Parkinson's is more common among the aging population and is marked by a widespread loss of dopamine-producing cells in the brain.

However, investigators from the Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry at University of Plymouth say that numerous studies have found cannabinoids to protect cells from Parkinson's-related damage.

Cannabinoids such as delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol [THC] are neuroprotective in animal and cell culture models of Parkinson's disease.

In the latest study, the team, led by Camille Carrol, Ph.D, identified a mechanism that appears to underlie these benefits.

Using established cell models, Dr. Carrol and colleagues found that THC could activate a specific pathway (PPAR-y) which previous studies have linked to protection in Parkinson's models. Activation of PPAR-ă is believed to increase the viability of cells by boosting mitochondria production.

The findings will appear in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

Delta9-THC induces PPARy dependent mitochondrial biogenesis, a mechanism that may be beneficial for the treatment of PD [Parkinson's disease].

The study also helps to explain the results of Dr. Carrol's previous work, which found THC to have a direct effect against cell injury in Parkinson's through its ''neuroprotective, antioxidant and anti-apoptotic'' activity.

While current treatments for Parkinson's cannot slow the progression of the disease, researchers have managed to slow the death of dopamine cells in animal models of Parkinson's using both THC and CBD.

But human trials need to be conducted before cannabinoid-based therapies may be used in clinical settings.

Sources of funding were not reported

Source: LeafScience.com

In a new study, researchers from Israel’s Tel Aviv University and the Weizmann Institute of Science found that CBD and THC helped reverse MS-like diseases in mice by preventing inflammation in the brain and spinal cord. Their results were published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology.

Study co-author Dr. Ewa Kozela explained how inflammation affects MS in a recent press release.

Inflammation is part of the body’s natural immune response, but in cases like MS it gets out of hand. Our study looks at how compounds isolated from marijuana can be used to regulate inflammation to protect the nervous system and its functions.

The researchers conducted experiments on immune cells isolated from paralyzed mice and found that CBD and THC could inhibit inflammatory responses by acting directly on immune cells. Scientists in the U.S. have achieved similar results using synthetic chemicals that mimic the effects of marijuana.

In many countries, marijuana-based treatments, such as Sativex, are already been prescribed to manage symptoms like pain and spasticity (muscle stiffness). However, recent studies seem to indicate that cannabis may even slow the disorder itself.

Though more research needs to be done in humans, Dr. Kozela believes cannabis has significant promise.

When used wisely, cannabis has huge potential. We’re just beginning to understand how it works.

Israel is one of a growing number of countries that have legalized medical marijuana and has conducted extensive research on the medicine. Approximately 12,000 patients have a license to use medical marijuana in the country.

The study received funding from the Dr Miriam and Sheldon G. Adelson Medical Research Foundation and the Israeli Ministry for Absorption in Science

Source: LeafScience.com

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the major compounds found in marijuana, but lacks the high caused by THC. Previous studies suggest that it can be used to combat anxiety and other obsessive-compulsive behaviors.

While research has mostly involved simple animal models, a team led by Dr. Francisco Guimarăes of the University of Sao Paulo’s School of Medicine decided to test cannabidiol in rats that were given mCPP – a drug that blocks the effects of traditional OCD treatments.

Interestingly, even at low doses, CBD was able to reverse the obsessive-compulsive behavior caused by mCPP. Published in the journal Fundamental & Clinical Pharmacology, the authors conclude that the study adds support to “a possible anti-compulsive effect of CBD.”

Serotonin levels were traditionally thought to play a dominant role in OCD. On the other hand, while researchers are still unsure of how CBD works to reduce obsessive-compulsive symptoms, a number of studies suggest that activation of CB1 receptors may be responsible.

Thus, the authors of the latest study say that both systems may interact to provide relief from the disorder.

“These results suggest that the serotonergic and cannabinoid systems interact to control repetitive behaviors, although the precise nature of this interaction is not clear.”

And it’s not just the CBD in marijuana that seems to help. In a study published in 2011, researchers were able to reduce obsessive-compulsive behavior in rats by treating them with a synthetic cannabinoid similar to THC.

Although human studies still need to be done, scientists believe that cannabinoids could be used to manage OCD in the future.

The study was published ahead of print and sources of funding were not reported

Source: LeafScience.com

The drug is made from purified cannabidiol (CBD) – a non-psychoactive compound in marijuana – and is being marketed under the name Epidiolex, reports O’Shaughnessy’s.

So far, the FDA has approved two Investigational New Drug studies of Epidiolex for pediatric epilepsy, which are being led by Orrin Devinsky, MD, at the NYU School of Medicine, and Roberta Cilio, MD, PhD, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Each will involve 25 children with epilepsy, and other studies are awaiting approval.

If all goes as planned, GW Pharmaceuticals’ Chairman Geoffrey Guy, MD, expects more studies to begin within months.

“In the coming months, if the FDA is comfortable about how things are going, there will be a number of senior epileptologists in major university centers throughout the U.S., each treating a couple of dozen patients with various epilepsies.”

GW Pharmaceuticals is best known for its cannabis-based spray called Sativex, which is approved in over 20 countries for the treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms.

However, the company has spent recent years developing a drug for epilepsy. Preclinical studies sponsored by the company show that CBD, along with a related cannabinoid called CBDV, have the potential to reduce epileptic seizures. Anecdotal reports also suggest that CBD-rich cannabis extracts could be effective in treating epilepsy in children.

Unlike Sativex, Epidiolex is a liquid medicine that can be administered with a syringe dropper. According to the company, the drug contains more than 98 percent CBD, along with trace amounts of other cannabinoids.

It is also THC-free, which will ensure that children are not getting high from the medicine.

Dr. Guy says if early results are positive, the FDA could speed up the clinical trial process

According to Dr. Guy, the FDA process came after parents of epileptic children began contacting the company in late 2012 hoping to obtain CBD. Since GW Pharmaceuticals was already working with the FDA on trials of Sativex, the company decided it made sense to seek research approval for Epidiolex.

Dr. Guy told O’Shaughnessy’s that he expects the trials to provide a better understanding of “what cannabidiol does in these different children groups, what benefit we can see, and how the results can best be measured.”

The clinical trial process will likely take a number of years to complete. However, Dr. Guy says if the drug shows promise in Phase I trials, the FDA could speed up the transition into Phase III.

GW Pharmaceuticals announced the start of clinical trials of the epilepsy drug in the UK.

Source: O'Shaughnessy's via LeafScience.com

Instead of wearing a mask every night, studies suggest a pill made from chemicals in marijuana could also do the trick.
Sleep scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago have spent years studying dronabinol – an FDA-approved pill containing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) – as a potential treatment for sleep apnea.

Earlier last year, they showed that it could significantly reduce the occurrence of apneas, or pauses in breathing, in a small group of patients – and without causing other sleep disruptions.

Research associate Michael Calik, PhD explains that the challenge has been finding a drug that can treat sleep apnea without creating new problems.

“Sleep apnea research has been going on for 30+ years. The main reason why we’ve always reached obstacles regarding finding a drug form to treat sleep apnea has been: when you try to treat sleep apnea, usually you will have other effects on sleep quality.”

However, scientists are keen on finding a treatment regimen that will be easier to follow than the current ‘gold standard’: a CPAP mask. Currently, there is no treatment for sleep apnea in drug form.

“Adherence to CPAP is bad. To pop a pill just before bed, the adherence would be a lot better and it could be a lot easier for people to stick on it. That’s the goal.”

Recently, Dr. Calik co-authored a study that identified how dronabinol works to reduce apneas during sleep, through its action on cannabinoid receptors in the peripheral nervous system. The findings were published this month in the journal Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology.

“What we found was a minimum of 100 ìg injections per nodose ganglia were able to totally attenuate or abolish apnea within rats.”

Dr. Calik says the findings add “proof that what we saw a couple years ago with systemic injections of dronabinol was happening extensively at the peripheral nervous system.”

Sleep apnea is thought to be caused by a loss of muscle tone in the upper airway during sleep, explains Dr. Calik. THC, on the other hand, seems to increase this tone.

While the only study in humans was a proof of concept trial, he notes that dronabinol has already been approved to treat other conditions.

“Dronabinol has been on the market for already two decades, if not more. It’s used to treat vomiting and nausea in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.”

Dr. Calik says the next step is to hopefully extend the results through a larger study and to figure out more precisely how cannabinoid mechanisms interact with the peripheral and central nervous systems when it comes to sleep apnea.

The research received funding from the National Institutes of Health

Source: LeafScience.com

We call on you to legalise the trade and production of Cannabis.

Why this is important?

We need fair and clear laws, new regulations which the entire Cannabis industry, government and society can accept. Not a policy that is based on the limited mindset of the prohibitionist. But a responsible policy in which freedom is paramount, which provides a safe haven for Cannabis consumers...

SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/European_Commission_We_call_on_you_to_legalise_the_trade_and_production_of_Cannabis/

International Cannabis Community suggests the following:

"All rules which are impossible to enforce , only imposed to make legal Cannabis business impossible should be removed immediately.

Cannabis for Cannabisshops should be grown commercial. Based on similar legislation, which is very well applicable. Commercially grow'n cannabis for consumption will fall under the strict supervision of our ministries . Cannabis should have a official label, which is associated with a quality code.

Professional nurseries which supply Cannabisshops may produce and stock as many Cannabis required in a regulated market. But they can only sell cannabis to Cannabisshops. The Cannabisshops can therefore stock the amount according to their turnover. Eventually Cannabis-shops are subjected to the trade laws as a pub for example...

In adititon it should be possible to grow cannabis for personal use in your own home .This can both be indoors and outdoors. As already allowed with other plants, for example, optionally under a special growinglight. Without being arrested, fined or kicked out of your home.

A fair policie can then be presented to your countries parliaments in the usual way. So the government can make a well informed decision. A policy which is proposed by the Int. cannabis community, a policy which decriminalizes, legalizes, regulates and restructures the Europian cannabis trade and production.

Simply because of the social, cultural and economic importance."

There for all EU Member States are obliged to do everything possible to positively stimulate the European economy. Governments of EU Member States should propose legislation of cannabis trade and production as an incentive for the European economie. It is not difficult to collect figurs and finacial data from countries where this is already happening. Countries where Cannabis is semi legal ,like in the Netherlands, or Spain, or like the change in Colorado, all other examples we know of included. Because the excamples are convincing enough to end prohibition and decriminalize and legalize the trade and production of Cannabis. The huge revenues, employment, entrepreneurial opportunities can ensure that the EU economy gets better. It is not credible for EU politicians to ignore this opportunity. I wonder how the Brussels summit would react if it is proposed by delegates from all countries in the Europien Union. Given the fact EU economist already announced the next phase of the EU crisis...

When 1 million european "Cannabis legislation & decriminalisation" supporters sign this petition, we will deliver this petition to the European Commission with the demand that it acts on the prososal of the International Cannabis Community, to decriminalize and legalize the trade and production of Cannabis.

Sign here and share it with all your friends and family to make sure that our politicians can no longer ignore this solution.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW!

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/European_Commission_We_call_on_you_to_legalise_the_trade_and_production_of_Cannabis/

Sixty-four years ago this month, six million Americans became unwitting subjects in an experiment in psychological warfare.

It was the night before Halloween, 1938. At 8 p.m. CST, the Mercury Radio on the Air began broadcasting Orson Welles' radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds. As is now well known, the story was presented as if it were breaking news, with bulletins so realistic that an estimated one million people believed the world was actually under attack by Martians. Of that number, thousands succumbed to outright panic, not waiting to hear Welles' explanation at the end of the program that it had all been a Halloween prank, but fleeing into the night to escape the alien invaders.

Later, psychologist Hadley Cantril conducted a study of the effects of the broadcast and published his findings in a book, The Invasion from Mars: A Study in the Psychology of Panic. This study explored the power of broadcast media, particularly as it relates to the suggestibility of human beings under the influence of fear. Cantril was affiliated with Princeton University's Radio Research Project, which was funded in 1937 by the Rockefeller Foundation. Also affiliated with the Project was Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) executive Frank Stanton, whose network had broadcast the program. Stanton would later go on to head the news division of CBS, and in time would become president of the network, as well as chairman of the board of the RAND Corporation, the influential think tank which has done groundbreaking research on, among other things, mass brainwashing.

Two years later, with Rockefeller Foundation money, Cantril established the Office of Public Opinion Research (OPOR), also at Princeton. Among the studies conducted by the OPOR was an analysis of the effectiveness of "psycho-political operations" (propaganda, in plain English) of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Then, during World War II, Cantril - and Rockefeller money - assisted CFR member and CBS reporter Edward R. Murrow in setting up the Princeton Listening Center, the purpose of which was to study Nazi radio propaganda with the object of applying Nazi techniques to OSS propaganda. Out of this project came a new government agency, the Foreign Broadcast Intelligence Service (FBIS). The FBIS eventually became the United States Information Agency (USIA), which is the propaganda arm of the National Security Council.

Thus, by the end of the 1940s, the basic research had been done and the propaganda apparatus of the national security state had been set up--just in time for the Dawn of Television ...

Experiments conducted by researcher Herbert Krugman reveal that, when a person watches television, brain activity switches from the left to the right hemisphere. The left hemisphere is the seat of logical thought. Here, information is broken down into its component parts and critically analyzed. The right brain, however, treats incoming data uncritically, processing information in wholes, leading to emotional, rather than logical, responses. The shift from left to right brain activity also causes the release of endorphins, the body's own natural opiates--thus, it is possible to become physically addicted to watching television, a hypothesis borne out by numerous studies which have shown that very few people are able to kick the television habit.

This numbing of the brain's cognitive function is compounded by another shift which occurs in the brain when we watch television. Activity in the higher brain regions (such as the neo-cortex) is diminished, while activity in the lower brain regions (such as the limbic system) increases. The latter, commonly referred to as the reptile brain, is associated with more primitive mental functions, such as the "fight or flight" response. The reptile brain is unable to distinguish between reality and the simulated reality of television. To the reptile brain, if it looks real, it is real. Thus, though we know on a conscious level it is "only a film," on a conscious level we do not--the heart beats faster, for instance, while we watch a suspenseful scene. Similarly, we know the commercial is trying to manipulate us, but on an unconscious level the commercial nonetheless succeeds in, say, making us feel inadequate until we buy whatever thing is being advertised--and the effect is all the more powerful because it is unconscious, operating on the deepest level of human response. The reptile brain makes it possible for us to survive as biological beings, but it also leaves us vulnerable to the manipulations of television programmers.

It is not just commercials that manipulate us. On television news as well, image and sound are as carefully selected and edited to influence human thought and behavior as in any commercial. The news anchors and reporters themselves are chosen for their physical attractiveness--a factor which, as numerous psychological studies have shown, contributes to our perception of a person's trustworthiness. Under these conditions, then, the viewer easily forgets--if, indeed, the viewer ever knew in the first place--that the worldview presented on the evening news is a contrivance of the network owners--owners such as General Electric (NBC) and Westinghouse (CBS), both major defense contractors. By molding our perception of the world, they mold our opinions. This distortion of reality is determined as much by what is left out of the evening news as what is included--as a glance at Project Censored's yearly list of top 25 censored news stories will reveal. If it's not on television, it never happened. Out of sight, out of mind.

Under the guise of journalistic objectivity, news programs subtly play on our emotions--chiefly fear. Network news divisions, for instance, frequently congratulate themselves on the great service they provide humanity by bringing such spectacles as the September 11 terror attacks into our living rooms. We have heard this falsehood so often, we have come to accept it as self-evident truth. However, the motivation for live coverage of traumatic news events is not altruistic, but rather to be found in the central focus of Cantril's War of the Worlds research--the manipulation of the public through fear.

There is another way in which we are manipulated by television news. Human beings are prone to model the behaviors they see around them, and avoid those which might invite ridicule or censure, and in the hypnotic state induced by television, this effect is particularly pronounced. For instance, a lift of the eyebrow from Peter Jennings tells us precisely what he is thinking--and by extension what we should think. In this way, opinions not sanctioned by the corporate media can be made to seem disreputable, while sanctioned opinions are made to seem the very essence of civilized thought. And should your thinking stray into unsanctioned territory despite the trusted anchor's example, a poll can be produced which shows that most persons do not think that way--and you don't want to be different do you? Thus, the mental wanderer is brought back into the fold.

This process is also at work in programs ostensibly produced for entertainment. The "logic" works like this: Archie Bunker is an idiot, Archie Bunker is against gun control, therefore idiots are against gun control. Never mind the complexities of the issue. Never mind the fact that the true purpose of the Second Amendment is not to protect the rights of deer hunters, but to protect the citizenry against a tyrannical government (an argument you will never hear voiced on any television program). Monkey see, monkey do--or, in this case, monkey not do.

Notice, too, the way in which television programs depict conspiracy researchers or anti-New World Order activists. On situation comedies, they are buffoons. On dramatic programs, they are dangerous fanatics. This imprints on the mind of the viewer the attitude that questioning the official line or holding "anti-government" opinions is crazy, therefore not to be emulated.

Another way in which entertainment programs mold opinion can be found in the occasional television movie, which "sensitively" deals with some "social" issue. A bad behavior is spotlighted--"hate" crimes, for instance--in such a way that it appears to be a far more rampant problem than it may actually be, so terrible in fact that the "only" cure for it is more laws and government "protection." Never mind that laws may already exist to cover these crimes--the law against murder, for instance. Once we have seen the well-publicized murder of the young gay man Matthew Shepherd dramatized in not one, but two, television movies in all its heartrending horror, nothing will do but we pass a law making the very thought behind the crime illegal.

People will also model behaviors from popular entertainment which are not only dangerous to their health and could land them in jail, but also contribute to social chaos. While this may seem to be simply a matter of the producers giving the audience what it wants, or the artist holding a mirror up to society, it is in fact intended to influence behavior.

Consider the way many films glorify drug abuse. When a popular star playing a sympathetic character in a mainstream R-rated film uses hard drugs with no apparent health or legal consequences (John Travolta's use of heroin in Pulp Fiction, for instance--an R-rated film produced for theatrical release, which now has found a permanent home on television, via cable and video players), a certain percentage of people--particularly the impressionable young--will perceive hard drug use as the epitome of anti-Establishment cool and will model that behavior, contributing to an increase in drug abuse. And who benefits?

As has been well documented by Gary Webb in his award-winning series for the San Jose Mercury New, former Los Angeles narcotics detective Michael Ruppert, and many other researchers and whistleblowers--the CIA is the main purveyor of hard drugs in this country. The CIA also has its hand in the "prison-industrial complex." Wackenhut Corporation, the largest owner of private prisons, has on its board of directors many former CIA employees, and is very likely a CIA front. Thus, films which glorify drug abuse may be seen as recruitment ads for the slave labor-based private prison system. Also, the social chaos and inflated crime rate which result from the contrived drug problem contributes to the demand from a frightened society for more prisons, more laws, and the further erosion of civil liberties. This effect is further heightened by television news segments and documentaries which focus on drug abuse and other crimes, thus giving the public the misperception that crime is even higher than it really is.

There is another socially debilitating process at work in what passes for entertainment on television these days. Over the years, there has been a steady increase in adult subject matter on programs presented during family viewing hours. For instance, it is common for today's prime-time situation comedies to make jokes about such matters as masturbation (Seinfeld once devoted an entire episode to the topic), or for daytime talk shows such as Jerry Springer's to showcase such topics as bestiality. Even worse are the "reality" programs currently in vogue. Each new offering in this genre seems to hit a new low. MTV, for instance, recently subjected a couple to a Candid Camera-style prank in which, after winning a trip to Las Vegas, they entered their hotel room to find an actor made up as a mutilated corpse in the bathtub. Naturally, they were traumatized by the experience and sued the network. Or, consider a new show on British television in which contestants compete to see who can infect each other with the most diseases--venereal diseases included.

It would appear, at the very least, that these programs serve as a shill operation to strengthen the argument for censorship. There may also be an even darker motive. These programs contribute to the general coarsening of society we see all around us--the decline in manners and common human decency and the acceptance of cruelty for its own sake as a legitimate form of entertainment. Ultimately, this has the effect of debasing human beings into savages, brutes--the better to herd them into global slavery.

For the first decade or so after the Dawn of Television, there were only a handful of channels in each market--one for each of the three major networks and maybe one or two independents. Later, with the advent of cable and more channels, the population pie began to be sliced into finer pieces--or "niche markets." This development has often been described as representing a growing diversity of choices, but in reality it is a fine-tuning of the process of mass manipulation, a honing-in on particular segments of the population, not only to sell them specifically-targeted consumer products but to influence their thinking in ways advantageous to the globalist agenda.

One of these "target audiences" is that portion of the population which, after years of blatant government cover-up in areas such as UFOs and the assassination of John F. Kennedy, maintains a cynicism toward the official line, despite the best efforts of television programmers to depict conspiracy research in a negative light. How to reach this vast, disenfranchised target audience and co-opt their thinking? One way is to put documentaries before them which mix of fact with disinformation, thereby confusing them. Another is to take the X Files approach.

The heroes of X Files are investigators in a fictitious paranormal department of the FBI whose adventures sometimes take them into parapolitical territory. On the surface this sounds good. However, whatever good X Files might accomplish by touching on such matters as MK-ULTRA or the JFK assassination is cancelled out by associating them with bug-eyed aliens and ghosts. Also, on X Files, the truth is always depicted as "out there" somewhere--in the stars, or some other dimension, never in brainwashing centers such as the RAND Corporation or its London counterpart, the Tavistock Institute. This has the effect of obscuring the truth, making it seem impossibly out-of-reach, and associating reasonable lines of political inquiry with the fantastic and other-wordly.

Not that there is no connection between the parapolitical and the paranormal. There is undoubtedly a cover-up at work with regard to UFOs, but if we accept uncritically the notion that UFOs are anything other than terrestrial in origin, we are falling headfirst into a carefully-set trap. To its credit, X Files has dealt with the idea that extraterrestrials might be a clever hoax by the government, but never decisively. The labyrinthine plots of the show somehow manage to leave the viewer wondering if perhaps the hoax idea is itself a hoax put out there to cover up the existence of extraterrestrials. This is hardly helpful to a true understanding of UFOs and associated phenomena, such as alien abductions and cattle mutilations.

Extraterrestrials have been a staple of popular entertainment since The War of the Worlds (both the novel and its radio adaptation). They have been depicted as invaders and benefactors, but rarely have they been unequivocally depicted as a hoax. There was an episode of Outer Limits which depicted a group of scientists staging a mock alien invasion to frighten the world's population into uniting as one--but, again, such examples are rare. Even in UFO documentaries on the Discovery Channel, the possibility of a terrestrial origin for the phenomenon is conspicuous by its lack of mention.

UFO researcher Jacques Vallee, the real-life model for the French scientist in Stephen Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, attempted to interest Spielberg in a terrestrial explanation for the phenomenon. In an interview on Conspire.com, Vallee said, "I argued with him that the subject was even more interesting if it wasn't extraterrestrials. If it was real, physical, but not ET. So he said, 'You're probably right, but that's not what the public is expecting--this is Hollywood and I want to give people something that's close to what they expect.'"

How convenient that what Spielberg says the people expect is also what the Pentagon wants them to believe.

In Messengers of Deception, Vallee tracks the history of a wartime British Intelligence unit devoted to psychological operations. Code-named (interestingly) the "Martians," it specialized in manufacturing and distributing false intelligence to confuse the enemy. Among its activities were the creation of phantom armies with inflatable tanks, simulations of the sounds of military ships maneuvering in the fog, and forged letters to lovers from phantom soldiers attached to phantom regiments.

Vallee suggests that deception operations of this kind may have extended beyond World War II, and that much of the "evidence" for "flying saucers" is no more real than the inflatable tanks of World War II. He writes: "The close association of many UFO sightings with advanced military hardware (test sites like the New Mexico proving grounds, missile silos of the northern plains, naval construction sites like the major nuclear facility at Pascagoula and the bizarre love affairs ... between contactee groups, occult sects, and extremist political factions, are utterly clear signals that we must exercise extreme caution."

Many people find it fantastic that the government would perpetrate such a hoax, while at the same time having no difficulty entertaining the notion that extraterrestrials are regularly traveling light years to this planet to kidnap people out of their beds and subject them to anal probes.

The military routinely puts out disinformation to obscure its activities, and this has certainly been the case with UFOs. Consider Paul Bennewitz, the UFO enthusiast who began studying strange lights that would appear nightly over the Manzano Test Range outside Albuquerque. When the Air Force learned about his study, ufologist William Moore (by his own admission) was recruited to feed him forged military documents describing a threat from extraterrestrials. The effect was to confuse Bennewitz--even making him paranoid enough to be hospitalized--and discredit his research. Evidently, those strange lights belonged to the Air Force, which does not like outsiders inquiring into its affairs.

What the Air Force did to Bennewitz, it also does on a mass scale--and popular entertainment has been complicit in this process. Whether or not the filmmakers themselves are consciously aware of this agenda does not matter. The notion that extraterrestrials might visit this planet is so much a part of popular culture and modern mythology that it hardly needs assistance from the military to propagate itself.

It has the effect not only of obscuring what is really going on at research facilities such as Area 51, but of tainting UFO research in general as "kooky"--and does the job so thoroughly that one need only say "UFO" in the same breath with "JFK" to discredit research in that area as well. It also may, in the end, serve the same purpose as depicted in that Outer Limits episode--to unite the world's population against a perceived common threat, thus offering the pretext for one-world government.

The following quotes demonstrate that the idea has at least occurred to world leaders:

"In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us realize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world." (President Ronald Reagan, speaking in 1987 to the United Nations.

"The nations of the world will have to unite, for the next war will be an interplanetary war. The nations of the earth must someday make a common front against attack by people from other planets." General Douglas MacArthur, 1955)

Some one remarked that the best way to unite all the nations on this globe would be an attack from some other planet. In the face of such an alien enemy, people would respond with a sense of their unity of interest and purpose." (John Dewey, Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, speaking at a conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1917)

And where was this "alien threat" motif given birth? Again, we find the answer in popular entertainment, and again the earliest source is The War of the Worlds--both Wells' and Welles' versions.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that H. G. Wells was a founding member of the Round Table, the think tank that gave birth to the Royal Institute for International Affairs (RIIA) and its American cousin, the CFR. Perhaps Wells intentionally introduced the motif as a meme which might prove useful later in establishing the "world social democracy" he described in his 1939 book The New World Order. Perhaps, too, another purpose of the Orson Welles broadcast was to test of the public's willingness to believe in extraterrestrials.

At any rate, it proved a popular motif, and paved the way for countless movies and television programs to come, and has often proven a handy device for promoting the New World Order, whether the extraterrestrials are invaders or--in films like The Day the Earth Stood Still--benefactors who have come to Earth to warn us to mend our ways and unite as one, or be blown to bits.

We see the globalist agenda at work in Star Trek and its spin-offs as well. Over the years, many a television viewer's mind has been imprinted with the idea that centralized government is the solution for our problems. Never mind the complexities of the issue--never mind the fact that, in the real world, centralization of power leads to tyranny. The reptile brain, hypnotized by the flickering television screen, has seen Captain Kirk and his culturally diverse crew demonstrate time and again that the United Federation of Planets is a good thing. Therefore, it must be so.

It remains to be seen whether the Masters of Deception will, like those scientists in The Outer Limits, stage an invasion from space with anti-gravity machines and holograms, but, if they do, it will surely be broadcast on television, so that anyone out of range of that light show in the sky, will be able to see it, and all with eyes to see will believe. It will be War of the Worlds on a grand scale.

Jack Kerouac once noted, while walking down a residential street at night, glancing into living rooms lit by the gray glare of television sets, that we have become a world of people "thinking the same thoughts at the same time."

Every day, millions upon millions of human beings sit down at the same time to watch the same football game, the same mini-series, the same newscast. And where might all this shared experience and uniformity of thought be taking us?

A recent report co-sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Commerce Department calls for a broad-based research program to find ways to use nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive sciences, to achieve telepathy, machine-to-human communication, amplified sensory experience, enhanced intellectual capacity, and mass participation in a "hive mind." Quoting the report: "With knowledge no longer encapsulated in individuals, the distinction between individuals and the entirety of humanity would blur. Think Vulcan mind-meld. We would perhaps become more of a hive mind--an enormous, single, intelligent entity."

There is no doubt that we have been brought closer to the "hive mind" by the mass media. For, what is the shared experience of television but a type of "Vulcan mind-meld"? (Note the terminology borrowed from Star Trek, no doubt to make the concept more familiar and palatable. If Spock does it, it must be okay.)

This government report would have us believe that the hive mind will be for our good--a wonderful leap in evolution. It is nothing of the kind. For one thing, if the government is behind it, you may rest assured it is not for our good. For another, common sense should tell us that blurring the line "between individuals and the entirety of humanity" means mass conformity, the death of human individuality. Make no mistake about it--if humanity is to become a hive, there will be at the center of that hive a Queen Bee, whom all the lesser "insects" will serve. This is not evolution--this is devolution. Worse, it is the ultimate slavery--the slavery of the mind.

And it is a horror first unleashed in 1938 when one million people responded as one--as a hive--to Orson Welles' Halloween prank.

In a sense, those people who fled the Martians that night were right to be afraid. They were indeed under attack. But they were wrong about who was attacking them. It was something far worse than Martians. Had they only known the true nature of the danger facing them, perhaps they would have gone to the nearest radio station with torches in hand like the villagers in those old Frankenstein movies and burned it to the ground, or at least commandeered the new technology and turned it towards another use--the liberation of humanity, instead of its enslavement.

Source: mackwhite.com

Another evening. You try to connect to Facebook as Turismo Associati and you get, again, a warning messagge: "Account Temporarily Unavailable - Your account is currently unable to use Facebook for Websites. For more information, please log in to www.facebook.com and follow the instructions you see there."

You go to the main page, insert the password to Fascist Facebook and, on a page called  CheckPoint, read: "Convert Your Timeline to a Page - It looks like you’re using your Timeline to represent an organization, business, brand or public figure. Personal Timelines are for individual people and must be held under an individual name. Facebook Pages are similar to Timelines, but offer unique tools for connecting people to a topic they care about, like an organization, business, brand or public figure. We recommend converting your Timeline to a Facebook Page, because using a personal Timeline to represent anything other than yourself doesn’t follow the Facebook Terms." And you say: "Crap, is there some operator who really checks if Turismo Associati is an individual people's name or an organzation or brand? They added "public figure"... how come a public figure can not use a CIA Facebook Timeline?! Strange.

There is nothing else to do, SS Facebook is forcing you to: Pick a Page Category. What type of Page do you want? Local Business or Place, Company, Artist, Brand or Product, Cause or Community... We choose one, agree to the Facebook Pages Terms and the next page moves (should move) the photos from the Timeline to your page (new page).

At the end Shitty Facebook asks you: "Convert This Personal Timeline?" You're about to convert your Timeline to a Page. Turismo Associati. After you do this, you can still log into your account using the same info (email or phone number and password). For your security, please enter your Facebook password".

And you enter your password! And press Convert This Timeline. But nothing, the password is not accepted. Using English Pirate as language you get this note from Facebook: "Ye Flag be missin', matey!" In English ot means: "There was an error creating your Page." And if you insert the wrong password, you read this: "That's be not the Secret Code ye Scurvy Curr!"

What the fuck? You try and try, but find a wall of stupidity in front of you. So you get back and choose: Forget your password! And here is the CATCH! CRAPPY FACEBOOK IS PLANNING SOMETHING! You can Reset Your Password. OK. They ask you: "How would you like to reset your password?" And give you two possibilities:

1) Use my Yahoo! account
Log in to Yahoo! (if you aren't already) to quickly reset your password.

2) Email me a link to reset my password. ALWAYS A YAHOO E-MAIL ADDRESS, BECAUSE FACEBOOK, STRANGELY DOES NOT ACCEPT ANY OTHER EMAIL WHEN CREATING YOUR ACCOUNT.

We have chosen too many time the second possibility, the link to the email, but NO mail was EVER sent or received. And we looked in the Spam and Trash where a mail from Fakebook should normally go.

Do you get the IDEA? Not yet?!

There is a third option: "No longer have access to these?" How Can We Reach You? Please enter an email address or phone that you know you can access. We'll use this address to send you messages about recovering your account. Insert: New Email or Phone...

IN OUR OPINION, FASCIST FACEBOOK JUST WANTS, AS USUAL - IF NOT ASKING FOR A CREDIT CARD NUMBER (JUST TO SEE THAT YOU ARE A REAL PERSON TO CREATE AN APPLICATION) - YOUR PHONE NUMBER, TO TRACK YOU DOWN, ANOTHER EMAIL TO HACK, OR AS A FIRST OPTION:
Use Yahoo! to Reset Your Password. A pop-up should've just appeared - if you're not already logged into your Yahoo! account, you'll need to log in here. You can then immediately (!!!) change your Facebook password.
Don't see a pop-up? Make sure your browser's pop-up blocker is turned off and try again.

Notice that IMMEDIATELY! They deliberately fail to work a simple service to send you a link to the e-mail they already have... but ask you to:
Click "Agree" to sign in to www.facebook.com using your Yahoo ID and allow sharing of Yahoo info. You are sharing the following:
xxxx@yahoo.com
By clicking Agree you are agreeing to the Yahoo Additional Terms of Service and Yahoo’s sharing of the types of account info listed above on return visits."

So, I should agree to be an asshole, part of the sheeple who are agreeing to the Yahoo Additional Terms of Service and Yahoo’s sharing of the types of account info... DO YOU KNOW THE Additional Terms of Service ???

PLEASE READ THIS PASSAGGE: "OpenID and OAuth Terms:

Your use of OpenID for automatic login to third party sites or OAuth to permit third parties to access information from your Yahoo! account is at your sole risk. While Yahoo! takes measures to protect the privacy and integrity of your user data and has implemented security controls governing external companies, Yahoo! cannot guarantee the integrity of the third parties to whom you have granted access to your account or permission to handle your user data using OpenID or OAuth. Yahoo! also cannot guarantee that your data will be protected at all times or that such third party will not mishandle or misuse your data once these third party companies have been granted access to the Yahoo! systems and network on your behalf. To better understand how this third party treats your personal information, please read their privacy policy."

There was an error creating your Page. There was an error creating your Page. There was an error creating your Page...

Was there really, or There was a created error for your Page?

Maybe, just maybe, the articles that TurismoAssociati.it posts on the web, like: Media indoctrination and propaganda: TELEVISION AND THE HIVE MIND by Mack White or GET THEM WHILE THEY ARE YOUNG: subliminal sexual embeds in advertising, movies, cartoons and more and Subliminal Manipulation. How Media and Advertising Uses Neurolinguistic Mind Control Programming by Jonathan Adampants are articles Facebook does not want to be made public on its "social network"...

Should we try to ease them down with this news: Chemicals that act on the same pathways as marijuana could be useful in preventing brain injury that occurs in HIV, suggests new research from Harvard University?

Just askin'...

Ford Turani for www.TurismoAssociati.it/dBlog

The findings were published in the journals Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging and Schizophrenia Research and Treatment.

These results are consistent with previous findings showing that cannabis abuse is associated with fewer negative symptoms and better cognitive functioning in schizophrenia.

A team of investigators led by Stephane Potvin, Ph.D of the University of Montreal School of Medicine studied a group of 28 schizophrenia patients – 14 with a diagnosis of cannabis use disorder and 14 without – and 21 healthy subjects.

After conducting a variety of brain scans and cognitive assessments, they found that patients who used cannabis exhibited better emotional memory, visual-spatial abilities and brain activation – compared with non-users.

Though the new findings seem to lend support to the use of cannabis as a treatment for schizophrenia, the authors caution that there other possibilities.

For example, they suggest that schizophrenics may smoke cannabis to enhance pleasurable memories and cope with negative ones. Another explanation may be that higher functioning schizophrenics are more likely to use cannabis.

Chemicals in marijuana have also been shown to impair memory in studies involving healthy rats, according to the authors.

Even still, they admit their latest findings only add to the “growing literature showing that some key functions (negative symptoms, social skills, cognition) are preserved” in cannabis-using schizophrenics.

The authors conclude that further research is necessary in order to confirm whether cannabis is directly responsible for improvements in patients with schizophrenia.

The research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Fonds de Recherche en Santé du Québec

Source: LeafScience.com

I said it and I repeat it: I am ashamed to belong to the human race. Among all animal species, the human race is the most infamous, capable of the biggest monstrosities imaginable. We are the only species on this marvelous planet that manipulates its fellow humans through slavery, religion and politics.

And we always manage to motivate that it is righteous what we do, because that's what God wants. And we have the Bible full of passages which adjust to every injustice we perpetrate to others: Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property. Exodus 21: 20-21

How hypocritical can we be to consider ourselves one with God? To consider the fairy tales as reality is called paranoid schizophrenia. But if one could discuss rationally with religious people, there would be no religious people. The only god is the Nature and the laws that guides it.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will guard the guards themselves? Why don't we give a small group of people the right to kidnap, imprison, harass, steal from, and kill people, so that we can be protected from people who kidnap, harass, steal and kill us?

EPPS: What right? I bought 'em. I paid for 'em.

BASS: Of course you did. The law says you have the right to hold a nigger, but begging the law's pardon...it lies. Is everything right because the law allows it? Suppose they'd pass a law taking away your liberty and making you a
slave?

EPPS: Ha!

BASS: Suppose.

EPPS: That ain't a supposable case.

BASS: Because the law states that your liberties are undeniable? Because society deems it so? Laws change.
Social systems crumble. Universal truths are constant. It is a
fact, it is a plain fact that what is true and right is true and right for all. White and black alike.

EPPS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Yah compare me to a nigger, Bass? Yah might as well ask what the difference is between a white man and a baboon. Now, I seen one of them critters in Orleans that knowed just as much as any nigger I got. Yah'd call them fellers citizens, I s'pose?

BASS: Look here; you can't laugh me down in that way. These niggers are human beings. If they are allowed to scale no higher than brute animals, you and men like you will
have to answer for it. There's an ill...

EPPS: Ahhh!

BASS: A fearful ill, resting on this nation...

EPPS: You betray yourself a foreigner!

BASS: That will not go unpunished forever. There will be a
reckoning yet.

March, 1852, conversation between Epps, a slave owner and Bass, a canadian hired and paid to build with the help of the slaves an extension to the villa of the former, dialogue from the movie 12 Years a Slave, after a true story narrated in the book with the same name by Solomon Northup, a violinist, black free citizen, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery.

Agence France-Presse presented a series of news in 2011: dozens of seasonal agricultural workers coming from the Balkans and the Indian subcontinent were released from the hands of armed exploiters in Greece where they were forced to work in greenhouses under conditions similar to slavery, mistreated, with the wages seized and forced to sleep in improvised shelters near the fields of work.

In 2009 DutchNews reported of about 50 workers, many from Romania, who were abused when working on an asparagus plantation in Holland, living in miserable, similar to slavery conditions. All of them lived in one dirty room with no windows, without having the right to leave the farm and being forced to buy the food at exorbitant prices. The owner of the farm was penalized by the authorities since 2005, accumulating fines amounting to over half a million euro for hiring illegal immigrants and paying them below the minimum wage.

Do we have to wonder that the american prisons, many of private management, are even today filled with people jailed for minor offenses such as consuming a plant like cannabis (marijuana), plant that never killed a single person, universal panacea used on Earth for thousands of years to treat many diseases and ailments? Hemp breathes in four times the carbon dioxide of trees, it can be used to make paper products, textiles, moulded plastics, food for humans and livestock, essential oils, nutritional supplements, it can be utilized with great success in constructions, and yet its cultivation today is illegal in most countries.

The president of the British Medical Association Sir John Russell Reynolds stated in 1890 that the "Indian Hemp, when pure and administred carefully, is one of the most valuable medicines we possess."

And yet, human ignorance overwhelms us. The current educational systems generate continuously individuals less and less trained, proud of their nationalities, religions and the nonsense society and the more corrupted governments print them in the subconscious as values.

"As an oncologist, I see patients who have extreme pain, depression and nausea... I feel comfortable being able to recommend one medication - a medication they can even grow themselves, which is very empowering - with few side effects, rather than multiple prescriptions for medications with severe side effects" declared Donald Abrams, MD, about marijuana.

You really do not notice the veil that prevents you from seeing the truth about your freedom in this so-called democracy? Don't you understand who is stopping you to be free and abuses and manipulates you?

Plato said that good people don't need laws to tell them to act responsibly but bad people will always find a way around the laws.

Laws are created precisely by our oppressors. The government is the one who exploits you.

According to the data offered by California Prison Focus and reported by GlobalResearch, no other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens as the United States of America. The U.S. has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the United States. Statistics reveal that the U.S.A. holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but only 5% of the world’s people.

It's all a business for the government. This is owned by the corporations. The prison industry complex has its investors on Wall Street.Just think of this fact: today, in Texas, a person may be sentenced for up to two years’ imprisonment for possessing 4 ounces of marijuana; in New York, the 1973 Nelson Rockefeller anti-drug law provides for a mandatory prison sentence of 15 years to life for possession of 4 ounces of any illegal drug.

All this while the riches of the world do whatever they want, plotting wars, economic crises, participating in often pedophile sexual orgies, just think of Berlusconi and others like him.

A fish always rots from the head down; inform yourself about the negotiations between the Italian State and Cosa Nostra (Mafia): it's not anymore just an hypothesis, the journalistic and judicial research approaches the final conclusion, namely that negociations between representatives of the Italian State and the Mafia took place after the bombing season of '92 and '93, resulting in the merging of the two institutions. What is the big difference between a tax extortion of protection from gangsters to have a commercial activity and the imprisonment of citizens made by the government if one does not pay the taxes?

Following the studies that confirm its effectiveness (research hidden and censured by press, television, governments and politicians), increases the belief among scientists of this fact: the cannabidiol (CBD) present in marijuana slows down the growth of tumor cells and inhibits the formation of the cells that feed tumors, thereby combating cancer and metastasis. Already known the capabilities of these substances to alleviate pain, nausea and other effects related to various diseases.

For how long we will be lied and manipulated by our peers? Homo hominis lupus. Only we can liberate ourselves from the slavery in which we live, of whatever nature it may be. We can only be kept in the cages we do not or refuse to see.

In 1910, The Encyclopaedia Britannica defined anarchism as: the name given to a principle or theory of life and conduct under which society is conceived without government - harmony in such a society being obtained, not by submission to law, or by obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups.

Interesting the differences between the definitions given by the various powers that controlled and controls a country.

In 1958, the modern Romanian language dictionary explains anarchy as the: Condition of disorganization, disorder, chaos in a country, an institution etc.; insubordination, indiscipline of an individual against an organized community. - State of production, specific to the capitalist system, in which (because of private ownership of the means of production) the social production activity is unplanned and without supervision, leading to periodic crises and unemployment.

The Romanian language explanatory dictionary from 1998 considers anarchy as a: State of disorganization, disorder, chaos in a country, an institution etc. - Attitude of disobedience, misbehavior of an individual against an organized community.

I just want to ask you this: do you consider that our present society is organized in a fair and acceptable manner, and when you will understand that you are here on Earth only to improve the conditions of those who come after you? When you will realize that we are all one?

Ford Turani for www.TurismoAssociati.it

References:
12 Years a Slave - Screenplay by John Ridley: http://d97a3ad6c1b09e180027-5c35be6f174b10f62347680d094e609a.r46.cf2.rackcdn.com/film_scripts/12YAS_SCRIPT_BK_COVER_PAGES_FINAL.pdf

Grecia: 35 de muncitori romani care lucrau in conditii de sclavie, eliberati de politie: http://www.hotnews.ro/stiri-diaspora-8506922-grecia-35-muncitori-romani-care-lucrau-conditii-sclavie-eliberati-politie.htm

Staff in 'near slavery' on asparagus farm: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/05/staff_in_near_slavery_on_aspar.php

Disillusions of Anarchy: The Common Perception of Anarchy in Modern Day Society: http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/classes/Anarchy/finalprojects/flores/anarchy.html

TRATTATIVA STATO MAFIA/ Lo Stato e Cosa Nostra: http://www.infiltrato.it/inchieste/italia/trattativa-stato-mafia-lo-stato-e-cosa-nostra

The Prison Industry in the United States: Big Business or a New Form of Slavery?: http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-prison-industry-in-the-united-states-big-business-or-a-new-form-of-slavery/8289

Arrivano nuove conferme: la marijuana combatte il cancro: life.wired.it/news/salute/2012/09/12/arrivano-nuove-conferme-la-marijuana-combatte-il-cancro.html