Top Tweets for #EFSDP

We’ve probably spent at least 2 trillion dollars on the Drugwar and the attempt at drug prohibition in the last century. Drugs are just as available and more dangerous than ever. Societal Prohibition doesn’t work. The prohibition of drugs is for the family & household, not society. If you don’t want to use drugs fine, discourage it for friends and family, okay but the attempt at societal prohibition has been a colossal failure. We learned that lesson in a decade of alcohol prohibition. We have yet to learn that same lesson for the Drugwar. Drug prohibition begins at home, not in society. Legalizing drugs would drop the deaths from illicit drug use by a probable magnitude of 10. There’s no other policy that could save more lives and money than legalizing drugs. Are they dangerous, yes but no more dangerous than the legal drugs, and most of the dangers would be mitigated with a legal system. Cannabis is legal in Canada and about half the US is the sky falling? NO! Society collapsing? NO! Kids are using less cannabis than before legalization. The CATO institute did a study on the world 15 years after the DRUGWAR ends and in every, EVERY single category there were improvements. Will there be some issues of course, WE’RE HUMAN! But everything is made worse because of PROHIBITION. We need to legalize drugs. All drugs.

The illegal drug supply keeps getting more toxic. Now medetomidine an animal tranquilizer is being found mixed with fentanyl, causing hallucinations, vomiting, and ICU admissions. Withdrawal is becoming more dangerous. Detox is becoming more complicated. And yet people still want to shut down harm reduction. The reality is simple: Harm reduction didn’t create this crisis. The illegal drug market did. Harm reduction is one of the few things keeping people alive inside it! Link https://t.co/tiJzR4urd3

Dr. Fei-Fei Li just called out the biggest blind spot in the entire AI industry. We have been building half of human intelligence. And calling it the finish line. Li: “If you look at human intelligence, it pretty much boils down to two buckets.” The first bucket is language. Symbolic reasoning. Communication. The ability to think in words and abstractions. That’s what every major AI lab has spent the last decade building. The second bucket is the one the industry has almost entirely ignored. Li: “We call that in AI spatial intelligence.” How humans and animals perceive, navigate, and interact with the three-dimensional physical world. How we reach for objects. How we move through space. How we build and manipulate physical reality. From painting masterpieces to constructing the pyramids, non-verbal spatial intelligence is what actually shapes the world. Language describes reality. Spatial intelligence acts on it. And the gap between those two things is the gap between a chatbot and a robot. Li: “When this technology is ready, the robotic revolution is gonna start. We’re already seeing that trend.” Every robot is a moving agent. Every moving agent requires spatial intelligence to function in the real world. The humanoid robots being deployed in factories right now are hitting the ceiling of what language models alone can power. Spatial intelligence is the unlock. But Li didn’t stop at robotics. Li: “From a geopolitics point of view, this is part of the technology that goes straight into weapons.” Autonomous drone swarms. Battlefield navigation. Physical target acquisition without human oversight. Every military application of AI that operates in the real world runs on spatial intelligence. The nation that masters the transition from static text to dynamic three-dimensional perception doesn’t just win the software race. It commands the physical battlefield. The AI arms race just broke out of the data center. It’s operating in three dimensions now.

Alysa Liu just won Olympic gold. She retired at 16. Was traumatized by the sport. Wouldn't go near an ice rink. And just delivered a career-best on the biggest stage on earth. It's the most compelling comeback story in sports right now. At 13, Liu was the youngest US national champion ever. At 16, she finished 6th at the Olympics. She was a prodigy being told what to eat, what to wear, what music to skate to, and when to train. She lived in a dorm alone at the Olympic Training Center. And she was miserable. "The rink was my home for far too long... And I didn't have a choice," So she quit. She'd lost something essential: the feeling that any of it was hers. She had no autonomy. So she went the other direction. She went to Nepal. Trekked to Everest Base Camp. Got her driver's license. Dyed her hair. Attended college. She lived life. As Liu put it: “Quitting was definitely, and still to this day, one of my best decisions ever.” She built an identity that wasn't tied solely to the ice. She figured out who she was as a human being. Then in early 2024, she went skiing and felt something she hadn't felt in two years: an adrenaline rush. If skiing feels like this, what would skating feel like? She went to a public session. Landed a double axel and triple salchow on the spot. Two weeks later, she was back, but this time on her own terms. She came back because she wanted to. "I choose to be here. I loved that I was able to come back and choose my own destiny." That shift from external obligation to internal choice is the point. A mountain of research tells us autonomy is one of the most powerful driver of sustained motivation. Self-Determination Theory is one of the most established theories in psychology. When people feel ownership over their pursuits, performance goes up, burnout goes down, and creativity skyrockets. Her coach, Phillip DiGuglielmo, nailed it: "For many years she was dropped off at the rink. She was told what to do. Now she comes in, and it is all collaborative." She picks her own music. Designs her own costumes. Controls her training load. "No one's gonna starve me or tell me what I can and can't eat." We often get performance wrong. We think the path to greatness is more control, more structure, more sacrifice. We push young phenoms to "grind", to be disciplined... Not realizing we're often extinguishing the flame that makes them great. It's what psychologist Ellen Winner found when studying prodigies. They have the "rage to master," but over controlling environments suck the passion and joy out of them, snugging out that rage. Those who make it to adult staff have support, but their drive is more intrinsic than extrinsic. Liu's career-best came AFTER she walked away, lived her life, and came back with agency. Tonight she skated to Donna Summer's MacArthur Park with platinum blonde streaks, a lip piercing, and the biggest smile in the building. Career-best 226.79. First American woman to win Olympic gold in figure skating in 24 years. It was pure joy. Her message to the camera: "That's what I'm f---ing talking about." Everyone wants to know the secret to elite performance. It's not complicated. Give people ownership. Let them bring themselves to the performance, instead of squashing the joy and authenticity out of them. Alysa Liu retired at 16 because skating wasn't hers anymore. She won Olympic gold at 20 because it finally was. Be yourself. Go all the way.

Cannabis Extracts block bad cholesterol damage & foam cell buildup to slow artery-clogging disease! All three cannabis extracts helped in these ways: Stopped LDL oxidation: They prevented “bad cholesterol” (LDL) from getting damaged by copper ions, which is a key step in plaque formation. Reduced foam cell formation: They stopped immune cells (J774 cells) from turning into “foam cells” (cells that gobble up damaged LDL and contribute to plaques). Lowered inflammation: They reduced inflammation signals in cells, which normally worsen plaque buildup. https://t.co/hI1v0Wn2XR

Groundbreaking new study just dropped: CBD (cannabidiol) could be a game-changer against colorectal cancer! Researchers discovered CBD blocks a key protein team-up (CDC123-eIF2γ) that drives bowel cancer — triggering massive cell stress and making cancer cells self-destruct (apoptosis). Scientists created a new, more accurate tool (called SDPP) to discover exactly which proteins natural compounds (like those from plants) target in the body. Using this tool on CBD (the non-psychoactive cannabis compound), they found it blocks two proteins (CDC123 and eIF2γ) from teaming up. This blockage triggers long-lasting cell stress, causing colorectal cancer cells to self-destruct (apoptosis). Key point: CDC123 drives colorectal cancer and high levels predict poor outcomes — so CBD disrupting it could be a promising, selective new treatment approach. https://t.co/dObsLpr7K5