Bummer: Feds Stonewall Pot Treatments For Traumatized Vets

Souce: Wired.com/Danger Room
Katie Drummond

An Arizona psychiatrist is tantalizingly close to federal approval for a groundbreaking study of marijuana’s potency in treating PTSD — if only the National Institute on Drug Abuse would stop stonewalling her.

Dr. Sue Sisley, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine and a psychiatrist whose practice treats mostly war veterans, wants to add evidence-based science to the ubiquitous anecdotal reports, not to mention animal research, that point to marijuana’s effectiveness at quelling symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Although plenty of vets smoke up, medical marijuana can only be prescribed to PTSD sufferers living in New Mexico — where 27 percent of those with an approved ID card suffer from PTSD, making it the state’s number one qualifying diagnosis — and nary a study has evaluated whether the illicit drug actually works.

“Plenty of the veterans I’ve treated use marijuana, only they usually buy it illegally and use it covertly,” Sisley told Danger Room. “With research, we can actually figure out which symptoms it might help with, and what an optimal dosing strategy might look like.”

Brainwashing America, Pentagon-style!

Source: RT

The Pentagon is about to crank the propaganda machine up to 11. According to a new report, the Department of Defense is attempting to find out what makes a person easily influenced in hopes of swaying them towards supporting their own causes.

In a report published this week by Wired.com’s Danger Room, they reveal that Pentagon researchers working in its DARPA division has begun work on a program called Narrative Networks. Under this initiative, scientists in the high-techh Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are scanning brain patterns and other body functions to see how stories shape the minds of audiences, and who is most vulnerable to be swayed by persuasion. From there, the DoD can counter brainwashed terrorists with an agenda of their own.

Or, perhaps, brainwash anyone they chose.

Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet

From: Wired.com/DangerRoom

Noah Shachtman

A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.