These will get you started:
"Why you crave Twinkies after smoking marijuana" by Brady Dennis, Washington Post February 19, 2015
WASHINGTON — Researchers from Yale University believe they have deciphered the neurological mechanism that causes the ‘‘munchies,’’ that inexplicable urge to eat that has led generations of marijuana users to consume untold numbers of nachos, Twinkies, and Doritos.
That's all they eat? What gives with the stereotypes, WaPo?
Beyond merely figuring out the neurological mystery behind the munchies, Tamas Horvath, the study’s lead author and a Yale professor and neurobiologist, and other scientists are hoping that a clearer understanding of the appetite triggers in the brain could lead to an array of practical uses. For instance, it could lead to new medications, perhaps even a pill, to jump-start hunger in cancer patients who often lose their appetite during chemotherapy.
You can chew on the rest if you like. What is clear is they don't want you smoking it despite the medical marijuana evidence and testimony. Gotta turn it into a pill so some pharmaceutical can cash in instead.
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Can you guess what I'm thinking now or are you too stoned?
(Answer: I'm thinking now of all the hungry people across this nation on food stamps or starving and wonder how many of them are stoned and eating junk food)
Speaking of which:
"Global consumption of junk food rising" Associated Press February 20, 2015
LONDON — There may be more fruit, vegetables, and healthy options available than ever before, but the world is mostly hungry for junk food, according to a study of eating habits in nearly 190 countries. International researchers found that even though people are eating more healthful foods, there has been an even bigger jump in the amount of junk food eaten....
Must be the marketing -- or people are hungry for whatever they can get their hands on.
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I suppose the app that makes home delivery of beer and wine as easy as ordering a pizza isn't going to help. Just another Drizly in the Globe, I gue$$.
There is certainly one AmeriKan entity with a voracious appetite:
"Panel suggests tax on sugary sweets; Fighting obesity a priority; rules aid school lunches" by Alan Bjerga and Doni Bloomfield, Bloomberg News February 20, 2015
WASHINGTON — Americans should pay taxes on sugary sodas and snacks as a way to cut down on sweets, though they no longer need to worry about cholesterol, according to scientists helping to revamp dietary guidelines as US obesity levels surge.
Why would that be, and why believe a word government $cienti$ts say anymore?
So where are all the taxes on corporations and banks so they can cut down on obscene profits and pay?
Hello? But gotta have that carbon tax, gotta have that sugar tax, gotta have that health tax, gotta have that tax tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax, tax. That's all this goddamn government (at all levels) knows to do.
The recommendations Thursday from the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee also call for Americans to reduce meat consumption and to take sustainability into account when dining.
The panel released its report as the Obama administration seeks ways to fight obesity, which now affects more than one-third of American adults and 17 percent of children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘‘What we’re calling for in the report in terms of innovation and bold new action in health care, in public health, at the community level, is what it’s going to take to try to make a dent on the epidemic of obesity,’’ committee chairwoman Barbara Millen of Millennium Prevention in Westwood, Mass., said in a telephone interview.
Suggestions by the nonpartisan panel of academics and scientists help shape school lunch menus and the $6-billion-a-year Women, Infants, and Children program, which serves more than 8 million Americans buying groceries.
Yeah, how are those working out for you?
The recommendations were sent to the two agencies that later this year will issue the final guidelines that are used to create the government’s icon for healthy diets, currently a dinner plate, which replaced the widely used food pyramid.
About half of all US adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases relating to poor diets and physical inactivity such as hypertension, diabetes, and diet-related cancers, according to the government. More than two-thirds of adults and nearly one-third of youth are overweight or obese.
In what would be the panel’s first target on ‘‘added sugars’’ from food processing. The recommendation comes after studies tied snacks and sugary beverages to high obesity rates.
With the most obese, of course, being the politicians preaching to you about health while their taxpayer-funded buffets are just fine, thank you.
Local governments have deemed sugars a public health threat.
Every time you turn around.... WhereTF is the FDA?
US obesity nearly tripled from the 1960s to 2010, as Americans consumed more sugar. Efforts to encourage better diets, from raising taxes on sodas to imposing limits on super-size beverages — backed by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP — have failed at ballot boxes and in courtrooms.
Still, Berkeley, Calif., voters overwhelmingly approved the nation’s first tax on sodas last year, an approach in which the panel finds promise. Soda taxes are worth exploring, potentially as a way to subsidize healthier foods, the panel said.
‘‘Higher sugar-sweetened beverage taxes may encourage consumers to reduce sugar-sweetened beverage consumption,’’ according to the advisory panel.
And down goes the GNP!
‘‘Using the revenues from the higher sugar-sweetened beverage taxes for nutrition health promotion efforts or to subsidize fruits and vegetables could have public health benefits,’’ the panel said.
Doesn't and won't, but whatever gets you a bite of.... you gue$$ed it.... TAX!
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I'm thinking the government and the Globe need to get off the $ugar high, if you know what I mean.
Or at least only take a few packets:
"Boston man accused of breaking into Hyannis restaurant, making fake 911 calls" by Aneri Pattani, Globe Correspondent February 20, 2015
A Boston man was arrested on Cape Cod on charges that he broke into a restaurant early Friday and then made a false 911 call hoping to “lure officers away” as they searched for him, police said.
Kurry Sutton, 38, was arrested and accused of breaking into Friendly’s Restaurant on Iyannough Road in Hyannis, Barnstable police said in a statement.
Officers responded to an alarm that went off at the restaurant at 2:23 a.m. K-9 units helped locate Sutton, who was hiding in some bushes, police said.
During the search, police received a 911 call for a person shot in the area of Route 28 in Hyannis. Police said that Sutton made the call in an attempt to distract the officers searching for him.
Sutton faces numerous charges, including breaking and entering with intent to commit a felony, unarmed robbery, larceny under $250, and misleading a police officer.
Officers found two other buildings in the area that had been broken into. They discovered that the back door to an apartment on Iyannough Road had been forced open while the residents were sleeping. The residents did not know anyone had entered, police said.
Another building on the street had been entered through a second-story office window, police said.
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Once again, the Globe plate has left me wanting.
Now if you will excuse me, I need to go grab some chow before taking a smoke:
"Accord reached in Fla. tobacco lawsuit; $100m set to be distributed among plaintiffs" by Curt AndersonAssociated Press February 26, 2015
MIAMI — A $100 million settlement has been reached among three major tobacco companies and hundreds of people who sued them for smoking-related deaths and illnesses in Florida federal court.
The lawsuits stemmed from a 2006 Florida Supreme Court decision, known as Engle v. Liggett Group, which threw out a $145 billion class-action verdict against cigarette makers.
That decision let stand findings that the companies knowingly sold dangerous products and hid smoking hazards, meaning future juries could consider that as proven fact.
Yes, conspiracies and cover-ups do in fact exist.
But the ruling also required smokers and their families to pursue individual wrongful death and personal injury lawsuits based on cigarette use.
The settlement Wednesday, which requires final approval from a federal judge, would end the federal cases that would have taken years had they gone to trial.
‘‘Whenever people are suffering, we always welcome serious, fair offers that may more quickly resolve their claims and help them move on with their lives as best they can,’’ said Joe Rice, cofounder of the South Carolina-based Motley Rice law firm and a chief negotiator for the plaintiffs....
(cough)
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Wait until the weed lawsuits start growing.
