Canada Won't Probe Heroin Allegations

Canada's military won't investigate British media reports that Canadian soldiers are alleged to have smuggled heroin out of Afghanistan, sources told CBC News.

The military was reacting to reports Sunday in the Sunday Times and the BBC that Canadian and British troops have been sending large quantities of heroin out of Afghanistan on military aircraft taking troops back to Britain.

The heroin was then allegedly sold to drug traffickers for sale on the streets.
However, the military sources said Monday that following a thorough check with officials on the ground at Kandahar Air Field and through the chain of command, there are no allegations of Canadian heroin smuggling and will be no investigation of any smuggling.

The military sources called the reports a case of media speculation.

The Canadian military is due to issue an official statement shortly.

On Sunday, Britain's Ministry of Defence said it was aware of the smuggling allegations raised in the media reports.

"Although they are unsubstantiated, we take any such reports very seriously and we have already tightened our existing procedures both in Afghanistan and in the U.K., including through increasing the use of trained sniffer dogs.

The Ministry of Defence said it regrets "any inconvenience this causes to our service personnel. Any of our people found to be engaged in trafficking of illegal narcotics will feel the full weight of the law."
Julius Cavendish, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor based in Kabul, said there has been no official response to the allegations from the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.
"But there is a likelihood that this will be useful stick for the [Afghan] government to beat back the West next time allegations surface of corruption [and] of narcotics trafficking by senior members of the government."

- Article from CBC News

Magic Mushrooms May Ease Anxiety of Cancer?

The hallucinogen psilocybin -- known by the street name magic mushrooms -- may help ease the anxiety that often accompanies late-stage cancer, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

Cancer patients given a moderate dose of psilocybin -- a hallucinogen with effects similar to LSD -- were measurably less depressed six months after a single dose compared with a placebo. Patients seemed somewhat less anxious, they reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

The pilot study of 12 cancer patients was designed to prove that hallucinogenic drugs could be studied safely as a way to relieve the distress of advanced cancer.

It revives a promising field of study lasting from the 1950s to the early 1970s that suggested some patients experienced powerful and sustained improvement in mood and anxiety from hallucinogens.
Researchers said the studies were abandoned in the early 1970s when hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD -- lysergic acid diethylamide -- became widely used on the streets, leading to strict federal laws regulating their use.

"Forty to 45 years ago, the culture was going through tremendous upheaval. These compounds were associated with a very politically active counterculture," said Dr. Charles Grob of Harbor-University of California Los Angeles Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute.
"It was something of a public health crisis. Everything had to be shut down," Grob said in a telephone interview.

Federal law prohibits the use of the magic mushroom compound for any purpose. If it proves effective among late-stage cancer patients, U.S. regulators would need to make special accommodation for its use, Grob said.

'TIMES HAVE CHANGED

Grob's study looked to see whether psilocybin could help ease some of the anxiety of dying cancer patients.

During the treatment phase of the study, patients were given a moderate dose of psilocybin and watched closely for six hours. They were told to lie still with their eyes closed as they wore headphones and listened to soothing music.

During the placebo phase, each of the 12 patients received a dose of niacin -- a vitamin that raises levels of good cholesterol -- and given the same instructions.

The treatments were given in random order and neither the doctors nor the patients were told which compound was administered.

All the volunteers tolerated the treatment sessions well, with no signs of severe anxiety or a "bad trip." Most patients showed a trend of improvement in their symptoms of anxiety and at six months, and there was a statistically significant improvement on one depression scale.

Grob said the pilot study proved the drug could be studied safely in cancer patients. He said two other academic research institutions in the United States -- Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and New York University -- were doing similar studies using a slightly higher dose.

"Times have changed and it's now possible to pick up this research model again," he said.
As many as 14 U.S. states and the District of Columbia allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, and California voters in November will vote on whether to legalize pot.

"I think that is an indication that there has been a very strong shift within society to move away from the old cultural bias and politics of the process many years ago. I think there is a greater capacity to be open-minded and let science dictate our conclusion, not politics," Grob said.

- Article from Reuters.

News: Miami Heat Player 'Udonis Haslem' Arrested On Marijuana Charges (w/ Video Included)

Miami Heat forward Udonis Haslem is facing felony drug possession charges from being stopped on a Miami-Dade parkway Sunday afternoon, the South Florida Sun Sentinel is reporting. Haslem and a friend were arrested during the stop.

The Florida Highway Patrol cited Haslem in carrying in excess of 20 grams of marijuana. Documents in the bag had Haslem's friend's name on it, who also said the bag was his, the officer wrote in his report.

Haslem's attorney, Eric Schwartzreich, doesn't feel the charges are just, and that his status as a professional athlete is the cause. He told the Sun Sentinel on Monday that the felony charges were filed "because of who Udonis Haslem is. Udonis Haslem shouldn't be charged with anything."


FanHouse first tracked this story on August 15 when Haslem was arrested.

The former Florida star and Miami native was cited for going 78 mph in a 60 mph zone and was also charged with four counts of possessing drug paraphernalia.

Haslem's bond was $9,000 and, according to Schwartzreich, he was released from jail Sunday evening.

Haslem has a tentative arraignment at 9 a.m. Sept. 14 but he does not have to appear at that hearing.

According to the NBA's "Marijuana Program," a player who commits an initial violation must enter the league's counseling program. However, merely being cited does not require immediate entry into the program.

Haslem's agent, Henry Thomas, noted that they have not yet been contacted by the league.

This comes just a month after the six-year veteran signed a five-year contract worth about $20 million to remain in South Beach. He indicated in an email to the South Florida Sun Sentinel that he turned down full mid-level exception offers from both the Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks.

The 30-year-old has become a staple in the Heat lineup, helping anchor the frontcourt and proving to be a reliable big at both ends of the floor. He averaged 9.9 points and 8.1 rebounds last season, and owns a ring from 2006 when Miami won the NBA title.
Dustin Johnson is penalized for "grounding" in a so-called "bunker" ... NBA players Udonis Haslem and Lance Stephenson are in midseason form ... and the Giants' Jonathan Sanchez can't make good on his bold prediction.

WRITTEN BY: Jordan Schultz

Suspect Pleads Not Guilty to Killing L.A. Marijuana Dispensary Worker

A man charged in the execution-style killing of a worker at a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary pleaded not guilty Monday as police continued to search for a second suspect in the case.

Daniel Deshawn Hinton, 31, is being held without bail while awaiting trial in the June 26 shooting death of 27-year-old Matthew Butcher at the Higher Path Holistic Care Collective on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.

A group of men entered the dispensary, holding Butcher and a security guard face-down at gunpoint while they ransacked the store for cash and marijuana, police said. Although the two did not resist, they were shot, according to an account given to police by the security guard, who survived.

Hinton, who was arrested July 21, also has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of the guard.

The Los Angeles Police Department is searching for Raymond Lemone Easter, 27, who was identified last week as one of the attackers and so far has eluded detectives. He, too, has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

A $50,000 reward for information leading to Easter's arrest was issued by the Los Angeles City Council last week. As is often the case, police have struggled to persuade people who might have useful information to cooperate because of fears of retaliation.

LAPD Lt. Gregg Strenk, who is overseeing the investigation, said detectives are working to identify at least one more person they believe was with Easter and Hinton at the time of the shooting.

Easter and Hinton are known gang members, but Strenk said there is no evidence to support widespread speculation that the dispensary was cutting into illegal street drug sales controlled by area gangs and that the shooting was meant to send a message or as retaliation.

Hours after Butcher was killed, a worker at a dispensary five miles away in Hollywood was discovered dead. Ila Ali Packman, 39, was found dead from an apparent stabbing inside Hollywood Holistic 2 on North El Centro Avenue.

Police have found no indication that the two killings are linked. They have not made an arrest in the second case and indicated that they do not have any strong leads.

- Article from the Los Angeles Times

Video: Aaron Houston Discusses Marijuana Legalization on FOX

Wall Street Is Laundering Drug Money

Bloomberg’s Michael Smith has penned a devastating expose detailing Wachovia’s drug-money operations and the government’s twisted response. The bank was moving money behind literally tons of cocaine from violent drug cartels. It wasn’t an accident. Internal whistleblowers at Wachovia warned that the bank was laundering drug money, higher-ups at the bank actively looked the other way in order to score bigger profits, and the U.S. government is about to let everyone involved get off scott free. The bank will not be indicted, because it is official government policy not to prosecute megabanks. From Smith’s story:

No big U.S. bank . . . has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again . . . . Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory. Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets.

Wachovia was acquired by Wells Fargo in late 2008. The bank’s penalty for laundering over $380 billion in drug money is going to be a promise not to ever do it again, and a $160 million fine. The fine is so small that Wachovia will almost certainly turn a profit on its drug financing business after legal costs and penalties are taken into account.

This is several steps beyond what most of us think about when we debate too-big-to-fail. The government isn’t shielding Wachovia from losses on risky bets in the capital markets casinos— it’s shielding the bank from the prosecution of outright criminal behavior. The drug money business did not pose risks to the financial system, and Wachovia wasn’t losing money on it.

Think about what would happen if you or I were accused of laundering $380 billion in drug money. We could not simply settle the allegations out of court in exchange for an apology and a fine. We’d spend the rest of our lives in jail for financing a ruthless, bloody and illegal business. About 22,000 people have been killed in the Mexican drug trade since 2006, and the drug trade itself can’t happen without extensive money laundering operations. Moving the money is one of the most difficult and critical elements of any criminal enterprise—without ways to convert crooked cash into seemingly innocuous funds, crooks simply can’t operate. Wachovia was doing top-level dirty work for drug dealers.

On the streets of American cities, the mere possession of these drugs can land you with a multi-year prison sentence. But financing multi-billion-dollar drug empires? Don’t do it again, pretty please.
Too-big-to-fail isn’t just a matter of systemic risk and mathematical models gone haywire, It’s about the basic functioning of our democracy. You cannot have a functional democracy in which an entire privileged class of bankers can get away with anything—and if you can get away with laundering hundreds of billions of dollars in drug money, there’s not much you can’t get away with.

Congress is poised to pass a decent Wall Street reform bill, but that legislation will not end this criminal imbalance. If the bill will really end too-big-to-fail, the Justice Department could immediately end its special immunity policies for large financial institutions. That isn’t going to happen. The public deserves tougher prosecutors, but we also need further legislation to break up the megabanks so that they can’t use their economic clout to bully everyone in Washington.

By Zach Carter, Alternet

- Article from Alternet.

Charles Hamilton x B.o.B – Paperboy BTS (Video)

The project will likely be a master piece.

Awesome.

Peace

Erykah Badu Consulted Family x Friends Before Shooting “Window Seat” Video

Erykah Badu took to her Twitter this afternoon, shedding light about the video everyone’s talking about: “Window Seat”. The video was filmed guerilla style and in one take, the concept inspired by dance-punk duo Matt and Kim’s revealing video for “Lessons Learned.”

Badu also revealed she consulted the fathers of her children: rappers Andre 3000, Jay Electronic and The D.O.C., receiving support from all of them especially The D.O.C. who told her “U got huge balls kid” before giving her a high five.

Props:RapUp

"Champ Is Here 3" Drops May 1st

According to Jada himself.

I'M BACK STARTING MONDAY!

YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

Common Says He's Making A MixTape

I'm sure it will be a classic.

Michael Jackson Breaks Another Billboard Record

Michael Jackson sold more than 2.3 million digitally downloaded songs since death + sold 415,000 albums in the 4 days after his death


As predicted, Michael Jackson is once again the King of the Pop charts.

Based on preliminary sales numbers from Nielsen SoundScan, the entire top nine positions on Billboard's Top Pop Catalog Albums chart will house Jackson-related titles when the tally is released in the early morning on Wednesday (July 1). Nielsen SoundScan's sales tracking week ended at the close of business on Sunday (June 28) night.

Jackson himself has a record eight out of the top 10, while a Jackson 5 compilation also finds its way into the upper tier.

The King of Pop's "Number Ones" will fittingly lead the pack at No. 1 with 108,000 (an increase of 2,340%) while "The Essential Michael Jackson" and "Thriller" are in the Nos. 2 and 3 slots with 102,000 and 101,000, respectively.


Additionally, his classic 1979 studio set "Off the Wall" re-enters at No. 4 with 33,000 while his 1987 album "Bad" returns at No. 6 with 17,000. At No. 5, the Jackson 5's "The Ultimate Collection" debuts with 18,000. Jackson's fourth studio album for Epic Records, 1991's "Dangerous," re-enters at No. 7 with 14,000 while his 2001 compilation "Greatest Hits: HIStory -- Volume 1" also comes back to the list at No. 8 with 12,000. Finally, Jackson's 2004 box set "The Ultimate Collection" charts its first week on the Pop Catalog chart, arriving at No. 9 with 11,000.

The lone non-Jackson-related set in the top 10 is a reissue of the "Woodstock" movie soundtrack, which bows at No. 10 with 8,000.

Collectively, Jackson's solo albums sold 415,000 this past week. That's extraordinary, since his titles sold a combined 10,000 in the week that ended June 21. Of the 415,000 total, 58% were digital downloads.

Additionally, the 415,000 albums sold just last week is nearly 40% more than what Jackson's catalog had sold the the entire year up through June 21 (297,000).

Speaking of digital albums, on the Top Digital Albums chart, Jackson has a record six out of the top 10 slots, including the entire top four. "The Essential Michael Jackson" leads the Top Digital Albums list with 80,000 downloads sold, while "Thriller" is No. 2 with 57,000.

With the Black Eyed Peas' "The E.N.D." moving back to the No. 1 slot on the Billboard 200 chart with 88,000, this week marks the first time that a catalog album has sold more than the No. 1 current set on the Billboard 200 albums chart. (All three of Jackson's top sellers on the Pop Catalog chart outsell "The E.N.D.")

Ironically, the feat almost occurred when Jackson re-issued "Thriller" in February 2008. The set relaunched with 166,000, re-entering at No. 1 on the Top Pop Catalog chart. That week, Jack Johnson's "Sleep Through the Static" led the Billboard 200 chart with 180,000 while Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black" was at No. 2 with 115,000.

Catalog albums are ineligible to appear on the Billboard 200 albums chart, though they can chart on the all-encompassing Top Comprehensive Albums list. On the latter chart, Jackson's "Number Ones," "Essential" and "Thriller" are at Nos. 1-3, followed by the Black Eyed Peas' "The E.N.D." at No. 4.

Jackson places a record 25 songs on the 75-position Hot Digital Songs chart (21 solo hits and four with his siblings), smashing the mark of 14 charting titles established by David Cook in the June 7, 2008 issue. Jackson's Halloween radio staple, "Thriller," moves 167,000, which is good for second place on the chart behind the 203,000 shifted by the Black Eyed Peas' "I Gotta Feeling."

"Thriller" was also Jackson's best seller in the week before his death with 5,000 downloads, which translates to a 3,551% jump. Jackson's total volume of downloads this week -- including his tracks with the Jackson 5 and the Jacksons -- account for 2.6 million downloads, a remarkable number considering last week's cumulative sum was 48,000. Moreover, Jackson becomes the first act to sell more than 1 million song downloads in a week.

Besides "Thriller," Jackson places five other songs in the top 10 including "Man In The Mirror" (No. 3, 165,000), "Billie Jean" (No. 4, 158,000), "The Way You Make Me Feel" (No. 6, 136,000), "Beat It" (No. 7, 134,000) and "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (No. 8, 125,000).

Not surprisingly, each of the tracks in the top 10 of Hot Digital Songs were among the top 10 most-played Jackson selections at radio following his passing. According to research provided by Nielsen "Billie Jean" was the Jackson track with the most spins for the week ending June 28 with 4,540 -- 97% of which occurred after news of his death became public. The track posted only 318 plays in the prior week.