For the first time in history, more than one in every 100 adults in America is in jail or prison, according to a new report released Thursday. The report by the Pew Center on the States’ Public Safety Performance Project said 2,319,258 adults were held in American prisons or jails at the beginning of 2008, which is one out of every 99.1 adults. That's more than any other country in the world. ... One in 30 men between the ages of 20 and 34 is behind bars, according to recent U.S. Department of Justice data, which also shows that men are about 13 times more likely to be incarcerated than females. However, the data shows, the female population is expanding at a faster pace. ... The report said the United States leads the world in incarcerations, far ahead of more populous China with 1.5 million people behind bars. full story

That last part is the most telling. The United States has more people behind bars than China. Not just more people per capita, more people period. It's beyond shameful how many people in the "Land of the Free" aren't free.

California ground squirrels and rock squirrels chew up rattlesnake skin and smear it on their fur to mask their scent from predators, according to a new study by researchers at UC Davis. Barbara Clucas, a graduate student in animal behavior at UC Davis, observed ground squirrels (Spermophilus beecheyi) and rock squirrels (Spermophilus variegates) applying snake scent to themselves by picking up pieces of shed snakeskin, chewing it and then licking their fur. Adult female squirrels and juveniles apply snake scent more often than adult males, which are less vulnerable to predation by snakes, Clucas said. The scent probably helps to mask the squirrel's own scent, especially when the animals are asleep in their burrows at night, or to persuade a snake that another snake is in the burrow. full story

These squirrels are amazing: hot tails and perfume!

Found via dkmnow in _psychmedfree_ and antipsychiatry:

People diagnosed with schizophrenia who are not on antipsychotics are more likely to experience recovery than those taking the medication, according to an American study. Over 15 years, schizophrenia patients not on antipsychotics showed more periods of recovery than those taking antipsychotics, states a research paper in last month’s Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. Researchers reported that, after 10 years, 79% of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas 23% of those not on medication were psychotic. After 15 years, 65 per cent of patients on antipsychotics were psychotic, whereas only 28% of those not on medication were psychotic. ... The research was part-funded by America’s National Institute of Mental Health. full article

While I don't have schizophrenia, these results do not surprise me after my experiences with Geodon, Zyprexa, Risperdal, and Seroquel. At first I was a believer. I "felt better" when I took them.

Zyprexa was the first with it's horrible weight gain effects. Then came risperdal, then came seroquel, then Geodon. I was given Haldol inpatient a couple times, the only old school antipsychotic I've been on. It wasn't much different than the newer atypicals.

They all made me "feel better" at first. But, what "feeling better" really meant was not thinking. The major side effect of not thinking when you have mental problems is that you can never work through those problems. Working through problems of the mind requires thought, requires figuring out coping mechanisms and how to break old loops.

I definitely wouldn't say I'm perfect at this point, there's still progress I need to make, but I've made so much progress since I broke free of Geodon addiction. Much of what I'm working through now is the damage done by the psych drugs and not the problems I had initially. The point is, I'm able to improve despite my experience on psych drugs not because of it.

From a post by jeywolf in without_meds:

The smoke from burning marijuana leaves contains several known carcinogens and the tar it creates contains 50 percent more of some of the chemicals linked to lung cancer than tobacco smoke. A marijuana cigarette also deposits four times as much of that tar as an equivalent tobacco one. Scientists were therefore surprised to learn that a study of more than 2,000 people found no increase in the risk of developing lung cancer for marijuana smokers. "We expected that we would find that a history of heavy marijuana use--more than 500 to 1,000 uses--would increase the risk of cancer from several years to decades after exposure to marijuana," explains physician Donald Tashkin of the University of California, Los Angeles, and lead researcher on the project. But looking at residents of Los Angeles County, the scientists found that even those who smoked more than 20,000 joints in their life did not have an increased risk of lung cancer. full article

With the recent debunking of the marijuana kills brain cells myth, there is now no known health risks associated with marijuana. With the legalized status of alcohol, it is obvious that simply being an intoxicant is not sufficient to warrant prohibition. What is more, alcohol has many well known and verified health risks, is known to dramatically increase violence, and is physically addictive; all of which make it a much more dangerous substance. There is simply no good reason for marijuana to be illegal at this point.

The crazed war on drugs is what has lead to the outrageously high levels of incarceration in the United States. In the in the 1920's United States prohibition of alcohol did not stop people from drinking, but instead lead to organized gangs of criminals terrorizing the inner city streets of places such as Chicago and New York, as well as creating a countryside full of producers and smugglers. Sound familiar? History tends to repeat itself. It's time to legalize marijuana and start focusing on real threats that we face today.

According to newly released statistics by the United States government, 1 out of every 136 U.S. residents are in prison and jails; the highest percentage on the globe.

That's sick enough, but almost 12% of black men aged 25-29 are prison or jail. The rate far beyond anything that happened in South Africa during apartheid. Anyone who would say that 12% of black men deserve to be in prison is not only an idiot but also a racist. There is no excuse for that. None.

Furthermore there are currently over 450,000 UNCONVICTED United States Citizens in jail awaiting trial dates in the slow and overburdened court system. There is no right to a speedy trial, no due process, no protection from excessive bail. The constitution does not apply.

The great majority of the people in jail and prison are there for non-violent victimless crimes. The United States IS a police state NOW. Fascism is alive and well here, it just goes under the name "tough on crime". Freedom is a joke in the United States. A fucking joke. When do we storm the Bastille?

Understanding the meaning behind a person's posture or body movement comes easily to many people and helps guide how we react to others socially. But people with schizophrenia, even those who have mild to moderate symptoms and take medications, are not fluent in understanding body language, according to a University of Iowa-led study that included investigators Nirav Bigelow, Ph.D., Sergio Paradiso, M.D., Ph.D., and Nancy C. Andreasen M.D., Ph.D. The results appear in the April 2006 issue of Schizophrenia Research. Previous studies conducted by Paradiso and Andreasen showed that patients with schizophrenia have trouble deciphering emotion from human facial expressions. However, it was not well understood whether this perception problem extended to other socially relevant clues, said Sergio Paradiso, the study's corresponding author and assistant professor of psychiatry in the UI Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine. "As we interact with people, we make judgments that we're not consciously aware of," Paradiso said. "If we see a coworker hunched over and don't see his face, we may approach him cautiously because we think something might be wrong and perhaps we can help. We don't see the face, but we glean information from the body language. People with schizophrenia are not as good at extracting this kind of information to guide their social interactions." The study included 14 people without schizophrenia and 20 people with schizophrenia who were taking medication and had mild to moderate symptoms. "Unfortunately, standard treatment for schizophrenia does not appear to be capable of improving perception that helps in being social with others," Paradiso said. The inability to perceive body language also appears unrelated to a person's level of intelligence. "Many people with schizophrenia, including those who are very bright, remain awkward in social situations," Paradiso added. full article

I don't see how they can come to their conclusions from their data. All the schizophrenic patients in the study were on medication. All of them. Antipsychotic medication is well known to cause cognitive impairments, and without studying non-medicated patients it is not impossible to tell if the cognitive problems described are caused by schizophrenia or if they are caused by the medication.

However, the psychopharmaceutical industrial complex strongly discourages studies involving unmedicated individuals that might call into question antipsychotic medications, calling such studies are "unethical". This makes it unlikely there will be true scientific studies on this subject until the current system is replaced.

Early research suggests a potential way to eradicate dormant HIV infection, scientists claim in the Lancet. A University of North Carolina team has shown valproic acid - used to treat bipolar disorder - can prevent HIV persisting in this latent phase. The findings may boost HIV treatment and be a step towards preventing HIV from being a chronic disease, they say. ... To test this concept, researchers studied four people with HIV who were already on HAART. They were given enfuvirtide (Fuzeon), which stops the virus entering healthy cells for up to six weeks, to give them added protection against HIV. A three-month, twice daily, course of valproic acid (valproate) was then added to their treatment. The researchers found a 75% reduction in latent HIV infection in three of the four patients over the period they were taking valproate. full article

Who'd have thought that depakote (valproic acid) might end up curing HIV. I hated depakote when they gave it to me at Bournewood. It's a very harsh mood stabilizer, definitely in the zombifying class of psych meds. It is also used as an anti-epileptic, but I hope at a different dosage. I still shudder when I hear it's name. It'll be interesting to see if this pans out, though I'm not to hopeful as so many potential "cures" and "vaccines" have gone nowhere.

A really shocking discovery.