Showing posts with label illegal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illegal. Show all posts

Friday, 13 June 2014

What is "Refuge Recovery" from addiction?

Noah Levine, M.A. (RefugeRecovery.org), Seth Auberon, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly
Dharma Punx center, Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society, for Refuge Recovery
Is it true you're giving away free books tonight?
FREE, tonight only (6-13-14)
Yes, the publisher is making them available at the BLVD Open House and Book Launch Party.

So it's already out?
Yes, there were a lot of pre-orders. It's now shipping. Anyone can pick up a copy at the Melrose Center (AgainsttheStream.org, East Hollywood on Melrose Ave. next to Los Angeles Community College).

Why would anyone want to read this book or practice it?
Noah Levine, M.A., drug recovery counselor
Refuge Recovery is a nonprofit organization. It is our vision and intention to build an extensive and comprehensive network of Refuge Recovery meetings, communities, and treatment options [that don't depend on "God" as one's higher power].

We are actively seeking donations to build treatment centers with both residential and outpatient services.

What would these donations be for?
Our goal is to raise the capital to start treatment centers with tax-deductible donations, so that all the profit that comes from providing these services can go back into the community in the form of reduced rates for residential treatment for those without insurance coverage, as well as to scholarships to meditation retreats, access to outpatient services, and building of the nonprofit's infrastructure.
Introduction to the book Refuge Recovery
The book that started it all (ATS)
Refuge Recovery is a practice, a process, a set of tools, a treatment, and a path to healing addiction and the suffering caused by addiction. The main inspiration and guiding philosophy for the Refuge Recovery program are the teachings of Siddhartha (Sid) Gautama, a teacher who taught in India 25 [26 or more actually] centuries ago. 
 
Sid was a radical psychologist and a spiritual revolutionary. Through his own efforts and practices he came to understand why human beings [and devas] cause and experience so much suffering. He referred to the root cause of suffering as “uncontrollable thirst or repetitive craving.”
  • [Actually craving is the proximate cause and is focused on because we can do something about it immediately, unlike the other causes and conditions outlined in the formula of Dependent Origination of suffering.]
Dharma Punx tee (dharmapunx.com)
This “thirst” tends to arise in relation to pleasure, but it may also arise as a craving for unpleasant experiences to go away, or as an addiction to people, places, things, or experiences. This is the same thirst of the alcoholic, the same craving as the addict, and the same attachment as the codependent.
 
Eventually, Sid came to understand and experience a way of living that ended all forms of suffering. He did this through a practice and process that includes meditation, wise actions, and compassion. 
 
After freeing himself from the suffering caused by craving [and ignorance and aversion], he spent the rest of his life teaching others how to live a life of well-being and freedom, a life free from suffering.
 
Eva's 66-Day Meditation Challenge (WQ/ATS)
Sid became known as the Buddha, and his teachings became known as Buddhism. The Refuge Recovery program has adapted the core teachings of the Buddha as a treatment of addiction.
 
Buddhism recognizes a nontheistic [one not dependent on any God] approach to spiritual practice. The Refuge Recovery program does not ask anyone to believe anything, only to trust the process and do the hard work of recovery. More

Sounds good. Very modern. Thanks, Noah. See you at the party.

Tuesday, 6 May 2014

Buddhist Addiction Recovery Center opening

Seth Auberon, Frank Miles, Wisdom Quarterly; AgainstTheStream.org
Last Tuesday Noah Levine paid us a visit at Dharma Punx to announce that Against the Stream Buddhist Meditation Society is adding an outpatient drug and alcohol recovery center. Anyone interested in getting off or successfully staying off drugs using a Buddhist oriented path to recovery can contact Levine or the center to sign up.

Why resort to a REHAB center that promotes theism when a better alternative exists? 

Buddhism is non-theistic, but former Western Buddhist monk Stephen Batchelor (who married a former Buddhist nun), author of Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, is a popular speaker at ATS influencing its outlook on resorting to a better "higher power" than the one one endlessly promoted at ordinary 12-Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous.  

Kevin Griffin, author of A Burning Desire: Dharma, God, and the Path of Recovery, will be hosting a daylong meditation and recovery workshop this month (see below). His approach incorporates Buddhism and the Noble Eightfold Path

Residential Retreats

Classes and Events
A Burning Desire
Meetings are open to all in recovery
Tuesdays 7:30 pm Hollywood (4300 Melrose Ave., LA 90029)
Thursdays 7:30 pm Santa Monica (1001a Colorado Ave., LA, 90401) 
Saturdays 6:00 pm Santa Monica
Sundays 7:00 pm Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
 
Half-day (4 hours) with Michele Benzamin-Miki - May 10, 2014, Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
Melrose to Santa Monica, May 17
May 17, Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
May 18, Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
Daylong with Beth Mulligan and Paul D'Alton, May 25, Santa Monica
 
Buddhism and the Twelve Steps
NEW: 12 Step Workbook
Daylong with Kevin Griffin, May 31, Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
Hollywood, Melrose Ave., June 7
with Mollie Favour, June 8 and 10
An evening with Denise Di Novi, June 14, Santa Monica
June 28, Hollywood, Melrose Ave.
July 4-6, San Onofre State Beach 

Melrose Meditations
Meditation and Dharma Talk
Every Wednesday @ 7:30 pm
Connect and Sustain
Every Thursday @ 7:00 pm
Deepening Your Practice
Every Friday @ 7:30 pm
Saturday Afternoon Meditation and Talk
Refuge Recovery: A Buddhist Path
Every Saturday @ 5:00 pm
Meditation and Dharma Talk
Every Sunday @ 11:00 am
Community Silent Sit and Meditation
Every Sunday @ 5:00 pm
Recollective Awareness Meditation
Every Monday @ 10:00 am
Silent Morning Sits
Mon through Fri @ 6 am and @ 7 am

Santa Monica Center
Meditation and Dharma Talk
Every Monday @ 7:30 pm
Deepening Your Practice
Every Wednesday @ 7:30 pm
Connect and Sustain
Every Friday @ 7:30 pm
Dharma Den
Every Sunday @ 7:30 pm

Studio City (Valley)
Meditation and Dharma Talk
Every Thursday @ 7:30 pm
Author, punk, and Against the Stream co-founder Noah Levine has an inner-meditator who comes out  for all to see. It's the punk ethic: going against the way of the world like the Buddha. That means recovery from addictions. Meditate and destroy inner-obstacles (WQ).

Thursday, 6 February 2014

Ode to Heroin! - A Buddhist Solution

I. Rony, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly
Heroin used to be chic (lelaid). Thx, Big Pharma!
Oh, Heroin, you take all my pain away (temporarily).
And no matter what they say ordinarily,
I won't support our invasion of Afghan fields.
So I'm turning to fentanyl and Vicodin...
And any synthetic painkiller
My doctor can prescribe
Because roses are maroon
Orchids rainbow spread,
I know I'm doomed;
I'm so Hoffmanesque.
 
Bulging opium poppy pods? No, it's the "Buddha Belly plant," Jatropha podagrica, which grows from the bottleplant shrub (1guy2be/flickr.com)

A Buddhist solution?
Wisdom Quarterly
Levine's new book on recovery
Is there a "Buddhist" solution? Kevin Griffin, author of One Breath at a Time and A Burning Desire) says yes! Noah Levine and others agree. Siddhartha was born in Afghanistan, according to maverick historian Ranajit Pal, Ph.D. Poppies must have grown there at the time. And what is "addiction" but craving, the curable source of suffering? Where there is craving, there is also likely to be aversion, usually manifesting as fear: fear of pain, aversion to pain. And without exception, whenever craving or aversion are present, each is supported by the true cause and condition of all suffering, disappointment, and woe: ignorance. The solution? Enlightenment.

Chic Phillip Seymour Hoffman (cracked.com)
Easier said than done. How did the drugs and drink help your quest for awakening? Even people who drop LSD, DMT, GHB, E, and/or 'shrooms do NOT suddenly awaken to the liberating-truth. Which is odd, isn't it? One would think Space Cadets would because they're so far out, so "beyond the beyond" (Heart Sutra). The real "ambrosia," the nectar of the divine, is deathlessness, a synonym for nirvana. See, getting "high" is a kind of delusion, alcohol a "liquid ignorance," the urge to get stoned or s-faced a dream. We're already in a dream (maya)! Maybe "mind-expanding" (entheogenic) substances can help. But the best "drugs" of all are endogenous, that is, internally-manufactured by these great bodies. So stop taking artificial, external drugs. And take care of your pineal gland. How? For one thing, avoid pharmaceuticals like Prozac.
  
Death of a Drug Addict
A Martinez and Alex Cohen, Take Two, scpr.org
The death of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman of an apparent drug overdose was a shock to almost everyone who heard the news. Hoffman, it has been widely reported, had over two decades of sobriety under his belt before relapsing into addiction last year. Journalist Seth Mnookin, co-director of MIT's Graduate Program in Science Writing and a recovering drug addict, joined "Take Two." He wrote about it in Slate.

AUDIO INVESTIGATION: Heroin's Resurgence
drug heroin addiction
Salvation in a dirty spoon?
Take Two talks to author and LA Times reporter Sam Quinones about the resurgence of heroin in the US. More than 90% of opiate abusers are white and getting it delivered like pizza. 

Authorities are still investigating the official cause of Phillip Seymour Hoffman's death, but the actor struggled with addiction, and investigators have confirmed the presence of heroin in his apartment.

It's a growing problem in this country, and heroin use here has doubled since 2007. According to the DEA, heroin seizures in New York State are up nearly 70 percent over the last four years. LISTEN 

Spock: Cigarettes gave me cancer. Don't smoke.

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

Nazis and our U.S. "war" on drugs (comedy)

Wisdom Quarterly (eds.); H. Neal Smith (serendipity.li); Stephen Colbert (colbertreport.com)
How does truth -- for example, as exhibited on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" -- go unheard when presented seriously? The shows transcend politics through satire. Thomas J. Falletta takes a look at the shows' affect on news, debate, and business in Congress.
 
Hemp vs. marijuana -- not the same thing
The following is a compilation of historical facts. Randy William Davis and I had been independently asking the question: "Why is marijuana illegal?" Every time we found an answer, it led to several more questions. He had been looking into other political activities, mainly concerning the Nazis of Germany. He soon drew a connection between the general attitudes of the Nazis and members of the government and industries of the United States.

Much of politics beginning 1820 centered around oil and the great wealth available to those who transformed it into gasoline for the burgeoning automobile industry, home heating, lubrication, and the new idea of synthetics -- plastics.

Of the big oil families, the Rockefellers remain at the top of the heap. Those who supported them, specifically the Mellon banking family, also profited greatly. Andrew Mellon, who had invested a great deal of money in Rockefeller, was not going to lose the chance at becoming fabulously wealthy.

Does anyone need to tell us Nazis are bad?
Another client of Mellon's, the DuPont family, in addition to building companies like General Motors, was developing synthetic fibers and plastics from petroleum.

Law firms like Brown Brothers Harriman handled the legal work for these and others. Media giants like the Hearst family were more than happy to join the ranks of the exorbitantly rich by putting out whatever "news" was to their benefit. These people had no concern for the health and well-being of society at large.

Indeed, the less the average person knew, the better for the rich one. Strangely enough, it was many of these same people who were responsible for the criminalization of hemp and marijuana.

Hemp, the plant humans have used for several millennia, and the industry that provided the best in cloth, rope, [paper, sails,] and oil, had fallen on hard times. Hemp was growing luxuriously throughout America's farmland, but it was extremely labor-intensive.

Until the availability of the decorticator, hemp had to be harvested in large part by hand. American industry needed more than hemp could produce in this way.
 
The decorticator came on the scene in 1935, and hemp was on its way again, until the petroleum industry saw a problem: Fuel could be made from hemp that would burn cleaner, more efficiently, and with a greater supply than crude petroleum oil. Rudolph Diesel had built his famous engine intending it to burn vegetable oil, mainly hemp. 
 
Hemp was already well known for its lubricating ability, which was of importance to the young aviation industry. Hemp oil in an aircraft engine does not break apart chemically at high altitudes like petroleum did at the time....
 
Right wing hypocrisy about drugs (Tom Tomorrow/thismodernworld.com)
  
Hemp, as almost everyone knows, is in the same family as "marijuana." The flower tops and leaves of other species of Cannabis Sativa L. It was smoked freely at many fairs in its concentrated form hashish. "Hash dens" were popular in America's bigger cities. But blacks and Hispanics were known to smoke the dried flowers and leaves. Jazz musicians of the period were widely known as smokers. Big oil and its enablers found an excuse to drive hemp away:

Claim all sorts of bad things about marijuana without making a distinction between it and hemp so that the average person will not know. Then what they and their forbears had grown up could be taken away. This was done by playing up white America's racism.

The powers that be in industry and various government agencies scared everyone by claiming that marijuana would drive users insane and lead to the abuse of more insidious drugs like heroin and cocaine.
 
By 1936 "Reefer Madness" was all the rage. It served as a pretext for Congress to pass the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The ecological and drug-free hemp industry was crippled. Big oil was safe.
 
Hitler glorified in American media (TIME)
Meanwhile, Adolph Hitler was building Germany into a war machine with the same American industrialists who wanted to ban hemp. Hitler had no oil, but Rockefeller did. With the help of these Americans, Hitler got oil. The rest of the Hitler story is well known.
 
After WW II, the American intelligence community turned its attention to the Soviet Union. They sought to use former Nazi intelligence agents as well as other Nazis against the Russians.
 
By 1955 over 10,000 former Nazis, many of them war criminals who evaded any kind of prosecution, were brought into the United States of American and put into our CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).

With them they brought their hatred, inhumane experiments, and their willingness to subjugate all for the greater good of Nazism. With the help of America's right wing, they became entrenched. Their policies still rule America today.

The prohibition of hemp and marijuana was fallout -- part of a much larger attempt to control American citizens, over what we read, see, hear, eat, and smoke. The policies that led to marijuana prohibition are the same policies that have taken away rights Americans hold dearest.

This is a summarized chronology of the events of the 20th century. Because of the "War On (Some) Drugs," we now stand to lose all of our freedoms. It can be a complex concept to contemplate.

But when we look at interrelated elements in a historical context, we can begin to see how and why the government we have now is bogus.

Colbert: America Again: Re-Becoming the Greatness We Never Weren't

The following CHRONOLOGY is far from complete and may never be complete. In some instances, only those involved in the government possess the actual proof, and most of them are unlikely to share it with outsiders. In other cases, the actual proof is available, and it is used where possible. In still other instances, to quote Bob Dylan, "You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
 
1820-Rothschilds establish leading bank in Europe. Bankers who allied themselves with the Rothschilds and those who supported the Masonic Order find themselves well off. Those who did not have it rough.
1840-During an attempt at alcohol prohibition, then attorney Abraham Lincoln states: "Prohibition makes a crime out of things that are not crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
1842-Cannabis makes up about half of all medicines sold in America. No one reports serious problems with use.
1850-Cannabis prescribed as the prime medicine for more than 100 separate illnesses in U.S. Pharmacopoeia.
1865-Northern industrialists win War Between the States, gain power base over agricultural South, influencing westward expansion of U.S. and location of railroads. Mary Todd Lincoln prescribed cannabis for the nervous breakdown she suffered following husband (deposed President) Lincoln's assassination.
1875-California, in a blatant act of racism, bans opium smoking by Chinese. Large, well-run opium houses ran out of business, replaced by smaller, less reputable houses. Usage increases.
1876-Turkish hashish exhibition at Philadelphia's Centennial Exhibition is most popular. Fair attendees encouraged to return again and again to "enhance" their enjoyment of the fair. 
1883-First federal law against drugs. Congress heavily taxes opium smoking. First time taxation used to legislate morality instead of raising revenue. Controlled by Treasury Department.
1884-Supreme Court decision makes corporations artificial persons, giving impersonal business entities 14th Amendment protections previously reserved for human beings.
1888-Using 1883 opium taxation law as a precedent, federal government bans certain types of opium from being imported and bans Chinese from importing opium at all. Government now surrenders revenue raising in favor of controlling "morality."
1890-Standard Oil of Ohio is refining 90% of America's oil, thanks to Rothschild financing.
1894-Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report released to British. Study done in India. Judged the physical, mental, moral effects of smoking cannabis, urges against any prohibition based on "no appreciable physical injury of any kind... no injurious effects on the mind... (and) no moral injury whatever." 
1895-Rothschilds begin to finance American business. They do so primarily through the Warburgs of Germany, who were partners of Kuhn, Loeb, and Company of New York. Both Warburgs and Kuhn/Loeb would be principals of Federal Reserve Board. Rothschilds would finance Rockefeller's Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and the Harriman Railroad system.
1896-McKinley elected U.S. president. Marcus Alonzo Hannah from Standard Oil of Ohio raises 16 million dollars for campaign, an unheard of sum at the time.
1898-Spanish-American War starts, with William Randolph Hearst's "Yellow Journalism" fueling the fire. Hearst begins long campaign of racism against Hispanics, Asians, and African Americans and their cultural activities.
1900-Mellon Bank, the sixth largest in America, finances very successful oil "gusher" in Spindletop, Texas. In a joint venture, Eli Lilly and Parke Davis develop strain of cannabis called Cannabis Americana. Strain is a very potent Cannabis Indica for use in their medicines. MORE

For instance, the full Warren Commission report into the assassination of deposed President Kennedy will not be released for 100 years. If some serious crimes were not being covered up, why the additional delay?

No one started out with the intention of rewriting history. This project was a simple time line to keep my research and the research of Davis straight because there is so much material. The timeline took on a life of its own.
 
Neo-Nazis keep racism and hatred alive.
It is a companion-piece to Davis's excellent In the Shadow of the Swastika. If anyone wishes to replicate or further investigate any of this, and I urge everyone to do so, a full bibliography is provided.

Over the past seven years, these facts have checked, cross checked, researched, and confirmed any and all sources on this information that came to hand. Some of the proof is too well protected for anyone to get at right now, but as so often happens, it will leak. Then no knee jerk defense of the powers that run our supposedly free society will be able to defend it. The fact that it remains hidden already speaks ill of our alleged freedoms.

Ironic Jon Stewart mocks explosive Alex Jones (It's true, Jon).
 

Friday, 15 November 2013

Why I love METH (cartoon)

Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Seth Macfarlane, "Family Guy"

Crystal meth (methamphetamine, "speed") is a synthetic chemical developed by Nazi scientists (as Pervitin) to get soldiers to kill more. There is perhaps no faster way to contact and be overtaken by inner demons than meth, exceeding even the speed of rum consumption. It might not be so bad if it were sustainable. But most of the obviously bad effects of meth stem not from the stimulation and exhaustion of one's life force reservoir so much as the toxic excipients (extra ingredients). One may as well swim in a large corporation's sludge pond. Dioxin, petroleum byproducts, Drano, match heads... Is it any wonder teeth fall out, pock marks form on the skin, insane itching begins as the skin -- the body's largest organ of elimination -- tries to detoxify? 

Peter Griffin shares a baggie of crystal meth with his son
 
Actual toxic waste goes into meth!
 
Warning: Do not swim in sludge ponds!
The Nazis were onto something. Imagine a cheap pharmaceutical that could take the place of cocaine. It is rumored that Adolf Hitler was an addict. To be sure other inner party Nazis were. Why would the CIA continue to promote expensive and risky crack addiction in American ghettos when methamphetamines are so much easier to produce without the trouble of cross-border transporting?

Yum, it's sugarcoated "Toxic Waste" candy
And why leave the middle class out of the fun? Now meth is available in a variety of dance-quality colors, flavors, and grades, not the least of which is old MDMA sold as the "new and improved" Molly. Those who would never dream of drinking Drano things in dad's garage would, somehow, consider taking hits of Ecstasy. Even America's own father, scoot over Homer Simpson, is not immune to the lure of toxic sludge. Of course, he's only joking.


Meth first, then prostitution?
Cartoons make it cute, but addiction of any kind is ugly ugly ugly

Crystal Meth: The Hardest Drug
(BBC) 2013 documentary on the effects of methamphetamine use. No comment necessary.


(Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)  "Breaking Bad" parodied in "Joking Bad"
featuring cameos by Bryan Cranston, Bob Odenkirk, and Aaron Paul.