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Bloodhound, a cocktail bar in San Francisco's SoMa neighborhood, closed for good on Jan. 18, the owner said. | Source:Courtesy BloodhoundA San Francisco bar has permanently shut its doors after the pandemic slashed business in the neighborhood and emptied out Downtown offices, the owner said.The SoMa watering hole Bloodhound shut its doors for good on Thursday, according to co-owner Mike Goebel.Goebel said that since reopening after a one-year closure during the pandemic from March 2020 to March 2021, sales have been down 70% compared with before the pandemic."The business wasn't making money," Goebel said. "The neighborhood is just so...

A pill that could stop men from cheating could "potentially" soon be in the pipeline, following a new study by scientists. The study, published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, found that men with “hypersexual disorder” have “significantly higher” levels of oxytocin in their system. Oxytocin — often referred to as the “love hormone” — is produced by both men and women and helps fuel positive emotions, like other hormones such as dopamine and serotonin. It's also responsible for increasing levels of relaxation and trust. However, the study - which examined 64 men with hypersexual disorder,...

Former CIA Director Gina Haspel joined law firm King and Spalding. Her bio says: ... Haspel was in the UK during the beginnings of the Russiagate scandal against the candidate and then President Trump. President Trump did all he could to undo the corruption within the CIA: Haspel joins Rod Rosenstein who famously took over the DOJ under Jeff Sessions and ran the corrupt and criminal Russia collusion sham. Rosenstein signed a second scope memo to keep the investigation going even though there was no evidence to do so. This was all an illegal effort to remove President Trump from...

The Ancient Greeks and Romans used opium, marijuana, and other narcotics to relieve pain and induce sleep. They may have also enhanced rituals and enlivened banquets with hallucinogens.Drug Use in Ancient Greece and Rome | September 17, 2021 | toldinstone | 23:03

...researchers have found equipment used to prepare hallucinogenic drugs for sniffing, and dated them back to prehistoric South American tribes. Quetta Kaye, of University College London, and Scott Fitzpatrick, an archeologist from North Carolina State University, made the breakthrough on the Caribbean island of Carriacou. They found ceramic bowls, as well as tubes for inhaling drug fumes or powders, which appear to have originated in South America between 100BC and 400BC and were then carried 400 miles to the islands. While the use of such paraphernalia for inhaling drugs is well-known, the age of the bowls has thrown new light...

Russian archaeologist says Merv was origin of Zoroastrianism TEHRAN, June 10 (MNA) – Russian archaeologist Victor Sarianidi believes that Merv, a province in southern Turkmenistan, was the cradle of Zoroastrianism, the Persian service of Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported here Saturday. According to Sarianidi, his archeological team has recently discovered some Zoroastrians’ temples in the region. Each has two fire temples -- one was presumably used for religious ceremonies and one for cooking, he added. The temples date back to some 3,000 years BC, estimated the archaeologist. Sarianidi had already named the legendary land of Margush as the origin...

Archaeologist tells of digs in Central AsiaVictor Sariyiannidis has spent his life searching for traces of Greeks Findings from the royal Bactrian graves. A statuette of a goat, exquisitely fine work cast in gold, a gold ring engraved with a seated Athena and an inscription, and a gold clasp . These are just some of the 20,000 ancient pieces of jewelry Sariyiannidis unearthed at the site of Tilia Tepe in 1979 in what is now Afghanistan. By Effi Hadzioannidou - Kathimerini When Victor Sariyiannidis discovered the 20,000 pieces of gold jewelry in 1979 in Tilia Tepe in Afghanistan — an...

Archeologist says Central Asia was cradle of ancient Persian religion Fri Mar 18, 6:24 PM ET Science - AFP ATHENS (AFP) - The mysterious Margianan civilisation which flowered in the desert of what is now Turkmenistan some 4,000 years ago was the cradle of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, Greco-Russian archeologist Victor Sarigiannidis claimed here. He said the theory would provoke controversy amongst his fellow archeologists, but said his excavations around the site of Gonur Tepe have uncovered temples and evidence of sacrifices that would consistent with a Zoroastrian cult. The religion was founded by Zarathustra, a Persian prophet...

On Monday, during an interview with the Des Moines Register, 2020 presidential hopeful mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg said drug possession should not result in jail time. Buttigieg said, “Incarceration should not even be a response to drug possession. What I have seen is while there continues to be all kinds of harms associated with drug possession and use, it is also the case that we have created in an effort to deal with a public health problem, we have created an even bigger problem — a justice problem, and it’s own form of a health problem when...

Legalizing pot does not appear to encourage teen use and might actually discourage it, a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests. Researchers analyzed data from more than 1.4 million high school students between 1993 and 2017, collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for its Youth Risk Behavior survey. The results show teen pot use both before and after medical marijuana laws were adopted in 27 states, seven of which also legalized recreational marijuana during the survey period. Teen marijuana use didn’t change much after medical marijuana was legalized, they found. In states that legalized recreational use,...

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer threw down the gauntlet on Thursday for Michigan residents who are both sick of the state’s abysmal road conditions, and also not nearly high enough.“At its height, the taxes for marijuana will raise about $42 million dollar per year for infrastructure. We have a $2.5 billion dollar problem,” Whitmer said at the Mackinac Policy Conference, referencing the state’s 10% excise tax on its newly legalized recreational weed industry—a portion of which is allotted for infrastructure repairs. After explaining that she gets asked about using marijuana funds to fix the roads so often, she ordered her staff to crunch...

A meme posted to Facebook claimed that “nearly every state that has legalized [marijuana] has also legislated that you lose your right to own a gun if you are prescribed it, or buy it recreationally.”“Pot legalization is turning out to be a back-door way for the government to get you to voluntarily give up your gun rights,” reads the image.

A New Jersey board of education member is facing a call to resign Wednesday after video surfaced purportedly showing her trying to “manipulate” a police officer by exercising “civic privilege” after she was pulled over for speeding. The woman in the April 27 dash-cam video, who identifies herself as Stephanie Lawson-Muhammad, a South Orange and Maplewood Board of Education member, also is heard telling one of the town’s officers that she is “scared of cops because you guys hurt black people,” before calling the cop's boss a “skinhead.”... “Ma’am, do you want me to call an ambulance?” Horst asks her....

California would become the first state in the nation to legalize psychedelic mushrooms if a long-shot ballot initiative passes muster with voters next year. The measure is backed by a legalization activist who says he kicked his heroin habit with the help of a mushroom trip in Death Valley. It would exempt Californians over the age of 21 from a state law that criminalizes mushrooms containing psilocybin, the compound that gives some mushrooms psychedelic properties. […] … California is one of eight states where voters have legalized marijuana for recreational use, and Saunders said legalizing psilocybin-bearing mushrooms is the logical...

This Thursday, April 20, marks the annual unofficial holiday celebrated around the world by marijuana users. And this year, "4/20" will be observed while America's burgeoning legal cannabis industry sits at a crossroads. Public opinion polls indicate that support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high in the U.S., and November's election saw four new states vote to legalize recreational cannabis while another four states legalized medical pot. As a result, a majority of the U.S. population lives in a state with some access to legal marijuana. However, cannabis remains illegal on the federal level, and the new administration...

The psychedelic drug in “magic mushrooms” can quickly and effectively help treat anxiety and depression in cancer patients, an effect that may last for months, two small studies show. It worked for Dinah Bazer, who endured a terrifying hallucination that rid her of the fear that her ovarian cancer would return. And for Estalyn Walcoff, who says the drug experience led her to begin a comforting spiritual journey. The work released Thursday is preliminary and experts say more definitive research must be done on the effects of the substance, called psilocybin. But the record so far shows “very impressive results,”...

On July 15 in Durant, Oklahoma, President Obama announced ConnectHome, describing it as: … a new initiative with communities, the private sector, and federal government to expand high speed broadband to more families across the country. ConnectHome is aimed at low-income areas with little broadband uptake, expanding several earlier federal programs. The headlines are about connecting the poor to the modern convenience of the internet, but they don’t mention who’s paying for it. As with most federal programs, you are. Is ConnectHome worth the costs, and what are they? So far, the ConnectHome website is thin on details. (It’s even...

The national marijuana legalization debate is moving into the backyard of a Republican-controlled Congress, now that the District of Columbia has voted to legalize growing, possessing and sharing small amounts of pot. Voters in Oregon and Alaska also approved legalization initiatives, joining Colorado and Washington state, where pot is already legally available. But while states out West enjoy both autonomy and distance, federal lawmakers have the power to quash any District law they don’t like. And with legalization getting a foothold on the East Coast for the first time, the District’s initiative could force Congress to make decisions affecting the...

America is doped up—and drunk. According to a shocking new report from the Health and Human Services Department, there were 24.6 million people aged 12 or older who used illicit drugs during just one month last year. “That’s enough people to fill every major league baseball stadium in the U.S. 19 times,” said the report. There are 30 MLB stadiums. Even worse: Of the 24.6 million dopers, 2.2 million were adolescents aged 12 to 17. …

The GOP-controlled House voted early Friday in favor of blocking the federal government from interfering with states that permit the use of medical marijuana. The somewhat surprising 219-189 vote came as the House debated a bill funding the Justice Department’s budget. The amendment by conservative GOP Rep. Dana Rohrabacher of California—the first state to legalize medical marijuana—came as almost half the states have legalized marijuana for medical uses, such as improving the appetites of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. …