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This is a dumping ground for links and other stuff for the 2018 4/20 article. Might as well get started now. Feel free to post articles or your suggestions in here up until April 20, 2018 (journal comments remain open forever, if you hadn't noticed). The article will cover topics including but not limited to cannabis, the opioid crisis, and the drug policies of any countries you are interested in, not just the U.S. I especially want articles regarding state/local ballot initiatives, implementation of drug policies, and the like, as well as articles about single events that can fit well on a timeline (such as this). If you want to critique the pro-legalization crowd, that's fine too.

Theoretically, the article could grow to an insane size without pissing everyone off too much with liberal use of the spoiler tag:

I've already lost some of the links below due to an invalid resource error. I will probably edit my extension to add the equivalent of the "submission draft" feature for journals.

This journal entry will be edited to include more links and notes as we get closer. Although I'll retain a few surprises for the actual article.

Here are the past 4/20 articles:

2015: 4/20: StonerNews is People
2016: 4/20: Half-Baked Headline
2017: 4/20: The Third Time's Not the Charm

Timeline
(I have to decide whether I want to include many events or just past SoylentNews articles here.)

April 21: Massachusetts Throws Out 21,587 Tainted Drug Convictions
April 23: Remake of Classic "Your Brain on Drugs" Ad Slams Disastrous Drug War

May 11: Vermont Legislature Passes Cannabis Legalisation Bill
May 15: Jeff Sessions Reboots the Drug War
May 16: Cop Brushes Fentanyl Off Uniform, Overdoses

July 31: 34 Criminal Cases Tossed after Body cam Footage Shows Cop Planting Drugs

August 5: Cannabis Company Buys Entire California Town to Create Marijuana Tourist Destination
August 11: President Trump Declares the Opioid Crisis a National Emergency
August 17: Another Canadian Banned From the U.S. for Past Drug Use
August 30: FDA Designates MDMA as a "Breakthrough Therapy" for PTSD; Approves Phase 3 Trials

September 11: Thanks to the DEA and Drug War, Your Prescription Records Have Zero Expectation of Privacy

October 14: Study Suggests Psilocybin "Resets" the Brains of Depressed People
October 26: According to Gallup, American Support for Cannabis Legalization is at an All-Time High
October 27: Opioid Crisis Official; Insys Therapeutics Billionaire Founder Charged; Walgreens Stocks Narcan
October 28: Study Finds That More Frequent Use of Cannabis is Associated With Having More Sex

November 2: FDA Cracking Down on Unsubstantiated Cannabidiol Health Claims
November 4: People Who Take Psychedelics Are Less Likely to Commit Violent Crimes, Study Says
November 15: FDA Blocks More Imports of Kratom, Warns Against Use as a Treatment for Opioid Withdrawal
"Drug Bazooka" Seized Near the U.S.-Mexican Border
November 16: Opioid Commission Drops the Ball, Demonizes Cannabis
November 27: Hallucination Machine: Psychedelic Visuals in VR

December: World Health Organization Clashes With DEA on CBD; CBD May be an Effective Treatment for Psychosis
Ketamine Reduces Suicidal Thoughts in Depressed Patients

Links

* Veterans in New York can now get medical marijuana to treat PTSD
* A 12-Year-Old Girl With Epilepsy Is Suing Jeff Sessions Over Medical Marijuana
* Marijuana could be legal in New Jersey as soon as April
* The War On Drugs Repackaged
* Campaign to legalise magic mushrooms gains momentum in California
* Reports: Manson hospitalized in California
* Ohio's First Crop of Medical Marijuana Dealers See Green, But Face Hurdles
* The Rush is on for Ohio's Marijuana Dispensary Licenses
* Don Martin: Retired cops chasing pot of gold at the end of legalization rainbow
* Veterans are key as surge of states OK medical pot for PTSD (archive)
* The Indigenous Mexican Tribe That Honors Rare Psychedelic Toads
* What It's Like to Smoke the World's Strongest Psychedelic Toad Venom
* Europe's Largest Legal Weed Farm Is Being Built in a Nuclear Bunker
* Why It Feels Like You Can Communicate with Nature on LSD
* Jeff Sessions Isn’t Giving up on Weed. He’s Doubling Down.
* VIDEO: For LSD, What A Long Strange Trip It's Been
* New York Is Closer Than Ever to Legalizing Weed
* Solving the Dutch Pot Paradox: Legal to Buy, but Not to Grow
* Non-psychoactive cannabis ingredient (CBD) could help addicts stay clean
* A Dying Southern Town Needed a Miracle. Marijuana Came Calling.
* Reader: Kratom Saved My Life From a Heroin Addiction

Notes

Cannabis is the scientific term for the drug colloquially known as "marihuana/marijuana", which is now regarded as an outdated and racist term that was intended to scare the public.

What is the difference between "opioids" and "opiates"? "Opioid" is a broader term:

Want to legalize drugs easily? Make recreational drugs treatments for "boredom" and "spiritual malaise".

Report: Green Beret killed by SEALs after he uncovered alleged theft

Two Navy SEALs being investigated over the death of an Army Green Beret in Mali in June are accused of killing him after he discovered they had been stealing, according to a report in the Daily Beast.

CNN has not independently verified the information in Saturday's article, which the Daily Beast attributes to "five members of the special-operations community who were not cleared to speak publicly."

Naval Criminal Investigative Service spokesman Ed Buice confirmed to CNN last month that the NCIS was investigating whether two members of the Navy's elite SEAL Team Six killed Army Staff Sgt. Logan J. Melgar.

The New York Times was the first to report that the SEALs were under investigation for Melgar's death at a US government compound near the American embassy in Bamako, the capital.

[...] The Daily Beast article cites two special operations sources as saying the SEALs under investigation over Melgar's death had been taking money from a fund used to pay informants. It says the sources allege that Melgar uncovered the theft and declined an offer to take a cut of the proceeds. On June 4, according to the Daily Beast's sources, an altercation broke out -- the cause of which the article says is unknown -- and Melgar stopped breathing. The SEALs and another Green Beret took Melgar to hospital, the Beast quotes former AFRICOM officials as saying.

Now that's what I call a dishonorable discharge.

Someone gave me 0.990 LTC a week or two ago. At the time that was about $54.00. It has since gone up to about $60.

I bought $60 each of BTC and ETH, paid for with EFTs from my business checking account.

BTC went way down today doubtlessly due to some burglar bragging that he just stole $32,000,000.00 worth of bitcoin by hacking into digital wallets.

CoinBase offers USD wallets if you're down with uploading pix of the front and back of your ID. So I can no longer use CoinBase for money laundering.

The great advantage of the USD wallet is that the transactions take place immediately, rather than having to wait seven days as happened with my EFTs. The price was locked-in when I ordered the purchase but I wasn't permitted to trade the ETH or LTC for over a week.

Now I have BTC 0.0253 that just now is worth $169.15.

My code is going to go beta by the middle of next week. That means I get paid. I'm going to buy one BitCoin - presently that costs $6,682.00 - as well as a mining rig.

The reason I'm doing this is that I have no other hope of funding a decent retirement. Even if I contribute the maximum of $6500 - the "catch-up" rate for people over 50 - until I'm 65, my retirement will have me living like a starving artist through all of my golden years.

So I'm speculating on cryptocurrency. Even if I lose it all, my retirement won't really be any worse than I presently foresee it.

I might form a 501(c)3 tax-deductible non-profit corporation to operate Soggy Jobs. If I do that I could give myself the employment benefit of a 401k, which will enable me to contribute about three times as much as my IRA permits.

I'm soliciting donations but they're not yet tax-deductible.

Google.org exists to give money to charities. I expect I can make a good case for contributing to soggy jobs. There are many philanthropic organizations; if I do form the non-profit I'm going to work with a grant writer to get me some of those Samoleons.

Original story: Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32 (archive)

Roy Moore can still win

Moore has zero incentive to listen to calls from official Washington for him to leave the race. In fact, the louder those calls get, the more likely it is that Moore digs in even further.

Then there is the fact that the widespread condemnation of Moore among GOP senators is not entirely shared by Alabama Republicans.

Take Alabama state auditor Jim Ziegler, for one. In an interview, Ziegler downplayed the accusations against Moore by citing Scripture:

Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist. Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus. There's just nothing immoral or illegal here. Maybe just a little bit unusual.

Then there was Alabama Marion County GOP chair David Hall, who told the Toronto Star's Daniel Dale this: "It was 40 years ago. I really don't see the relevance of it. He was 32. She was supposedly 14. She's not saying that anything happened other than they kissed."

In the Post report, however, the accuser also says Moore sexually assaulted her. She says Moore touched her and forced her to touch him.

Marrying young girls is old hat. We just grope and move on now.

Romney: 'Unfit' Moore 'should step aside'

Why do we care what Romney thinks, again?

Romney mulling Senate bid: report
I Never Liked Mitt Romney, But Now I’m Desperate for His Comeback

Oh, ok.

I went to the new restaurant that wants to become the 'McDonald's of pasta' — and they are onto something big

Ladner says Pasta Flyer's service model embodies the two cornerstones of fast food: speed and low prices. But he refers to the food itself as "slow" and more comparable to what you'd find at a traditional restaurant.

[...] I sampled four pastas: fusilli with basil pesto sauce, fettuccine with creamy Alfredo sauce, whole grain rigatoni with Nonna's meat ragu, and spaghetti and meatballs with marinara sauce. I was shocked to find that all four were of the same quality I would expect from an upscale Italian restaurant that charges around $25 for a bowl of pasta. The noodles were cooked to al dente perfection, the sauces were warm and rich, and the meat was flavorful and tender. The dishes were simple, but done right.

[...] To make this happen, Ladner says the sauces are held just above a temperature set by the NYC Department of Health. After a customer orders, their noodles are cooked in 15 seconds while their sauce is brought to a boil, and then the two are plated.

[...] Ladner says the wheat is milled directly before the pasta is made, resulting in a noodle that's "fresh and alive," and will still be al dente when you eat it a day later as leftovers. "It's the best pasta I know of in the world, and it's $7.50," he says.

Spotted on reddit:

Someone might have just cracked Intel's ME via JTAG. This twitter post:
https://twitter.com/h0t_max/status/928269320064450560

Game over man! Game over!
If true, then we now have ring -3 access into the ME with the possibility of permanently disabling it. I am also a little excited to hear what Intel has to say about this and what their next anti-consumer move is. Though the more exciting thing might be hacking it and using it for good and possibly allowing systems to run libre ME software! Perhaps we might see a proper open source Minix ME project spawn.

Next up! AMD's PSP.

There’s now a lot more nerds in elected office. Seventeen candidates with STEM-backgrounds ran their respective races Tuesday, from Virginia governor-elect Ralph Northam—a doctor—to Tiffany Hodgson, a neuroscientist who won a seat on the Wissahickon School Board in eastern Pennsylvania.

Many candidates decided to run only after President Donald Trump ushered in one of the most anti-science administrations in history. And a number of the campaigns sprung out of meetings with 314 Action, a political advocacy group that is helping scientists run for office.

“Voters are ready for candidates who are going to use their STEM training to base policy on evidence rather than intuition,” Shaughnessy Naughton, the founder of 314 Action, said in a press release. “Science will not be silenced.”

17 STEM Politicians Won Elections Tuesday

Theoretical Physicists Are Getting Closer to Explaining How NASA’s ‘Impossible’ EmDrive Works

Theoretical scientists are trying to understand why and how EmDrive propulsion works. The NASA paper suggests a tentative explanation based on a quantum physics theory, "a nonlocal hidden-variable theory, or pilot-wave theory for short."

A new research paper by a Portuguese scientist, titled "A Possible Explanation for the Em Drive Based on a Pilot Wave Theory" is now trending among EmDrive enthusiasts in the NasaSpaceFlight forum. The paywalled paper proposes a similar model to the NASA one (here's an open access preprint you can read.)

Pilot-wave theories have been proposed since the 1920s by quantum physicists, notably Louis de Broglie and David Bohm, to make sense of the weird behavior of quantum matter. Recently, pilot-wave quantum theories have gained more popularity after it was discovered that pilot-wave quantum-like behavior can be reproduced in classical fluids and explained by classical (non-quantum) fluid dynamics.

Not enough meat on these bones for another story, but you might be interested.

Previously: Explanation may be on the way for the "Impossible" EmDrive
Finnish Physicist Says EmDrive Device Does Have an Exhaust
EmDrive Peer-Reviewed Paper Coming in December; Theseus Planning a Cannae Thruster Cubesat
It's Official: NASA's Peer-Reviewed EmDrive Paper Has Finally Been Published
Space Race 2.0: China May Already be Testing an EmDrive in Orbit
Physicist Uses "Quantised Inertia" to Explain Both EmDrive and Galaxy Rotation
EmDrive 3.0: Wait, Where's EmDrive 2.0?

A while back I discovered that they’re selling photographic film again, so I bought a package of three rolls of 35mm Kodak color film. Not sure what I’ll photograph, but the Minolta 35 mm SLR takes a hell of a lot better pictures than my phone. Actually, than any phone—and any digital camera.
        I got home, set the film aside (it’s a lot more expensive than the last time I used film) and looked for my camera, which hadn’t been used for a couple of decades.
        I couldn’t find it. I was sure I’d put it in the middle drawer of my dresser, but no matter how much I rummaged I couldn’t find it. And damn it, I’d paid eighteen dollars for the film and didn’t keep the receipt. That was a few days ago.
        So yesterday I decided to look again, maybe it was in a different drawer? I looked through all of them, and finally rummaged through the one I’d looked in earlier. And I found a small case with a zipper, and there was a camera inside.
        An old sixteen millimeter, the kind you used flash cubes with. Looking more, I found another camera. It was a cheapo as well. And then at the back of the bottom of the drawer, there it was. My old camera, the SLR (I have another 35mm but it’s not nearly as good).
        Checking it out I wondered if I could remember how to use it. On the bottom was a screwed in battery cover. I opened it and stuck the battery in my pocket, since after half a century that battery’s certainly more than dead.
        So I want back to Walgreen’s for a new battery.
        They don’t make them any more. It’s a mercury battery, and they no longer sell anything with mercury in it. And it’s a strange 1.6 volts, the new ones are 1.3 or 1.5, which is going to make my light meter inaccurate. I’ll have to experiment to find out how to adjust it... that is, if I can get it to work at all. It’s thinner than the old battery, and I don’t think the polarity is marked. And it’s thinner, so I’ll probably have to use aluminum foil as a spacer to make it connect. That means I’ll have a burrito from La Bamba for lunch tomorrow, because they wrap them in foil. I’m not buying a whole roll for a square inch of foil!
***
        Two days later as I was eating my burrito I remembered that film changed sometime in the 1980s, with the film speeds changing from ASA to ISO, so I put off opening the battery until I could do a little research. I found that the camera’s built-in light meter wouldn’t work; conversion was more complex than converting Fahrenheit to Celcius. So now I’m going to have to schlep all the way over to the west side of town, or all the way up to the north side.
        And then I thought of the other camera—the one we call a “phone”. It could probably be used as a light meter, so it looks like I have a little more research.
        So I downloaded two or three photographic light meters, all of which were completely incomprehensible and none of which came with instructions.
        So it looks like my only recourse is to go to the camera store and buy a light meter. I googled, and everything was either on the far north side of town or the far west side. One listed was Best Buy, and since I’d decided to hook my TV to the network I needed a cable and went there.
        They had the short cable I needed, and lots of camera supplies, but no light meters. It’s probably because cameras had built-in light meters for the last half century, but film changed from ASA to ISO three decades ago or so, so it would no longer work even if they still made batteries for it.
        So I asked the guy for directions to the camera shop, got in the car and looked at Google Maps, and couldn’t find the damned place! When I got home I looked it up again, have a better idea of where it is, and will have to go back out there, but I’m calling first.
        I should have called. I found it on the map, drove out there, and found the hard to find camera store.
        Their cheapest light meter was over $250! That’s way, way too much. The store guy explained that it was because so few people are shooting film now, and new cameras have built-in light meters so they only made really fancy ones. It made sense, but of course I was disappointed. Not sure what to do now, I’m not paying that much for a light meter! I only paid fifteen bucks for one when I was a teenager.
        Then, on my way out, I saw something that cheered me greatly—a small blackboard with a notice that they could digitize VCR tape! It’s worth twenty five bucks to me to get that tape of my kids when they were kids digitized.
        But I still don’t know what to do about that light meter. Guess I’ll have to check Google Play again and try all the light meter apps. I’m not very hopeful...
        Any ideas?

Trump’s Legacy: Damaged Brains

The pesticide, which belongs to a class of chemicals developed as a nerve gas made by Nazi Germany, is now found in food, air and drinking water. Human and animal studies show that it damages the brain and reduces I.Q.s while causing tremors among children. It has also been linked [open, DOI: 10.1093/jnci/djh324] [DX] to lung cancer and Parkinson's disease [DOI: 10.1136/oemed-2013-101394] [DX] in adults.

[...] This chemical, chlorpyrifos, is hard to pronounce, so let's just call it Dow Chemical Company's Nerve Gas Pesticide. Even if you haven't heard of it, it may be inside you: One 2012 study found that it was in the umbilical cord blood of 87 percent of newborn babies tested. And now the Trump administration is embracing it, overturning a planned ban that had been in the works for many years.

The Environmental Protection Agency actually banned Dow's Nerve Gas Pesticide for most indoor residential use 17 years ago — so it's no longer found in the Raid you spray at cockroaches (it's very effective, which is why it's so widely used; then again, don't suggest this to Dow, but sarin nerve gas might be even more effective!). The E.P.A. was preparing to ban it for agricultural and outdoor use this spring, but then the Trump administration rejected the ban. That was a triumph for Dow, but the decision stirred outrage among public health experts. They noted that Dow had donated $1 million for President Trump's inauguration.

So Dow's Nerve Gas Pesticide will still be used on golf courses, road medians and crops that end up on our plate. Kids are told to eat fruits and vegetables, but E.P.A. scientists found levels of this pesticide on such foods at up to 140 times the limits deemed safe. "This was a chemical developed to attack the nervous system," notes Virginia Rauh, a Columbia professor who has conducted groundbreaking research on it. "It should not be a surprise that it's not good for people."

[...] Democrats sometimes gloat that Trump hasn't managed to pass significant legislation so far, which is true. But he has been tragically effective at dismantling environmental and health regulations — so that Trump's most enduring legacy may be cancer, infertility and diminished I.Q.s for decades to come.

Chlorpyrifos

Asked in April whether Pruitt had met with Dow Chemical Company executives or lobbyists before his decision, a EPA spokesman replied: "We have had no meetings with Dow on this topic." In June, after several Freedom of Information Act requests, the EPA released a copy of Pruitt's March meeting schedule which showed that a meeting had been scheduled between Pruitt and Dow CEO Andrew Liveris at a hotel in Houston, Texas, on March 9.[91] Both men were featured speakers at an energy conference. An EPA spokesperson reported that the meeting was brief and the pesticide was not discussed.[92]

In August, it was revealed that in fact Pruitt and other EPA officials had met with industry representatives on dozens of occasions in the weeks immediately prior to the March decision, promising them that it was "a new day" and assuring them that their wish to continue using chlorpyrifos had been heard. Ryan Jackson, Pruitt's chief of staff, said in a March 8 email that he had "scared" career staff into going along with the political decision to deny the ban, adding "[T]hey know where this is headed and they are documenting it well."[93]