Tag: Drugs

The Evolution and Role of the Online Pharmacy

Time passes, everything changes… And even such a conservative segment as the pharmacy business is not able to resist the prospects offered by new technologies. The term online pharmacy has not yet become common to some consumers. But it’s definitely worth getting to know it because it’s convenient to buy drugs online with home delivery or get pharmacist advice by phone. A bit of history The first mention of the word pharmacy (“apotheca”) is found in the records of Hippocrates as far back as the 4th century BC. This way he called the place where medicines were prepared and stored. But before the start of the official history of pharmacies, 14 centuries had to pass. This story began in 754 AD when the first pharmacy was opened in Baghdad.

Ancient Raving: The Egyptian Festival of Drunkenness

Us in the ‘modern world’ tend to think we’ve got the market cornered for most things, and partying is no different. Clubs, drugs, drink and casual sex may be frowned upon even by our elders at times, but it seems those in the ancient world had rather less stringent morals when it came to partying hard. And new research suggests the neon-lit acid haze of the eighties was far from the first movement to find a love for rave culture. It seems that rolling stones had barely been invented before the ancient world was partying like Keith Richards on closing night.

To the fertile banks of the Nile circa 1470 – 1460 BC, and a seemingly bizarre festival of drunkenness whereby Egyptians would achieve a religious epiphany only after entering into a state of total inebriation. John Hopkins University’s Near Eastern Studies chair Betsy Bryan discovered a column revealing the hedonistic hacienda in a 2006 excavation at Luxor, and subsequently released the results, triumphantly entitled Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ancient Egypt. Drunk students may have some pretty good excuses for rat-buttocked behaviour, but the Egyptian Festival of Drunkenness’ raison d’etre trumps anything ever uttered in a lecture hall at 9am. The ancient party centred on a myth in which the sun god Ra decides to wipe out humanity, then sends his daughter Hathor to earth in the form of a lioness. Hathor thus proceeds to devour every human she comes into contact with, while her father laments his decision and resolves to stop her. To end his daughter’s rampage, Ra floods all of Upper Egypt with red-tinted beer which looks like blood. Hathor then drinks the pungent cocktail, falls paralytically drunk, and mankind is saved.

To pay tribute to the tale, Egyptians would consume themselves into unconsciousness in the name of lioness deities, thinking they needed to get them drunk to keep them from doing ill. The annual event, celebrated over 20 days following the flooding of the farmland around the Nile, would involve drinking and promiscuity which would have been deemed immoral any other time of year. Some would even supplement their toxicity by taking the drug lotus, and loud music would be played all night until even the hardiest ravers had seen and taken enough. Bleary-eyed boozers would be rudely awoken early the next morning by a chorus of heavy drum-beating, and at this point they were said to have experienced the goddess to whom they were partying. Wow: those guys at the Hacienda really were late on the scene. Still, if anyone has been involved in a university freshers’ week, they’ll understand that drinking today can still take on religious qualities.

Image by Jan.

Police Force Will Attend Stonehenge Summer Solstice Too

The Wiltshire police has announced there will be a large police presence at Stonehenge for this year’s Summer Solstice. Because the celebrations fall over the weekend and fine weather is predicted, bigger crowds than usual are expected and Wiltshire police have said they will clamp down heavily on antisocial behaviour. The police operation will involve an unmanned drone and horses. Also drugs sniffer dogs will be launched at Stonehenge tomorrow as huge crowds descend on the ancient site for the summer solstice.

The Guardian reported on visitors of the Stonehenge fearing a repeat of the escalations at the recent G20 protests, but police say they are not looking for confrontation: ‘The drone would be used to help make sure the 30,000 people who were expected to attend the celebrations were safe; and there would be only three police horses, also there for “public safety” reasons rather than any crowd control.‘ Personally, I think the police should try Druid Arthur Pendragon’s good advice – You are not policing Salisbury, you are policing Stonehenge for the summer solstice – and remember that the majority of the summer solstice visitors are there for celebration, rather than protest.

The police warned people not to set up spontaneous raves or free festivals before or after the solstice. Another preventive safety measure is that – as mentioned in our practical guideline to the Summer Solstice – you can only take a limited amount of alcohol with you. Stonehenge is not located in Amsterdam, so any substance that is illegal in the United Kingdom will be considered to be illegal at Stonehenge too. Luckily, chances that this will turn out to be a second ‘Operation Solstice’ are small! 😉

Stonehenge History Lesson: Battle of the Beanfield (Operation Solstice)

The Battle of the Beanfield took place over several hours on the afternoon of Saturday June 1, 1985 when Wiltshire Police prevented a vehicle convoy of several hundred new age travellers, known as the Peace Convoy, from setting up the fourteenth Stonehenge free festival at Stonehenge in Wiltshire, England after English Heritage, the custodians of the site, persuaded a High Court Judge to grant an exclusion zone of some four miles around the Stones. The incident became notorious for accusations of a police riot that were reported to have taken place.

Those in the Convoy insist that, after a stand-off of several hours, police attacked their procession of vehicles by entering the field where they were being contained, methodically smashing windows, beating people on the head with truncheons, and using sledgehammers to damage the interiors of their coaches, an account supported by all the independent witnesses and upheld by the subsequent court verdicts. The Beanfield was the next field down from where the vehicles were; and when a large number of police entered the first field, many of the Convoy vehicles tried to escape by going through the Beanfield, where they were pursued and arrested by police.

At the time, the police alleged that they responded after they had earlier come under attack, being pelted with lumps of wood, stones and even petrol bombs, though they did not repeat these allegations in any of the subsequent court cases and no proof for any of them has ever come to light. Whilst the full account of events remains in dispute, a court judgement six years later found the police guilty of wrongful arrest, assault and criminal damage.