User:L Marchese Ph.D. D.Pharm.Sci.

Hello, I'm Lucciano Marchese, originally from Leeds, England, UK, now living in Illinois, USA.

I've been a Star Trek fan since I first saw the fourth movie (A Voyage Home - "There be whales here!") when I was a hash-smoking teenager enamored of all things science fiction in the early 90s, upon which I rented all of the other Trek movies up through Generations (the latest released at the time) and began to watch TNG re-runs, VOY, and DS9 immediately - or as soon as they were launched, at the minimum. Wait, I'm still a science fiction and fantasy nerd, but not a hash-smoking one. When it comes to television and film, I've seen pretty much every episode of every SF show ever to air, from Andromeda to Atlantis, from Babylon 5 to Battlestar Galactica, from Star Trek to Stargate SG-1. Live long and prosper, in torrential rains...

When it comes to genre literature, I've read nearly every fantasy tome printed; my favorites are Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn, Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, Brent Week's Night Angel, Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, Terry Goodkind's The Sword of Truth, and many more.

I originally wished to study philosophy, and as such, have read much of it, from Aristotle to Rand to Kierkegaard to Sartre to Nietzsche to Benatar and beyond. I'm your standard nerd: you knew me in secondary school. Fascinated with computers, science fiction, fantasy, philosophy, and just about everything else that was not all that popular, and couldn't give a damn about socialising if I was paid. I stayed at home on Friday nights with a book of fantasy, philosophy, or, as often as not, a textbook, and am better off for it.

I work in two separate fields, disparate: I'm a professional student of chemistry, with a special interest in pharmaceutical chemistry and pharmacology, with a more specific interest in neurochemistry and psychopharmacology (specifically addiction), and an information security consultant. I hold one Master and three Doctoral-level degrees; I possess an MS in (psycho)pharmacology, and have been awarded doctorates in organic and analytical chemistry and pharmaceutical science; I am a licensed dispensing chemist (pharmacist), though I do not practice as it would interfere with my obsessive drive to learn everything that can be known, and wouldn't generate nearly as much income as security consultancy and penetration testing (think Tiger teams), though I aspire to one day be awarded a research fellowship with the University, so I can continue the work that I have a true passion for with no outside distraction whatsoever, including the need to earn an income and secure funding.

I have no formal training in computer insecurity, but am self-taught to an extensive degree, and I have many industry certifications, ranging from the Red Hat Certified Network Engineer and Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator - Security to several Global Information Assurance Certifications, both Silver and Gold level, to the most prestigious Certified Information Systems Security Professional, awarded by (ISC)^2 after a minimum of five years' practice and notable contributions to the field, normally only obtained by people who have made a career in the field of information security, such as full-time professional researchers such as the development leaders of computer security solutions (anti-virus software is a limited example); two careers executed with excellent and dedicated performance in each; one could never tell I had more than one career based on the quality of my work. It's a wonder I have time to spend on the internet.

I have been published seven times as main author and over a dozen times as co-author (an et al.) in several peer-reviewed journals for my research on drug addiction, specifically opioid dependence and withdrawal (I myself am a recovering heroin addict of fifteen years - I'm as amazed as you are, being as successful and learned as I am while being addicted to increasing amounts of diamorphine throughout - I first used when I was 14, first had a habit at 16, and got on methadone maintenance in early 2009, and switched to buprenorphine (Suboxone/Subutex) maintenance in July 2010, which has been extremely successful in conjunction with a two-year sabbatical from all profesional responsibilities; I and extremely thankful for such a treatment to be available), along with research of the damage caused by MDMA, THC, and NMDA-antagonists such as ketamine, dextromethorphan, and phencyclidine on developing brains, and research in to new treatments for anxiety disorders and insomnia (which I myself have, in addition to another book-full of so-called mental illnesses) and am currently writing Pharmaceutical Chemistry for Dummies and co-authoring new versions of Chemistry for Dummies and Organic Chemistry for Dummies for IDG Books. The views I hold, several of which my research has established, in regards to several issues, is quite unorthodox (especially in regards to depression, ADHD, and opioid dependence, though the medical orthodoxy is being converted rather quickly to my way of thinking - indefinite - lifelong - maintenance of all one-or more-time addicts on legal opioid replacement therapies instead of "detoxification," "pure sobriety," and outmoded "twelve-step recovery" in the treatment of opioid dependency; if this is the mark I leave on the world; I leave it a better place than I found it). I search for the truth, not the politically motivated and shaped truth, and thus have a very hard time receiving government funding, though I do receive funding through the university.

About twelve-step recovery: it was founded by an alcoholic in the midst of delirium tremens, while doped up on large doses of the anticholinergic hallucinogens atropine and scopolamine from extract of the plant Belladonna, ten years after Sears and Roebuck catalogue stopped selling heroin and syringes, twenty years before the transorbital lobotomy was considered good medicine at the cutting edge of the treatment of mental illness, and a full forty years before the lobotomy was shown to be bad medicine. Definitely outmoded, outdated, and time to be discarded, but clung to by an old guard, who believe all should suffer as they did, groups of fundamentalist evangelical Christians, for whom, a 99% failure rate is acceptable if the 1 survivor becomes a life-long convert, and Puritans who believe something like "no pain, no gain," and those should suffer even though they have inflicted no harm. This, with a considerable element of governmental and insurers', "We're not paying for junkies" attitude, without taking in to account the increased overdoses, medical costs, etc., ad infinitum, caused by disallowing life-long replacement therapy, and not to mention the crime and suffering that is endemic not because of the drug itself, but because of its legal status (the same arguments that apply to the legalisation of cannabis apply one and all to the legalisation of heroin, except heroin is safer on the lungs and would create a greater tax revenue, and isn't known for causing manic depression, panic disorder, psychosis, and paranoia like cannabis does). All of this in spite of over 95% failure/relapse rates with a 25% risk of fatal overdose within 12 months of discontinuing maintenance therapy, and a lifetime success rate of under one and one half percent, compared to 80% success rates and under 1% risk of fatal overdose for those who continue receiving opioid replacement therapy in the form of methadone, buprenorphine - the only two drugs I have personally studied, but other authors in other nations have reached the same conclusions with the following - extended-release morphine or hydromorphone, and even greater success rates with equal risk of overdose in countries such as Australia, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and the UK that offer diamorphine (pharmaceutical heroin) maintenance programmes.

I can speak and write English, write and read classical and modern Greek, and classical, though not vulgar, Latin, and am learning classical Arabic, the language of the Qur'an. I am a student of all of the world's religions: I am a metaphysician, and a metaphysicist. I do believe in God - a higher power, not necessarily the God of Abraham, though not necessarily not: my one theological view that holds steady - but my theological views vary from one day to the next (if you're interested, I can show you where the Bible itself says that the God of the Old Testament, the tetragrammaton, YHWH - Yahweh orYehovah - is one and the same as Satan of the Old Testament; check out 2 Samuel 24:1-9 and 1 Chronicles 21:1-12: two separate accountings of the same event; compare 24:1 and 21:1 and you'll be surprised) thus I am not a member of any one religion for very long as my views change through rational inquiry and deductive, and inductive, reasoning. I'm also extremely educated in various fields of mathematics, also self-taught, from the required differential calculus through set theory; I don't know whether my love for physics kindled my love for science fiction, or vice verse. For that matter, I'm also a student of the social sciences, though not with the ardour with which I pursue knowledge of our physical universe. I've a confirmed eidetic memory and an IQ of 176, though my emotional intelligence and common sense are ofttimes severely lacking.

Finally, the only labels you can stick on me are anti-natalist (a "pro-death" stance on abortion), pro-drug-legalisation, and pro-euthanasia - the first is the only movement whose orthodoxy I hold with, and the second, I hold to a much more radical view, believing all chemicals should be available at standardised purity and dose to adults, as we should have the right to do with our bodies as we wish; the same can be said for the third group

...and, finally, I'd perform well on Jeopardy, if only I knew one iota of Shakespeare.