Feeling a little socially overextended over the next couple of weeks? You can always blame your Ambien prescription for accepting that email invitation to your friend's cousin's Christmas party. One woman says that after increasing her dose, she "received a puzzling phone call from a friend who said she was accepting her dinner invitation," one that she couldn't remember extending. The woman's friend then pointed out that she'd sent the invite by e-mail the night before, although she had no recollection of ever sending it. We're thinking this could also work for denying all knowledge of/responsibility for drunk dialing. [ABC]

We've already debated the merits of various benzos and prescription amphetamines, and now Crain's is reporting that anti-anxiety prescriptions are up because of "uncertainties brought on by the financial crisis." Sure, honey.

Concern over the economy has led to a 7 percent spike in prescriptions for sleep medications in New York over the past two months, say experts. And now also you know why your co-workers look like zombies when they show up to the office in the morning. [Crain's]

The Post had a fun time this morning with two Fashion Institute students who giggled about being arrested for dealing coke. Now the school assures everyone: there are no drugs on campus any more:

You cokeheads just don't listen to reason. So the government tried metaphors. Remember when they cracked an egg, representing your brain, into a sizzling frying pan, representing drugs, to indicate that drugs will "fry" your brain? Years after that, it turns out that people are still doing drugs! Now the UK government has hit on a brilliant message: If you do coke, you are killing this innocent dog. The clever use of a grisly puppy murder makes this, honestly, the best anti-drug campaign we've seen in quite a while. Tell poor scruffy Pablo you needed that bump—or tell his dead body:

Remember how scientists recently uncovered that 2,700-year-old stash of weed in a grave in China? Well here it is, in all its 2,700-year-old glory. Oldie was sitting on some straight up Kryptonite. Click to enlarge. [Journal of Experimental Botany via Animal]

Retired Minnesota Congressman Jim Ramstad is rumored to be Barack Obama's new "Drug Czar." The "Drug Czar" is the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the term "Drug Czar" was invented by Joe Biden!), and his or her job is to release crappy PSAs about marijuana. Here is the problem: Ramstad, a recovering alcoholic, not only opposed medical marijuana and supported prosecution of people who use medical marijuana, but he also consistently opposed funding life-saving needle exchange programs throughout his entire congressional tenure. All these policies are in opposition to crazy liberal things Barack Obama said, during the campaign, about how he'd be less terrible re. drug policy.

Finally, some good news in a sea of gloom: A group of scientists and ethicists is now promoting the rights of people to pop performance-enhancing stimulants like Ritalin, Adderall and Provigil. Whereas now people who want to give themselves a bit more energy have to turn to Craiglist to find someone with "ski tickets," or have to go to the trouble of faking ADHD symptoms to a doctor, in the future the ability to improve "executive function" and memory should be easily available to all, they argue.

Scientists have found a 2,700-year-old, two-pound stash of weed in a grave in China. Dude. [MSNBC]

Ruh roh! Kristen Stewart, the brooding young starlet currently playing Bella in the chaste, religiousy teen vampire romance movie Twilight, was photographed brazenly smoking the devil's herb on the front steps of her Los Angeles home earlier this week. In the middle of the day! Tsk tsk. I guess we now know why she was so out of it on Letterman the other day. But, I suppose it's just a little pot and it'll be OK and she'll go back to work on the sequels and earn her ridiculous $12 million. As long as there's no boy-related funny business... down there.

The outbreak of heroin-related deaths in Fairfax, Virginia is killing the area's best and brightest young people. So says the front page of the Washington Post this morning, which highlights exactly how upscale and surprising teen deaths from heroin in the area were. Nineteen year old Alicia Lannes, at left, overdosed on the drug the first time she used it, and died the fourth time she did. Her death gives rise to a larger drug trend story: one minute these kids were hitting a bong, and the next they were snorting pure heroin and heading to the hospital. Is it really that simple?The story describes the 18 heroin-related deaths in the county over the last year, and how they have largely affected a class of young person who wouldn't be expected to sample the drug:

Yuppie cokeheads, stop snorting massive rails for the sake of the endangered tree frogs! That's the new anti-drug message coming out of the UK. And it just might work! You might not stop for the sake of your money, your police record, or your septum, but would you give up blow if you knew that every eight ball cost ten square meters of precious rainforest habitat, you Whole Foods junkie? It's true, according to the vice president of Colombia!

The economy is worse off than we thought: It seems some Wall Streeters have been turned to drug dealing. A sting operation on Craigslist uncovered a rather unlikely culprit: "A Citigroup vice president, Mark Rayner, attracted police attention after posting an ad offering Ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine and crystal meth. An undercover cop arrested him after he tried to sell 50 Ecstasy pills and 7 grams of cocaine." But at least Rayner has a new career lined up—unlike the vast majority of the 50,000 Citi employees who were laid off yesterday. [NYDN]

What's a really fast shortcut to addiction? Being a child star. Remember Full House, the lovably terrible situation comedy about the whitebread-dorky Tanner family, whose cast included infants Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen? Jodi Sweetin—the actress who played young Stephanie for eight years—went through meth-addiction hell and lived what she called a "double life." She's since gotten married, had a child, and acted in an indie TV pilot, Small Bits of Happiness. Today, reports the Observer, Sweetin signed with Simon and Schuster for an addiction memoir. The price was "in the six figures"—America loves a redemption/celeb combo! (Click for a video of Jodie's best work on Full House, which very well may have led to her urge to smoke just about anything.)

A tipster swears he saw a Six Apart employee "at a bar in the Lower Haight today inhaling massive amounts of Nitrous Oxide in the corner and passing it around, no joke. I wonder if he was laid off." Do you know what that stuff costs? It's far more likely that Mr. Whip-It still has a job, and can't show up drunk today.

We've been chronicling the drugs of the creative underclass—from the "I love my orange pills" Adderall to benzos to psychotropics. How the hell is everybody getting through their workday? It depends on your personality. For those with wandering attention spans, Adderall usually does the trick. For anxiety-prone neurotics, Adderall feels like a hit of crack combined with a bucket of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. I've relied on Xanax for special occasions and party reporting (all that excitement sends me straight to the wall), but recently-after totally casual anecdotal investigation on this website suggested that Klonopin was the current drug of choice for the creative underclass—I procured a prescription for Klonopin. (After all, they love it at downtown fashion mag Nylon!)Kloni is better than Xanax, my friends. Why? First of all, they're both benzos, with similar molecular structure. But: Klonopin gives you less of a buzz, is much longer lasting (sometimes it seems like Xanax only lasts two or three hours), and is less habit-forming. (Those who take Xanax and Kloni regularly and don't taper off can put themselves at risk for seizures, however. R&B singer Sean Levert, who recently died in jail, wasn't allowed to take the Xanax he brought in jail. According to UPI, "prison staff allegedly took the bottle away and didn't give him his medication during the six days he was there, even though he asked for it numerous times and suffered terrifying delusions due to withdrawal from the medication.") I experimented with Klonopin recently while doing some freelance work; I found its effect smoother and less buzzy than Xanax. And that was just half a milligram! It also increased concentration: words flowed freely onto my keyboard, absent the usual wrenching procrastination which we all know comes from fear of failure. Had I taken I Xanax, I imagine I would have slept for the next nine hours instead. Which is the best for you: Adderall or benzos like Klonopin? It all comes down to your personality type. For anxiety-prone people, benzos quiet the mind, shushing the paralyzing background noise and leaving you to do your work unmolested. Of these, Klonopin gives the smoother ride. As the departed Gawker/Jezebel editor Moe so succinctly put it: "Writing on drugs is my drug."

As if cokeheads weren't annoying enough with their obnoxious personalities and endless occupation of club bathrooms, now they can consider themselves victims of their DNA, too. A genetic basis for cocaine addiction has been found by German psychopharmacology researchers, who say that a particular gene variant causes an increased likelihood of becoming addicted to the drug. Getting hooked on the white stuff is 70 percent genetic, the study suggests—cheerful news for the likes of Lila Grace Moss. [Guardian]

Let's check in on ballot initiatives! Florida's shitty marriage amendment will probably pass. We can't find any other news about any of the rest of them. But we will! Check back in! Update: Colorado's "Definition of Person Initiative," which would've banned abortion and also forms of birth control, has failed. As has South Dakota's abortion ban, which was just play at a Supreme Court case anyway. Massachusetts residents can possess an ounce of weed! Arkansas' "unmarried couples adoption ban" thing looks like it might pass. Medical marijuana passed in Michigan!

Tomorrow, America Votes. Most people are fixated on "who will be the next President" and "how many Senate seats will Democrats pick up" but you know what? Real Democracy happens in the insane initiatives that clog local ballots every year. But many of these initiatives are about "taxes" and "redistricting" and other boring things like that. So we've put together a voters guide highlighting only ballot initiatives of interest to drinking, drugging, and whoring Gawker readers. We'll focus on statewide ballot initiatives, which sadly leaves out awesome things like San Francisco's prostitution-legalizing Proposition K but honestly we didn't have time to comb through every damn city in the country's crazy notions. Click through and learn how to vote, oh citizens of this grand experiment! Lady Issues

Do you know who Faith Popcorn is? If not, consider yourself 2.4% wiser. She's a professional "futurist"—essentially, a lady who's learned how to milk money out of corporate CEOs by telling them about "trends" that she's spotted. Like her spiritual cousins, the "brand consultants," she has created an entire bullshit industry out of thin air, and become rich. Cheers to her. So anyhow, wanna know Faith Popcorn's latest important trend? Yea, it's smoking dope and traveling through space on the internet: