Dope Magazine:

“The psychological effects of psilocybin were not only positive, but enduring. Most participants ranked the experience among the most meaningful of their lives, and six months after taking the dose, 65 percent had almost fully recovered from their depression, and 57 percent from their anxiety. In contrast, antidepressants have been observed to help only 40 percent of terminal cancer patients in past studies—making them about as effective as a placebo…

…Indeed, the lasting effects of psilocybin and LSD, as observed in Griffiths’ study and others, can help anyone, not just those struggling with cancer or clinical depression. Neither drug has much potential for addiction, and the only significant associated risks are from accidents or anxiety attacks, which can be particularly damaging for users with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Researchers screened participants for such risk factors and provided a safe, encouraging environment for their trips.”

That’s surprising.

Washington Post:

“Since 2006, the nation’s largest police departments have fired at least 1,881 officers for misconduct that betrayed the public’s trust, from cheating on overtime to unjustified shootings. But The Washington Post has found that departments have been forced to reinstate more than 450 officers after appeals required by union contracts.

Most of the officers regained their jobs when police chiefs were overruled by arbitrators, typically lawyers hired to review the process. In many cases, the underlying misconduct was undisputed, but arbitrators often concluded that the firings were unjustified because departments had been too harsh, missed deadlines, lacked sufficient evidence or failed to interview witnesses…

…A San Antonio police officer caught on a dash cam challenging a handcuffed man to fight him for the chance to be released was reinstated in February. In the District, an officer convicted of sexually abusing a young woman in his patrol car was ordered returned to the force in 2015. And in Boston, an officer was returned to work in 2012 despite being accused of lying, drunkenness and driving a suspected gunman from the scene of a nightclub killing…

…In the District, police were told to rehire an officer who allegedly forged prosecutors’ signatures on court documents. In Texas, police had to reinstate an officer who was investigated for shooting up the truck driven by his ex-girlfriend’s new man. In Philadelphia, police were compelled to reinstate an officer despite viral video of him striking a woman in the face. In Florida, police were ordered to reinstate an officer fired for fatally shooting an unarmed man.

Ridiculous.  All public sector unions contribute to waste.  For instance, fires declined by 50% over the past two decades, but cushy firefighter jobs have increased by 50%. None, though, is more a direct threat to public safety than police unions.  They protect the jobs of killers, rapists, and general miscreants who don’t deserve the power afforded by a badge and gun.  Abolish all public sector unions, but start with the cops.

Jeff Sessions wants a war on whistleblowers, journalists

Sessions says four already charged in crackdown on leaks

Pharmaceutical companies now marketing directly to judges

Why police prefer drug raids over investigating violent crimes

What the Washington Post gets wrong about the opioid epidemic

Walmart’s Facial Recognition Tech Would Overstep Boundaries

Beyond Security: Biometrics Integration Into Everyday Life

Facial recognition ID moves from planes and trains to conferences and events

Saudi airstrike kills nine family members in Yemen

From Al Jazeera: “Do UN peacekeepers do more harm than good?”

First World “humanitarians” are committing rampant sexual abuse against the poor populations they ostensibly serve:

“The “peacekeeping economy” – in which millions of dollars arrive, circulate between external actors and rarely reach or benefit the local community – emboldens a sense of impunity and superiority among this community of interveners, says Marsha Henry, an associate professor at the London School of Economics’ Gender Institute in the UK, pointing to how peacekeepers and the aid community often live privileged, if precarious, lives in an economy that caters more to their needs than to the development goals of the country they are in.

“You have immunity and privilege, and you fly business class, and you have privileges that you never had before, and quickly people begin to internalise this idea that the world is ‘us’ and ‘them’,” explains Paula Donovan, from Aids Free World, a US-based NGO that exposes injustice, abuse and inequality.”

According to the article, 2,000 accusations of sexual exploitation were received by the UN between 2004 and 2016.

Since 2010, heroin deaths have been rising faster than heroin use.  This can only mean one thing: heroin has become more dangerous.

Contrary to drug warriors’ assertion that heroin users are looking for increasingly potent opiates to give them a more intense high, research has emerged that has found that opioid users are risk-averse when dealing with the more dangerous, fentanyl-laced, black market heroin, and would prefer safer forms if available.

Heroin addicts want to get high without the possibility of dying in the process.  They prefer a safer high to a more dangerous one, but the effects of a heroin crackdown have lead to the widespread use of fentanyl, an additive addicts would avoid if possible, and users have no choice but to risk purchasing a bad batch.

The solution would be to legalize heroin in some form, where users know with certainty the potency of the drug, as well as having access to a safe place to get high.

A new study commissioned by the Montgomery County city council considering the impact of a $15 minimum wage has found that it would eliminate 45,000 jobs, $396 million in income, and $41 million in tax revenue over five years.  Despite the study, there are still council members that are still pushing for the wage hike, fully understanding that the measure would destroy the livelihood of thousands of the most vulnerable in the county.

The insidiousness of the minimum wage lies in how wonderful it sounds.  With a wave of the legislative pen, the State can grant a raise to everyone at once.  A minimum wage, however, has the opposite effect its supporters intend.  It eliminates the jobs that the most vulnerable in society require.  It gives employers an artificial level of power to discriminate as to who they hire, since a greater pool of workers are competing for a smaller pool of jobs.  This has the effect of making it far more difficult for teenagers, ex-cons, the mentally and physically disabled, and other minorities, to gain employment.

There is also the matter of the historically racist origins of the minimum wage.  According to Thomas Sowell:

“In 1925, a minimum-wage law was passed in the Canadian province of British Columbia, with the intent and effect of pricing Japanese immigrants out of jobs in the lumbering industry.

A Harvard professor of that era referred approvingly to Australia’s minimum wage law as a means to “protect the white Australian’s standard of living from the invidious competition of the colored races, particularly of the Chinese” who were willing to work for less.

In South Africa during the era of apartheid, white labor unions urged that a minimum-wage law be applied to all races, to keep black workers from taking jobs away from white unionized workers by working for less than the union pay scale.

Some supporters of the first federal minimum-wage law in the United States — the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 — used exactly the same rationale, citing the fact that Southern construction companies, using non-union black workers, were able to come north and underbid construction companies using unionized white labor.”

If greater employment, more jobs, a higher standard of living, and greater equality in the workplace are the ultimate goals, why do so many supporters of the minimum wage continue to support it despite the evidence that its effect are the polar opposite?  It does nothing more than condemn the most vulnerable in society to a minimum wage of zero.