WEIRDHYPE: The Escalator Girl

You never know what you might see at a sporting event so it is always a good idea to have your cell phone, with video capabilities, in your pocket.

This video shows a very determined woman. Either that or she's high.

DRUGHYPE: A Question of Priorities

What's a bigger danger to public safety in your neighborhood - teenagers selling large amounts of marijuana, or armed robbers? In Santa Cruz, California, law enforcement's attention is more on the latter. Perhaps you don't agree with their stance, but this is Santa Cruz after all. If you've ever been there you'll understand.

The best part is that the dope dealer called the cops to report that his stash was taken off of him, admitted that he was selling it, and he still didn't get arrested. The AP story is below.

Dealer Calls Cops After Pot Stash Stolen
(Copyright AP, 2007-09-07)

A marijuana dealer telephoned police after armed thieves stole his quarter-pound stash of pot. The 19-year-old Felton man told police that two men, one of them armed with a handgun, robbed him at gunpoint as he sat in his car on Tuesday night.

"It was unique to have people who were dealing drugs calling us when they've been ripped off," police spokesman Zach Friend said.

After the thieves made off with his stash, the dealer telephoned police. When police arrived, the dealer's story became progressively confused.

First he showed officers a medical marijuana card and told them he bought the pot at a medical marijuana dispensary. Then he said he got the pot from a friend. Eventually the dealer admitted he had arranged to sell the marijuana to the men who stole it from him, investigators said.

The Felton dealer wasn't arrested.

"From our standpoint, it's more important to address the fact there are individuals out there who are willing to use a weapon to commit robberies," Friend said.

DRUGHYPE: Pentagon's New Drug Weapons

They’ve got Skunk, they’ve got Special K, they’ve got Angel Dust, they’ve got Aceeeeed….and they’ve also got a whole pharmacy of extra special stuff that they’re not going to tell anyone about. They’re heavily armed, and the law can’t touch them. Because they’re the Pentagon’s own nonlethal chemical weapons developers.

Wired Danger Room Blog Post

DRUGHYPE: They're Sampling You Indirectly

From the "we'll tell you what to say" department... and remember, it's 'less offensive than individualized testing.'

I sure would like to see the thematic maps that result from this. You'd have to do some serious analytical work to convert data gathered by the wastewater collection districts to something more commonly used (e.g. city or county), but either way it would be pretty interesting. How about a correlation with ATM withdrawals too? That's probably pretty high.

Scientists drug-test whole cities

(Copyright AP, 2007-08-21)

Researchers have figured out how to give an entire community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a city's sewer plant.

The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user. But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.

Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of what people are taking.

"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as the Oregon researchers.

One of the early results of the new study showed big differences in methamphetamine use city to city. One urban area with a gambling industry had meth levels more than five times higher than other cities. Yet methamphetamine levels were virtually nonexistent in some smaller Midwestern locales, said Jennifer Field, the lead researcher and a professor of environmental toxicology at Oregon State.

The ingredient Americans consume and excrete the most was caffeine, Field said.

Cities in the experiment ranged from 17,000 to 600,000 in population, but Field declined to identify them, saying that could harm her relationship with the sewage plant operators.

She plans to start a survey for drugs in the wastewater of at least 40 Oregon communities.

The science behind the testing is simple. Nearly every drug — legal and illicit — that people take leaves the body. That waste goes into toilets and then into wastewater treatment plants.

"Wastewater facilities are wonderful places to understand what humans consume and excrete," Field said.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water from each of the cities was tested for 15 different drugs. Field said researchers can't calculate how many people in a town are using drugs.

She said that one fairly affluent community scored low for illicit drugs except for cocaine. Cocaine and ecstasy tended to peak on weekends and drop on weekdays, she said, while methamphetamine and prescription drugs were steady throughout the week.

Field said her study suggests that a key tool currently used by drug abuse researchers — self-reported drug questionnaires — underestimates drug use.

"We have so few indicators of current use," said Jane Maxwell of the Addiction Research Institute at the University of Texas, who wasn't part of the study. "This could be a very interesting new indicator."

David Murray, chief scientist for U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the idea interests his agency.

Murray said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is testing federal wastewater samples just to see if that's a good method for monitoring drug use. But he didn't know how many tests were conducted or where.

The EPA will "flush out the details" on testing, Benjamin Grumbles joked. The EPA assistant administrator said the agency is already looking at the problem of potential harm to rivers and lakes from legal pharmaceuticals.

The idea of testing on a citywide basis for drugs makes sense, as long as it doesn't violate people's privacy, said Tom Angell of the Students for Sensible Drug Policy, a Washington-based group that wants looser drug laws.

"This seems to be less offensive than individualized testing," he said.