The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give people who have been prescribed marijuana by a doctor a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it, although they have to remain out of public view.
Patients who have been prescribed marijuana usually have to buy it from a licensed dispensary and then take it elsewhere.
Eric Solomon, the owner of the cafe, said he is looking forward to holding marijuana-themed weddings, film festivals and dances.
“I still run a coffee shop and events venue, just like I did before we converted it to the Cannabis Cafe, but now it will be cannabis-themed,” he said.
Madeline Martinez, who runs NORML, a group seeking legalisation of the drug, said: “This club represents personal freedom, finally. Our plans go beyond serving food and marijuana.
“We hope to have classes, seminars, even a cannabis community college, based here to help people learn about growing and other uses for cannabis.”
The cafe is in a two-story building which formerly housed a speak-easy and adult erotic club called Rumpspankers.
It is technically a private club, but is open to any Oregon residents who hold an official medical marijuana card.
There are about 21,000 patients registered to use marijuana in the state.
Doctors have prescribed marijuana for a host of illnesses, including Alzheimer’s, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and Tourette’s syndrome. Read More?
Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH is banking on sex really being all in women’s heads.
The German drugmaker is putting the finishing touches on a pill designed to reawaken desire by blunting female inhibitions. Unlike Viagra, which targets the mechanics of sex by boosting blood flow to the penis, this drug works on the brain.
The desire drug, the focus of a meeting on sexual disorders in Lyon next week, has the potential to revolutionize sexual medicine much as Pfizer Inc.’s blue pill did a decade ago. That could put family-owned Boehringer at the center of a debate about whether the medicine is a chemical shortcut around a complex dysfunction involving body and mind — or whether disinterest in sex is a legitimate medical condition.
“This drug has the potential to finally open the door to acceptance of the idea that decreased desire can be something that involves a dysfunctional way the brain works, and not only a bad partner,” said Jim Pfaus, a neurologist at Concordia University in Montreal, who conducted early tests of the drug in rats. “Of course it’s in your head.”
The U.S. market for medicines to rekindle female libido could be bigger than the $2 billion a year in U.S. sales for erectile dysfunction treatments because more women report sexual problems, BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. Chief Executive Officer Stephen Simes estimated last year… Read More?
FRYAZINO (Moscow Region), October 28 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian Federal Space Agency Roscosmos has developed a design for a piloted spacecraft powered by a nuclear engine, the head of the agency said on Wednesday.
“The project is aimed at implementing large-scale space exploration programs,” Anatoly Perminov said at a meeting of the commission on the modernization of the Russian economy.
He added that the development of Megawatt-class nuclear space power systems (MCNSPS) for manned spacecraft was crucial for Russia if the country wanted to maintain a competitive edge in the space race, including the exploration of the Moon and Mars.
Perminov said that the draft design of the spacecraft would be finalized by 2012, and the financing for further development in the next nine years would require an investment of at least 17 billion rubles (over $580 million).
Anatoly Koroteyev, president of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics and head of the Keldysh research center, earlier said that the key scientific and technical problem in sending manned missions to the Moon and Mars was the development of new propulsion systems and energy supplies with a high degree of energy-mass efficiency. Read More?
She is one of my hero’s! I absolutely love this woman. Annie Sprinkle has been an artist, sexologist, ecosexual, author, lecturer, educator and thespian. She has also been a sex worker of all sorts, a pioneering adult film director/performer and a professional photographer. She the first porn star to have earned a Ph.D., her work is studied in major universities internationally, she has been shown at the best museums and galleries– and she is still going strong! Here you’ll find some things old, some things new, and some things very very blue. …That, in her own words. Enjoy. (photo courtesy of juliancash.com)
Keeping in peak condition in old age can be boosted by nutrition, which scientists are proving is a powerful weapon in fighting off diseases. As new research shows that olive oil could play a vital role in protecting against dementia, we look at the key foods that have shown to be an ally against ageing.
MEMORY: OLIVE OIL
Using olive oil as much as possible could preserve your memory and your heart. Oleocanthal, a compound in olive oil, has been found to slow down changes in the brain that lead to Alzheimer’s. Researchers believe it will become a key ingredient in medicines designed to combat the disease.
Alzheimer’s disease is thought to occur when a protein called ADDL attacks brain cells. Scientists at the University of Philadelphia discovered that oleocanthal in olive oil changes ADDL in a way that makes it harmless… Read More?
NEW YORK – CNN moved swiftly to replace Lou Dobbs in its nightly lineup with John King, who said Thursday that all views would be welcome on his politically-oriented talk show when it debuts early next year.
Dobbs’ abrupt exit prompted a victory lap by advocacy groups that had sought his ouster for outspokenness, particularly on illegal immigration. But CNN President Jon Klein said their pressure had nothing to do with the decision.
Klein said veteran political reporter King was the perfect choice for the passionate, nonpartisan reporting that CNN wants for its image. King will be leaving the Sunday political talk show he has been presiding over, creating another opening.
King will compete directly with another political hour, Chris Matthews’ “Hardball” on MSNBC (Shepard Smith‘s general interest newscast on Fox News Channel is the cable news ratings leader at 7 p.m. ET). The CNN personality said he hoped to establish a show offering more meaty fare than his competitors… Read More?
The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.
The nation’s largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.
In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.
“Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis,” said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was “insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product.”
The decision by the organization’s delegates at a meeting in Houston marks another step in the evolving view of marijuana, which an AMA report notes was once linked by the federal government to homicidal mania. Since California voters approved the use of medical marijuana in 1996, marijuana has moved steadily into the cultural mainstream spurred by the growing awareness that it can have beneficial effects for some chronically ill people… Read More?
Taliban have allegedly been found in possession of American-manufactured mines, amid reports of the Afghan militants stepping up their bombing campaigns.
On Tuesday, the Qatar-based news channel Al-Jazeera aired footages showing the Taliban sorting and transporting purported ‘US military ammunition’ including mines engraved with US markings.
The channel claimed the explosives had been taken during an October militant rampage through two distant US bases in the eastern province of Nuristan.
The militants are, meanwhile, reported to conduct explosions throughout the war-wrecked country on a daily basis.
The blasts have plighted both the civilian population and the US-led forces. Retaliatory attacks by the soldiers have regularly missed militant targets, killing thousands of the non-combatants instead.
Based on a new US-devised coalition strategy, the two bases and other remote outposts have been closed down as the forces are ordered to focus more on the populated areas.
Nathan Gallahan, a spokesman for NATO and the US-led military joint command center, in comments quoted by the DPA, verified that the bases had not been overrun by Taliban during the specified time. Read More?
The video sculptures by Swiss artist MARCK are more than a simple combination of video and sculpture: They are a logic consequence of his extensive examination with films and videos, multimedia based projects, performances, music and sculptural as well as kinetic objects. The many years he has been working with these media have showed him their limits and possibilities thus founding a basis for the body of works created since 2001.
The determining factor for his video sculptures was–amongst others–his dissatisfaction with the boring representation of films on monitors. Hence he started to rebuild them on the one hand in order to detract the static aspect from the sculpture and on the other to set real boundaries for his films/videos. The examination of humans and their world of feelings is central to MARCK’s oeuvre. It is based on the search for a combination of influence from the outside and inner conditions. His performers are always women who are aware of the artistic (and artificial) space surrounding them which they fathom with their bodies. At times they appear as if they were locked as in installations like “Frauenkiste” (Pandoras box, 2007) and “Türkisches Bad” (Turkish Bath, 2009), move on dangerous terrain as in his wall objects “Dornen” (Thorns, 2008) and “Sichel” (Sickle, 2009) or in-between the elements water and air like in the installation “human air system” (2005). MARCK himself understands his works as emotionally grounded media sculptures which not only fathom their physical but also their psychical limitations.
When a Rubber Fetishist having Breakfast with Mom ‘n Dad, it’s slighty scary and a whole lot surreal. It is a part of a page to a larger website, but to cut to the chase, I have posted this pictorial, which you can check out HERE if the mood strikes you, or see the preview below. All, the works of Frank Gassner, who is one of the greats!
