Free Republic

New psychoactive drugs are appearing on the market at the rate of about one a week as Europeans seek “legal highs,” a job made easier by the large rise in online drug retailers. 57 new substances have already been detected this year, up from 49 in 2011 and 41 in 2010, according to a report published on Thursday (15 November) by the Lisbon-based European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamines continue to be the main stimulants, but they are competing with a growing number of emerging synthetic drugs. … Three natural products—kratom, salvia and...

Have been leisurely enjoying listening, to a well run classic rock station this evening, long ago having concluded radio is far more reality-based than Hollyweird. (stop)

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Former Pink Floyd lead singer Roger Waters narrated a United Nations film about Palestinian difficulties caused by the security fence. The 15-minute film opened Wednesday to mark the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice's opinion that the fence's route is illegal, the French news agency AFP reported. Waters wrote the lyrics to the Pink Floyd album "The Wall." Israel says the wall almost completely stopped Palestinian suicide attacks during the second intifada. The Palestinians charge that the fence cuts off Palestinian farmers from their land and will prohibit them from forming a state in the...

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Russian investigators said Arab operatives linked to Al Qaida played a major role in the takeover of a Russian school in which 400 people were killed. Russian officials said authorities have determined that 10 of the 32 suicide attackers who took over a high school in Beslan in North Ossetia last week were nationals from several Arab countries. Most of the attackers were Chechens and Ingush who had been trained at Al Qaida camps in Afghanistan. The 10 Arab nationals came from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Syria, officials said. They said security forces seized notebooks in Arabic in the school...

Laid-Off Zoologist Goes On Tranquilizing Rampage SAN DIEGO—Twelve San Diego Zoo visitors and two employees were brutally sedated Monday, when laid-off zoologist Dr. Brian Vermeer, 41, returned to his former place of work armed with a tranquilizer gun and began firing into a crowd. "It was kind of horrible," said Maria Christopher, 44, who witnessed the tranquilizing spree. "People were gently falling asleep over the course of 20 to 30 seconds everywhere." The spree ended when Vermeer turned his gun on himself, knocking himself out for half an hour.