This Week in Psychedelics - 10.7.16

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• FDA's Advice to the DEA on Marijuana (ATTN:)
• Why Public Health Experts Say Cannabis Should Be Treated Like Tobacco (Broadly)
• How States Are Spending Their Marijuana Revenue (ATTN:)
• Keith Stroup: Marijuana Smoking Up, Marijuana Arrests Down (ATTN:)
• How cannabis could help the fight against Alzheimer's (Mirror)
• Ancient Cannabis 'Burial Shroud' Discovered in Desert Oasis (National Geographic)
• California's Marijuana Legalization Faces an Unlikely Foe: Growers (TIME)
• Adult Use Ballot Initiatives Leading In Latest Polls (NORML)
• Study: Cannabis production uses as much energy as data centers (Albuquerque Business First)
• Meeting the Scientist Who Discovered THC (Reality Sandwich)
• 'Cannabis' drug could help thousands of epilepsy sufferers following trial at Great Ormond Street Hospital (Mirror)
• Like Barcelona, Bilbao is Taking Steps to Regulate Cannabis Social Clubs (Leafly)
• A Big Shift Is Necessary to Successfully Market Cannabis to Minorities (The Huffington Post)
• Calif. Newspapers Warm to Pot Legalization, Thanks to Taxes and Regulations (Reason)
• Americans Are Still Getting Arrested for Marijuana Possession at Staggering Rates (Disinfo)
• Cannabis Industry Technology Is Becoming That Prime Kush (Forbes)
• Is Cannabis Safe to Use During Pregnancy? New Study Clarifies Risks (Leafly)
• Where Voters Are Likeliest to Legalize Marijuana in a Month (Reason)
• Colorado Gives Cannabis Candy a New Look to Avoid Confusion (Leafly)
• Cannabis businesses dip their toes into world of franchising (The Denver Post)
• Tennessee: Cities Move To Reduce Marijuana Possession Penalties (NORML)
• Cannabis reduces creativity, but user generally not aware (Daily Science)

LSD

• LSD Now: How the Psychedelic Renaissance Changed Acid (Rolling Stone)
• Would LSD Make Bar Mitzvahs Great Again? (VICE)
• The Law Trips on LSD (Los Angeles Free Press)
• VA hospital's LSD experiments sped brother's fall into schizophrenia, Lee's Summit man fears (The Kansas City Star)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Much ado about mushrooms (Varsity)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Using MDMA to Treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (VolteFace)
• High Society: Ecstasy (VICE)
• Miley Cyrus' Suggestion Sick Ellen Take MDMA Wasn't Insane (Inverse)
• How taking ecstasy helped me mourn my mother (iNews)
• Southend man collapsed outside Chameleon nightclub and died after taking MDMA (Essex Live)
• Teenager, 18, froze to death after taking ecstasy and runing from a golf glub hotel into a LAKE wearing just his boxer shorts because he thought demons were in his hotel room (Daily Mail)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Ancient Medicine in a Modern World: How Ayahuasca Can Heal the Plague of Depression and Anxiety (Psychedelic Times)
• Aya Quest Native Americas church holding Ayahuasca healing ceremonies in the USA (Digital Journal)

Dissociatives

• Ketamine As Medicine? Anesthetic And Club Drug Could Treat Migraines, Chronic Pain (Medical Daily)
• New Study Compares Ketamine to Electro Shock Therapy in Treating Severe Depression (WKSU)
• The Tulsa Effect: Chicago Officer Beaten Unconscious By Man On PCP (Law Officer)

Opiates/Opioids

• How America Is Battling Its Horrific Opioid Epidemic (Wired)
• Heroin is now legal in Canada – if you have a prescription (Idaho Statesman)
• Health Canada approves non-prescription naloxone nasal spray (The Globe and Mail)
• The Great Binge: Heroin, Cocaine and Opium Over the Counter (New Historian)
• Not just for medics: Drugs that reverse opioid overdoses are being pushed to the masses (STAT)

Absinthe

• 6 Things You Didn't Know about Absinthe (San Diego Magazine)
• The 9 Best Absinthes Available In The US (VinePair)

Kratom

• Congressman: DEA May Extend Comment Period on Kratom Ban Amid Public Pressure (Reason)
• The Benefits Of Kratom, And Risks Of Kratom Extracts, From The People Who Use The Botanical Medicine (Forbes)
• Does Kratom Show Up on Drug Testing? (Kratom Guides)
• Why Does the Government Want to Ban Kratom, an Herbal Supplement? (New York Magazine)
• DEA Delays Kratom Ban (Medscape)
• Yes, Kratom Is a Drug: Here's Why (American Council on Science and Health)

Kava

• Why Experts are Now Saying Kava is Not Only Safe, but Needed Now More Than Ever (PR Newswire)
• Wait for endorsement of kava standards (The Fiji Times)

Khat

• Somalia: Using Khat As Trade And Political Leverage (Somaliland Press)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• High Hitler: how Nazi drug abuse steered the course of history (The Guardian)
• DEA Paid Millions to Confidential Informants Who Could No Longer Be Trusted (Reason)
• President Obama Shortens the Sentences of 102 Drug Offenders (TIME)
• Addiction & Recovery: The Definitive Expert Resource Guide For You, Your Family, or Your Patients (Lumiere Healing Centers)
• 12 legal drugs that will give you a psychedelic trip (The Daily Dot)
• Choosing the Right Therapy: The Differences Between Psychedelic Integration and Recovery Coaching (Psychedelic Times)
• LSU studies effects of psychedelic drugs, and other news of higher education (The New Orleans Advocate)
• The Problem With Denying Organ Transplants to Drug Users (ATTN:)
• Below the Mainstreaming: A Review of Beyond Psychedelics (Psychedelic Press UK)
• Risky research could herald mindful revolution (Imperial College London)

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.

How to Send Overdrive.com eBooks to Your Kindle

Image by Megan Trace, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

As a frequent library patron and a recent Kindle owner, I was excited about the possibility of checking out eBooks from my library that I would be able to read on my Kindle Paperwhite. I was vaguely aware of Overdrive.com, a website that allows you to do sign into your library account and check out eBooks and audiobooks just like checking out physical media.

However, as I embarked on the process, I couldn't find sufficient help documentation that would give me step-by-step instructions about how to check out an eBook from my library (within Overdrive) and send it to my Kindle. To put it bluntly, my experience fumbling around until I figured it out was a frustrating nightmare. That's why I decided to write a simple help article that will show you how to be reading eBooks on your Kindle in no time! Here are the steps that you will need to follow:

Image by Multnomah County Library, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Step 1: Sign up for a library card (which takes like 15 minutes or so) at your local library and set up a PIN for the card (most libraries have you do this during the sign up process).

Step 2: Create an Overdrive account on Overdrive.com with an email address and password. Do NOT use the “Sign up using library card” option, especially if you have multiple libraries that you belong to. Creating your own user account seemed to be the best way to go.

Step 3: Log into your Overdrive account and authenticate your library membership by searching for your library (by location or name) and then entering your card number and PIN.

Step 4: Search for eBooks "in the library" while logged into your Overdrive account and add them to a wish list or opt to “borrow” them. Each library will have a different selection of eBooks to choose from. In both of my libraries, the selection is small and it is easier to browse by category than searching fruitlessly for specific authors or titles.

Step 5: When you check out a book, you can choose “Kindle Book” as your download option and "Confirm & get Kindle Book", and then Overdrive will shoot you over to an Amazon login to authenticate your Amazon account.

Step 6: Under the "Deliver to" step, choose the Kindle device you would like to send the eBook to, and click the "Get library book" button.

Image by Zhao !, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Step 7: The book will start downloading automatically when you open the device, and you can immediately start reading! Once your loan period has ended, you will be able to check the book out again, or place it on hold if it is no longer available.

I hope this guide will help some of you put your library's eBook lending to good use. In addition to eBooks, Overdrive offers audiobooks that can be listened to using their app. It is compatible with iOS, Android, Chromebook, Mac OS, Windows, and Windows Phone. What are you waiting for? Go ahead, get to reading!

Book Review - Breakfast of Champions

With the completion of Breakfast of Champions, I am now exactly halfway through the chronological reading of all of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. Up until now, Sirens of Titan had been my favorite, but Breakfast of Champions has eclipsed it and risen straight to the top of the pile.

The narrator describes the book as a story of “two lonesome, skinny, fairly old white men on a planet which was dying fast.” One of the men, Dwayne Hoover, is a deranged Pontiac dealer who comes to believe that he is the only living being in the world with free will (the rest being robots, of course) due to being inside of a science fiction novel written by author Kilgore Trout. Trout is a mostly-unknown (albeit widely published) pulp science fiction writer who appeared in several other Vonnegut novels, who hitchhikes to Hoover’s town to appear at an art convention.

The novel frequently switches focus between Hoover and Trout, with Kurt Vonnegut simultaneously appearing as the author of the book and filling in the narratorial duties. These transitions are exceptionally handled—they help move the story along and are not confusing whatsoever. Common themes in the book include free will, suicide, mental illness, and issues with America and the treatment of its citizens.

Just like Vonnegut’s other novels, the writing itself is simple to read, which seems to be part of his overall style. Generously mixed in with the text are many drawings by the other which give a visual depiction of various objects, such as an anus, flags, a beaver, a vulva, the yin-yang symbol, guns, an electric chair, an apple, and even the sunglasses the author himself wears as he enters the storyline. Like many of the other novels, there are characters from other books which appear, who often have similar, but not exactly symmetrical characteristics across the books.

As I mentioned earlier in this review, I greatly appreciated Breakfast of Champions and would recommend this as the first book a novice Vonnegut reader should check out. It’s funny, smart, and wacky enough to hold your attention, and it’s written simply enough that it is also a quick read.

5/5 stars. 302 pages.

Weekend Thoughts - 10.1.16

Image by Rafael Vianna Croffi, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. In honor of Banned Books Week (September 25 to October 1), here is an article showing the most-challenged books of 2001 and 2015 and some commentary on what that means about our society's greatest fears. Interestingly, 15 years ago our banned books focused on strong language, sexual content, and drugs, whereas nowadays the concerns are more about transgender issues, homosexuality and religious reasons. It's an interesting list of books, including the fact that the Harry Potter books were most-challenged in 2001 (they were believed to be involved with cults and Satanism, apparently), although they have been accepted as normal now. It's worth perusing the list to see if your next favorite book may currently be (or formerly been) a commonly-banned book!

2. One of the techniques that was used during World War I was to paint military vessels with dazzle camouflage, which made it challenging for the enemies to obtain an accurate read on the vessel's distance, speed, and direction of travel. An artist created a disorienting psychedelic dazzle camouflage room that blurs the boundaries between the dazzle camouflaged-person and the room. It's pretty trippy; I'd like to experience it in person.

3. Apple announced some new products a few weeks ago during their September 2016 Keynote, and among the new goodies that were introduced were AirPods, a pair of wireless headphones built with a proprietary wireless "W1" chip. One of the primary methods of interacting with the AirPods is to speak to them using the Siri assistant technology. This article argues that AirPods are precisely the best place to use Siri, comparing the combination of technologies to the movie Her, in which the main character (and the rest of society) begins interacting with in-ear virtual assistants on a near-constant basis. It's a well-written, thought-provoking article that also references Jane, the artificial sentience in the Ender's Game series book Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card. Seriously, this article combines a lot of my favorite things—Apple, Her, and the Ender's Game books. Well done, and an excellent sneak peek into our likely future personal (and societal) relationships with artificial intelligences.

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

This Week in Psychedelics - 9.30.16

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Where Your Representatives Stand on Marijuana (ATTN:)
• FBI: Marijuana Arrests Decline Significantly In 2015 (NORML)
• Pharma Company Admits Opposing Marijuana Legalization to Protect Its Corporate Profits (ATTN:)
• Blockchain Startups Want to Solve Cannabis' Banking Problem (Merry Jane)
• Why Marijuana Advocates Are Criticizing Chelsea Clinton (ATTN:)
• Colorado Will Use Extra Marijuana Revenue to Prevent Bullying in Schools (TIME)
• Do You Know These Stoner Superstitions About Cannabis Rules and Etiquette? (Leafly)
• Alaska's first commercial cannabis harvest begins (Alaska Dispatch News)
• A company just had another successful test of a cannabis drug for epilepsy – and now their stock is spiking (Business Insider)
• Why You Shouldn't Blame Gary Johnson's Memory on Pot (ATTN:)
• Meet "Asamiko" the New Cannabis Mascot of Japan (Merry Jane)
• Common Sense Proposal Would Treat Marijuana Like Tobacco in New Jersey (Reason)
• BDS Analytics Launches Scientific Consumer Survey of Nation's Cannabis Users (Westword)
• How this tiny Middle Eastern nation came to lead the world in medical marijuana research (The Cannabist)
• Weed Weekends: Are Marijuana Bars Coming To Denver? (Dope Magazine)
• Medical Marijuana Replaces More Dangerous Drugs (Reason)
• Alaska Reporter Who Quit On Air in Support of Marijuana Legalization Facing 24 Years in Prison (Reason)
• Everything You Need to Know About Cannabis Flavonoids (Merry Jane)
• Gentleman ejected from Uber for smoking "medicine" (Boing Boing)
• Hebrew U fund invests in cannabis sorting technology (The Times of Israel)
• 5 Experts Weigh in on Cannabis Concentrates and How to Use Them (Leafly)
• The fitness-first, cannabis-second 420 Games come to Denver this weekend, boulder next (The Denver Post)
• How to Combine Cannabis and Prostate Play (Leafly)
• Chubut first to accept cannabis oil (Buenos Aires Herald)

LSD

• Silicon Valley Professionals 'Microdosing' LSD Before Work (The Daily Caller)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Ecstasy prices reveal its path from city to city (Futurity)
• How Ecstasy Augments Psychological Therapy in PTSD (Medscape)
• Ecstasy drug therapy (Al Jazeera)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Actual Scientists Found That Ayahuasca Can Help You Think More Creatively (The Huffington Post)
• The Agonizing Enlightenment of Ayahuasca (Reality Sandwich)
• Attend The 2nd World Ayahuasca Conference to Meet Leading Healers And Experts (Reset.me)
• "How Ayahuasca Helped Me Recover from a Traumatic Injury" (Psychedelic Times)
• Ayahuasca and anal beads: the hallucinogenic art of Donna Huanca (The Guardian)
• What is hallucinogen Ayahuasca? (ABC Online)
• DMT, a hard-core hallucinogenic, also known as 'dream time', causing danger (Herald Sun)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

• "Peyote at a Crossroads": Documentary Traces an Ancient Bond Between Plant and People (KRTS)

Morning Glory Seeds

• Students hospitalized after ingesting hallucinogen at Eureka High School (Eureka Times Standard)

Dissociatives

• Could 'party drug' ketamine be a treatment for cocaine addiction? (International Business Times)
• 'Club Drug' Ketamine Useful In Migraine Treatment, Researchers Say (Inquisitr)
• Ketamine Shows Signs of Efficacy in Treating PTSD (Monthly Prescribing Reference)
• 5 safety tips for cops when dealing with a subject high on PCP (PoliceOne.com)

Opiates/Opioids

• Just say no to Narcan? Heroin rescue efforts draw backlash (CBS News)
• Is methadone an answer to Alaska's heroin crisis? (Alaska Dispatch News)
• Rite Aid Expands Naloxone Dispensing Program in Four Additional States (Yahoo! Finance)
• The US heroin habit is growing, and 2 of Mexico's most powerful cartels are fighting to supply it (Business Insider)
• NYC wants to make it safer for drug addicts to shoot up (New York Post)
• CVS Health (CVS) Announces Expansion of Naloxone Accessibility (Street Insider)
• Pennsylvania Artist Tackles Heroin Epidemic, Despite Police Intervention (The Huffington Post)
• Naloxone can help save lives in the battle against heroin and opiates (The Journal Times)
• 10Listens: The cost of anti-overdose drug Naloxone (WBIR)

Kratom

• 45 Congressmen Ask DEA Not to Ban Kratom Next Week (U.S. News & World Report)
• Kratom Drug Ban May Cripple Promising Painkiller Research (Scientific American)
• Is Kratom the CBD of Opioids? (Reality Sandwich)
• The DEA Is About to Kill Kratom and Internet Sales Are Going Crazy (Gizmodo)
• Kratom Is A Drug By Any Measure - Treat It Like One (American Council on Science and Health)

Kava

• Kava council calls for restructure (The Fiji Times)
• Committee endorses standards (The Fiji Times)

Khat

• Miraa continues to serve as unifying symbol of divided Horn of Africa (Daily Nation)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• ACLU Urges Mass. Court to Vacate 24,000 Drug Cases Based on Tainted Lab Evidence (Reason)
• Here's What Happened When a German Reporter Took a Bunch of Hard Drugs on TV (Thump)
• New Species Discovered, And It's A Psychedelichen (VolteFace)
• Is the FDA Too Cozy With Drug Companies? (TIME)
• Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte Invokes the Holocaust to Defend 'War on Drugs' (TIME)
• Psychedelic experiences might "cure" smoking and OCD. Should we allow them? (Vox)
• David Bowie on cocaine in 1974 (Boing Boing)
• Donald Trump Shows How Drugs are Used as Weapons in Politics (ATTN:)
• Maine Gov. Paul LePage's 'Binder of Drug Dealers' Shows He Was Lying About the Race of Arrestees (Reason)

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.