Cityfile: New York's Most Notable and Influential

America's Only Growth Industry | Are you out of work? Maybe you should consider dealing a little pot to get by. Thousands of Americans are now doing it to make ends meet, according to the AP, which reports that "demand for domestically grown marijuana is at a record high, in part because stricter border control has made it more difficult to import pot from Mexico." The economy isn't putting a damper on sales; on the contrary, "demand appears to be rising with the unemployment rate." Which makes perfect sense. What else are you going to do when you're unemployed and sitting on your couch watching TV all day? [AP via Daily Finance]

Marathon Runners Are Just Junkies with More Discipline | If you drink, smoke, or do drugs and you have fitness-obsessed friends who occasionally give you a hard time for your vices, you may want to print out this story from National Geographic, just so you have it handy the next time you run into them while you're on your way to a bar and they're headed to the gym. According to new research in the August issue of Behavioral Neuroscience, "Hardcore runners who can't bear to skip a workout may be hooked in a way that's similar to heroin addiction." And it can be fatal, too! [National Geographic]

Add Guns, Drugs To the Madoff Saga | As if it wasn't bad enough that Bernie Madoff investors were handing over their money to a con artist to manage, it seems they were also putting their trust in a drug-addicted gun freak, too. When Bernie Madoff's right-hand man Frank DiPascali pleaded guilty earlier this week to charges he helped engineer the $65 billion scheme and he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, the deal also guaranteed DiPascali that the feds wouldn't come after him for the "use of controlled substances prior to 1992" and "for possessing illegal firearms up until last Friday." Between this news and the revelation that Bernie had a 20-year affair that no one knew about, the made-for-TV Madoff movie is getting spicier by the day, isn't it? [NYP, WSJ]

Your Chef Is On Drugs | The chef in this picture could be mixing some flour. But he could also be using the bowl to store his supply of coke. According to Jason Sheehan, a former chef and food writer, the odds that your next restaurant meal "will be prepared by someone on drugs" is "very high," since "cooks and coke go together like salt and pepper." It's not something they can help, mind you. Chefs are hard-wired to be coke fiends, Sheehan says, since "being a cook or a chef means being in the pleasure business," and is "the sort of person who has a yen for experimentation and excess." So if you're looking for ways to curry favor at your favorite restaurant, bringing a key of coke with you might not be such a bad idea. [TDB]

The War on Painkillers | Disturbing news for people who go through life with excruciating pain and rely on painkillers to get them through the day: A federal advisory panel voted yesterday to recommend a ban on Percocet and Vicodin, due to the drugs' potentially harmful effects on the liver. The recommendation doesn't mean it will become the law of the land; the FDA still has to vote on it. And the ban wouldn't have an impact on other popular painkillers like OxyContin, so Rush Limbaugh won't have to worry about taking up another cause. For the moment, at least. [NYT]

NYC's Coke Dealers Remain Unmatched | If you're planning a wild weekend in London in the near future, you may not want to indulge in any casual drug use while you're there. Not only has the price of cocaine skyrocketed in Europe in recent months, it's also the least pure it's been in years, as drug dealers stretch their supplies by mixing in the cancer-causing drug phenacetin, cockroach insecticide, and "pet worming powder." On the flip side, this means swarms of Eurotrash will continue to make New York City home to their coke-fueled escapades. But at least our drug dealers won't need a government bailout and that's good news, right? [BBC]

Better hope some Mexican tourist doesn't cough on you while you're walking in Midtown this afternoon. Pharmacists report that that there's been a run on Tamiflu this week (along with face masks, hand sanitizers, and pretty much everything else you could possibly use to stop from getting the virus). And despite assurances from public health officials that large supplies of the drug are available, we hear from one doctor that pharmacies can't even place orders for the quantities of Tamiflu that they need to fulfill their customers' orders.More

Violent drunks and junkies take heart: If Naomi Campbell can turn her life around, anyone can! The scary supermodel has been telling Giant magazine that she's finally been cured of her addiction to cocaine and alcohol by a therapy she calls The Program, which involves body cleanses and a Buddhisty-sounding philosophy that "teaches you to let go." Let go of what, one wonders? Certainly not bad behavior, since Naomi's image as an impossible diva prone to seismic tantrums is, she reveals, nothing but a silly myth, first perpetuated by her spurned former model agency boss John Casablancas. "He had to attack me because I decided to leave. Models can leave agencies. I was not under a written contract. I was shocked to see how he acted." Isn't it awful how one vindictive rumor can dog an innocent person for their entire career? 

Rarely are the experiences of athletes a lesson to those of us who tend to restrict their cardio to carrying a bag of groceries up one flight of stairs. But it turns out that the consumption of caffeine before competing in various sports like running, rowing, and swimming measurably enhances performance—which means that it's worth drinking coffee before going to the gym or getting on the treadmill, or indeed any half-assed attempt to burn calories. Caffeine not only increases the power output of muscles, say researchers, but also "affects the brain's sensation of exhaustion." And if you swallow enough, it provides hallucinations and communication with the other side, which would really liven up a dull workout!

It turns out that the Silver Hill rehab facility in New Canaan, Connecticut is ideally located for its new glut of customers: local residents whose Wall Street careers flourished due to personal qualities—being risk-prone and adrenalin-seeking with a deluded sense of invincibility and a work hard/play hard attitude—that have led them down the path of drug addiction and alcoholism now that times are hellishly stressful. More

The latest profession to experience a boom due to the recession: drug counselors! The Center for Motivation and Change in Midtown has expanded its staff of psychologists to deal with a surge in patients, while at the Realization Center, a rehab outpatient clinic near Union Square, evening group meetings "could be mistaken for Wall Street board meetings," since they're full of laid-off professionals who fear the stress of unemployment will send them back to an old drug or alcohol habit, and bankers who can no longer finance their coke addictions. So if you're a struggling dealer wondering where all your rich customers are hanging out these days, well, now you know.

Coke Dealers Get All the Perks | Hope you weren't relying on the T.G.I. Friday's in the financial district to feed your drug habit. The restaurant was shut down on Friday night after an investigation by the NYPD revealed that a drug dealer had set up shop at the bar where he dispensed goodies to Wall Street traders, brokers and bankers who "liked to spend their nights getting high after the market spent the day going low." Most disconcerting, though, is the revelation that up until he was arrested on Friday, the dealer enjoyed a perk that many bankers have had to do without in recent months: "He would dress up in a natty business suit as if he were a finance man himself—and even took a black, executive-style livery cab home each night." And he probably didn't even have to wait until 10pm either. [NYP]

We cannot imagine why, but Paris authorities decided, of all the weeks in the year, to pick Fashion Week for a series of drug raids! Even more surprising, the chief executive of Elite Models' parent company Elite World, Bertrand Hennet, has been arrested for buying, possessing, and transporting cocaine. Police said that the 35-year-old "openly admitted that he had just bought £120 worth of cocaine, but consumed it before we got to him." The true mark of a dedicated junkie: When police are hammering at the door, don't throw your stash down the toilet, just snort it as quickly as possible! More

More Good News for the Makers of Ambien | A poll conducted by the by the National Sleep Foundation finds nearly a third of all Americans are losing sleep because they're worried about the economy. "Money fears far outweigh other problems—such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, global warming or a terror attack—when it comes to staying awake at night." [NYP]

Cocaine Now Cheaper Than Ever | Need some positive news about the global economy today? Happy to help. It seems the price of cocaine in Europe is falling fast "as smugglers use new routes through West Africa and the Balkans," according to the United Nations. Have a safe flight! [BBC via DBTH]