos and her future husband, John Emerson directed it. It comes across more as a vanity project—Fairbanks wanting to prove he could be funny—than something they thought they could exhibit to the public. From the acting, to the onscreen giggling, to the frenzied editing—good luck reading some of those blink-and-you-miss-them title cards—the whole thing comes across itself as the product of a weekendlong coke jag.


 
What’s so incredibly odd about this film, seen from the vantage point of 100 years after the fact, is the cavalier attitude towards drug use. There is so much “dope” consumed offhand in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish that, well, it makes Scarface, Trainspotting or any Cheech and Chong film seem utterly tame in comparison. Has any character in cinema history ever consumed—comically or otherwise—more drugs onscreen than Coke Ennyday does in The Mystery of the Leaping Fish? If so, I can’t think of one. He’s got a tub of cocaine that he rubs all over his face. I mean, he’s even got syringes strapped to his chest!

That The Mystery of the Leaping Fish was made in 1916 by one of the most famous people in the entire world at that time is perplexing. The film is so druggy it’s hard to believe something like it—of that vintage especially—even exists. It just goes to show what the societal attitudes were like towards drugs like cocaine and opium at that time that narcotics could be played for laughs in a slapstick comedy!
 

 
With thanks to Laurent Marie!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.15.2014
05:51 pm
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Have some coke and a smile: When McDonald’s coffee stirrers became the nation’s coke spoon of choice
09.26.2014
02:32 pm
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Many of you reading this site who also lived through the 1970s as an adult probably have share your of wild stories involving cocaine. That subset of readers is probably aware of the quirky way that McDonalds inadvertently created a piece of cocaine paraphernalia and even became almost synonymous with cocaine in certain contexts. The rest of you, maybe not so much.

In the late 1970s, McDonalds introduced a combination coffee spoon/stirrer that had the company’s name on the handle and a tiny egg-shaped bowl or scoop on one end, while the other end was proudly crowned with the company’s double arches logo. Basically this spoon was, quite by accident, absolutely perfect for use as a coke spoon. The scoop could hold precisely 100 milligrams of cocaine, some have claimed, which made it an ideal measuring device in addition to providing an easy way for coke addicts to snort the stuff. And America’s largest corporations had just deposited countless millions of them all across the country. It was inevitable that cheeky cocaine users would adopt it.

Inadvertently, McDonalds had created the People’s Coke Spoon. 
 

 
Remarkably, the adoption of the McDonalds stirrers as a helpful cocaine device was not limited to the product’s user base. Far from it. According to Barbara Mikkelson at snopes.com (which has confirmed the story), “The practice of using these implements in such fashion became so widespread that at least in some cities, a dose of cocaine was dubbed a ‘McSpoon’ because it came packaged in the tiny coffee stirrers from McDonald’s restaurants. ... In 1992 an undercover detective in Columbus, Ohio, said McSpoons were commonly sold ten to a bundle in that town and twelve to a bundle in Detroit” (emphasis added).

Understandably, McDonalds wasn’t thrilled to see their fine name being used as shorthand for one of the most widespread Schedule II controlled substances as defined by the Drug Enforcement Agency. Eventually the McDonalds spoon became a flat coffee stirrer. According to snopes.com, a spokesman for McDonald’s Corp. named Doug Timberlake stated at the time that the fast-food chain had chosen to redesign its spoons because “It has been brought to our attention that people are using them illegally and illicitly for purposes for which they are not intended.”
 

Three of the McSpoons alongside three of the redesigned flat version
 
According to a pretty entertaining reddit thread about the “McSpoon,” it was common for coke users to “break away the long middle section and melt the little spoon end to the McDonald’s logo.” When another user asks why on earth anyone would go to so much trouble, the response given is, “You did it so it would fit in a cigarette box.” If you click here you can see what I believe is a Photoshopped image representing what that would look like, I don’t think it’s a photograph of such a stirrer.

Understandably, the “McSpoon” has become the nostalgia artifact for some people. Right now you can buy a lot of 50 McSpoons for $60 on eBay.

In 2005 the artists Tobias Wong and “Ju$t Another Rich Kid” (founded by Ken Courtney) teamed up to create Coke Spoon 02, from “the Indulgent series,” which is described below. Coke Spoon 02 is a version of the McSpoon made of gold-plated bronze, while Coke Spoon 01 is a ballpoint pen cap made of the same expensive material. You can see pics of these items at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art website. Wong unfortunately died in 2010, but he endeared himself to me by calling his own body of work “postinteresting,” which is hilarious.
 

 
Predictably, McDonalds sent out a cease and desist letter with alacrity.

As Fox News reported at the time:

“The piece was part of the pair’s 2005 ‘Indulgences’ collection, inspired by the luxury goods market and designed to be the ultimate gift for the wealthy bachelor who had it all, said Courtney of Ju$t Another Rich Kid. ‘Indulgences’ featured gold-plated Playboy swizzle sticks, 24-karat gold pills meant to be swallowed, golden dumbbells and another golden coke spoon cast from the cap of a BIC pen.” Wong was quoted as saying, “It’s kind of the pop culture of today with a bling twist.” Philip Wood, the creative director of CITIZEN:Citizen, which had been showing the piece, said, “I think it’s a shame because I don’t think there’s any intent in damning anybody’s reputation. ... It really is a comment on how these objects change shape when they get into culture.”

 

 

Posted by Martin Schneider
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09.26.2014
02:32 pm
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Images of LSD, cocaine, meth and other drugs exposed to film
07.16.2014
01:22 pm
Topics:
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Fantasy + Ecstasy
Fantasy + Ecstasy
 
Sarah Schönfeld was working at a Berlin nightclub when she decided to try to find out what the various drugs people were ingesting look like. Much like the apple falling on Isaac Newton’s head, perhaps the story of Schönfeld observing an obnoxious MDMA user will someday become one of the formative myths of scientific inquiry… but somehow, I doubt it. And yet it’s awfully apt.

Schönfeld converted her art studio into a lab, and exposed various drug mixtures in liquid form to film negatives and documented the results. The photographs have been collected in a book called All You Can Feel (Kerber Press), which will be available in late August.

The results mostly conform to general predictions—the only thing missing from the LSD visualization are trails. “Fantasy + Ecstasy” looks like a road map of a fucked-up island kingdom, and cocaine supplies a blue bursting-at-the-seams effect. Others are more surprising. Pharmaceutical speed looks like a Mandelbrot pattern, which kinda makes sense. Meanwhile, adrenaline, perversely, has a sluggish feel. And do my eyes deceive me or does the crystal meth photo feature a small chunk of Walter White’s “Crystal Blue Persuasion” in what appears to be a dystopian snow globe?
 
Cocaine
Cocaine
 
Caffeine
Caffeine
 
Crystal Meth
Crystal Meth
 
LSD
LSD
 
Ketamine
Ketamine I
 
Ketamine
Ketamine II
 
Adrenaline
Adrenaline
 
Heroin
Heroin
 
Pharmaceutical Speed
Pharmaceutical Speed
 
via WFMU

Posted by Martin Schneider
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07.16.2014
01:22 pm
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Aaaaand here’s a skull made out of cocaine
01.16.2014
09:10 am
Topics:
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Skull made out of cocaine
 
In the puzzling biographical blurb on his website, the artist Diddo claims to have “aroused the curiosity of creators and tastemakers, receiving requests from the likes of Sasha Baron Cohen, Kanye West and Lady Gaga.” It also says that he “was born on the luckiest day since the sixth century (7-7-’77).”

Diddo’s most recent work, “Ecce Animal,” poses provocative questions about the human condition, such as “How much does that fucking thing cost?” It’s a skull measuring roughly 5 x 7 x 8.5 inches—I’m neither a doctor nor a medical examiner, but I’m going to go ahead and call that “life-sized”—and it’s made of “street cocaine.”

In the “Laboratory” section of his website, he drops such risible bon mots as “The analysis started with the preparation of the 100% Cocaine standard and sample solution. An amount of standard was dissolved in a mobile phase followed by a series of trial runs to calibrate and identify the HPLC method that gave adequate separation of the standard. ... The retention time of our sample matched the Cocaine standard, albeit with
 a much smaller peak. This is because the sample is diluted with so-called ‘cutting agents’. The purity of the Cocaine in percentage lies in the range of approximately 15% to 20%.”
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
Skull made out of cocaine
 
via designboom

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
I ♥ the cocaine, I ♥ the cocaine
Charlie Chaplin on cocaine

Posted by Martin Schneider
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01.16.2014
09:10 am
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So, how much cocaine can actually fit up your arse?
04.22.2013
01:43 pm
Topics:
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You know, this is something I have wondered about… although, ahem, not for personal use. Thankfully PopSci has the answer to my burning question:

The maximum capacity of a normal rectum–meaning, before the patient is overcome by the urge to defecate–is about 350 to 500 mL, or about a pint in volume. That’s a lot; the first urge to defecate comes at about 100 mL, so if you’re storing five times that amount, you’re probably pretty uncomfortable. But repeated stretching of the rectum can increase that size markedly. “We do know that it’s not rare for people to have larger capacities,” says Dr. Whitehead. “We have certainly tested people for whom it’s 800 mL. With practice the capacity becomes larger.”

The rectum is a fantastically powerful, stretchable part of the body. The problem I kept running into in trying to figure out how much cocaine you could fit in your butthole is that, well, there isn’t really an upper limit. It’s all about conditioning and practice. That said, let’s take that 800 mL as an example upper limit. Given the density of cocaine hydrochloride, that converts to about 0.97 kilograms of cocaine, or very nearly the size of one of those big bricks you see confiscated on the news.

Read more of FYI: How Much Cocaine Can You Fit In Your, Ahem, Body? at PopSci.

Via Nerdcore

Posted by Tara McGinley
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04.22.2013
01:43 pm
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Kenneth Anger and the sordid secrets of Babylon
04.19.2012
03:04 pm
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image
 
Vice editor Rocco Castoro interviewed the 85-year-old Magus of American cinema, Kenneth Anger at the ritzy Cicada restaurant in downtown Los Angeles:

VICE: Looking back at the films of the silent era, the way they were shot and cut make it seem like everyone was snorting massive lines right up until the director yelled, “Action!”

I find film style reflects it, particularly the Mack Sennett [the director largely responsible for the popularity of slapstick] comedies. And my research proves that they were taking cocaine. You can see a sort of hyper-influence there.

VICE: There are lots of tales that make reference to “joy powder” in Hollywood Babylon, which makes it seem as innocent as taking one of those 5-hour Energy shots. Another phrase you use in the book, in the first few pages, is the “Purple Epoch.” What is that? It sounds nice.

That was when there were very talented people who also had extravagant tastes and money. It was the 1920s, a reflection of the Jazz Age. And the Hollywood version of that was pretty wild.

VICE: Another topic you cover early on in the book is the circumstances surrounding the death of Olive Thomas, which is perhaps the first instance of “Hollywood scandal” as we know it. You write, and it’s long been rumored, that she was very fond of cocaine, which was apparently a fatal flaw when combined with alcohol and ingesting her husband Jack Pickford’s topical syphilis medication.

She was one of the earliest beautiful stars to die in grim circumstances. And so her name became associated with lurid [behavior]. Things going on in Hollywood.

VICE: Her death also seemed to pull the wool from everyone’s eyes. Olive Thomas’s image was so sweet and pure. It caused Hollywood’s reputation to snowball into something far darker than how it was previously perceived. People must have thought, “If Olive’s doing it, everyone else must be too.”

There were other ones too, like Mary Miles Minter [who was accused of murdering her lover, director William Desmond Taylor, at the height of her success]. She was a kind of version of Mary Pickford [Jack Pickford’s sister], but the great stars like Pickford were never touched. These scandals swirled around, but there were certain stars that weren’t implicated in any way by this sort of thing.

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.19.2012
03:04 pm
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Charlie Chaplin on cocaine
08.06.2011
06:01 am
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Charlie toots at least a half gram but still has an appetite. It must’ve been that low-grade prison blow.

Charlie, you’re not supposed to put the spoon in your ear.
 

 
Via Biblioklept

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.06.2011
06:01 am
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Cocaine on an ABC Afterschool Special
04.01.2011
02:24 pm
Topics:
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image
 
Because no one likes a narc… A commercial for Tattle: When To Tell On A Friend, an ABC Afterschool Special about a teenage coke-fiend from the 1980s.
 

 
Via Sperm Sperms

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.01.2011
02:24 pm
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Henry Rollins and Robin Williams’ secret lovechild
01.21.2011
02:43 pm
Topics:
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image

 
Meet Greg P. Ciarlante, busted by Portland police on 1/02/2011 for possession of cocaine and dealing methamphetamine. Mr. Ciarlante’s lurve for cocaine must come from Robin Williams’ side.

(via Fark and TDW)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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01.21.2011
02:43 pm
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