Elevate and Evolve | Cannabis & Psychedelic Culture Blog
Cut Video found three grandmas who had never smoked marijuana and gave them an opportunity to try it for the first time. Then Cut gave them snacks and had them play Cards Against Humanity.
According to a research journal article published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in February 2012, meditation can alter the geometry of the brain’s surface. There was a study done at UCLA involving 50 meditators and 50 controls that addressed a possible link between meditation and cortical gyrification, the pattern and degree of cortical folding that allows the brain to process faster. This study showed a positive correlation between the amount of gyrification in parts of the brain and the number of years of meditation for people, especially long-term meditators, compared to non-meditators.
This increased gyrification may reflect an integration of cognitive processes when meditating, since meditators are known to be introspective and contemplative, using certain portions of the brain in the process of meditation.
Rebecca Gladding, M.D. explains in an article published in May 2013 Psychology Today, how the brain functions better with meditation, and the positive affects it has on the brain, the longer you meditate.
Basically, Gladding explains how the brain can be molded by meditation. Specifically, the connection to our fear center and our “Me” Center (place where the brain constantly reflects back to you) wither away by meditating on a regular basis.
This loosening up lessens our feelings of anxiety, because the neural pathways linking our Me Center to our fear decreases. The unhelpful feelings of anxiety become regulated, meaning, sufficiently ignored, which enhances better neural pathways to form. New neural pathways include improved assessment and empathetic responses. The important thing that Gladding also mentions is that to maintain the benefits of meditation, you must keep meditating because:
the brain can very easily revert back to its old ways if you are not vigilant.
A large cardiovascular study was done and published in November 2012, in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
There were 201 people with coronary heart disease given two choices:
(1) Take a health education class promoting improved diet and exercise.
(2) Take a class on transcendental meditation.
Researchers studied these participants for five years and discovered something interesting. Those that chose (2) the meditation class had 48% reduction to the overall risk of heart attack, stroke and death.
New research shows that meditation can further enhance the abilities of memory recall.
Catherine Kerr is a researcher at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging and the Osher Research Center. She has found that those that practice meditation could adjust their brains waves better. They could screen out distractions and increase productivity faster than those that did not meditate. Less distractions gives room for the brain to integrate new information. This slight change in brain adjustment can dramatically aid in memory recall.
Kerr explained more in an article called, Meditation’s Effects on Emotion Shown to Persist, published in June 2013 at Psych Central
Mindfulness meditation has been reported to enhance numerous mental abilities, including rapid memory recall. Our discovery that mindfulness meditators more quickly adjusted the brain wave that screens out distraction could explain their superior ability to rapidly remember and incorporate new facts. – Catherine Kerr
> Proven Benefits of Meditating | Thinking Humanity
Terence McKenna is one our favorite psychedelic luminaries. Here is a short interview of his where he talks about many ideas concerning drugs, legality, and love that are increasingly becoming commonplace among a larger and larger portion of our global populace.
Ideally, we’ll look back at this time in history and laugh at our collective foolishness and hubris.
My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts. – Terence McKenna
Dry Ice experiments are very cool! You can make bombs, you can make bubbles float on dry ice, you can even make a dry ice whoopee cushion!
With a little no how and the right tools you can make some awesome reactions happen.
Check out these videos and impress your friends, or just trip yourself out, with what’s possible when science meets dry ice.
During debates over whether or not marijuana should be legalized, safety was one of the biggest talking points on both sides.
From a pro-legalization perspective, advocates noted that full legalization would bring transactions off the streets — often dangerous for many reasons — and into safe, responsibly run retail environments.
From an anti-legalization view, some of the major concerns regarding cannabis included the actual effect of the plant on people’s health, the prospect of people driving under the influence, and of course, what would happen to the children if legislation was allowed to pass.
Well, nearly a year since Colorado initiated legal marijuana sales to the general public, it appears that legalization has indeed made the streets safer. In fact, marijuana use among teenagers has actually dropped in Colorado.
Survey results released by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment indicate that kids of high school age are less likely to view marijuana as risky than they were before, and that overall, the number of teens who have used it has dropped.
One in five high school kids used cannabis within the past 30 days, the survey found. Thirty-day use rates took a drop from 22 percent in 2011 to 20 percent last year, while over the same time lifetime use — which measures how many teens had actually tried marijuana at some point in their lives — dropped from 39 percent to 37 percent. While not a significant shift, it is indeed a drop, instead of the supposed increased many assumed.
One of the other chief concerns about legalization would be that it would encourage drivers to get behind the wheel while under the influence. A worthy concern, yet traffic data from Colorado has proven that traffic fatalities have actually declined since prohibition was ended in Colorado.
Fatalities in Colorado peaked in 2002, one year after Colorado’s medical marijuana law went into effect, and has since dropped by more than a third. Also, since legal sales began in January, traffic fatalities for the year are down as compared to 2013.
While there really can’t ever be anything directly linking legal cannabis to safer roads, the data does show marked improvement. Some experts believe that fewer fatalities and legal cannabis can be linked, as some people may decide to substitute the act of marijuana use in place of drinking.
For the majority, legal marijuana doesn’t necessarily change their behavior. If they smoked before, they still do. And if the law was the only thing holding them back, chances are they still aren’t smoking now.
For now, it appears that the streets, at least in Colorado, are a bit safer. At the very least, people no longer need to be worried about engaging in sketchy black market drug deals in parking lots, and can instead engage in commerce like adults in retail stores.
> Is Legalized Marijuana Making Steets Safer? It Appears So | Wall St. Cheat Sheet
Aldous Huxley interviewed for The Paris Review (1960), reprinted in Moksha: Aldous Huxley’s Classic Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience, edited by Michael Horowitz and Cynthia Palmer (Park Street Press, 1999)
Interviewers: Do you see any relation between the creative process and the use of such drugs as lysergic acid [diethylamide]?
Huxley: I don’t think there is any generalization one can make on this. Experience has shown that there’s an enormous variation in the way people respond to lysergic acid. Some people probably could get direct aesthetic inspiration for painting or poetry out of it. Others I don’t think could. For most people it’s an extremely significant experience, and I suppose in an indirect way it could help the creative process. But I don’t think one can sit down and say, “I want to write a magnificent poem, and so I’m going to take lysergic acid [diethylamide].” I don’t think it’s by any means certain that you would get the result you wanted — you might get almost any result.
Interviewers: Would the drug give more help to the lyric poet than the novelist?
Huxley: Well, the poet would certainly get an extraordinary view of life which he wouldn’t have had in any other way, and this might help him a great deal. But you see (and this is the most significant thing about the experience), during the experience you’re really not interested in doing anything practical — even writing lyric poetry. If you were having a love affair with a woman, would you be interested in writing about it? Of course not. And during the experience you’re not particularly in words, because the experience transcends words and is quite inexpressible in terms of words. So the whole notion of conceptualizing what is happening seems very silly. After the event, it seems to me quite possible that it might be of great assistance: people would see the universe around them in a very different way and would be inspired, possibly, to write about it.
Interviewers: But is there much carry-over from the experience?
Huxley: Well, there’s always a complete memory of the experience. You remember something extraordinary having happened. And to some extent you can relive the experience, particularly the transformation of the outside world. You get hints of this, you see the world in this transfigured way now and then — not to the same pitch of intensity, but something of the kind. It does help you to look at the world in a new way. And you come to understand very clearly the way that certain specially gifted people have seen the world. You are actually introduced into the kind of world that Van Gogh lived in, or the kind of world that Blake lived in. You begin to have a direct experience of this kind of world while you’re under the drug, and afterwards you can remember and to some slight extent recapture this kind of world, which certain privileged people have moved in and out of, as Blake obviously did all the time.
Interviewers: But the artist’s talents won’t be any different from what they were before he took the drug?
Huxley: I don’t see why they should be different. Some experiments have been made to see what painters can do under the influence of the drug, but most of the examples I have seen are very uninteresting. You could never hope to reproduce to the full extent the quite incredible intensity of color that you get under the influence of the drug. Most of the things I have seen are just rather tiresome bits of expressionism, which correspond hardly at all, I would think, to the actual experience. Maybe an immensely gifted artist — someone like Odilon Redon (who probably saw the world like this all the time anyhow) — maybe such a man could profit by the lysergic acid [diethylamide] experience, could use his visions as models, could reproduce on canvas the external world as it is transfigured by the drug.
Interviewers: Here this afternoon, as in your book, The Doors of Perception, you’ve been talking chiefly about the visual experience under the drug, and about painting. Is there any similar gain in psychological insight?
Huxley: Yes, I think there is. While one is under the drug one has penetrating insights into the people around one, and also into one’s own life. Many people get tremendous recalls of buried material. A process which may take six years of psychoanalysis happens in an hour — and considerably cheaper! And the experience can be very liberating and widening in other ways. It shows that the world one habitually lives in is merely a creation of this conventional, closely conditioned being which one is, and that there are quite other kinds of worlds outside. It’s a very salutary thing to realize that the rather dull universe in which most of us spend most of our time is not the only universe there is. I think it’s healthy that people should have this experience.
> Huxley on LSD and Creativity | MAPS Org
Switzerland may start paying every adult (whether they work or not) a salary of over $2000 per month.
Based on the idea that their citizens will have more time to devote to things they are intrinsically interested in, instead of spending the majority of their time worrying about how they are going to survive; as many individuals with entry-level positions find it hard to meet their needs.
The income initiative promises every Swiss citizen a living wage, so they can always survive without basic financial worry.
The 2,500 francs would work out to be an income of 30,000 Swiss francs per year. Statistics released by the European Union in 2002 showed that Switzerland was the third most expensive country in Europe, after Norway and Iceland, to live in.
Switzerland currently has a population of 8.02 million people, equivalent to that of large cities such as the San Francisco Bay Area which has a population of 7.15 million. The Swiss pay particularly high prices for meat, cooking oil, fish and vegetables. Basic utilities (electricity, heating, water, garbage) are around 200 francs per month, and the average rent of a one bedroom apartment in the city center runs about 1,400 francs.
Imagine you are being born and society tells you ‘Welcome, you will be cared for, and asks you what you want to do with your life, what is your calling? Imagine that feeling, that’s a whole different atmosphere. – Daniel Straub, Co-founder, Basic Income Initiative
Parliament was presented with a petition signed by over 100,000 people, proposing to afford every citizen, regardless if they are working or not, a monthly paycheck of 2,500 Swiss francs.
To mark the day, a truck full of 8 million five-cent coins was deposited on the square and spread out in front of the Swiss Parliament in Bern, supporters gathered around and spread the coins out using shovels. A typical fast-food worker in the US earns roughly $1,500 per month. Anything less than that specified amount of 2,500 francs, would be deemed illegal, even for people working in one of the lowest paid jobs.
A date for the vote itself is yet to be confirmed, however, it could take place before the end of 2014.
The money to fund the measure would likely be supplied by the Swiss social insurance system, so in other words it would be taken from taxpayers. We know that the government has no money itself, everything that it gives to others it must first take from others or print it out of thin air.
This new system will force business owners to pay their workers a certain wage, regardless if their labor is considered worth less than the stipulated amount. This idea aims to set the minimum standard of living higher, but this might prompt business owners to take their company elsewhere, where they have more freedom over wage decisions. Of course, this would also mean they get no cut whatsoever of the Swiss market.
On the other hand, the new income may also lure new business owners to the country in looks of attracting those new consumers. One prominent CEO in Switzerland has stated that if the measure passes, he would seriously contemplate moving his company out of the country:
I can’t believe that Switzerland would cause such great harm to its economy. – Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg told the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation.
The unemployment rate currently remains at 3 percent in Switzerland and is arguably one of the most stable economies in the world. The nation has built the reputation of having some of the most friendly laws toward foreign investors.
Will this measure make more money flow, by putting liquidity in the hands of those more prone to putting it back in the economy, or will it drive investors away and cause the Swiss economy to stumble?
> Swiss to Pay Minimum Wage Per Month | Earth We Are One
Unlike the United States’ arcane Cannabis policies, these 8 countries actually take facts into account when classifying and regulating Marijuana.
In Spain personal marijuana has been legal for decades. Today Barcelona is en route to challenge Amsterdam as the world center of pot tourism. In Spain, anyone is allowed to grow the herb for personal use, and – echoing California’s rules for medical marijuana use – growers can form collective, nonprofit, members-only cannabis clubs.
Barcelona officials have given their blessing to this new phenomenon. … The number of cannabis clubs that have opened in Barcelona recently has some experts saying this city will soon challenge Amsterdam as the go-to destination for vacationers who want to get high in peace. – Suzanne Daley New York Times
Daley reported that the pot clubs provide an economic boost.
Though they are nonprofits, advocates say the clubs are generating thousands of jobs and tax revenues for the state. In addition to selling a wide array of cannabis products and hashish, many of the clubs also sell food and drinks and offer extras to their members, like live music nights and Pilates classes.
Portugal has enjoyed the benefits of all-out drug decriminalization for over a decade. Portugal became the first nation in Europe to decriminalize personal possession of drugs – including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine – in 2001.
Decriminalization means those drugs remain illegal, but instead of throwing people in jail for their use, the country imposes a fine similar to a traffic ticket and provides addiction treatment options. By removing criminal penalties for drug use, the nation was able to fund the resources necessary to treat drug addiction as the health crisis that it is.
Today in Portugal if you’re convicted of possessing small amounts of drugs, you visit a psychologist, social worker and legal advisor who determine what kind of treatment you need. Prior to decriminalization, Portugal had a serious drug problem, but over the last decade the nation has seen a decline in drug use.
While critics of the law warned that drug use would swell, it has not risen. We have seen significant reductions in H.I.V. infections and in overdoses, as well as a substantial increase in new patients seeking drug treatment. – João Castel-Branco Goulão, Portugal’s national Drug Coordinator & Chairman of the European Monitoring Center on Drugs and Drug Addiction
While the Great White North does not allow marijuana for recreational purposes anywhere, it has a nationwide government-sanctioned medical marijuana program. About 20 companies are licenced to mass-produce cannabis in Canada for medical purposes.
In addition to the substantial economic boost that comes from the new market, the Canadian government probably took the stacks of convincing research on cannabis’s potential health benefits into account in its decision to allow large scale medical marijuana production and distribution.
In Israel a $40-million-per-year medical-marijuana industry is thriving.
The Israeli government is funding and supporting breakthrough research on the many healing potentials of the cannabis plant – from cancer, to addiction, to psychological traumas. Israel’s federal government sanctions their national medical marijuana program.
According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Iceland smokes the most weed in the world, on average. The report, which included a breakdown of illegal drug use per country, found that 18.3% of the Icelandic population smokes weed. The United States ranked fourth in the report, with 14.8 percent of the population using pot.
Whatever the reason for their infatuation with cannabis, Icelanders were also found to be one of the happiest populations on the planet.
Surprisingly, cannabis remains illegal in the Netherlands.
The Dutch government and law enforcement are extremely tolerant of the herb and possession of small amounts is decriminalized nationwide. Two million tourists per year visit the city of Amsterdam for its legendary “coffee shops,” which are licensed to sell weed. You’re not allowed, however, to buy your bud on the streets, and coffee shops do card.
In response to increasing drug trafficking activity and violence, Uruguay became the first nation to legalize marijuana across the board, in December 2013. It did so in an effort to undermine the powerful cartels that have ravished much of the rest of Latin America. The plan in Uruguay is to set government weed prices extremely low so that cartels will be forced out of business.
While many had hoped to see Uruguay’s pot sales start already, President Jose Mujica announced that complications have delayed sales until 2015.
While not officially confirmed, according to Open Radio North Korea, as well as other news outlets and visitor reports, marijuana has never been controlled in the country and is not considered to be a drug. While the North Korean penalty for hard drugs like meth is severe, people are allowed to smoke pot without regulation – it even grows freely on the side of the street.
NK NEWS receives regular reports from visitors returning from North Korea, who tell us of marijuana plants growing freely along the roadsides, from the northern port town of Chongjin, right down to the streets of Pyongyang, where it is smoked freely and its sweet scent often catches your nostrils unannounced. Our sources are people we know who work inside North Korea and make regular trips in and out of the country.
There is no taboo around pot smoking in the country—many residents know the drug exists and have smoked it. In North Korea, the drug goes by the name of ip tambae, or ‘leaf tobacco.’ It is reported to be especially popular amongst young soldiers in the North Korean military. Rather than getting hooked on tar and nicotine like servicemen in the West, they are able to unwind by lighting up a king-sized bone during down time on the military beat. – VICE
> 9 Marijuana Policies From Around the World That Are Way Ahead of the U.S | Waking Times
Wim Hof is a holder of 20 Guinness World Records for withstanding extreme temperatures.
He has climbed Everest and Kilimanjaro in only shorts and shoes, stayed comfortably in ice baths for hours, and run a marathon in the desert with no water.
Wim is able to accomplish these feats with ease through the use of The Wim Hof Method – a breathing technique that allows you to control the autonomous systems of the body.
However, the most earthshaking effect of the Wim Hof method is the ability to consciously control the immune system to fight off any disease.
By becoming more in tune with the body, Wim says you can rid yourself of even the most destructive diseases, including AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, and cancer.
The Wim Hof Method is similar to Tummo (inner heat) Meditation and Pranayama (yogic breathing). Yet it is something else entirely. While Wim has studied yoga and meditation for many years, this technique primordially comes from what he terms ‘cold hard nature’. By subjecting himself to the bitter conditions of nature, he learned to withstand the extreme forces of cold, heat and fear.
The first part is a breathing exercise which can be likened to controlled hyperventilation.
The image will consist of rapid breathing that makes one languid, invigorates one, makes one high on oxygen. One mechanism of this practice is the complete oxygenation of your blood and cells.
Sit in a meditation posture, whatever is most comfortable for you. Make sure you can expand your lungs freely without feeling any constriction. It is recommended to do this practice right after waking up since your stomach is still empty.
Inhale deeply. Really draw the breath in until you feel a slight pressure from inside your chest on your solar plexus. Hold this for a moment and then exhale completely. Push the air out as much as you can. Hold this for a moment. Repeat this warm up round 15 times.
Imagine you’re blowing up a balloon. Inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth in short but powerful bursts. The belly is pulled inward when you are breathing out and is pulled outward when you are breathing in. Keep a steady pace and use your midriff fully. Close your eyes and do this around 30 times or until you feel your body is saturated with oxygen. Symptoms could be light-headedness, tingling sensations in the body, electrical surges of energy.
During the 30 power breaths, delve into your body and become aware of it as possible. Trace your awareness up and down your body and use your intuition as to what parts lack energy and what parts are overflowing. Scan for any blockage between the two. Try to send energy/warmth to those blockages. Then release them deeper and deeper. Tremors, traumas and emotional releases can come up. It can be likened to kundalini rising. Feel the whole body fill up with warmth and love.
Feel the negativity burn away.
Often people report swirling colors and other visual imagery during this exercise. Once you encounter them, go into them, embrace them, merge with them. Get to know this inner world and how it correlates to the feeling of tension or blockages in your body.
After the the 30 rapid succession of breath cycles, draw the breath in once more and fill the lungs to maximum capacity without using too much force. Then push all of the air out and hold for as long as you can. Draw the chin in a bit so as to prevent air from coming in again.
Really relax and open all energy channels in your body. Notice how all the oxygen is spreading around in your body. Hold the breath until you experience the gasp reflex on the top of your chest.
Inhale to full capacity. Feel your chest expanding. Release any tension in the solar plexus. When you are at full capacity, hold the breath once more. Drop the chin to the chest and hold this for around 15 seconds.
Notice that you can direct the energy with your awareness. Use this time to scan the body and see where there is no color, tension or blockages. Feel the edges of this tension, go into it, move the energy towards this black hole. Feel the constrictions burning away, the dark places fill with light. Relax the body deeper as you move further inward, let everything go. Your body knows better than you do. After 15 seconds you have completed the first round.
Start this practice with one or two rounds. Try to do it daily and add two more rounds in a few days. After you feel more comfortable with holding your breath you can start to add exercises and stretches. Work up to a minimum of 15 minutes or 6 rounds with exercises. You can do this practice for how long it pleases you.
If you feel dizziness or pain, get out of the posture and lie on your back. Breathe easily again and stop this practice session.
Reserve at least 5 minutes after this practice to relax and scan the body.
After the body scan of the previous exercise you are ready let your body embrace the cold. It is very important to try to relax as much as you can, really be with the cold, only then can your body process the signals and start thermogenesis.
As Wim says, “The cold is your warm friend!”
If you are new to cold exposure, start with cold showers. Begin with your feet and then follow with your legs, your stomach, shoulders, neck and back and finally your head. An initial shock, shivering and hyperventilation is normal. Try to remain calm and breathe easily. Close your eyes and really try to embrace the cold.
If you feel any strong physical uncomfortableness, like heavy shivering, numbness or pain, get your body warm again as soon as possible.
Once you are out of the shower, take a moment to do another slow body scan before you dry yourself.
Cold exposure works like weight lifting, you get stronger over time. There are little muscles around your veins that contract when they get into contact with the cold. After some time (only 1-2 weeks according to Wim) these become stronger, making your veins healthier and reducing the force that your heart has to use to pump blood around your body.
You can increase exposure over time. At one point the cold will feel just as comfortable as wearing your favorite pajamas and you can skip the warm shower completely. Notice how you feel amazing after a cold shower and sluggish after a warm one.
After a few weeks of cold showers you can up the ante to an ice bath. Get 2-3 bags of ice at your local convenience store and put them in a half-full bath tub. Wait until around two thirds is melted or that the water has reached your designated temperature (10 / 12 °C (50 / 59 °F)). You can throw in a couple of handfuls of salt to speed up this process.
As with the cold showers, try to relax as much as you can. Start out with around 10 minutes and increase exposure over time. If you feel uncomfortable or in doubt, get out. After this exercise make sure you do another body scan.
It is normal to feel extra cold after a small period of time after the ice bath. This is called the after-drop. Take a hot glass of raw coca and keep your blood flowing by talking a walk.
You’ll feel amazing after!
These exercises are extremely powerful when done consistently and with intent. Try them and out and report your findings in the comments below!
Remember, the cold is your warm friend.
> Consciously Control Your Immune System | High Existence
The Lycurgus Cup, as it is known due to its depiction of a scene involving King Lycurgus of Thrace, is a 1,600-year-old jade green Roman chalice that changes colour depending on the direction of the light upon it.
It baffled scientists ever since the glass chalice was acquired by the British Museum in the 1950s. They could not work out why the cup appeared jade green when lit from the front, but blood red when lit from behind.
The mystery was solved in 1990, when researchers in England scrutinized broken fragments under a microscope and discovered that the Roman artisans were nanotechnology pioneers:
They had impregnated the glass with particles of silver and gold, ground down until they were as small as 50 nanometres in diameter, less than one-thousandth the size of a grain of table salt.
The work was so precise that there is no way that the resulting effect was an accident. In fact, the exact mixture of the previous metals suggests that the Romans had perfected the use of nanoparticles. When hit with light, electrons belonging to the metal flecks vibrate in ways that alter the colour depending on the observer’s position.
The super-sensitive technology used by the Romans might help diagnose human disease or pinpoint biohazards at security checkpoints. Gang Logan Liu, engineer at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his colleagues, conducted a study last year in which they created a plastic plate filled with gold or silver nanoparticles, essentially creating an array that was equivalent to the Lycurgus Cup.
When they applied different solutions to the plate, such as water, oil, sugar and salt, the colours changed. The prototype was 100 times more sensitive to altered levels of salt in solution than current commercial sensors using similar techniques.
It’s not the first time Roman technology has been studied. Scientists studying the composition of Roman concrete, submerged under the Mediterranean Sea for the last 2,000 years, discovered that it was superior to the modern-day concrete in terms of durability and being less environmentally damaging.
The knowledge gained is now being used to improve the concrete we use today.
> 1600 Year Old Roman Goblet | Rise Earth
Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked:
What is the most astounding fact you can share with us about the Universe?
The most astounding fact is the knowledge that the atoms that comprise life on Earth the atoms that make up the human body are traceable to the crucibles that cooked light elements into heavy elements in their core under extreme temperatures and pressures.
These stars, the high mass ones among them went unstable in their later years they collapsed and then exploded scattering their enriched guts across the galaxy guts made of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and all the fundamental ingredients of life itself. These ingredients become part of gas cloud that condense, collapse, form the next generation of solar systems stars with orbiting planets, and those planets now have the ingredients for life itself.
So that when I look up at the night sky and I know that yes, we are part of this universe, we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up – many people feel small because they’re small and the Universe is big – but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars. There’s a level of connectivity.
That’s really what you want in life, you want to feel connected, you want to feel relevant you want to feel like a participant in the goings on of activities and events around you That’s precisely what we are, just by being alive… – Neil deGrasse Tyson
The science is irrefutable on this simple fact: Roundup weedkiller, manufactured by Monsanto, is a deadly chemical poison that persists on – and in – food crops consumed by millions of people.
The many consequences of Roundup’s continued use in commercial agriculture are reason enough to ban the toxic chemical cocktail for the sake of the environment and humanity.
These are strong words, but they are fully substantiated.
Despite industry claims, Roundup does not simply wash off crops after it has been sprayed. A study out of Norway recently found that glyphosate accumulates inside crops at “excessive” levels.
Published in the 2013 June issue of the journal Food Chemistry, the study revealed that, while Roundup Ready crops are capable of resisting glyphosate in order to survive, they also absorb and incorporate it into food.
This means that people who eat GM soy or products derived from it, including soy lecithin and soy protein, are also eating a chemical solution linked to all sorts of health problems.
The government maintains the same position as Monsanto — that glyphosate is essentially inert and not something to worry about. But a recent review of more than 44 published scientific studies found otherwise, having determined that exposure to glyphosate doubles farmers’ risk of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
The study authors theorize that glyphosate disrupts the normal functioning of white blood cells, throwing your immune system into a sickened, dysfunctional state. – Leah Zerbe, Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen
It would be one thing if Roundup were isolated just to crop fields. But scientists are finding that the chemical is now spreading to the air, and even raining down along with precipitation.
This means that glyphosate is now traveling with the wind patterns and raining down on people’s homes and on city parks where children play.
Even if Roundup really was helping to boost yields and produce more food – as demonstrated here and elsewhere, this is not actually the case — the harm inflicted on butterflies and other pollinators by the GM crop pesticides is simply inexcusable.
Researchers from Iowa State University found that glyphosate use has resulted in an 81 percent reduction in the monarch butterfly population, which relies on milkweed for reproduction and survival.
Like bees, monarch butterflies serve as crop pollinators. Without them, many seed- and fruit-bearing plants would be unable to survive.
Perhaps the biggest reason why Roundup deserves to be banned forever is that the weedkiller does not even work. Overuse of Roundup has led to the emergence of highly resistant “superweeds” that no longer respond to chemical treatments and now plague millions of acres of U.S. cropland. Roundup does not even biodegrade as claimed.
Because of this, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is gearing up to approve an even more deadly herbicide made from a component of Agent Orange, the Monsanto biowarfare chemical used during the Vietnam War.
> Five Reasons Round-up Should be Banned | Higher Perspective
