Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:
A True Secret History of LSD
by David Black
JUNE 3, 2020



Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:

 A True Secret History of LSD by David Black

BPC Publications. London 2020 

Preface

Like atomic power and artificial intelligence, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered in the closing years of World War Two. Since then, atomic bombs and computers have been the constant source of fears that combined they might bring about the destruction of humanity. LSD has aroused similar fears. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered its effects in 1943, likened the LSD trip to an ‘inner bomb’. He warned that, if improperly used and distributed, LSD might bring about more destruction than an atomic detonation. But it has also been argued that, if properly used and distributed, LSD use might actually change people’s consciousness for the better and help to prevent nuclear war. Professor David Nutt, who sat on the British Labour government’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs until he was sacked in 2009, argues that the study of psychedelics is essential for understanding the nature of consciousness itself:

‘This is core neuroscience. This is about humanity at its deepest level. It is fundamental to understanding ourselves. And the only way to study consciousness is to change it. Psychedelics change consciousness in a way that is unique, powerful, and perpetual – of course we have to study them’.

As is well known, in the 1950s and early ‘60s the US Central Intelligence Agency used LSD, in secret and illegal experiments, on unwitting subjects. The CIA did so according to Cold War logic: if the Russians could work out how to use LSD in bio-chemical warfare — or in ‘brain-washing’, as a ‘truth drug’, or even as a ‘Manchurian Candidate’ — then the USA needed to work it out first.

In 1953, the CIA launched a top-secret ‘mind-control’ project, code-named MK-Ultra. The CIA’s assets in the US medical profession ‘officially’ labelled LSD as ‘psychosis-inducing drug’, only of use in psychiatric analysis and research. Many CIA officers, contractors and assets however, became enthusiastic trippers themselves, in full knowledge that LSD could produce atrocious as well as enchanting hallucinations. Knowing the secrets of LSD, they thought of themselves as a kind of anti-communist spiritual elite who, unlike the US citizenry at large, were ‘in the know’.

But by the end of the 1950s, with no sign of the Russians contaminating the water supply with LSD, there were plenty of signs in the United States that the psychedelic experience was escaping its captors. Some of the researchers in American hospitals – who had little awareness that their work was being secretly sponsored by the CIA — realised that LSD had ‘spiritual’ implications, i.e. for developing an ‘integrative’ enlightened consciousness, conducive to visionary creativity. These researchers stressed the importance of ‘set and setting’ in properly supervised LSD sessions. The English scholar, Aldous Huxley, who took his first LSD trip in 1955, related in his essay Heaven and Hell the hallucinogenic experience to the visionary works of William Blake:

‘Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and “going to heaven” is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point, from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individualized existence’.

Huxley, though an advocate for psychedelic drugs, wanted them strictly controlled. In contrast, Timothy Leary, who first took LSD in December 1961, became the ‘guru’ of psychedelia as LSD ‘escaped’ into the counter-culture of the 1960s. The ‘escape’ has been the subject of conspiracy theories which have been weaponised in today’s so-called Culture Wars. According to one widely-held view, the entire psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s was engineered by the CIA as part of a plot by some secret global elite bent on mass mind-control. For elements of the Right, the psychedelic counter-culture undermined ‘traditional values’ such as patriarchy, nationalism and subservience to authority. On the Left, some see the 1960s hedonism of ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll’ as having been a distraction from politics. The theory, as it has spread, has thrown in extra villains for good measure: satanists, MI6, the psychiatrists of the Tavistock Institute, the Grateful Dead, and Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, etc, etc.

In truth, the extent of the CIA’s involvement in the psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s has always been difficult to determine; not least because Sidney Gottlieb, head of MK-Ultra, illegally destroyed the project’s operational files in 1973. Nonetheless, some leading figures of the counter-culture, such as Timothy Leary, can hardly be discussed without reference to the CIA – not least because Leary himself had so much to say about it. In the present work, whilst I pay only scant attention to conspiracy theories, I make no apologies for investigating, where necessary, real conspiracies.

The underground networks of acid producers and distributors on both sides of the Atlantic were described after their downfall in the nineteen-seventies in such terms as ‘Hippie Mafia’ or ‘Microdot Gang’: so out of their heads that they didn’t know any better; or were ‘only in it for the money’; or were tools of organised crime and/or state agencies. In an earlier ebook I noted that nearly everyone involved – the psychedelic revolutionaries, the financiers, intelligence and anti-drugs agencies, CIA-sponsored scientists and researchers – operated to a greater or lesser extent outside of accepted standards of ‘legality’, or didn’t even recognise them; hence the title: Acid Outlaws: LSD, Counter-Culture and Counter-Revolution. But although the term ‘outlaw’ certainly fits many of people in this study, it doesn’t fit all of them by any means. Stephen Bentley, ex-undercover police officer and author of Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story, takes exception to my use of the term ‘questionable legality’ regarding of some of the surveillance methods he and his colleagues used:

‘Questionable by who? Illegal – mostly not… Yes, I smoked a lot of hash… and did some cocaine. Technically, that was illegal. Tell me what I was supposed to do given I was undercover. I wasn’t Steve Bentley. I was ‘Steve Jackson’ – wild, carefree, giving all the impression I was a dealer. I’m now 72 years’ old. I don’t care for the historical revisionism applied to Operation Julie recently. It was a highly successful and unique police investigation carried out professionally under difficult circumstances’.

On my reference to the ‘ham-acting of drunken undercover officers’, Bentley retorts:

‘Maybe you should try living a lie for the best part of a year; doing things alien to you; becoming a different person. Those who know will scoff at the thought of it being an act. It’s not. You become someone else – believe me’.

The point is, I concede that although Stephen Bentley mixed with ‘acid outlaws’ and behaved like one when he was infiltrating them in north Wales in the 1970s, he certainly wasn’t one himself. Steve Abrams – who inspired me twenty years ago to write about this subject in the first place – wasn’t an outlaw either. He is described in an obituary in Psychedelic Press – quite accurately — as a ‘psychedelic trickster’. Many of the leading players who feature in this tale were certainly outlaws at various times but primarily they were tricksters. In Carl Gustav Jung’s definition of archetypes, the ‘Trickster’ surfaces in many stories in mythology, folklore and religion. More generally, anthropologists studying indigenous cultures in various parts of the world identify the trickster with cunning crazy-acting animals such as the fox or coyote, shape-shifting gods such as Loki in Norse mythology and rustic pranksters in human form. In the literature of Greek antiquity, Prometheus, the son of a Titan, tricks the gods with his buffoonery and steals fire from heaven for the benefit of human kind, for which he is severely punished by Zeus. As the historian of religion, Klaus-Peter Koepping, puts it:

‘In European consciousness Prometheus becomes the symbol for man’s never-ceasing, unremitting, and relentless struggle against fate, against the gods, unrepentingly defying the laws of the Olympians, though (and this again shows the continuing absurdity) never being successful in this endeavor, which, however, is necessary for the origin of civilized life (the ultimate paradox of rule breaking as a rule)’.

Like fire, psychedelic drugs can be dangerous as well as beneficial. In various ways the tricksters who feature in this book tended to believe that their antics were beneficial to humanity as well as themselves; and in most cases had to suffer the consequences of their actions. CIA MK-Ultra chief, Sidney Gottlieb, believed that that his immoral and dishonest actions were outweighed by his patriotism and dedication to science, but his reputation has been posthumously trashed (a biography by Stephen Kinzer calls him as ‘the CIA’s Poisoner-in-Chief’). On the ‘other’ side, the reputation of Timothy Leary, who likewise believed he was acting as a patriot and saviour of civilisation, has shape-shifted from brilliant scientist to mystical guru, wanted criminal, wild-eyed revolutionary, renegade informer and finally self-aggrandising ‘showboater’.

I sent a copy of the previous book to Tim Scully, a most significant actor in the events unfolded in this story. Scully is a meticulous researcher (he is compiling a history of LSD production in the US) and, as it turns out, a very reliable witness. Scully, born 1944, was in 1966 taken on as apprentice to the famous LSD chemist Owsley Stanley (AKA Bear Stanley). After Owsley withdrew from LSD production following a bust of his tableting facility in December 1967, Scully was determined to continue. After making LSD in successive laboratories in Denver, Scully began to work with fellow psychedelic chemist, Nick Sand (another trickster). Their collaboration led to the establishment in November 1968 of a lab in Windsor, California, which ultimately produced well over a kilo (more than four million 300 μg doses) of very pure LSD that became known as Orange Sunshine. Scully, in writing to me, pointed to a number of errors in my writings regarding events in the USA. Generously, he provided me with a lot of very useful information: firstly, on how underground LSD production was organised in the United States in the 1960s; secondly, on the relations between the American LSD producers in the United States, their collaborators in Great Britain, and the ‘Brotherhood of Eternal Love’; and thirdly on the alleged CIA asset, Ronald Stark, who Scully knew and did business with. With further research and fact-checking I realised that none of the previous books on the subject (including mine) have accurately covered these three issues. I hope – whilst making no claim to have written anything like a comprehensive or definitive history of the LSD underground – that this one does.

Contents

1 – MK-Ultra: The CIA’s ‘Mind Control’ Project

Sorcery

Midnight Climax

Heartbreak Hotel: the Death of Frank Olson

Human Ecology: an MK-Ultra Front

Personality Assessment

2 – How the CIA Failed the Acid Test

Magic Mushrooms

Harvard Trips

Timothy Leary and Mary Pinchot

‘Captain Trips’: Alfred Hubbard

Coasts of Utopias

3 – London Underground

Centre of the World

Psychedelic Situationists

The 1967 ‘Summer of Love’

4 – David Solomon and the Art of Psychedelic Subversion

Psychedelic Jazz

Acid Revolution

5 – Steve Abrams: E.S.P., C.I.A., T.H.C.

Parapsychology

Potboilers

SOMA, Solomon and Stark

6 – The New Prohibition versus the Acid Underground

Psychedelic Alchemy

Owsley and the Grateful Dead

Heat

The Brotherhood of Eternal Love

Money Matters

Orange Sunshine

7 – The Atlantic Acid Alliance

Richard Kemp – Liverpool’s LSD Chemist

Tripping with RD Laing

8 – The British Microdot Gang and the Veritable Split

9 – The Downfall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love

Ronald Stark and the Brotherhood

Takeover

Operation BEL

The Scully-Sand Conspiracy Trial

10 – Timothy Leary’s Reality Tunnels: One Escape After Another

Political Intoxication

Weather Underground: Stalinism on Acid

Armed Love

Hotel Abyss

Leary ‘Co-operates’

11 – Operation Julie: the Hunters and the Hunted

S.T.U.F.F.

The Chase

Showtrial

12 – The Many Faces of Ronald Hadley Stark

Busted in Bologna

Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’

The Red Brigades

Lebanon

Prison Wager

13 – Tricksters

14 – Acid 2.0: Redux or Recuperation?

The Barbarism of Pure Culture
Psychedelic Culture, Situationist Poetics and Films, Radical Politics, Working-Class History

http://thebarbarismofpureculture.co.uk/wp/preface-to-psychedelic-tricksters-a-new-secret-history-of-lsd-by-david-black/

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LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for LSD 

[Video] Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism

Get to know Raya Dunayevskaya’s brand of intersectional Marxism at this book launch event sponsored by the IMHO. Recorded on February 17, 2021. Speakers: Paul Mason, Alessandra Spano, Karel Ludenhoff, David Black, and Kieran Durkin — Editors.

Raya Dunayevskaya is one of the twentieth century’s great but underappreciated Marxist, feminist, and anti-racist thinkers. Her unique philosophy and practice of Marxist-Humanism—as well as her grasp of Hegelian dialectics and the deep humanism that informs Marx’s thought—has much to teach us today.

Join us for a launching session of Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Class, Gender, and the Dialectics of Liberation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Kieran Durkin, one of the editors of the book, will introduce the meeting. Then we will hear four presentations from Alessandra Spano, Paul Mason, Karel Ludenhoff, and David Black, each of whom have contributed chapters to the book, in which they discuss how different aspects of Dunayevskaya’s works can inspire us today.

Paul Mason is an award-winning journalist, writer, filmmaker and public speaker. He has written a number of books, including Postcapitalism, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere and Clear Bright Future: A Radical Defence of the Human Being. Current work in development includes a short book about Karl Marx, a drama-documentary about the Spanish Civil War, and the play Feel My Pulse.

Alessandra Spano is a Ph.D candidate in Political Philosophy at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of Catania. She received an M.A. in Philosophy at the University of Bologna with a thesis focused on the political thought of Raya Dunayevskaya. This research was the inspiration for her focus on Marxist-Feminism and critical theory, the concentration for her doctoral investigation, particularly looking at the United States as a political space that is simultaneously imperialist, ‘colonized’, and global. Her interests include: Marxism, feminist theory, African-American studies, German idealism, psychoanalysis, and radicalism in the United States.

Karel Ludenhoff is an Amsterdam-based labor activist and a writer on Marx’s critique of political economy whose essays have appeared in Logos and other journals.

David Black born 1950 in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, now resident in London, works as a journalist, author, musician and video-maker. His published books include, (co-authored with Chris Ford) 1839: The Chartist Insurrection; The Philosophical Roots of Anti-Capitalism: Essays on History, Culture, and Dialectical Thought; (as editor) Red Republican: the Complete Annotated Works of Helen Macfarlane; and Psychedelic Tricksters: A True Secret History of LSD.

Kieran Durkin is Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Fellow at the University of York, and former Visiting Scholar at University of California Santa Barbara, where he has been studying the Marxist Humanist tradition. He is author of The Radical Humanism of Erich Fromm and (co-edited with Joan Braune) Erich Fromm’s Critical Theory: Hope, Humanism, and the Future.

 

It's time for Canada to end the shameful practice of exporting live horses to Japan for slaughter.   Over the weekend, CTV's W5 aired a new investigative piece exposing the heartbreaking suffering horses endure on international flights. These sensitive animals are bred, confined in barren feedlots, then shipped to Japan in the dead of night so they can be killed and eaten raw as a delicacy. Tragically, thousands of Canadian horses will suffer this fate every year.   The flight to Japan is long and gruelling, and horses are denied all comfort. Horses are regularly crammed tightly together in tiny wooden crates without any food, water, or rest. It’s common for horses to sustain injuries or die en route.   Canadian authorities aren't effectively enforcing animal transport laws on horse shipments, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is being challenged in court for giving the go-ahead to shipments that don't comply with Canadian laws and cause horses to suffer.   There’s an important opportunity to help end this industry right now. Please take a moment to sign the new parliamentary petition to stop Canada's live horse export trade. Help End Live Horse Exports! Thank you for speaking up for horses.

Documentary on jazz piano legend Oscar Peterson in production from Barry Avrich

TORONTO — Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich has started production on a feature documentary on the late Montreal-raised jazz legend Oscar Peterson

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

A news release from Avrich's Melbar Entertainment Group says Kelly Peterson, the widow of the virtuoso pianist, will act as consulting producer on "Oscar Peterson: Black and White."

The film is billed as a "docu-concert" and will include archival concert footage as well as interviews with family members and musicians who played with the Grammy winner, who died in 2007 at the age of 82 in Mississauga, Ont.

It will also feature new performances from artists playing Peterson's music, including Dave Young, Larnell Lewis, Jackie Richardson, Robi Botos, and Measha Brueggergosman.

Melbar says the doc will explore Peterson's life and acclaimed career, from his artistic influence and mentorship of other artists, to the racism that he endured and his legacy as "an uncompromising musician with a sense of racial pride."

The film is set for a release in the fall and comes on the heels of the release of Historica Canada's Heritage Minute on Peterson.



Gallery: Rising Black Stars To Watch In 2021 (ET Canada)


"It is a privilege and career highlight for me to tell Oscar's inspiring story and further immortalize his relentless yet iconic music in this film," said Avrich, a Canadian Screen Award-winning producer and director behind scores of live TV specials and documentaries, including last year's "The Howie Mandel Project."

Peterson dazzled audiences with his piano playing around the world and worked with a jazz giants including Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole.

His 1962 composition "Hymn to Freedom" became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement, while his 1964 recording “The Canadiana Suite” was in honour of his home country.

Avrich and Mark Selby will produce the doc. Avrich will also executive produce, alongside Jeffrey Latimer and Randy Lennox.

Other musicians who will perform in the film include Joe Sealy, Stu Harrison, Denzal Sinclaire, and Daniel Clarke Bouchard.

“It is gratifying that Oscar’s legacy continues to resonate and inspire music lovers and musicians everywhere," said Kelly Peterson.

"I am delighted that this documentary will capture his story, his journey and his place in music history now, and forever."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 3, 2021.

Victoria Ahearn, The Canadian Press

The man who saves forgotten cats in Fukushima's nuclear zone

HE FINDS THEM AT NIGHT

WHEN THEY GLOW IN THE DARK

By Tim Kelly and Kim Kyung Hoon 

© Reuters/KIM KYUNG-HOON 

The Wider Image: The man who saves forgotten cats in Fukushima's nuclear zone

FUKUSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - A decade ago, Sakae Kato stayed behind to rescue cats abandoned by neighbours who fled the radiation clouds belching from the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant. He won't leave.

"I want to make sure I am here to take care of the last one," he said from his home in the contaminated quarantine zone. "After that I want to die, whether that be a day or hour later."

So far he has buried 23 cats in his garden, the most recent graves disturbed by wild boars that roam the depopulated community. He is looking after 41 others in his home and another empty building on his property.

Kato leaves food for feral cats in a storage shed he heats with a paraffin stove. He has also rescued a dog, Pochi. With no running water, he has to fill bottles from a nearby mountain spring, and drive to public toilets.

The 57-year-old, a small construction business owner in his former life, says his decision to stay as 160,000 other people evacuated the area was spurred in part by the shock of finding dead pets in abandoned houses he helped demolish.

The cats also gave him a reason to stay on land that has been owned by his family for three generations.

"I don't want to leave, I like living in these mountains," he said standing in front of his house, which he is allowed to visit but, technically, not allowed to sleep in.

The two-storey wooden structure is in poor condition.

Rotten floorboards sag. It is peppered with holes where wall panels and roof tiles that kept the rain out were dislodged by a powerful earth tremor last month, stirring frightening memories of the devastating quake on March 11, 2001, that led to a tsunami and a nuclear meltdown.

"It might last another two or three years. The walls have started to lean," Kato said.

Decontamination in fields near his house signal that other residents will soon be allowed to return.

He estimates he spends $7,000 a month on his animals, part of it to buy dog food for wild boar that gather near his house at sunset. Farmers consider them pests, and also blame them for wrecking empty homes.

On Feb. 25, Kato was arrested on suspicion of freeing wild boar caught in traps set up by Japan's government in November. At time this article was published, he was still being detained for questioning.

FEAR LINGERS

About 30 km (19 miles) southeast, still in the restricted zone, Hisae Unuma is also surveying the state of her home, which withstood the earthquake a decade ago but is now close to collapsing after years of being battered by wind, rain and snow.

"I'm surprised it's still standing," the 67-year-old farmer said, a week after the tremor that damaged Kato's house.

"I could see my cattle in the field from there," she said pointing to the living room, a view now blocked by a tangle of bamboo.

Unuma fled as the cooling system at Tokyo Electric Power Co's nuclear plant 2.5 km away failed and its reactors began to melt down.

The government, which has adopted Fukushima as a symbol of national revival amid preparations for Tokyo Olympic Games, is encouraging residents to return to decontaminated land.

Lingering fears about the nuclear plant, jobs and poor infrastructure are keeping many away, though.

Unuma, now a vegetable farmer in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo, where her husband died three years ago, won't return even if the government scrapes the radioactive soil off her fields.

Radiation levels around her house are around 20 times the background level in Tokyo, according to a dosimeter reading carried out by Reuters.

Only the removal of Fukushima's radioactive cores will make her feel safe, a task that will take decades to complete.

"Never mind the threat from earthquakes, those reactors could blow if someone dropped a tool in the wrong place," she said.

Before making the four-hour drive back to her new home, Unuma visits the Ranch of Hope, a cattle farm owned by Masami Yoshizawa, who defied an order to cull his irradiated livestock in protest against the government and Tokyo Electric Power.

Among the 233 bullocks still there is the last surviving bullock from the 50-strong herd Unuma used to tend, and one of her last living links to the life she had before the disaster.

Her bullock ignores her when she tries to lure him over, so Yoshizawa gives her a handful of cabbage to try to tempt him.

"The thing about cattle, is that they really only think about food," Yoshizawa said.

(Reporting by Tim Kelly and Kim Kyong Hoon; Additional reporting by Akira Tomoshige; Editing by Pravin Char)

Why Are So Many People Upset About Elizabeth Warren’s Millionaire Tax?
Sarah Midkiff 

In one of her first moves as a new member of the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren unveiled legislation this week that would introduce a tax on the net worth of the super-rich. As the coronavirus pandemic devastates the economy, disproportionately affecting lower-income households, the United States’ multi-millionaires and billionaires have actually seen their wealth increase exponentially. Warren now plans to combat that in a new proposal.

© Provided by Refinery29

“This is a wealth tax that has been needed for a long time. We need it to produce more revenue, to create more opportunity in America,” Warren said in a statement. “But it is a wealth tax that we particularly need because of the changes in this country under the pandemic. We have watched the wealth of the billionaire class in America increase by more than a trillion dollars over the last year.”

The proposal, called the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, would introduce a 2% annual tax on households and trusts over $50 million. Once exceeding $1 billion, an additional 1% annual surtax would be added. So just to really clarify: If you do not make or have a net worth of $50 million or more, you will not be affected by this tax.

Warren and the group of lawmakers behind the wealth tax argue that it would go directly toward digging the U.S. out of the pandemic-induced economic crisis while also allocating funds toward infrastructural priorities like childcare and early education. If passed, it is estimated to generate $3 trillion in revenue over the next 10 years without raising taxes on 99.95% of American households. For reference, as a whole, that same percentage of U.S. residents does not have a collective net worth that would be enough to be subject to this tax, reports CBS.

But shortly after this legislation was announced, some hopped on Twitter to call it “political grandstanding,” or to remind people that the tax would keep happening every year, which amounts to a lot of money in the lifetime of a billionaire (which is kind of the point). Some argued that it would harm the businesses themselves and their employees. But one could argue that it does more harm to businesses and employees to keep a select few so wealthy that they couldn’t spend all their money in a lifetime if they tried.

The Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act was released by Warren alongside Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Brendan Boyle. It is co-sponsored by Democratic Sens. Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, Sheldon Whitehouse, Jeff Merkley, Brian Schatz, Ed Markey, and Mazie Hirono. With the 50-50 chamber split in the Senate, getting a majority — let alone a two-thirds majority — could prove exceptionally challenging.

However, even though there seems to be a contentious divide among politicians, the idea of a wealth tax actually has widespread support among the American people. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last year showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans agreed that the very rich should be contributing more in taxes. This includes a majority of Republican voters.

Perhaps that is the two-thirds majority Congress should be paying attention to.

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?

Sen. Warren Explains Why Billionaires Are Babies

Police say Edmonton’s Indigenous population is ‘highly victimized’ amid rising racism in city

Allison Bench


 

© The Canadian Press Images/Francis Vachon Edmonton Police badge is seen during a police memorial parade in Ottawa Sunday September 26, 2010.

In the wake of an alarming number of recent racist incidents in Edmonton, police say it's likely there are also frequent incidents against the city's Indigenous community that are largely going unreported.

The recent concerning incidents include reports from five Somali-Canadian women, all wearing hijabs, who were attacked or threatened in the city in the last 10 weeks.

Another racist incident involved a protest held in Edmonton on Feb. 20 that saw participants marching with tiki torches -- which are viewed by many as a symbol of racism after they were used by white nationalists during a notoriously violent and deadly weekend in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Read more: Edmonton police chief condemns tiki torch carrying but says no evidence of hate crime at recent rally

Edmonton police have condemned the racism. But on Wednesday, during a Facebook live on hate crimes in Edmonton, officials said police statistics show while there has been a recent increase in incidents towards Black citizens -- there are likely many incidents happening against First Nations people that aren't being reported.

7 months after massive anti-racism rally in Edmonton, efforts to address the issues continue


"Statistically, of recent (incidents) it's been the Muslim community," said Sgt. Gary Willits with the hate crimes and violent extremist unit.

Read more: ‘Racism is a real problem’: Muslim women fearful following attacks in Edmonton

"The hatred, though, towards one identifiable community is hands down, the last several years... the Black community. A lot of offenses against the Black community.

"Statistically, I don't have the proof to show this... but (incidents also against) our Indigenous population," Willits said.


"(They're) highly victimized, I see it, I hear it. But we're not getting the reporting.

"I don't know if that's because of the mistrust toward police. I don't know if that's something that's been normalized because it's been going on for generations," he said. "But our Indigenous community, it's happening frequently. We're trying to work on that, because we need that reporting, we need people to come forward."

Eleanor VanGunst, mental health counsellor with the Edmonton Native Healing Centre, says she believes that mistrust is a fact of life that has been present for generations.

"It's more multi-factorial than just mistrust," VanGunst said. "The RCMP was created in order to assist with implementation of the Indian Act.

"Many, many years of that history, the RCMP may be further away from that history than they originally were, but there is still the mistrust of that particular institution or system," she said.

Read more: The RCMP was created to control Indigenous people. Can that relationship be reset?

"The other thing is, through many years of inter-generational trauma, people have maybe not had the best response when they did ask for assistance. So it has reinforced in them the behaviour of not asking for assistance, because no one has ever really helped them, so why bother?"

VanGunst added that she's heard, through her work at the centre -- which offers community support and services to First Nations people in the city -- the majority of interactions with police that her clients have are negative.

"A lot of times that we see Edmonton police, is if they're looking for somebody," she said. "And that could be due to crime, or that (the person has not been) located for a number of days."

VanGunst added that many of her clients report incidents directly to her through their counselling sessions.

"Because this is a safe space to people to speak, we will often hear about how (clients) were unfairly treated -- targeted, followed in stores," she said.


"We get to hear an awful lot about how they're not happy that this has occurred, but nobody seems to really do much about it in follow up."

Video: Edmonton Police Service chief commits to action for city’s racialized communities

She also believes outreach would be a difficult task for officers.

"(Police are) not so much coming in to just sit and chat with the people. I think part of that is their thinking, is they don't want to traumatize the participants that come here.


"Using Indigenous officers to help bridge the gap -- that might be helpful."

In 2018, the Edmonton Police Service launched a Indigenous Community Engagement Strategy that aimed to develop positive community partnership.

Then in late 2020, the force announced it would be creating a new Indigenous advisory council to help address the inequities and barriers Indigenous people face in the city, and develop and implement the best policing practices to address those challenges.

Read more: Edmonton Police Service recruiting community members for Indigenous advisory council

Willits said in the short term, he believes reporting an incident is imperative.

"We need people to report. We need people to know you have a voice, you have value and we want to hear from you," he said.

VanGunst said her recommendation for all Edmontonians is to educate themselves on the barriers being faced by marginalized communities.

"For people to not just look at somebody who is marginalized and Indigenous and assume the worst of them," she said. "Educate yourselves on what may have brought that person to where they're at this moment. Have a little more empathy for the many, many generations of trauma that person is carrying with them."

Montreal’s Asian community sees increase in targeted hate crimes, police say

Hate crimes toward members of Montreal's Asian community have seen a dramatic increase over the last year, according to Montreal police

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News Hate crimes towards Montreal's Asian community have seen a dramatic increase over the last year according to Montreal police.

A total of 30 crimes targeting the Asian community were recorded in 2020 between the months of March and December.

Of those, 22 were considered "heinous crimes" and eight were recorded as "hate crimes."

READ MORE: Montreal police increase patrols in Chinatown following string of robberies

"It's a big jump," said SPVM Spokesperson Manuel Couture. Only six crimes were reported by Montreal's Asian community in 2019, according to the SPVM.

Couture said one-third of the incidents were related to COVID-19 and had a racist anti-Asian sentiment.

The majority of the cases, more than 40 per cent, involved vandalism and graffiti, Couture said.

READ MORE: Montreal police meet with Chinatown business owners after rash of break-ins, vandalism

"The pandemic made it more clear that racism is strongly in place in the community," said Chan Association president Jimmy Chan.

Chan said during the height of targeted attacks in Chinatown, fear and worry were at an all-time high.

"In one single night, there were seven stores with their windows smashed in," Chan said.

READ MORE: Montreal’s Chinatown faces second wave of vandalism, break-ins

The situation forced Chan to launch the first-ever Chinatown Security Service.

For weeks, Chan says the group of citizens patrolled the Chinatown area during the evenings.


"Almost every night, we would station in China town patrolling. It wasn't easy but people felt secure."

After an outcry in the community, the city of Montreal and the SPVM launched a security campaign.

Since November 2020, police have increased foot patrols and surveillance.

"We will talk to people in the street. We do door to doors, just to make sure everyone understands these acts are unacceptable," Const. Couture said.

Both Chan and the police say that regular reports should be made.

"People need to speak up," Chan said.

"We have our right, our space and a right to speak."

Benefits of LSD Microdosing Might Just Be 

a Manifestation of The Placebo Effect

Peter Dockrill 

For years now, experiments with LSD and other psychedelic drugs have suggested that 'microdoses' of the substances can offer a range of psychological benefits to people, with the potential to help treat depression and other mental health conditions

.

© shunli zhao/Getty Images

The notion that these long-controversial drugs might actually improve people's mental wellbeing, cognition, and creativity was hailed as an exciting new paradigm in medical research – but according to a new study, the supposed benefits of these substances may not be what they seem.

In what's being described as the largest placebo-controlled trial on psychedelics to date, researchers found that the positive psychological effects linked with psychedelic microdosing may just be a manifestation of the placebo effect.

The placebo effect is a strange phenomenon where people appear to experience a medical benefit even when they've only taken a placebo, such as a sugar pill that contains no active medical substance.

While the mechanisms that empower the placebo effect remain debated, researchers suggest the phenomenon is tied to people's expectations: if people believe they might be affected by something, that belief in itself can trigger varying physiological effects that may alter their experience.

In the new LSD study, the same phenomenon could well have been taking place.

Researchers from Imperial College London recruited 191 volunteers: people who were already experienced psychedelics microdosers.

In an online 'self-blinded' experiment – in which the participants did not know what was inside the capsules they were taking – half the group ingested LSD microdoses, and the other half acted as controls, taking capsules that looked the same but were in fact placebos.

Over the course of four weeks, the participants took their regimen of mystery capsules (either LSD or placebo), while filling out surveys on how they were feeling, and performing cognitive tests online.

The results ultimately showed that those taking LSD microdoses felt better after taking their pills, significant improvements in psychological measures of well-being, mindfulness, life satisfaction, and paranoia.

However, the same benefits were seen in the people taking the placebo pills, with no significant differences evident between the two groups.

"Our results are mixed: on the one hand, we observed microdosing's benefits in a wide range of psychological measures; on the other hand, equal benefits were seen among participants taking placebos," says first author of the study Balázs Sziget, a research associate with Imperial College London's Centre for Psychedelic Research.

"These findings suggest that the benefits are not due to the drug, but rather due to the placebo-like expectation effects."

"Many participants who reported that they experienced positive effects while taking the placebo were shocked to learn after the study that they hadn't been taking the real drug."

It's not the first time that researchers have probed the strange nexus between psychedelics and placebos, but the researchers say theirs is the first to conduct a placebo-controlled investigation of the accumulative effects of repeated microdosing.

Based on the results, the experiment seems to confirm the commonly reported anecdotal reports that the act of microdosing LSD confers positive psychological benefits – only it suggests those improvements "are not due to the pharmacological action of microdosing, but are rather explained by the placebo effect".

That said, minor differences in some psychological measures were evident between the two groups, although the researchers say the effect sizes were small, with debatable clinical and practical value.

"In summary," the authors conclude, "these results strongly suggest that the actual content of capsules did not determine differences between the conditions, but beliefs about their content did." (Original emphasis.)

The researchers emphasise that their self-blinding experiment – in which the participants mixed up their own capsules at home to take part in the trial – comes with certain limitations, acknowledging that the results are less rigorous than data from a conventional clinical trial.

But there's no denying the potential impact of these findings, which show that we can't discount the possibility that the placebo effect may influence the results of contemporary psychedelics research – and in a way that is quite mind-blowing.

"An empty pill with strong belief/intentions makes nearly everything," one astonished participant, who took only placebos in the trial, told the researchers.

"You put spirituality into an empty pill here…wow!"

The findings are reported in eLife.

Fossils of oldest titanosaur discovered in Argentina
Doyle Rice, USA TODAY 

© Jorge González An artist's conception of the Ninjatitan zapatai dinosaur, which roamed the Earth some 140 million years ago.

At about 140 million years old, fossils from a huge dinosaur dug up in Argentina might be the oldest titanosaur yet discovered, scientists announced this week in a new study.

Titanosaurs are a group of long-necked, plant-eating dinosaurs that may have been the largest animals ever to walk the Earth, according to Reuters. Known as Ninjatitan zapatai, the recently discovered animal was about 66 feet in length and had a long neck and tail, Sci-News said.

"It is the oldest record known, not only from Argentina but worldwide," study lead author Pablo Gallina, a researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research of Argentina (CONICET), told Reuters.

“This discovery is also very important for the knowledge of the evolutionary history of sauropods because the fossil records of the Early Cretaceous epoch, in around 140 million years ago, are really very scarce throughout the world,” he said in a statement.

The new discovery meant titanosaurs lived longer ago than previously thought – at the beginning of the Cretaceous era that ended with the demise of the dinosaurs about 66 million years ago, Reuters said.

The fossilized remains of Ninjatitan zapatai were discovered in Neuquén province in Argentina's Patagonia region.

The creature was named after Argentine paleontologist Sebastian Apesteguia, nicknamed "El Ninja," and technician Rogelio Zapata, according to AFP.

The discovery of Ninjatitan zapatai was announced in a study in the journal Ameghiniana.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fossils of oldest titanosaur discovered in Argentina

Cleanup of Arecibo Observatory's collapsed radio telescope seen from space
Elizabeth Howell 

The sad work of dismantling the remains of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico is underway.

© Provided by Space arecibo observatory

Fresh satellite images from Maxar Technologies from Feb. 23 show work crews removing part of the structure and clearing the land for safety reasons, after the telescope collapsed Dec. 1, 2020.

The National Science Foundation (which stewarded the telescope since the 1970s) had no updates about Arecibo's status recently on Twitter or on its press releases. It announced the decommissioning of the famed observatory back in November, however, due to hurricane and cable damage deemed too dangerous to repair. The new pictures are therefore no surprise.

Related: Astronomers are still reeling from the loss of iconic Arecibo radio telescope

The collapse, documented in pictures and video, saw the 900-ton platform that hung above the radio dish suddenly falling 450 feet (140 meters) into the structure below at 8 a.m. local time. A preliminary investigation is ongoing for the cause amid the cleanup; a first update Jan. 21 from NSF suggested manufacturing error in the cables may have contributed to the collapse.

"We at NSF are extremely grateful that the safety zones were adequate and that nobody was physically hurt," Ashley Zauderer, the program director for the Arecibo Observatory at the NSF, said during a virtual town hall event held separately Jan. 11 at the 237th conference of the American Astronomical Society.

"I say 'physically hurt' because we do want to clearly communicate that we understand that this was a very traumatic event, impacting a lot of people," Zauderer added. "There is a lot of hurt."

The telescope's astronomical achievements are vast, but include scanning asteroids that came close to Earth, examining exoplanets and once sending a message to extraterrestrials in 1974. The public was also familiar with Arecibo's work through sci-fi films in the 1990s such as "Goldeneye" of the James Bond franchise, and the alien-focused "Contact" that starred a young Matthew McConaughey decades before his more famous space flick "Interstellar" (2014).

Arecibo's location in Puerto Rico brought tourism and scientific employment to the island associated with the telescope's work; how to secure that for the future is still being discussed. A recent editorial in Astronomy magazine suggested selling off pieces of Arecibo (in the context of a growing, worldwide space memorabilia market) to contribute to a fund for education and outreach at the former facility.

Follow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter @howellspace. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

 

Scientists Detect Space Hurricane Swirling Over North Pole

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

‘Vancouver Model’ money laundering connects B.C., Las Vegas and Macau casinos, inquiry hears

B.C.’s inquiry into money laundering has heard stunning evidence about connections between B.C. government casinos, casinos in Macau and Las Vegas, and international drug traffickers and loan sharks moving money between Vancouver, Latin America and Asia via Chinese underground banks.

© Screengrab / Global News A photo of a baccarat table in one of Paul King Jin’s alleged illegal casinos in Richmond, B.C., as presented in evidence during B.C.'s public inquiry into money laundering on Monday, March 1, 2021. Cullen Commission counsel Brock Martland, left, and RCMP Cpl. Melvin Chizawsky look on during the virtual testimony.

The Cullen Commission heard new details on Monday about the RCMP’s so-called E-Pirate investigation into suspected drug-money laundering in BC Lottery Corporation casinos involving an organized crime suspect named Paul King Jin.

Video: Cullen Commission testimony on ‘conflicting directions’ from then-minister

Criminal charges against Jin and Silver International, a Richmond currency exchange business, were stayed in November 2018, RCMP Cpl. Melvin Chizawsky told the inquiry. But a related RCMP investigation called E-Nationalize and B.C. government civil forfeiture actions against Jin’s network and its so-called "Vancouver Model" money laundering continue, he said.

The E-Pirate probe alleged that Silver was operating as a drug trafficking organization by laundering cash for drug dealers in China, Latin America and Canada, an affidavit filed by Chizawsky said.

Jin and Silver would arrange for Chinese nationals to deposit funds to Chinese banks, and pay them Canadian cash which they used to gamble in B.C., he said.

Jin and Silver would also loan out cash in Richmond, which the RCMP alleges was deposited by drug traffickers who then directed Silver to transfer deposited funds to China or other countries. These cash loans were often secured against real estate owned in Vancouver by Chinese high rollers, the inquiry heard.

Read more: BC Lottery Corp. CEO ignored federal anti-money laundering direction on bags of cash: inquiry

According to Chizawsky, the E-Pirate probe found "cellphone data was reviewed that indicated (Silver) had access to ‘cash pools’ in numerous other locations, aside from China, including Mexico City and Bogota in Colombia.”

Up to 300 investigators were working on E-Pirate at "the height" of the investigation, Chizawsky said. And records and videos seized from Silver in 2015 indicated the unregistered currency exchange took in $220 million in cash that year and paid out $217 million in locations worldwide.

Most of Silver's cash deposits were bundles of cash that appeared to be delivered in methods consistent with drug trafficking, he said.

The largest single deposit, according to RCMP evidence, was a $1.4-million cash delivery from a man targeted in a Vancouver police drug trafficking investigation.

One of Silver's customers in 2015 was Richard Chiu, who was convicted in 2002 in Massachusetts for conspiracy to distribute and possess heroin, according to Chizawsky. Chiu, who was also investigated in homicide and drug trafficking probes in Vancouver, Chizawsky said, was killed in Colombia in June 2019.

Chizawsky said that when Jin was arrested and interviewed in February 2016, Jin admitted that he had gambling credit accounts with Las Vegas and Macau casinos, and that he used these accounts to facilitate his own gambling business with Chinese nationals, whom he recruited in Macau casinos, so that he could lend them cash at Richmond's River Rock Casino and Vancouver's Edgewater Casino, and offer them underground casino betting in Richmond.

Video: Shocking new Cullen Commission testimony about gang activity in B.C. casinos

“You know I have got, like, a credit from the casino, right?” Jin bragged to Chizawsky, according to an interview transcript read in the inquiry. “My name is money. I call … (Jin laughs) they give money, right? I collect million, two million. They deal right away.”

Chizawsky testified that RCMP surveillance of Jin and Silver International started in mid-2015.

The RCMP followed Jin as he picked up large bags of cash from Silver in downtown Richmond, broke the cash into smaller parcels at his parents’ Richmond home, then delivered it to his own illegal casino, also in Richmond.

The investigation also found some of these Chinese nationals were using River Rock Casino chips at Jin’s illegal casino mansion, located on a 27-acre parcel of rural Richmond land. Records show that in 2019, this $10-million address on No. 4 Road was the city's second most valuable property.

Read more: Top BC Lottery Corp. executives disagreed on province’s suspicious-cash directive, inquiry hears

Jin also had baccarat tables set up at his Richmond condo, where the RCMP seized $4.3 million in cash in a gun safe in the master bedroom, the inquiry heard.

While Jin admitted running a casino at the No. 4 Road mansion, he denied any criminality.

“The small casino -- I’m innocent too," Jin said, according to an RCMP interview transcript read at the inquiry. "I lose my money too.”

The RCMP also connected Jin's alleged network to massage and restaurant businesses in Toronto, and to a Richmond massage parlour called Water Cube that had directors in Richmond, Markham, Ont., and various Chinese cities including Beijing.

Chizawsky said that Jin, who has been convicted for aggravated assault, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation, denied extorting any of his cash loan clients, but did call himself a "loan shark."

“You know myself sometime in danger," Jin said, while explaining why he was seen travelling in vehicles registered to other people. "(You) know me, I’m a loan shark and I have money, you know, right? … I move around, you know.”

However, Jin's lawyer, Greg DelBigio, questioned the accuracy of Chizawsky's affidavit and testimony.

Chizawsky acknowledged that in at least one case, he attributed information incorrectly.

Jin has repeatedly denied all allegations, and none of the RCMP’s or B.C. government's allegations related to the casino investigations have been proven in court.

The inquiry continues.