Since most of us are still on lockdown, out of school for Summer break or otherwise "enjoying" extra downtime due to the coronavirus, I figured I'd compile a list of documentaries & docuseries I've watched over the years that my readers might dig. Not all of these are drug related but I have seen at least one episode of all of them & can vouch for their quality. All can be found online, many for free. None of them star Joe Exotic. 🐯
Without further ado here's the list. The title is on the left followed by the distribution company & a quick summary of the content.
Dark Side of the Ring - VICE (Tragic & scandalous details of the lives of pro wrestlers).
Psychedelica: Psychedelics & Consciousness - Gaia (Scientific/historic look at the role of hallucinogens in human society).
Small Town Ecstasy - HBO (Follows a raver father whose questionable parenting tears his family apart).
The House I Live In - BBC (Excellent doc on the human impact of the drug war).
Trial By Media - Netflix (Cases in which media interference directly affected the legal outcome).
Unsung - TV One (Series on Black musicians whose stories haven't been adequately told before).
The Last Dance - ESPN (10-part biography on Michael Jordan & the Chicago Bulls at their peak).
Amazon Empire: The Rise & Reign of Jeff Bezos - PBS Frontline (Exposé on aspiring trillionaire Bezos).
My Perestroika - POV (Dark film on the last days of the U.S.S.R.) Jonestown: Life & Death of Peoples Temple - Firelight Media (Excellent doc on the subject of Jonestown featuring survivors).
Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends - BBC Two (Series exploring "weird" groups ranging from porn stars to Black Nationalists).
A Death in St. Augustine - PBS (Vibrant young woman dies unexpectedly. Was it suicide or did her cop boyfriend kill her?).
The Case of the Frozen Addicts - NOVA (Doctor happens upon opiate addicts with rapid-onset Parkinson's caused by adulterated heroin which leads to medical breakthrough).
Boy, Interrupted - HBO Films (Boy with bipolar depression is filmed through his ups & downs, including suicidal thoughts starting at age 4).
The Age of AIDS - PBS Frontline (Multi-part doc on the AIDS epidemic from the early days through 2006).
The Crash Reel - HBO Documentary Films (Pro snowboarder Kevin Pearce's life-changing head injury & long road to recovery).
Who Killed Adam Mann? - PBS Frontline (Tragic look into the murder of 5-year-old by his parents & the failed NY child welfare system that allowed it).
Tear-jerking animal rights films: Blackfish, Blood Lions & The Cove.
Wild music documentaries: The Decline of Western Civilization: Parts 1, 2 & 3. Gimme Shelter; The Last Days of Left Eye.
There are SO many others that deserve to be here that I've cut for time or can't remember. Documentaries & biographies are pretty much my 2nd love. Got a fave you'd like to add? Drop it in the comments below!
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After going down a rabbit hole of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) documentaries, I'm noticing a pattern: the condition is being labeled as various mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, depression & even schizophrenia in patients shortly before they die & get "correctly" diagnosed with CTE at autopsy. This means one of two things: either CTE mimics these diverse mental illnesses almost perfectly, or head trauma is capable of actually causing these illnesses. If it's the former, CTE is the new Great Imitator, perfectly mimicking conditions as diverse as ADHD, depression & paranoid delusions. If it's the latter, that means psychiatry has been wrong about the causes of said mental illnesses for a long time. At least in some people.
While they always lead with the caveat that the cause of mental illness is "not fully known," scientists usually attribute depression, anxiety & other psychiatric disorders to a combination of genetics & environment. "Environment" generally refers to one's upbringing, experiences such as childhood trauma and other external stressors. In theory it may include things like drug or alcohol exposure in the womb or lead poisoning, but it's exceedingly rare for psych doctors to ask about biological risk factors like head trauma in practice. That's a huge missed opportunity to learn about the causes of mental illness if nothing else.
The chemical imbalance theory of depression, for instance, has been pushed on the public for years by pharmaceutical companies with a financial stake in selling medications that correct these imbalances. While these meds work for some people (I've taken Prozac for over a decade), they're rarely sufficient by themselves for treating mild to moderate depression. In fact, SSRI's like Prozac performed little better (and sometimes worse) than placebos in several trials. Yet they're still the "golden standard of treatment" for depression along with talk therapy. But what if your depression is caused by trauma to the part of the brain that controls mood rather than an emotionally traumatic childhood experience or a serotonin imbalance?
Maybe the problem is that, what we label depression is not one disorder but a vast collection of different ones with unique causes? In reality there are 9 known types of depression with almost contradictory sounding symptoms. As an example, here's a comparison of the symptoms of two types of depression. The ones in red ones belong to Major Depression & the blue ones to Atypical Depression: Insomnia/Hypersomnia; Weight Loss/Weight Gain; Anxiety/Anhedonia; Appetite Loss/Overeating. And despite the name, Atypical Depression is the more common of the two. It's also harder to treat and much more common in women, possibly having a link to thyroid dysfunction. Imagine how many other "types" of depression--not to mention other mental illnesses--exist that we haven't identified yet!
CTE: A Combo of Cognitive & Psychiatric Decline
CTE on the other hand is a type of fatal, progressive dementia. Dementias are known for their effects on memory, judgment & cognitive ability. So why does it cause such stark symptoms of mental illness in addition to cognitive impairment? Alzheimer's Disease doesn't generally cause people to become volatile & violent or develop frank psychosis like CTE does, but some other types of dementia do (Frontotemporal Dementia, for instance). Simply put, the brain controls personality, mood, cognition & everything that determines all of our behavior. When we damage it repeatedly, it can understandably cause problems. But some people still don't fully understand this, hence the high prevalence of physical abuse of children, domestic violence, contact sports, war & other types of head-trauma inducing violence in our "civilized" society. The cost of this on our society is as high as any of the major diseases we face today.
Dark Side of the Ring: Chris Benoit
Head trauma has long been a known risk factor for committing violent acts up to & including mass murder. In fact, it's part of the triad of factors along with autism & a history of child abuse that is cited as a potential contributor to this type of anti-social behavior. Obviously, not everyone with these risk factors goes on to commit murder, but it's interesting to note head trauma's role. Infamous serial killers Gary Heidnik, Bobby Joe Long, Henry Lee Lucas & Richard Ramirez all incurred serious head injuries prior to committing their crime sprees. For Bobby Joe Long, it was a single motorcycle accident that his family members say changed his personality forever while the others were all repeatedly hit in the head during childhood. (Oh, and you can pretty much be sure any famous serial killer served in the military prior to starting their killing career. Correlation doesn't equal causation, but war is the source of many a head wound so you can't overlook its role, or that of PTSD, in causing violence here at home).
Because "CTE" is widely considered a sports-related illness, these cases tend to be overlooked or not connected with the phenomenon. That needs to change. How many women & children are on the path to developing CTE or other dementias due to head trauma at the hands of domestic abusers? How many soldiers in warzones will come home with not only the severe burden of PTSD but also the added effects of a head injury? How many suicides--and homicide--will result?
One question science hasn't answered is whether there's a condition that mimics CTE but doesn't progress to the fatal form. Many athletes appear to have some degree of the disease yet have lived to ripe old ages (OJ Simpson, Mike Tyson & many others). CTE is 100% progressive & fatal and its sufferers die at an average age of 51, though they certainly live longer than that in some instances. These folks make it clear that, even if you don't get full-blown CTE that kills you, repeated head trauma can still eff up your quality of life in a big way. And perhaps they'll end up with ALS or Parkinsonism in the future as a manifestation of the damage they incurred all those years ago. (Yes, these terrible diseases have also been linked to CTE/head trauma; see this Wikipedia list of NFL players with ALS & CTE).
The problem with diagnosing CTE in living people is that it's invariably fatal and can't be confirmed until autopsy. Neurologists can be reasonably sure using imaging & taking a medical history, but it's still iffy in the ethics department to give a terminal diagnosis when there's no way to know for sure someone has it. Just don't go diagnosing yourself and doing something drastic. Get a second & third opinion about what's going on with your brain health because there are things you can do to manage symptoms in some cases.
KTNV: Brain Injuries in Domestic Violence Victims
To wrap this up, the old adage that violence begets violence or waxing poetic about "generational curses" may have more of a biological basis than we ever realized. Sure, we learn how to behave from the role models around us, but sometimes these lessons are literally beaten into our skulls from an early age as well. My own dad uses the phrase "I'll knock some sense into him!" as if hitting someone in the head will make them smarter. Yeah. Not how that works. Just the opposite, actually.
Do you know somebody with traumatic brain injury that resulted in mental illness or a major personality change? Would love to discuss in the comments.
Just got done watching Have a Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics, the new Netflix documentary featuring the first-hand stories of celebrities recounting their respective hallucinogen trip stories. The film contains generous amounts of colorful animation to illustrate the stories as well as actors reenacting the celebrities' trips, which is consistently entertaining. Some stories are hilarious (Carrie Fisher & Rosie Perez had me LOL'ing so loud my dog barked at me from the computer room) while others are more serious. It's bizarre to watch Sting talk about tripping on peyote & a bit sad seeing Anthony Bourdain & Carrie Fisher looking so alive not so long ago.
There's also some valuable social commentary in the form of mock anti-drug ads that call out the biased, overly exaggerated government propaganda that we've all been exposed to since the Nixon era. This makes the film worth watching with your Boomer parents/grandparents if only to show them the extent of their own bias. There are also a few basic harm reduction tips sprinkled throughout, like "don't drive while tripping" and general set and setting advice. Groovy.
Whether you love the movie or not, it signals a shift in the way the mainstream views psychedelics. This is where we were with cannabis when shows like Weeds came out in the 2000's shortly before it was legalized in many states. If we play our cards right we can have the same with other drugs like hallucinogens. Balanced pieces like this are a step in the right direction. I commend the producers of Have a Good Trip & Netflix for airing it. (Bonus: The movie's title is super similar to the name of this very blog. Dope!)
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I don't go to the dispensary often but when I do, I stock up. On my last run I picked up some Rick Simpson Oil along with my flower & edibles. Rancho Pura Verde isn't well regarded in my state as a brand but it was all my dispensary had available so I went for it. I use RSO in my homemade weed suppositories (actually I use them as "tampons" vaginally...sorry if that's TMI) so I'm not really ingesting it anyway. I went all out & put a lot in this batch, though I couldn't tell you how much as I don't actually measure or weigh it. The only ingredients are cocoa butter & RSO. Here's how I make them in case you want to do it yourself.
This particular batch is OG Kush/Indica. OG Kush comes from a NorthernCalifornia strain crossed with HinduKush from Amsterdam. I've never tried the actual strain but Leafly describes it as a hybrid that leans more toward the calming end of the spectrum, but not as much as one might suspect. Reviews describe it as an 'old school classic video game high' (whatever that means) & it's typically reserved for pain, sleep & evening use. So I suppose that's why it was chosen to make RSO, as Sativas are far too speedy & paranoia-inducing to use in potent oils like this.
RSO applicator
Anyway, this batch turned out great. The RSO applicator was easier to use than the previous brand, as the lid wasn't a screw-on type that gets stuck. It just pops on and off which was much cleaner & less complicated. Aside from that I'm not noticing a whole lot of difference in the effects between the two brands. I'm definitely feeling chill & drowsy after using one of these suppositories but it's not uncommon for me to get sleepy mid-day like this either. Plus I'm in a world of pain which tends to make me sleepy. But there's no denying the potency of the RSO. It's effective in the pain department when used this way so I can only imagine how killer it'd be if taken orally. One syringe could last years with my tolerance if I was eating the stuff.
I give Rancho Pura Verde OG Kush Rick Simpson Oil a 4.8 of 5 stars for quality & price. It was only $40 for a 1 gram syringe, which isn't bad compared to some of the $60 ones I've seen. And it gets the job done just the same. If you're ever picking up mmj supplies in the Southwest, give it a go!
So. We're only 5 months into 2020 & already it feels like an eternity. So far we've lost beloved (by most) sports veteran Kobe Bryant, narrowly escaped war with Iran, watched as Australia was ravaged by bushfires, endured the worst pandemic in a century & are now being descended upon by "murder hornets". Now June is off to an explosive start with worldwide protests (and riots) against police brutality due to the George Floyd murder. It's an election year to boot, which means endless political attack ads and general ugliness are sure to compound the already sour mood facing the country.
With all this doom & gloom, it's absolutely vital to make time for your mental health & stress management. As a result of the worldwide lockdowns, people are turning to alcohol, junk food & other unhealthy vices to cope with the stress of losing their jobs & dealing with a terrifying new disease. As a long-time drug user I've been taking my usual dose of mind-altering substances every day with no change: A stimulant, opiate & weed. Ahh, predictability. I balance that with lots of therapy (via telemedicine) & meditation as well as other things like journaling, taking brisk walks & reading self-help type books (currently reading: The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson - I recommend it). I'm not doing great but am hanging in there.
Unfortunately I've lost two friends/acquaintances during this pandemic, one of whom was a long-time drug addict & the other who struggled with eating disorders & mental health problems. They didn't die of the disease but of its downstream effects...namely, stress. Covid can kill in many ways even if you don't catch it yourself. A man was shot & killed for enforcing face mask policy in a public place. Domestic violence rates are up worldwide. An autistic teen committed suicide due to the sheer uncertainty caused by the pandemic. These are all triggered by stress. Stress thrives on things like following every news update or trending Covid topic on Twitter & arguing with your paranoid uncle Bruce about the origins of the disease. Stop that.
Crazy times require increased sanity.
Quieting the Chaos
At some point you just have to turn off the speculation & white noise. Yes, it's impossible to ignore the economic stress of losing your job or the frustration of being cooped up with annoying family as Spring Fever sets in, but you can choose to disengage with the constant flow of complaining & hand-wringing about these things by other people in real life & the media. And you should. Because it changes precisely nothing except your own mood & blood pressure.
Instead, focus on things you CAN change, even if it's just your own attitude & outlook. Make a list of short- and long-term goals to knock out once things get back to normal. Endeavor to make the most of your downtime because you may not get another opportunity to spend with your spouse, kids, pets or even by yourself again once work & life pick back up. If you're an essential worker, this obviously doesn't apply to you but there are things you can & must do to protect your health (both mental & physical) right now. Periodically take stock of your substance use & junk food intake as well as other potentially destructive habits during this time to avoid forming a lasting addiction when this is all over.
If the behavior of our divided nation is getting you down, remind yourself that extremists are a vocal minority and the news media seeks out sensational, ratings-worthy stories that will draw in viewers. It's good to be informed but be careful where you get your information. NO source is completely bias-free but Reuters, PBS, NPR & evidence-based resources like the CDC & NIH are generally reliable when seeking out Covid-related info. Independent news sources like Democracy Now! are invaluable regardless of your political leanings & should be supported. Personal blogs, Youtube & sites like Breitbart, NaturalNews & InfoWars? Not so much unless you do so with the caveat that it's for entertainment purposes only. In fact, here's a great list of "fake news" sites to avoid like the plague. Set limits on your news consumption each day if you tend to watch or read a lot of Covid-related stories or news in general, as their goal is to create feelings of fear & polarization to keep ratings up & help advertisers sell things during commercial breaks. This is not good for mental health at an already stressful time.
What are YOU doing to stay sane during this insane year? What drugs are you taking (if any)--has your usage gone up or down? I envy people brave enough to take psychedelics during this dark time. Couldn't be me. But no judgment here. I respect your journey regardless of whether you smoke crack at lunch or stick to weed & beer once a year. Sound off in the comments. 😇
I'm a creature of habit, so when the dispensary was out of my beloved Simple Cure Indica gummies I was left reeling for a replacement. Did I want Simple Cure Sativas? Simple Cure Indica chocolates? Or another brand altogether? Ultimately I went with the chocolates but my friend went out on a limb & tried the budtender-recommended DixieIndicaTropic Twist gummies. She said she used to drive all the way to Colorado just to get them, so my friend was sold. Now I'm wishing I would've followed her lead after trying them myself. Holy crap.
For starters, the price is right. For just $24 you get 10 gummies (100mg THC per pack) instead of just 5 in the Simple Cure pack which is a bargain (50mg THC per pack), as the Simple Cure cost $15. And the FLAVOR! These are actually dangerous because they taste so good. I could see myself eating way too many & getting too high because they taste nothing like weed. At all. They're a zesty pineapple flavor that rivals any Skittle or Sour Gummy Worm on the market. They're gluten-free & very sour as far as cannabis edibles go, with a generous dusting of powder on the exterior.
The big round candies get the job done in the mind-altering department too, of course. Half of a 10 mg gummy is all I need to feel stoned for an afternoon. The extract is CO2 & ethanol-derived for the ultimate clean high. They also have Citrus Blast & Sour Smash flavors as well as Sativa, Hybrid & "Synergy" (1:1 THC to CBD ratio) varieties. Dope.
I have to give Dixie Tropic Twist Indica gummies a 4.9 of 5 stars for flavor, effectiveness & price. As much as I love my old staple I'll probably be opting for these if they're in stock now. The taste & price are too good to ignore. I definitely see why Dixie is such a popular brand in Colorado. The only downside I can see is being tempted to eat too many for your tolerance level. If you're immune to THC's negative side effects, don't sweat it. And it'd be cooler if each pack had assorted flavors in it. But I'm not complaining because the taste is so good.
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