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Why followers of Jesus shouldn’t smoke pot: former addict

June 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — I want to share my own convictions as to why followers of Jesus should not smoke pot. I encourage you to consider them prayerfully before the Lord.

First, for the sake of clarity and simplicity, I’m not addressing the issue of the medical use of marijuana, as prescribed by a responsible doctor. While it’s possible these subjects are related, I’m focusing here on the recreational use of marijuana.

Second, I speak from personal experience, both as a follower of Jesus and as a former pot smoker.

In short, I was a heavy drug user from 1969 to 1971, earning the nicknames “Drug Bear” and “Iron Man” in the process. The drugs I used included pot, hash, ups, downs, LSD, mescaline, speed, heroin, and (very briefly, right before I got saved) cocaine.

Many of my friends, colleagues, and former ministry school students were drug users, too, some heavily and some lightly. But we hold the same views today about Christians smoking (or ingesting) pot.

In short, you cannot “be sober and alert” and smoke pot at the same time. Yet God’s Word calls us to the former.

Peter wrote, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8, NIV).

When you smoke pot, even a little, your mind gets into a more relaxed state, a state of lowered alertness and lower sobriety. It’s called “getting high” for a reason.

You might think it enhances your thinking or creativity or spirituality, but in reality, it is bringing you into a less sober state of mind, one in which your ability to respond rapidly and critically is actually lessened. So, you might be more “creative,” but not in a holy and godly way.

Yet a recent headline on Christian Post announced, “XXXchurch Pastor Craig Gross promotes ‘Christian Cannabis,’ says weed makes it easier to worship.”

The pastor, Craig Gross, explained, “I’ve never lifted my hands in a worship service ever, ’cause I was raised Baptist. … I’ve done that in my bathroom worshiping with marijuana by myself.”

Ironically, it’s for this same reason that some strippers get high before performing or some actors have a few drinks before engaging in a sex scene. The drugs or drink loosen them up and relax them, helping to remove their inhibitions.

But this is the opposite of spiritual liberty. It has nothing to do with holiness, and it is totally unrelated to worship. (The real shame here is that Pastor Gross has fought against the use of porn for many years. Yet Christians who get high will find their ability to resist sexual sin lessened as well.)

Before I knew Jesus, I received incredible spiritual “revelations” while tripping on LSD or mescaline, especially when combined with huffing diesel gas. I even discovered the secret of the universe!

All of this was from below, not from above. All of this was deception.

We should also factor in that pot remains a gateway drug, opening the door to more serious drug abuse over time. Is it any surprise that Denver has now voted to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms after Colorado legalized cannabis in 2014?

Even if you never went beyond pot after years of personal use, the moment you advocate it, you open the door to others. Is that wise?

I’ve also been told repeatedly that pot today is not like the pot I once smoked. It’s much more potent and dangerous. And the very real, not exaggerated, dangers of marijuana use have been documented by Alex Berenson in his bestselling book Tell Your Children: The Truth About Marijuana, Mental Illness, and Violence.

As the blurb states, this “eye-opening report from an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drug — facts the media have ignored as the United States rushes to legalize cannabis.”

Bad roots will produce bad fruit. Just give things enough time.

According to a report from SF Gate, “With some marijuana products averaging 68 percent THC — exponentially greater than the pot baby boomers once smoked — calls to poison control centers and visits to emergency rooms have risen. In the Denver area, visits to Children’s Hospital Colorado facilities for treatment of cyclic vomiting, paranoia, psychosis and other acute cannabis-related symptoms jumped to 777 in 2015, from 161 in 2005.”

Significantly, “The increase was most notable in the years following legalization of medical sales in 2009 and retail use in 2014, according to a study in the Journal of Adolescent Health published in 2018.”

In the words of psychiatrist Libby Stuyt, who treats teens in southwestern Colorado and has studied the health impacts of high-potency marijuana, “Horrible things are happening to kids. I see increased problems with psychosis, with addiction, with suicide, with depression and anxiety.”

And while the effects on adults might not always be as extreme (or, as quickly noticed), it is clear that anything this harmful to teens can hardly be beneficial to adults.

Paul exhorted the believers in Ephesus, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18, ESV).

In the same way, he would urge us not to get high on drugs, but rather to be filled with the Spirit.

Of course, I’m quite aware that the response of many would be, “But that’s the whole point. Just as we can drink alcohol in moderation, we can smoke pot in moderation.”

My response would be 1) it’s an unnecessary crutch; 2) it still removes your full sobriety; 3) it opens the door to more intense pot use, along with the use of other drugs; 4) it creates another fleshly habit in your life.

For two years, day and night, my life centered on drugs and rock music, and I got as high as humanly possible without dying, once taking enough hallucinogenic drugs for 30 people. (I am only alive and in God’s service by His grace and mercy!) And in the months before coming to faith in Jesus, I smoked pot morning, noon, and night. It became a constant part of my life.

Yet when I truly experienced the joy of the Lord, which then revealed the depths of His love to me, I said to Him on the spot, “I will never put a needle in my arm again!” And I was free from that day (December 17, 1971) until today.

Two days after that, while smoking hash with friends, I realized that the Lord didn’t want me to get high in any way. And the rest is history.

So, before you get high (whether for the first time or again), ask yourself these questions: Is this light or darkness? Is this feeding my spirit or my flesh? Is this exalting Jesus or opening the door to the enemy?

Be wise, and sober, my friend. And be filled with the Holy Spirit. There is nothing like it. (Click to Source)

 

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Seattle homeless crisis: Historic cemetery overrun with drugs and prostitution amid worsening problem

By Liam Quinn | Fox News

Seattle’s homeless crisis has reached such catastrophic levels that a north-side cemetery has become home to drug abuse, drug dealing and prostitution.

Bikur Cholim Cemetery board member and city council candidate Ari Hoffman detailed the desperate effort to fight the epidemic and placed blame for how bad it has gotten squarely on the local government.

“The city council, city elected officials failed our city. They created a haven where it is OK for people to die on the streets through drug use, and to live on the streets people who have a mental illness,” Hoffman told “Fox & Friends.” “They are not offering treatment solutions, and they are failing us.

Hoffman added: “Through 2013, the homeless population was relatively stable. And then what happened after that is it grew… because the policies they had enabled drug use behavior. It’s just absolutely tragic that we have people who are living inside of a cemetery, that are dealing drugs outside of a cemetery, and are running prostitution in a cemetery, but you see it on the streets all over Seattle.”

Hoffman, who is running for city council, then took aim at “non-performing non-profits” for not doing enough to combat the crisis and revealed what he believes is the first step to turn back the tide.

“You have to wonder where the money goes, the first thing we need to do is audit where all that money is going. There’s plenty of money, the city’s coffers are full, the money is just not being spent appropriately,” he told “Fox & Friends.” “According to Seattle’s own numbers, 78 percent of people want to be off heroin. They don’t want to have addiction problems, they want treatment. Unfortunately there just aren’t enough services – there aren’t enough mental health options for them… we need to make sure those services are available for people on the streets.”

Groundskeepers frequently find trash and other debris at the cemetery. 

Groundskeepers frequently find trash and other debris at the cemetery.  (Ari Hoffman)

Cemetery groundskeepers have had to deal with cleaning up everything from used needles to human feces, according to a representative.

Cemetery groundskeepers have had to deal with cleaning up everything from used needles to human feces, according to a representative. (Ari Hoffman)

Hoffman went on to paint a dire picture of the scene at the historic Bikur Cholim Cemetery.

“They find needles, they find drugs, they find human feces all over the place and they have to clean it all up,” he said. “Our grounds-crew has been pricked by needles before, they’ve been assaulted by people they found living there, they’ve found people on the ground overdosed thinking they were dead.”

Federal data released in 2018 found Washington state’s homeless population had risen more than any other state in the country.

Seattle, King County, had a homeless population of 12,112 — the third highest in the country behind Los Angeles and New York City. (Click to Source)

 
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These Maps Show America In Great Despair As Our Nation Turns Away From God: Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Had Warned The Turning Away From God Would Lead To ‘End Times’

By Stefan Stanford – All News Pipeline – Live Free Or Die

June 20, 2019

According to this incredibly sad June 12th story over at NBC News, death rates in America from suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol related causes have reached an all-time high here, with this new report released by the Commonwealth Fund examining data from all 50 US states finding the states of Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania particularly hard hit.

Reporting that these so-called ‘deaths of despair‘ are exploding across the country with the rate of overdose deaths from drugs in West Virginia called ‘mind boggling‘, the NBC News story contained 3 different maps which we’ve put into this story, maps which show just how many people are dying from these preventable deaths and hinting that there are very few possible long lasting solutions to all of the different crisis our nation now faces: America’s return to God. Or the Return of Jesus.

As we had reported on ANP back in January of 2018, America has been suffering a huge spiritual vacuum as the masses turn away from God and have instead embraced evil and as the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, has warned numerous times that if the world continued upon the path that it is now on, the world was approaching ‘end times‘. First, from NBC news.

“When we look at what’s going on in mid-Atlantic states — West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania — those are the states that have the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the country,” David Radley, a senior scientist for the Commonwealth Fund, said.

Rates in those states are at least double the national average of fatal drug overdose rates. West Virginia had the highest drug overdose death rates, fueled mostly by the opioid epidemic. What’s more, those rates rose by 450 percent from 2005 to 2017, according to the report.

“The rate of growth in drug overdose deaths in West Virginia is absolutely mind-boggling,” Radley told NBC News.

It’s not just prescription painkillers and heroin that are driving these death rates. The study authors also point to fentanyl and other potent synthetic opioids that are creeping into illicit drugs such as cocaine. Fentanylis similar to morphine, but 50 to 100 times more potent, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Following West Virginia, the District of Columbia, Kentucky, Delaware and New Hampshire had the next highest drug overdose death rates in the country, according to the report.

Death rates from suicide and alcohol also showed regional disparities. People died at higher rates by suicide or from alcohol than from drugs in Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Oregon and Wyoming.

suicide_rates_in_America.png
Just a few months ago, I received one of those phone calls that one never wants to receive.

My mother was calling to let me know that a friend I had grown up with during the early 1980’s had passed away.

While I’ll always remember a huge number of us sitting around with ‘Ed‘, watching every Clint Eastwood movie ever created as Eastwood’s characters were the embodiment of who ‘Ed‘ wanted to be, I was further saddened to learn in the phone call with my mom that ‘Ed‘ had committed suicide, taken his own life at a time in America where our nation was suffering from record numbers of suicide all across the country. None of us would have ever seen it in ‘Ed‘.

Yet as Mac Slavo also reports in this new story over at SHTFPlan, America is now witnessing a massive surge in ‘deaths of despair‘; suicides, deaths from drugs and deaths due to alcohol, and as we’ll see in the excerpt below taken from his new story, all of this is happening at a time when the government had abandoned America, funnelling money away from the American people to themselves and putting trillions of dollars and great time and energy into creating their ‘global new world order‘. They’ve left the American people behind and this is what tens of millions have gotten in return.

In the United States, which is obviously not the happiest nation on Earth, Americans are committing suicide or “deaths of despair” in record numbers. There are many issues that can rightly take the blame, but lack of personal freedom and the manipulated economy are creating generations of hopelessness.

Feelings of hopelessness and despair are overwhelming many in the U.S. So much so, that people are turning to alcohol, drugs, and suicide to numb the pain of their lives. Government enslavement and the stranglehold on the economy are making life even more difficult on those already struggling to get by. And this is seen in new death numbers released.

According to a report by RT, the suicide rates among teens and young adults aged 15 to 24 (the older end of “Generation Z”) spiked in 2017, reaching their highest point since 2000, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). “Deaths of despair” have risen 51 percent in the past 10 years, buoyed by rising rates of anxiety and depression that comes along with social media use. Drug use, hopelessnesses, and a lack of free will are taking their toll on people. And the statistical figures may be even higher since some intentional drug overdoses are not counted as suicides.

The rise of millennial and Gen Z “deaths of despair” can be traced to the gap between reality and expectations. Raised on the myths of the American Dream and Freedom, these are the first Americans to experience a markedly lower standard of living than their parents and an increase in the authoritarian control on their lives. The Baby Boomers who grew prosperous on the fruits of the postwar economic boom had far more freedom and paid a loss in taxes that the newer generations, who have effectively sold their children and grandchildren into slavery.

Young people aren’t the only ones afflicted by suicide. Life expectancy nationwide is down for the third year in a row, and a report from Trust for America’s Health published last year projects that this “epidemic” – which they define as drug and alcohol deaths plus suicide – is on track to kill more than 1.6 million people by 2025 if it continues to grow at its current rate.

None of this will change until people are free to make their own decisions – including the bad ones – and the economy is no longer manipulated by the elitists who funnel money to themselves away from the masses.

drug_od_rates_in_America.png
As Fox News had reported back in April of 2017, America’s up and coming generation the Millennials are far less likely to hold religious beliefs than any other generation, with over 60% of that generation believing Christianity is too ‘judgemental‘ while 64% of Millennials claim that ‘anti-gay‘ was the best way to describe most churches in America today.

As FaithWire had reported back in April of 2019, while 77% of Americans believe that America is suffering from a ‘moral crisis‘ according to a Pew Research poll, Americans were still turning away from God in near record numbers. From their story.:

Our nation’s moral compass is spinning out of control, and it will only get worse as we continue to turn away from True North.

A recent survey from the Pew Research Center shows a stunning 77 percent of Americans are at least “fairly worried” about the country’s morals, with 43 percent describing themselves as “very worried.” But despite their concern, 50 percent of everyone surveyed said religion — the source of absolute truth and morality — will be “less important” in 30 years. Forty-three percent said faith will be equally important in 2050 as it is today.

The survey also showed 56 percent of Americans believe faith in God is not necessary to have good values and to be moral.

Interestingly, I think that number reveals something quite incredible: God’s general revelation and His imprint on humanity is so strong, we don’t even need to believe in Him to see His impact on the world. The problem, though, is the longer we separate truth — the absolute morality of right and wrong — from the source of all truth, the sooner our moral compass will come apart completely.

Yet as we had reported on ANP back on June 8th in this story titled “With The World Teetering At The Edge Of The Abyss, Nearly At The Point Of No Return, The Implementation Of The Globalists ‘Total Control’ System Is Ripping Out The Heart And Soul Of America“, with America’s smaller communities quite literally dying as the Survival Blog had reported in this June 19th story which Steve Quayle had linked to on his website Wednesday, America needs a ‘Revival‘ and there has never been a more important time than now for us to rise up and fight to restore America’s soul.

alcohol_deaths.png

Back in January of 2018, we published this story on ANP titled “‘We Are On A Very Dangerous Path Of Self-Annihilation’ Warns Head Of Russian Orthodox Church: ‘If Evil Prevails, End Times Will Be Upon Us‘” within which we shared a dire warning from the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, that the world was approaching ‘end times‘, largely due to the normalization and global acceptance of evil.

Patriarch Kirill warned back then that evil was driving away the good from society and while warning that the world was on a very dangerous path towards self-annihilation, he also said its the church’s duty to warn of what they see unfolding.

As Patriarch Kirill stated, never before have evil and righteousness been put upon the same level as we are witnessing now and the Patriarch issues this firm warning, “if evil prevails, the end times will be upon us.”

When asked about the apocalypse and if ‘the end is near’ and what would bring about such a scenario, Patriarch Kirill tells us “In the case when the human society stops to be viable, when the resources to exist will be exhausted which would happen in the case when we have absolute dominance of evil”. Warning us that evil is not viable and in cases where systems are taken over by evil, those systems will fall, Kirill continues “If evil drives away good from human society, then the end will come”.

When asked by the interviewer “why do we have to talk about this today?”, Patriarch Kirill replies “Because we are now living through a special period in history. Never before did human society put good and evil on the same level. There were attempts to justify evil but never to say that good and evil are relative and not absolute truths. People’s perception of good and evil was that they were absolute truth. But today they are relative. When can evil unrestrainedly grow in human society? EXACTLY when this point of view that good and evil are the same triumphs globally. And we are currently not at the beginning of this process but a certain amount of time has passed. History as we know it is exhausted, so how can the church keep silent? How can it avoid sending up an alarm? How can it avoid warning that we are on a very dangerous path of self-annihilation? If the church will not say this than who will?” 

Yet, should we really even be surprised about all of these ‘deaths of despair‘ coming at a time when Western Civilization is itself committing ‘suicide‘ as we hear in the final video at the bottom of this story from Infowars? It’s clear that a huge spiritual vacuum has struck America and only America returning to God will get our nation out of the mess we’re in.

And with the mainstream media helping to push America into mass insanity with their lies and fake news triggering ‘Trump derangement syndrome‘ and great panic among many Democrats, should they be held responsible for the mass explosion of ‘deaths of despair‘ across America? Those who are still getting their news from the mainstream media, and believing their never-ending lies, are setting themselves up for a major fall ahead as truth finally comes to light.

In the first video below, videographer Martin Brodel talks with us about the soaring ‘deaths of despair‘ amongst ‘Generation Z‘ and the Millennials while the 2nd video below from the Wall Street Journal originally published back in February of 2018 warned that the growing number of ‘deaths of despair‘ were a very loud and clear warning sign for America, a warning we now see coming true before our eyes: America is on the edge of disaster.

(Click to Source)

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New beginning for Lake County Drug Court graduates

These young men need the Gospel of Jesus to be free from Addiction

  • Lailani Upham

Lake County Judicial Court Drug Court Judge James Manley shares a laugh with Drug Court graduates and CSKT members, Bradley Cannon, 22, and Dale Joseph of Elmo. Graduates completed the yearlong day-to-day program. “It was hard in the beginning,” said Joseph. He added that the past four months got easier. “I’m so happy now. I didn’t really think I’d do this.” Joseph was proud to announce he received his driver’s license a week before graduation. His plan is to complete his HiSet test and work for the Tribes. Cannon said he kept his mind set on “not giving up” and praises the support he got from the program team and his family. “The counselors really cared,” said Cannon. The next step for him is to get a job wild land firefighting. (Click to Source)

Recovery Room 7 is a community of people with similar backgrounds, where people from all walks of drug & alcohol recovery can meet together, share, socialize, interact, join in fun activities, share meals, pray and learn. It’s a place of joy and awakening to their true purpose in life. Jesus Christ is always present and ready to receive everyone in Recovery Room 7. We will be located in beautiful Northwest Montana. If you would like to donate to get Recovery Room 7 up and running, please go to our PayPal Donation Link here.

 

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Prescription drugs in America are completely USELESS for long-term health “fixes”

Monday, May 20, 2019 by: S.D. Wells

(Natural News) When a medical doctor prescribes drugs for symptoms, those warning signs may “go away” for a short while, but the root of the problem always festers. That’s because nearly all medications are chemically concocted in a laboratory and then “assigned” to bad health symptoms, and are doing nothing more than sweeping the “dust” and “germs” of serious problems “under the rug.”

Sooner or later, those real health issues will rear their ugly heads, and the next piece of advice won’t be so non-invasive, my friends, because after the prescription drugs fail you comes surgery and/or chemotherapy, psychotropic drugs, and eventually, if you live and can suffer long enough through all that, dementia sets in. That’s the final “financial” and mental avalanche.

The AMA (American Medical Association) has been making sure, in America, for 100 years, that medical doctors offer zero nutritional advice to their patients, and only prescribe “medications” that are laboratory created. This ensures any person with chronic health conditions will not ever recover, and become a client for life (a shortened life at that). That was the end game from the very beginning, and the FDA and CDC play right into that arena like a tri-fecta of partners in crime.

Prescription pharmaceuticals quite simply don’t work – how much more obvious could it be?

Half the country takes at least one of pharma’s “prescription” poisons daily. Did you know? That includes one in every five children. If ANY of those drugs really worked, wouldn’t THEY be the healthy half? Think about that real hard for a minute, after you mute the commercial on TV that says the side effects are worse than the condition being treated. That’s hundreds of billions of dollars wasted on drugs that don’t work. Wow.

Notice how they turn up the commercials on TV so you can hear them from the kitchen while you’re eating that genetically mutated food, drinking that tap water, and wondering why your other medications aren’t working, even though you take them exactly “as prescribed.”

Wait, the cholesterol medications is just quack remedy? What’s that – your heart medication is making you dizzy? So you’re saying the blood thinner can cause you to die of internal bleeding if you simply bump your head? That’s not “natural.”

Your M.D. is a snake oil salesman. A huckster. A con artist. A shill. He knows that lab-concocted junk isn’t going to cure you. That’s why Allopath only checks your symptoms and conditions, but never questions what you ate the past day, month, or year.

Why is it that nearly all people who don’t take pharmaceuticals ARE healthy, or at least in much better “condition” than those who do? Pharma “users” are involuntary abusers, and they never get cured of anything. Oh the irony.

The LONG TERM down and dirty prescription drug effects on the mind, body, and soul

Some acute health conditions do require “Western” medicine’s help, but those cases are literally rare when you look at the statistics. Nature provides antibiotics. Nature provides anti-viral “serum.” Nature provides immune system boosters. You can even beat the flu with things like oil of oregano, but no M.D. in America can ever say that, or the AMA will “remove” them from their station.

Sure, there are situations that require high-strength pain killers, anesthesia during operations, antibiotics for critical-stages of bacterial infections, and a handful more situations, but those are always acute illnesses. Even infectious diseases are better treated with natural remedies, and it’s obvious from the propaganda the vax-fanatics spread and spew in their “herds” of desperation and narrative-based fear.

Then there’s opioid abuse. Those long-term health crises include depressed breathing, which eventually just becomes cessation of breathing, which then gets termed “overdose” by the CDC and FDA. Can you say financial settlement and media blackout?

Opioid addicts discover their dependence (even in the brain) and tolerance for the drugs happens in just days after beginning the “cycle” the quack doctor recommended “just for you.” Your pill-pusher is a good actor. She/he’s very “nice.”

Anti-anxiety medications and depression medications are no different. Neither are stimulant meds. They all breed dependence, tolerance, and eventually, total uselessness. Actually, beyond useless, because the prescription drugs do REAL chronic health damage all while decreasing any effectiveness they may have once had.

From statin drugs to asthma meds, and from anti-depressants to amphetamines for kids, American medicine is the worst on the planet, and it’s planned that way. The only reason 150 million Americans still take them is they’re too dumbed-down and sick to figure it out now. We’re a nation of “prescribed” druggies. The kids and the seniors are doped to the max. Americans have lost their “drive” or spirit to work, to save money, to create, to run their own business, to stay prepared, to seek longevity. But not all of us. You have the choice to be healthy. You really do. You have complete control.

Tune in to NaturalCures.news for updates on the most powerful superfoods on the planet that will cure you of all these preventable ills, and you can help us expose the long-term health detriment being spoon-fed to America under the guise of “medicine.” (Click to Source)

Sources for this article include:

TheGoodDrugsGuide.com

NaturalNews.com

NaturalCures.news

Carvacrol.co

TruthWiki.org

 
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FDA: Big Pharma Drugs Are Making People Kill Themselves While They Sleep

By Mac Slavo

Sleeping drugs such as Ambien have been making people kill themselves in their sleep, says the Food and Drug Administration.  Drugs that supposedly help people sleep are linked to falls, burns, poisoning, limb loss, drowning, and even suicide.

According to The New York Times, this could all be solved by adding warning labels to the bottles of the pills instead of people trying to get off Big Pharma’s drugs.

Incidents related to sleeping pills have included “accidental overdoses, falls, burns, near drowning, exposure to extreme cold temperatures leading to loss of limb, carbon monoxide poisoning, drowning, hypothermia, motor vehicle collisions with the patient driving, and self-injuries such as gunshot wounds and apparent suicide attempts,” according to the FDA’s own research. But rather than tell people not to use such drugs, the FDA simply wants people to know they could kill themselves after taking the pills.

The FDA announced Tuesday that a prominent warning would be required on all medication guides for Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata, and the generic version of Ambien, which is called zolpidem. The FDA also mandates a separate warning against prescribing the drugs to anyone with a history of sleepwalking. –Futurism.

That’s a lovely side effect…

“Patients usually did not remember these events,” the agency wrote, according to Futurism. Bizarre actions have been widely reported after using sleeping pills, and the FDA has warned about this in the past – 12 years ago, in fact. That means this isn’t exactly new information.  Big Pharma’s drugs have been problematic for quite some time now, but it is comforting to see others take note of just how disastrous some of these medications can be to humanity.

Some have expressed their surprise at the FDA’s admission that these pills may not be all that safe for people to use. “I am surprised to see this warning come out now,” University of Pennsylvania physician Ilene Rosen told The NYT.

This is something I’ve been telling my patients for the last 15 years, and in the sleep community, this is well known. And I’d like to think we’ve done a good job putting the news out there, that these drugs have some risks.

But all drugs have risks; hopefully, people will begin to realize that medications simply treat the symptom not the underlying problem that caused the issue to begin with.  Western medicine is about management, not treatment. And it isn’t just Ambien and sleeping drugs humanity should be worried about; it’s all the drugs pushed on the public every single day.

Ben Goldacre’s book Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients is great at explaining the dilemma we as a society have found ourselves in. We like to imagine that regulators have some code of ethics and let only effective drugs onto the market, when in reality they approve useless drugs, with data on side effects casually withheld from doctors and patients. This book shows the true scale of this murderous disaster. Goldacre believes we should all be able to understand precisely how data manipulation works and how research misconduct in the medical industry affects us on a global scale. (Click to Source)

 

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Feds: A popular drug from the disco era is making a deadly return

Today’s narcotics abusers may be turning to cocaine in part “because there’s been a lot of bad press about other drugs.”

By Corky Siemaszko

 

The bitter lessons about the dangers of cocaine from the disco era in the 1970s may be lost on a new generation of drug abusers.

A phenomenon known as “generational forgetting” may be one of the reasons for the deadly uptick in cocaine deaths that the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week, experts said.

“Certain drugs seem to go in and out of style,” Daniel Raymond, deputy director of the Harm Reduction Coalition, said. “Right now we’re seeing an uptick in cocaine use, and we’re hitting that point in the cycle where we’re starting to see more fatal overdoses.”

“Absolutely, there is a generational piece to this,” said Hans Breiter, a Northwestern University psychiatry professor and one of the world’s leading experts on how cocaine stimulates the human brain.

Today’s narcotics abusers may be turning to cocaine in part “because there’s been a lot of bad press about other drugs,” Breiter said.

Just like the generation that dealt with the horrors of AIDS was followed by another that was less afraid of the scourge and thus more likely to have unprotected sex, today’s drug users aren’t afraid of cocaine like they should be, he said.

“We see this kind of forgetting in politics all the time, for example,” he said. “People resurrecting ideas like trickle-down economics, even though it’s been pretty much invalidated.”

On Thursday, the CDC reported that overdose deaths involving cocaine began rising around 2012 and jumped by more than a third between 2016 and 2017.

CDC researchers also found that almost three-quarters of the deaths involving cocaine in 2017 were among people who had also taken opioids.

But deaths involving cocaine alone also increased, said the CDC’s Lawrence Scholl, who was one of the study’s authors.

That could be because there’s more cocaine on the streets, Raymond, of the Harm Reduction Coalition, said.

“We have a greater supply of cocaine now than we did 10 years ago,” he said. “My understanding is production had fallen off in Colombia and it has been increasing again.”

Sheila Vakharia of the Drug Policy Alliance wrote in an email “there is definitely something to be said for cyclical theories of drug use because when we focus a lot of time/energy/resources on restricting the ‘drug du jour’ it opens the market for alternative drugs and encourages suppliers to diversify.”

Of late, the drug du jour wreaking havoc across America has been opioids, which have killed tens of thousands nationwide, with the addiction cutting like a scythe through states such as West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and the District of Columbia, according to the CDC.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration also reported in its National Drug Threat Assessment last year that cocaine availability has increased steadily in the United States since 2012, especially on the East Coast and in the South.

According to the CDC report, 10,131 out of the 13,942 cocaine-involved deaths (almost 73 percent) also involved an opioid.

Heroin is an opioid made from morphine. But drug dealers have been boosting profits by cutting their drugs with synthetic opioids like fentanyl, which is 25 to 50 times more powerful than heroin.

Breiter said drug addicts often get high on something known on the street as a “speedball,” which is a combination of cocaine and heroin.

“People will use heroin to blunt the severity of coming down from the high of cocaine,” he said. “It can be quite severe.”

The problem is that when the heroin is cut with an opioid, it can make this drug cocktail even more lethal, the experts said.

Vakharia said there have been reports of drug dealers cutting cocaine with opioids and “cocaine users naïve to opioids are overdosing because they have no tolerance.” But neither she nor her colleagues at Drug Policy are convinced that is the case.

“It makes little sense,” she wrote. “Why would a seller want to kill off a customer.”

Raymond agreed that he didn’t believe that fentanyl-contaminated cocaine was intentional, given the opposing effects of the two drugs.

“We’re not seeing a huge trend of cocaine intentionally mixed with opioids like fentanyl,” he said. “Why? I think that’s probably because fentanyl is very sedating, cocaine is very stimulating.” (Click to Source)

Recovery Room 7 is a community of people with similar backgrounds, where people from all walks of drug & alcohol recovery can meet together, share, socialize, interact, join in fun activities, share meals, pray and learn. It’s a place of joy and awakening to their true purpose in life. Jesus Christ is always present and ready to receive everyone in Recovery Room 7. We will be located in beautiful Northwest Montana. If you would like to donate to get Recovery Room 7 up and running, please go to our PayPal Donation Link here.

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Prayer For Renouncing Drug & Alcohol Addiction

“In the name of Jesus the Messiah, I now repent of my involvement in the use of illegal and legal soul destroying drugs, and ask You, Abba Father, to forgive me for using them.  I repent of this sin of using alcohol, marijuana, addictive prescription drugs, cocaine, crack, acid, speed, heroin, meth, etc, to dull and cripple my will, my mind and sensibilities.  I only want to use my mind to serve and honor You, Lord.

“I speak now in the authority of the name of our Lord Jesus the Messiah, to all the strong-men and principalities over the drugs I took and declare that you have no power over me anymore, for I am bought and paid for by the Blood of Jesus shed on Calvary.  I especially come against the spirit of divination, and any other demonic spirits, which came into me though my use of drugs.  In the name of the Lord Jesus the Messiah, I bind you all present together.  I command you to go where the Lord Jesus the Messiah tells you to go by the voice of His Holy Spirit”.

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Costa Mesa files lawsuit against distributors and manufacturers of opioid pain medication

By LUKE MONEY – APR 11, 2019 | 5:15 PM

Costa Mesa is taking distributors and manufacturers of opioid pain medication to court in a bid to recoup tax dollars it alleges were spent as a result of the addiction epidemic that has afflicted communities coast to coast.

 

In a lawsuit filed March 29, the city argues that the businesses “intentionally flooded the market with opioids and pocketed billions of dollars in the process” while making “false statements designed to persuade both doctors and patients that prescription opioids posed a low risk of addiction.”

 

Such actions, the city alleges, “have not only caused significant costs but have also created a palpable climate of fear, distress, dysfunction and chaos among Costa Mesa residents where opioid diversion, abuse and addiction are prevalent and where diverted opioids tend to be used frequently.”

 

Opioids include powerful legal prescription painkillers such as hydrocodone, morphine and oxycodone.

 

The lawsuit names about a dozen distributors and manufacturers as defendants, including Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and certain members of the Sackler family that controls the company.

 

“This epidemic has personally touched the lives of many members of our community,” Mayor Katrina Foley said in a statement Thursday. “It’s time that we take action and put a halt to the lives being destroyed and the economic drain opioid addiction is placing on our community.”

 

Purdue Pharma spokesman Bob Josephson wrote in an emailed statement Thursday afternoon that the company “and the individual former directors of the company vigorously deny the allegations in the complaint and will continue to defend themselves against these misleading allegations.”

 

“The complaint is part of a continuing effort to try these cases in the court of public opinion rather than the justice system,” Josephson wrote. He added that he believes the complaint disregards or fails to note facts about Purdue’s prescription medications and pertinent federal regulations.

 

“Such serious allegations demand clear evidence linking the conduct alleged to the harm described, but we believe the city fails to show such causation and offers little evidence to support its sweeping legal claims,” he said.

 

In the suit, Costa Mesa alleges it has seen increased costs in myriad areas as a result of the opioid epidemic, including “medical and therapeutic care,” “counseling, treatment and rehabilitation services,” public safety and code enforcement.

 

A particularly pressing issue from the city’s perspective is the proliferation of local sober-living homes, which house recovering addicts, including those battling opioid dependence. Costa Mesa “has the largest concentration of sober-living homes in Orange County, creating a plethora of nuisance issues for residents, multiple calls for service by police and fire and millions of dollars in legal fees,” according to a city news release.

 

Also mentioned in the lawsuit is Costa Mesa fire Capt. Mike Kreza, who died in November after he was hit by a vehicle while riding his bicycle. The driver, Stephen Taylor Scarpa, 25, of Mission Viejo, was suspected of driving under the influence of drugs and has pleaded not guilty to one count of murder. Authorities allege he was in possession of pills prescribed by aTustin doctor who faces federal charges of illegally distributing opioids and other narcotics by writing prescriptions to people without medical examinations.

 

“Costa Mesa has been directly injured by the loss of Capt. Kreza, including costs for training and hiring a replacement, as well as pension and death benefits,” the lawsuit states. “These increased costs could have been — and should have been — prevented by the opioid industry.”

 

Lawsuits such as Costa Mesa’s have become increasingly common. Last month, Purdue and the Sackler family agreed to pay $270 million to the state of Oklahoma to settle claims that aggressive marketing of OxyContin helped create the addiction crisis, according to the

Associated Press. Nationwide, the company faces nearly 2,000 lawsuits, AP reported.

But Josephson said, “We believe that no pharmaceutical manufacturer has done more to address the opioid addiction crisis than Purdue, and we continue to work closely with governments and law enforcement agencies on this difficult social issue.” (Click to Source)

 

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Psilocybin and Magic Mushrooms: Next Health & Legalization Trend After Cannabis?

Psilocybin, the substance found in 200+ species of magic mushrooms, may be the next health and legalization trend after cannabis. Magic mushrooms have been used in many cultures all over the world for therapeutic and spiritual purposes. Many scientific studies and clinical trials have found positive evidence of their benefits to the human body, especially in the area of mental health. With the state of Oregon and the city of Denver (Colorado) about to vote on legalizing magic mushrooms later this year, will psilocybin become the next trend after cannabis?

Current Legal Status of Psilocybin in the USA

Like cannabis (marijuana), MDMA (Ecstasy or Molly), peyote and heroin, psilocybin is classified as a Schedule I drug. The definition of this category is substances with no medical use and the high potential for abuse. Possession of psilocybin mushrooms is a felony. Given the incredible benefits which magic mushrooms containing psilocybin offer mankind, this kind of classification is clearly ignorant, heavy-handed and contradictory. How can such benign substances as magic mushrooms be on the same level as the highly addictive, artificially manufactured and deadly heroin?

What the Science Says About Psilocybin

It turns out magic mushrooms are already being closely studied all over the world by many different scientists. So far, the science shows psilocybin bestows many health benefits. In a nutshell, scientific studies including pre-clinical and clinical trials show that psilocybin helps beat depression, anxiety, addiction and even cancer. On a higher level, it helps increase joy, peace and altruism. However, looking closely at the results provides even more insight.

Psilocybin for Autism, Asperger’s, ASD, Depression, Anxiety and PTSD

Autism rates are skyrocketing across the US, with many suspecting vaccines (thimerosal/mercury) and GMOs (glyphosate) as possible causes. Whatever the cause, it’s a serious neurological disorder. Asperger’s used to be considered its own disorder but was recently reorganized to come under the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and is now considered a mild form of autism. Asperger’s is characterized by a rigidity of thought and routine, and by a lack of empathy and social/emotional awareness. Interestingly enough, this is exactly what psilocybin can heal according to a recent January 2019 study, which found that psilocybin increased flexibility, creativity and empathy. Here’s what the author of the study Natasha Mason said:

“Examples of processes that have been found to be decreased in these pathologies include creative, flexible thinking and empathy. Specifically, individuals are characterized by repetitive and rigid patterns of negative and compulsive thoughts, as well as reduced empathic abilities. Thus we wanted to assess whether psilocybin enhanced these processes, and if so, how long effects lasted …We found that psilocybin, when taken in a naturalistic setting, increased aspects of creativity and empathy the morning after, and 7 days after use. Furthermore, psilocybin also enhanced subjective well-being. Interestingly, changes in well-being correlated with changes in empathy after psilocybin use.”

This also has implications for other mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD, as the study notes in its Introduction:

“Both creative, flexible thinking and empathy deficits have been found in stress-related psychopathologies like depression, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

Breaking Down the Ego and “Default Mode Network”

If you want to learn more about psilocybin and what science is beginning to show about its benefits and effects, check out the work of Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence. He discusses how psychedelics, contrary to a common misconception, actually make you more sane than crazy. This is because substances like psilocybin decrease the activity of a brain network called the default mode network, which is in charge of perception of self. Psilocybin halts the functioning of this network, thus allowing a space for new neural connections – a re-wiring of the brain.

Psilocybin: Naturally in Sync with Our Biology

Another person to check out is Dr. Roland Griffiths, Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at Johns Hopkins University. He has some online videos such as this one where he shows that psilocybin helps people release fear, old patterns and negative beliefs. On a higher level, it helps increase joy, peace and altruism. Studies have also found that it can engender mystical-type experiences in people which are identical to those that occur naturally, suggesting psilocybin is naturally in sync with our biology.

Further Evidence of Psilocybin’s Potential as a Healing Agent

Lastly, take a look at the studies reported here and here on Waking Times. The latter showed that psilocybin strongly helped patients with depression:

“Amazingly, after the participants were given two doses of psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg), with the second dose a week after the first – their brains showed pronounced, decreased blood flow to the areas of the brain implicated in depression. Researchers also found increased stability on parts of the brain related to depression – and these effects lasted up to five weeks.

The team described the immediate results of patients’ symptoms disappearing after the initial trip as an “afterglow” and a “disintegration” – with the compound also reintegrating brain networks afterward. The afterglow included marked improvements in mood and stress relief. Patients used a lot of computer metaphors to describe how their brains felt afterward – defragged, rebooted, and reset.”

Final Thoughts: Psilocybin is a Gift of Nature which will Hopefully Soon be Widely Legalized

Psilocybin has a long history of use across the world, especially among South American tribes (like the Aztecs, whose word for it was teonanacatl, which translates to “divine mushroom”). There are several prehistoric rock art drawings depicting psilocybin mushrooms, such as the one in Spain, near Villar del Humo, approximately 6,000 years old, another in Tassili n’Ajjer (a national park in the Sahara Desert, Algeria) which is around 7,000-9,000 years old, and the one pictured above from Guatemala. My prediction and hope is that it will become the next health and legalization trend after cannabis, which, for the USA, also started in Denver, Colorado. We shall see.

*****

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Makia Freeman is the editor of alternative media / independent news site The Freedom Articles and senior researcher at ToolsForFreedom.com, writing on many aspects of truth and freedom, from exposing aspects of the worldwide conspiracy to suggesting solutions for how humanity can create a new system of peace and abundance. Makia is on Steemit and FB.  (Click to Source)

Sources:

*https://psi-2020.org/

*https://ballotpedia.org/Denver,Colorado,_Psilocybin_Mushroom_Initiative(May_2019)

*https://www.psypost.org/2019/03/a-single-dose-of-psilocybin-enhances-creative-thinking-and-empathy-up-to-seven-days-after-use-study-finds-53283

*https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02791072.2019.1580804

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bu3q3GMHfE

*https://www.wakingtimes.com/2012/11/01/psilocybin-and-the-ego-centric-brain/

*https://www.wakingtimes.com/2017/10/16/psilocybin-appears-reset-brain-activity-depressed-patients-stunning-results/

 

Recovery Room 7 is a community of people with similar backgrounds, where people from all walks of drug & alcohol recovery can meet together, share, socialize, interact, join in fun activities, share meals, pray and learn. It’s a place of joy and awakening to their true purpose in life. Jesus Christ is always present and ready to receive everyone in Recovery Room 7. We will be located in beautiful Northwest Montana. If you would like to donate to get Recovery Room 7 up and running, please go to our PayPal Donation Linkhere.