Free Republic

On April 29th, 2006, America's Truth Forum presented a symposium titled, The Underlying Roots Of Terrorism: Terrorism's Threat to World Peace & National Security at the Doubletree Hotel Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. These are notes taken at the event by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler. Jeff Epstein, President of America’s Truth Forum, began by thanking the veterans in the room and noting the work of Frank Salvato, editor of The New Media Journal, who runs America’s Truth Forum web site and produces the group’s Terrorism Update Newsletter. Epstein said that the Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has interviewed Osama Bin...

Reports of “monkey dust” coming in from former industrial towns across the United Kingdom have residents terrified. Drug-crazed addicts eating shards of glass. People jumping off tall buildings. Superhuman “Hulks” overpowering police. These are allegedly the results of people high on “monkey dust,” a synthetic drug with effects similar to amphetamines that have become a scourge of small-town Britain. “I got into dust, monkey dust, lost everything, and now I’m on the floor,” said one addict, formerly employed as a plumber but now living in a tent. “I’m still taking dust. It’s all we do all day, rush around, try...

Drug Travels From Africa To Indianapolis In 48 Hours. Most residents of Indianapolis, including many in the law enforcement community, have never heard of the drug called khat...over the past three years, hundreds of pounds of the drug have been sold on the streets of Indianapolis, mostly to people of African descent... Khat is a plant that grows plentifully in east Africa, specifically in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Users chew the leaves of the plant to release a compound called cathinone, which is considered a "schedule 1" amphetamine and hallucinogen under U.S. law... traffickers used cell phones and sophisticated code...

1 hour, 42 minutes ago BERLIN (AFP) - Khat, a plant whose leaves are chewed as a mild drug in East Africa and the Gulf, contains chemicals that may boost male fertility, an international conference was told. Called by its Latin name of Catha edulis, khat has been known for centuries for inducing a sense of euphoria and, say some of its champions, also improves a man's sex drive and ability to sustain an erection. The stimulant in the leaves is called cathinone, which is swiftly broken down by enzymes into cathine and norephedrine, part of a group of chemicals...

A 30-year-old man faces charges in Maine's first trial for smuggling khat, a stimulant popular in Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, today in U.S. District Court in Portland. Differing views of the substance present a cultural divide for authorities and some members of Maine's growing immigrant communities. While the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency lists khat in the same category as cocaine or heroin, users say it is as mild as coffee, and just as harmless. On trial is Abdigani Hussein, who was arrested in April when he tried to collect 60 pounds of khat, a green leafy material, at a local...