Hamilton Morris/NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/movies/hamilton-morriss-web-series-hamiltons-pharmacopeia.html

Hamilton Vice

ketaforensics

"After spending the last four months filing FOIA requests and thumbing through hundreds of pages of police reports in an attempt to solve the little-known murder of a San Antonian mycologist in the early 80s, I have come to the conclusion that crime solving is hard...Neither in my sober investigations nor in my daydreams did I ever consider the most obvious solution: self-administering an anesthetic dose of ketamine and mentally traveling back in time to witness the murder. Then I stumbled upon a non-fiction book called Into The Void by an author named Zoe7, a self described “multidimensional synergy personality cluster” composed of six distinct identities. The book details Zoe7's attempts to solve the JonBenét Ramsey murder using no other forensic equipment than a hypodermic needle filled with ketamine and his mind. As one would expect, his experiments were wildly successful and he is the only person known to have witnessed exactly what happened in the Ramsey home that fateful night in December of 1996." [HM]

"I found myself in a dark bedroom. There were two single beds in that bedroom, but the second bed was empty. What struck me as odd however, was that I saw JonBonet’s mother lying in bed asleep, holding her son in her arms. Then, as I was heading towards the door to continue my search for JonBonet, I was suddenly startled by JonBonet herself! She was wearing a white gown and thick fury flipflops. She was also carrying something close to her chest with one of her arms. I could not make out what it was, but the surprising thing however, was the fact that she could see me!...I kneeled down and carefully took JonBonet by her little shoulders and said to her that I had been looking for her, and that I wanted to find out what happened. Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for her––in a way––she did not realize that she had been murdered––at least not at that particular space-time (or perhaps probability) window I had arrived in." [Zoe7]

"KETAFORENSICS - THE ART AND SCIENCE OF USING KETAMINE TO SOLVE THE JONBENÉT RAMSEY MURDER" [VICE]

Hamilton Morris: The truth behind mephedrone

[excerpted from an interview with Hamilton Morris - full transcript available in the forthcoming Acid Age print journal]

AA: Some of your articles cover quasi-legal drugs produced by underground labs. What do you know about Dave Llewellyn and mephedrone?

HM: Llewellyn’s Alchemy Labz website was a well-designed scam. He broke every rule about how you’re supposed to sell designer drugs including the cardinal rule, you must de-emphasize the possibility of human consumption. Mephedrone was packaged as plant food, JWH-018 as bonsai growth enhancer, various alkyl nitrites as head cleaner and so forth. The Llewellyn crew poached their designer drug menu from various online chemistry and pharmacology forums. They even put a methylphenidate analog called ethylphenidate on the list after I wrote about its potential as a novel stimulant. Llewellyn sent me a moldy bag of supposed ethylphenidate that was nothing but wet flower. Then the Daily Mail published his warning against naphyrone, which was a red-herring and part of an elaborate meta-scam to draw attention away from all of the supposed new chemicals he was selling.

AA: I saw that. I didn’t know the background of the story but I smelled something fishy right away. It was clear he was trying to scare everyone about a drug in order to present his own products as the safe alternative.

HM: The fact is that no one knows what “NRG-1” is – any batch you get could be anything. In Spring 2010, because of the mephedrone scare, the British media was hungry for stories about novel designer drugs. So, and this is the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done, I contacted a journalist and told him that I had invented a drug that was a combination of cubane and mephedrone called “Hypercube.” But then I got uncomfortable when they believed me and called me on the phone to cover the story.

AA: What brought about the mephedrone phenomenon, with chemists reconfiguring the recipe to stay ahead of the law?

HM: All these designer drugs and quasi-legal highs are more prevalent in Europe precisely because the laws are different. In the US thousands of substances are in a grey area and the DEA can selectively prosecute using the Federal Analog Act. In order to circumvent these laws vendors throw completely novel structures onto the market with no regard for their customers.

AA: If the US has the Federal Analog Act, how does this affect someone like Alexander Shulgin, who keeps producing endless variants on MDMA?

HM: Well Shulgin only explores novel compounds, and each new molecular entity is a complete unknown regardless of its structural similarity to a lead compound like MDMA or DMT. Shulgin does not research psychedelics but rather antidepressants, should one of his putative antidepressants possess a psychedelic effect he characterizes it, discontinues research, and moves on. Additionally the DEA know if they arrested him how bad it would make them look, imprisoning this kindly old scientist, it would cause an outrage. Lastly, Shulgin has never directly profited off his drugs, which is key.

["Hamilton's Pharmacopeia" appears monthly in VICE magazine]

Heavenly Things

Hamilton Morris presents Phencyclidine Cinema:
http://hamiltonmorris.blogspot.com/
http://spectacletheater.com/

Voodoo Logic

Denying the antecedent:


If P, then Q.
Not P.
Therefore, not Q


If there is TTX in the powder, there are zombies in Haiti.
There is not TTX in the powder.
Therefore, there are not zombies in Haiti.


Modus tollens:


If P, then Q.
Not Q.
Therefore, not P.


If there is TTX in the powder, there are zombies in Haiti.
There are not zombies in Haiti.
Therefore, there is no TTX in the powder.


Modus ponens:


If P, then Q.
P.
Therefore, Q.


If there is TTX in the powder, there are zombies in Haiti.
There is TTX in the powder.
Therefore, there are zombies in Haiti.


http://hamiltonmorris.blogspot.com/