Weekend Thoughts - 4.9.16

Image by Paralog, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. If you're feeling a bit off today, check out this compilation of meditation and yoga-related apps in an article titled "Meditation Apps That'll Keep You From Losing Your Mind". Some of the apps featured include Headspace (one of my favorite meditation apps), Whil, Stop, Breathe & Think, and Mindbody.

2. It seems that the more educated people are about civil asset forfeiture, the less likely they are to support it. In fact, nearly 1 in 10 people polled in Utah and Florida knew someone personally who had property or cash stolen legally by police without being charged with any crime. For those of you interested in learning more about asset forfeiture, check out this resource. And bear this in mind next time you see a cop—in almost all cases, they have the ability to rob, shoot, or kill you with only the slimmest chance of facing any legal repercussions for their actions.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 4.8.16

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• DEA Plans To Decide Whether To Reschedule Marijuana By Mid-Year (The Huffington Post)
• Where Marijuana Legalization Is on the Ballot in 2016 (ATTN:)
• Pot Smokers at White House Protest Obama's Disinterest in Reclassifying Marijuana (Reason)
• How Marijuana Affects Your Pets (ATTN:)
• Anti-Pot Okla. Legislator Celebrates the Death of His State's Challenge to Legalization in Colo. (Reason)
• Run a Pot Ad, Go to Jail? (Reason)
• Leading US Senators Convene Anti-Marijuana Hearing (NORML)
• Cannabis arrests down 46% since 2010 - police figures (BBC)
• Free Cannabis Seeds At The White House This Weekend (Green Rush Daily)
• Research Report Reveals Leading Emerging International Cannabis Markets (New Cannabis Ventures)
• Senator Says 'Good People Don't Smoke Marijuana' (Reason)
• Why is the Cannabis Industry So Gosh Darned White? (Merry Jane)
• Thank You for Pot Smoking: Jeff Kundert of the American Cannabis Society Talks Marijuana Legalization (Psychedelic Times)
• It's Time to Treat Medical Cannabis Like Medicine (Leafly)
• The Current State of Cannabis Technology (Forbes)
• Sensual photos of teens smoking marijuana, taken for the U.S. government in 1973 (Boing Boing)
• Analysis: How Vermont could change the marijuana legalization game (Daily Herald)
• How to Customize Your Cannabis High with Temperature (Leafly)
• It Is Time To Deschedule, Not Reschedule, Cannabis (NORML)
• Just Don't Inhale: Newspaper Seeks Cannabis Reporter Who Can Pass Drug Test (TIME)
• Marijuana Startups Like Tokken Aim To Provide The Cannabis Industry With Banking Services, But Will Legal Shifts Put Them Out Of Business? (International Business Times)
• 5 Pesticides Wrongly Used in Cannabis Cultivation (Merry Jane)
• Jumping Ahead Of Evidence, Prohibitionists Claim Legalizing Pot Boosts Underage Consumption (Reason)
• Cannabis terpenes, 101 (Extract)
• Playing cards for marijuana enthusiasts (Boing Boing)
• Cannabis helps my epileptic son. If only we had known sooner (The Guardian)
• Scientists Successfully Breed Kale with Cannabis (High Times)
• Cannabis Use Threatens Antipsychotic Medication Adherence (Medscape)
• There is a hidden knife in this marijuana leaf pendant (Boing Boing)
• Former Tax Judge Indicted for Tax Evasion Wrote Cannabusiness Decision (Reason)

LSD

• LSD could make you smarter, happier and healthier. Should we all try it? (The Washington Post)
• Medical LSD to be More Useful Than Medical Marijuana (Clapway)
• This is what it's like to take LSD and go into virtual reality (Metro)
• Tripping on LSD Makes Mental Time Travel Possible, but Only to the Future (Inverse)
• That Time the CIA Secretly Dosed Americans With LSD (OZY)
• Walmsley trial: Girl allegedly woke from LSD stupor to find caregiver raping her (Stuff.co.nz)
• Maidstone man arrested after $13m LSD seized (The Age)
• Jailed Byron LSD dealer gets chance for appeal (Byron Shire News)
• Woman arrested on LSD possession, other charges (Terre Haute Tribune Star)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Did Psychedelic Mushrooms and Group Sex Play a Role in Human Evolution? (Big Think)
• Magic Mushroom Guru Terence McKenna Talks Science and UFOs (AlterNet)
• Psilocybe Cubensis: A Worth Candidate For The Philosopher's Stone (Disinfo)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• MDMA Is A Step Closer To Legal Medicinal Use In USA (Deep House Amsterdam)
• Weekly Dose: ecstasy, the party drug that could be used to treat PTSD (The Conversation)
• 6 Terrifying Things You Didn't Know Molly Could Do to Your Body (Mic)
• MDMA could be available over the counter in the chemist in five years (Metro)
• Molly Love: Resorting to Ecstasy for Intimacy (OZY)
• Man seen "taking a substance" in the gents of a night club was found with wraps of MDMA, court told (Bristol Post)
• Man caught bagging up 36,000 ecstasy pills during garda raid jailed (Sunday World)
• Ecstasy and booze killed young woman at Boonstock festival in Penticton (Global News)
• Mother heartbroken as second teenage son collapses and dies 'from ecstasy pill' just a year after his brother died the same way (Daily Mail)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Michelle Rodriguez Reveals A Psychedelic Brew Made Her Jealous Of Paul Walker's Death (Inquisitr)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

• Court: Native American church not excused from cannabis laws (FOX News)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Dr. Deborah Mash Talks About the Unique Power of Ibogaine Therapy for Drug Addiction (Psychedelic Times)
• Personal Story: How I Freed Myself From Anxiety With Iboga (Reset.me)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Street Drug Flakka Ravaged Florida and Then Disappeared (TIME)
• Psychedelic art collector, 70, becomes UK's 'oldest person to die' after taking legal highs (The Telegraph)

Dissociatives

• This Could Be Big: Intravenous Ketamine for Fibromyalgia (National Pain Report)
• Ketamine for Excited Delirium Syndrome: Results of a 3-year case series (EMS1)
• A Pain Patient's Experience with Ketamine (National Pain Report)
• Ketamine: Party Drug and Essential Anaesthetic in Africa (BBC)
• Special K: "The Next Big Thing" in Psychiatry? (Law Street)
• Center PD: Man on PCP stabs woman over can of beer (KTRE)
• KC postal carrier charged with conspiracy to distribute PCP through mail (KSHB)
• Paterson man arrested with two glass jars of PCP (Paterson Times)

Opiates/Opioids

• Heroin 'Safe Zones': Coming to the United States? (NBC News)
• Life-saving overdose treatment naloxone gets user-friendly 3D printed redesign (3ders.org)
• Rajasthan: Opium users gear up for life post its ban (The Indian Express)
• Mexican Army Finds Opium Poppies Growing Near US Border (ABC News)
• Street Heroin Use Could Be Curbed with Morphine-Like Drug (Live Science)
• Give regulated supply of bhukki to addicts: Patiala MP to Punjab govt (Hindustan Times)
• Chinese woman who grew opium plants in her backyard held by police (South China Morning Post)

Absinthe

• All about absinthe, the most mysterious of spirits, and how best to drink it (South China Morning Post)

Kratom

• How to Deal With Kratom Withdrawal – Is it Really That Bad? (Kratom Project)
• Where Can You Buy Kratom Legally (Kratom Project)
• Suffolk legislator looks to ban plant becoming gateway drug (News 12 Long Island)
• How to Buy and Grow Kratom Plant (Kratom Project)
• Chumphon-Phuket bus driver, 69, attendant, 26, booked for kratom coach smuggling attempt (Thai Visa News)
• Tips for buying Kratom Online (Kratom Project)
• KRATOM DANGERS: WHAT IS THE REAL RISK OF THIS PLANT? HARMING YOU? (Kratom Project)

Kava

• Waikato study examines kava's effects on driving (Stuff.co.nz)
• Krave kava bar celebrates first anniversary (The Daily Tar Heel)
• Kava Lounge Sets Grand Opening For Booze-Free Relaxation On Divis (SFist)

Khat

• Bulgarian authorities bust 28 kg of narcotic substance khat, nearly 5 kg of heroin (Focus News)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Meet Rick Doblin, Psychedelic Pioneer Who Has Expanded the Boundaries of Medicine (AlterNet)
• This Norweigian Man's UN Speech About People Who Use Drugs Is Extraordinary (The Influence)
• Psychedelics Could Hold the Key to Mental Health, But Most Research is Illegal (News in Brief)
• These Trippy Portraits Reveal the Diversity of Drug Users (ATTN:)
• Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research 2016 (Psychedelic Press UK)
• TripSit Wiki is now open for editing (TripSit.me)
• NEW BOOK> Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America (H-Net)
• Coming Out of the Drug War Haze? (Reason)
• Is Bernie Sanders a Fan of Psychedelic Trance Pioneer Shpongle? (THUMP)
• Niche market for high-end drugs (The Hindu)

Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics (and other psychoactives) are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Weekend Thoughts - 4.2.16

Image by Narayan G. Maharjan, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Fellow Mario fans and technology nerds rejoice! This amazing Mario glitch allows the game to be turned into Flappy Bird. The technical jargon may be a bit much for you, as it was for me, but it's a pretty cool to watch nonetheless.

2. I was slightly disturbed by the actions of a black student at San Francisco State University who earlier this week assaulted a white teen because he has dreadlocks. The black student insisted that dreadlocks are a hair style that are only culturally-allowed to be worn by black folks, and that the white student was stealing her culture by choosing to wear them. First of all, following up an accusation of cultural appropriation with violence is poor form. But perhaps most importantly of all, dreadlocks are not exclusively part of black culture. It turns out that dreadlocks have roots in places like Greece, Egypt, India, and more. So not only was the black student out of line with her violent actions, but she was also perpetuating a false myth. The article and video are certainly worth a look.

3. In a previous edition of Weekend Thoughts from earlier this year, I linked to an article describing a court case that the FBI brought upon Apple in an effort to obtain information located on a suspect's iPhone. It turns out that the FBI has officially dropped its case against Apple after finding a way into the phone. There is a ton of excellent analysis in the tech community and media about this case and the FBI's true motivations, so I won't get into that here. I will simply say that although this particular battle is over, the war will certainly see another day.

4. You may find yourself wondering why the feds usually try to unlock phones. It turns out that it's to fight the War on Drugs, not the War on Terrorism. The article explains how the FBI has repeatedly lied about its intentions for breaking into locked or encrypted devices and provides evidence showing that a majority of times the FBI has requested help for obtaining information has been related to drug cases, not dangerous or violent crimes like terrorism, financial crime, child pornography, or counterfeiting. The War on Drugs has clearly our government the precedent to invade our privacy and the apparent belief that lying to its citizens is acceptable.

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 4.1.16

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• US-Made Cannabis Oil That Canadian Kids Rely On Is Stuck at the Border (VICE News)
• Money Grows on Cannabis Plants (Merry Jane)
• Use of Medical cannabis makes profound difference in Air Force veteran's life (Belleville News-Democrat)
• The continuing saga of stoned driving (Drug WarRant)
• A Cannabis Advocate's Case for Bernie Sanders (Leafly)
• During Washington State Easter Egg Hunt, Cops Find Huge Pot Operation (TIME)
• Our Recent Supreme Court Victory and What It Means (NORML)
• Is Cannabis The Secret To The Cure For HIV? (Reset.me)
• Gary Johnson Has High Hopes President Obama Will Reclassify Marijuana (Reason)
• Mississippi Dog Brings 1-Lb Bag of Marijuana Home to Family (TIME)
• The Brits are Modeling Their Cannabis Legislation After the US (Merry Jane)
• The Genes for Pot Addiction Have Been Identified (TIME)
• U.S. firms target investment in Israeli cannabis R&D (Yahoo! News)
• These 15 Smoke Spot Photos Defy Stoner Stereotypes (ATTN:)
• Live Well: Why a cannabis oil-infused massage is better than a traditional rubdown (Colorado Springs Gazette)
• Vermont Governor on Marijuana Legalization: It's What 'Enlightened States' Do (TIME)
• Women Grabbing Picks and Shovels in the Cannabis Gold Rush - Jane West (Forbes)
• Cannabis vs. alcohol: economic and social impacts (Medical News Today)
• A Crowdfunded Cannabis Company That The Crowd Should Avoid (Forbes)
• Can Marijuana Save Your Skin—And Your Sex Life? Inside the New Topical Cannabis Phenomenon (Vogue)
• On Marijuana Legalization, Chris Matthews Sounds Dumber Than Donald Trump (Reason)
• The March Towards Normalization Continues (NORML)
• From Porn to Pot: Hustler's Larry Flynt Invests in Legal Cannabis Industry (High Times)
• Whoopi Goldberg Gets Into the Medical Marijuana Business (TIME)
• Majority of businesses in Massachusetts are against legalizing cannabis (Mashable)
• 5 Fun Date Ideas for Cannabis-Friendly Couples (Leafly)
• Colorado Springs ban on cannabis clubs sparks action (Colorado Springs Gazette)
• Medicinal cannabis 'loophole' may be applied at border, says Customs (Stuff.co.nz)
• Swede who 'put cannabis in coffee' on trial for drug abuse (The Local)

LSD

• Researchers Are Using LSD to Help in the Fight Against Depression (GOOD Magazine)
• SXSW Film Review: 'Orange Sunshine' (Blogcritics)
• Naked man, on LSD, approaches woman on Noland Trail (Daily Press)
• 2 Teens Charged After 8 Chicago Students Sickened by Suspected LSD (5NBC Chicago)
• Washington Student Charged in Alleged LSD-Fueled Murder (WDJT)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• What's the Right Psychedelic Mushrooms Dosage? Deciding the Best Dose for Psychedelic Treatment (Psychedelic Times)
• Cops seize 1.5 kilos of pot and 180 grams of magic mushrooms in raid (Thompson Citizen)
• Men accused of trespassing to search for psychedelic mushrooms (WKMG)
• Anchorage man found with large stash of heroin, psilocybin, and other drugs (KTUU)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• A new injectable drug is being trialled to combat MDMA-induced hyperthermia (Mixmag)
• The USA could legalize medical MDMA – should the UK follow suit? (Metro)
• An effort to get Ecstasy FDA-approved is moving right along (Tech Insider)
• 6 UC Santa Cruz Students Face MDMA Felonies, but Throwing Them In Prison Won't Help Anyone (AlterNet)
• Raleigh police: Wake man, Detroit resident had hundreds of MDMA doses (The News & Observer)
• Lethal 'Dr Death' ecstasy pills using Chupa Chups sweets logo flood Britain (Daily Star)
• Father speaks of his anguish as daughter, 16, dies of ecstasy overdose (Sunday Express)
• Charity Talk To Frank pulls back the curtain on taking ecstasy (Daily Mail)
• Cops hunt source of deadly ecstasy (Independent Online)
• Mail Order Ecstasy Pills Lead to Arrest (AviationPros)
• Young dad caught dealing Ecstasy in Yarm nightclub fell into world of drugs and violence (Gazette Live)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• The All-Star Shaman Ayahuasca Massacree (Reality Sandwich)
• Ayahuasca Helped Me Overcome Trauma And Gave Me A New Purpose In Life (Reset.me)
• 'The Path', Ayahuasca, and South America's Very Real Cults (Inverse)
• EXCLUSIVE "Peruvian Ayahuasca Ceremony" Clip from HULU's THE PATH (Nuke the Fridge)
• Ayahuasca-fueled vision sends Aaron Paul down a dark 'Path' (Zap2It)
• SLO County Sheriff's deputies uncover evidence of psychedelic drug lab (KSBY)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

• Religious Freedom Acts Born Out Of ... Peyote (HowStuffWorks)
• How a Seventh-Day Adventist and peyote led to Supreme Court fights over contraception (Daily Kos)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Mason teen indicted in LSD, designer drug trafficking case (WLWT)

Dissociatives

• Professor to share depression study findings at Aware event (Village Living)
• Ketamine Linked to Bladder Toxicity (Medscape)
• Officer: Man yelling on MLK emanated the smell of PCP (The Lufkin News)
• HPD: Man high on PCP taken into custody, ending SWAT standoff in southeast Houston (KPRC)

Opiates/Opioids

• Heroin Epidemic Is Yielding to a Deadlier Cousin: Fentanyl (The New York Times)
• Can an Implant Stop Heroin Addiction? (The Daily Beast)
• How Switzerland Could Teach the U.S. To Deal With Its Heroin Problem (ATTN:)
• Controversial Drug Naloxone Reverses Overdoses – But Here's What It Does To Your Brain (Mic)
• Coroner Says Selling Heroin Is Murder--He's Wrong (Forbes)
• Chiefs: Fentanyl outpacing heroin (Gloucester Daily Times)
• There's a Way to Treat Opiate Addiction, So Why Isn't It Being Used? (TIME)
• 'Drug Users Need Treatment,' Says President Obama. Not So Fast, Says Dr. Carl Hart (Reason)
• TBT: In the 1800s, One Opium-Laced Drug Helped Moms Soothe the Pains of Teething Children (Hospitals & Health Networks)
• President Obama Talks Drug Abuse With Doctors and Addicts (TIME)
• America's opium war in Afghanistan (ABC Online)

Kratom

• Substance abuse counselors say "pain killer" ingredient should be banned (WAAY)
• Two Phuket women arrested with kratom, bullets and gun (The Phuket News)

Kava

• Luau Time! Krave Celebrates One Year in Carrboro (Chapelboro.com)
• Going under kava (Radio New Zealand)

Khat

• Wuhan customs seizes 25 kilograms of khat from Africa (News Ghana)
• China customs find khat, cannabis in foreign mail (Shanghai Daily)
• Don't give miraa or its proceeds to church, priest tells Catholics (Standard Digital News)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Lancet Commission Recommends Drug Legalization (Reason)
• Medical Marijuana, Decriminalization, and Opium: 2016 Looks Big for Drugs in Mexico (VICE News)
• Tracing Drug Use Patterns Through Nightclub Toilets (CityLab)
• Could Hallucinogenic Drugs Treat Mental Illness (The Alternative Daily)
• Why Making the Music Festival Scene Safer Is So Hard (Cosmopolitan)
• Obama Shortens Sentences of 61 Drug Offenders (TIME)
• 22 Top Medical Experts Call For A Shift In "Drug" Policies (Reset.me)
• Mind-altering drugs could treat mental disorders (EurekAlert!)
• Better Living Through Psychedelics with Comedian Duncan Trussell (Indy Week)
• Unthinkable: Could we make a computer trip on acid? (The Irish Times)
• Psychedelics and the Evolution of Festival Culture: David Starfire Talks Psychedelic Music (Psychedelic Times)
• Public Awareness Campaign on Generosity introduces Drink Cop test cards that arms people with the power to test their drinks for illicit drugs (Digital Journal)
• How Decades-Old Drug Offenses Kept Two Elected Officials Out of Office (Reason)
• The Many Lives of Mongolian Shamanism (Reality Sandwich)
• Idiot Falls for Joke Facebook Post, Gets Arrested (Disinfo)
• Mexico Detains Top Money Launderer to Drug Lord 'El Chapo' (TIME)
• Psychedelic compounds like ecstasy may be good for more than just a high (Chemical & Engineering News)

Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics (and other psychoactives) are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Book Review - The Crack in Space

This is a fairly representative sample of Philip K Dick’s paranoia-fueled alternate universes at its best. The Crack in Space was published in 1966 and is an expanded version of the novella Cantata 140, which was published in 1964. Both are based on the short story Prominent Author.

The novel is set on Earth in the year 2080. The planet struggles with overpopulation when a portal to a parallel version of Earth is discovered, hidden within a vehicle known as a Jiffi-scuttler. There are a lot of moving parts to the story, and it can be a bit difficult to keep them all in mind while reading.

For one, it is an election year (how appropriate for me to read this in 2016), and one of the candidates believes that the alter-Earth can be utilized for moving 70 million people known as "bibs", who have been cryogenically frozen until the overpopulation problem has been resolved, to colonize the planet. However, it is later discovered that this alter-Earth is not uninhabited.

Since I don’t want to give to much of the plot away, I will leave the description of the novel at that.

I found the book to be extremely enjoyable to read. I hesitate to say that it’s one of Dick’s finest works, because there are some truly amazing pieces that I have read along with even more that I have yet to get to. But when it comes down to it, this particular novel really nails the paranoid explanation of alternate realities that Dick was excellent at creating and expressing in some of his novels. It verges on the line of being classified as a horror novel, rather than just a science fiction novel, because a lot of the book strikes a chord similar to that of HP Lovecraft—something utterly wrong and horrible has happened, but it isn’t clearly defined.

At any rate, I’d highly suggest giving this one a read. I’m not sure if I’d rate this in my “Top Ten” Philip K Dick novel’s list yet, but it seems to be a worthy contender at this point.

4/5 stars. 188 pages.