Weekend Thoughts - 12.2.17

Image by manfredrichter, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. After losing a 19-year court battle with the US Department of Justice, several big tobacco companies will be running advertisements admitting that they violated federal racketeering and fraud laws by conspiring to cover up the fact that their products killed their customers. These ads will run for a full year, and the television ads are going to run five nights a week on multiple networks. Looking at the long view, I'm wondering if this will ever happen with the meat, dairy, egg, and processed foods industries.

2. Meanwhile, the Netherlands has closed prisons because crime is so low. This is partly due to the fact that Dutch judges favor alternatives like fines, community service, and electronic tagging to prison sentences.

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

This Week in Psychedelics - 12.1.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Canada: House Members Overwhelmingly Pass Adult Use Regulation Bill (NORML)
• The Swiss cannabis farm aiming to supply 'legal weed' across Europe (The Guardian)
• How Does Cannabis Help PTSD Patients? (High Times)
• New Mexico Study Suggests Medical Cannabis Helps Chronic Pain Patients Reduce Opioid Use (Reason)
• Bipartisan Letter To Congressional Leadership Urges Continued Protections For Medical Marijuana Programs (NORML)
• Inside Paraguay's illegal cannabis plantations (Al Jazeera)
• NIDA Study Finds Underage Cannabis Use Alters Brain Connectivity (Leafly)
• Study Explores Chemical Links Of Cannabis, Exercise, And Sexual Bliss (Forbes)
• Marijuana Can Replace Sleeping Pills (ATTN:)
• Supporters Turn in Petition to Legalize Cannabis in North Dakota (Leafly)
• Cannabis Crunch – Marijuana Tops Conflict Minerals, Florida Ignoring MMJ Law, And We Need More Weed Scientists (Psychedelic Times)
• State Courts Say Early-Morning Pot Raids Were Gratuitous and Illegal (Reason)
• If You Fear Having a Panic Attack From Smoking Weed, Read This Before Lighting Up (POPSUGAR)
• Cannabis could be a boost for state farmers (The Virginia Gazette)
• Sacramento to Consider Greenlighting Jan. 1 Cannabis Sales (Leafly)
• Octavia Wellness Launches "Healing without the High" Cannabis Starter Kit Tailored for Seniors (GlobeNewsWire)
• PBS Travel Host Urges Illinois to Legalize Cannabis (Leafly)
• Rick Steves Testifies In Illinois In Support Of Legalization (NORML)
• Two New Import Deals Hurry Medical Cannabis Into Australia (Leafly)
• Setting The Record Straight (NORML)
• Proposed Tax Amendments Would Benefit Cannabis Industry (Leafly)
• Hawaii, Which Registers Guns and Medical Marijuana Users, Starts Disarming Patients (Reason)
• Here's Why VR and Cannabis Are a Match Made in Heaven (Leafly)
• Medicinal cannabis: Health Minister signs licence for Ava Barry (BBC)
• Cannabis plants destroyed (The Hindu)

LSD

• Could LSD Be the Right Prescription for the Terminally Ill? (The Daily Beast)
• Why It Feels Like You Can Communicate with Nature on LSD (VICE)
• LSD modulates effective connectivity and neural adaptation mechanisms in an auditory oddball paradigm (ScienceDirect)
• Applying to Law School on LSD (Psymposia)
• 'It isn't for everyone and I respect that': Byron Bay hipster Mitch Gobel triggers drug debate on social media after comparing 'freedom' to 'LSD' (Daily Mail)
• NEW: Judge approves hiring expert to determine LSD's role in stabbing death of Leah Marie Adams (The Winchester Star)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Could These Magic Mushrooms Help Improve Our Political Climate? (The Alternative Daily)
• After marijuana, are magic mushrooms next to be decriminalised in California? (The Guardian)
• US Mayoral Runner-Up Says Magic Mushrooms Can Help Deal With 'Trump, Brexit' (Sputnik News)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• New figures show steadily increasing use of cocaine in Auckland, spike in MDMA usage (New Zealand Herald)
• Killer ecstasy pill warning: These car-themed 'turbo' drugs contain DEADLY MDMA levels (Daily Star)
• Son of former Chilworth council leader dies of ecstasy overdose (Daily Echo)
• Lad, 24, found dead in bed by his mum after taking two MDMA tablets at party (The Scottish Sun)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Brazil is giving prisoners ayahuasca as part of their rehab (Salon)
• What Is Ayahuasca? Psychedelic Drug Used by Ancient Religions Is Trendy but Could Have Serious Benefits (Newsweek)
• Ayahuasca Helped Me Get Over My Divorce (Tonic)
• Amazon Jungle Drug Could Be Potential Treatment for Depression (Healthline)
• The day I drank ayahuasca, the illegal brew (The Times)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• 'Legal highs' posing a big challenge to Bengaluru's NCB sleuths (Deccan Chronicle)

Dissociatives

• Ketamine effective as migraine treatment (Healio)
• Intranasal Ketamine or Fentanyl for Children: Similar Analgesia, Disproportionate Side Effects (Anesthesiology News)
• Entertainment Outlets Busted For Serving Ketamine-Drug Flavoured Ice Tea Drinks (Malaysian Digest)
• 'Party drug' may be a lifesaver to many (Boston Herald)
• Suspect in fatal Springfield fire was naked, high on PCP and claimed 'she was god', arrest report says (MassLive)

Opiates/Opioids

• This Country Could Soon Legalize Cannabis And Opium (High Times)
• U.S. strikes on Taliban opium labs won't work, say Afghan farmers (Reuters)
• Bring Back the Opium Den, Say Drug Campaigners (Gizmodo)
• The Justice Department's New Opioid 'Tools' Are All About Escalating the Drug War (Reason)
• Management of Suspected Opioid Overdose With Naloxone in Out-of-Hospital Settings: A Systematic Review (Annals of Internal Medicine)

Kratom

• Reader: Big Pharma Would Lose Billions If People Knew the Truth About Kratom (Westword)
• National Expert: No Cases Show Deaths Solely From Coffee-Like Herb Kratom, Which Should Be Handled No Differently Than Other Substances (PR Newswire)
• Can Kratom Be Patented? (Pain News Network)
• Oregon's Public Health Officer Says Kratom Buyers Beware (OPB News)
• If Kratom Sales Are Banned, Advocate Says, Users May Go Back to Heroin (Westword)
• Locals react to FDA advisory citing kratom dangers (WTSP)
• Kratom sales continue despite FDA report on dangers (KOIN)

Kava

• Kraving Kava? Carrboro's first kava bar provides a relaxing experience (The Daily Tar Heel)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• What It's Like to Smoke the World's Strongest Psychedelic Toad Venom (VICE)
• Drug Checking – How People Use It And What Do They Learn (VolteFace)
• Scientists Have Built a 'Hallucination Machine' For a Drug-Free Brain Trip (ScienceAlert)
• How Should Plant Medicines Be Regulated? (Chacruna)
• Transformational Tripping (High Times)
• The Psychedelic Gospels: Interview with Jerry Brown, Ph.D. (Psychedelic Times)
• Science Says: Psychedelic Users Less Likely To Commit Violent Crimes (Dance Music Northwest)
• Can psychedelics help cancer survivors shake death anxiety? (Salon)
• How Zendo Training Taught Me To Calm Freaked-Out Festival Fans (Leafly)
• How a little bit of drugs can make your boss a better boss (TNW)
• Drug Overdoses Claimed More American Lives Than the Vietnam War (ATTN:)
• Can Psychedelics Make Us More Content? (Big Think)

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 are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.25.17

Image by susuteh, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. It turns out that last Month, astronomers operating the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii spotted a foreign object moving through our solar system. It is the first time that we have observed an interstellar object in our own solar system, and the object has an intriguing cigar shape. The object has been named "Ounuamua", which means "messenger from afar arriving first" in Hawaiian, and it appears to be an asteroid that has travelled millions of miles through space. Due to its unique shape, it's certainly worth taking a look!

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

This Week in Psychedelics - 11.24.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Study Finds Alcohol 10 Times More Deadly Than Cannabis on the Road (Leafly)
• Michigan: Legalization Coalition Turns in 360,000 Signatures to Place Issue on 2018 Ballot (NORML)
• California Weed Club Caught Pretending to Be a Church (TIME)
• Study: Medical Cannabis Registrants More Likely To Cease Using Opioids Compared To Non-Participants (NORML)
• California releases cannabis regulations, with no limit on farm size (Sonoma Index-Tribune)
• Good News: Congo Is Ditching Conflict Metals For Cannabis (High Times)
• Pennsylvania Couple Sues Drug Warriors Who Thought Hibiscus Was Marijuana (Reason)
• Is The TSA More Chill About Weed Than San Francisco? (Reason)
• Caffeine Is More Dangerous Than Marijuana (ATTN:)
• Pennsylvania Town Used Confidential Informant and Undercover Cops to Arrest a Man For Selling Bongs (Reason)
• Bush-Era Attorney General Cautions Against Cannabis Crackdown (Leafly)
• Cannabis Crunch – Ex-Cops Selling Weed, Dubious Marijuana 'Overdose' And Don't Trust Sessions (Psychedelic Times)
• Don't Blame Wildfires for Rising California Cannabis Prices (Leafly)
• Last stop for cannabis advertising on Muni buses, trains, stations and stops (SFGate)
• Can The Standard Hotel Really Open a Cannabis Shop in Its Lobby? (Leafly)
• Does medical marijuana really work? The truth behind the buzz. (HuffPost)
• Massachusetts Towns Reject Cannabis Bans, Bucking Early Trend (Leafly)
• RightSciences raises cash to develop cannabis and hemp-based medicinal patches (GeekWire)
• Across State Lines: One Medical Cannabis Refugee's Journey to Colorado and Back (Leafly)
• Talk About Marijuana At Thanksgiving This Year (NORML)
• How One Painting Class Is Bringing Art, Cannabis, and People Together (Leafly)
• Oakland reviewing 255 permit applications to cultivate, deliver cannabis (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Medical cannabis clinic, possible pot shop coming to Old Strathcona (Edmonton Journal)
• Italian toddler hospitalized after mistaking cannabis for chocolate (The Local)

LSD

• Observations from 4000 LSD Sessions: A Dialogue with Stanislav Grof (Reality Sandwich)
• LSD is making a comeback, but not in the way you'd expect (My Fox Boston)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• The California Psilocybin Legalization Initiative Looks to put Magic Mushrooms on the Ballot (The Weed Blog)
• Johns Hopkins studying effects of psilocybin on brains of long-term meditators (Psymposia)
• Posttreatment Brain Effects of Psilocybin in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression (Psychiatry Advisor)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Psychedelics and Psychotherapy: Is There a Role for MDMA in the Treatment of PTSD? (Medical News Bulletin)
• 'A Void No One Can Fill': Mum's heartbreaking tribute to daughter, 18, who died after 'taking MDMA at Newcastle nightclub' (The Sun)
• 3 charged after cat allegedly abused and drugged with MDMA, with videos sent to family (CBC News)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Criminalization Makes It Harder to Study Ayahuasca, Scientists Say (VICE)
• How Tripping on Ayahuasca Could Help People with Eating Disorders (Broadly)
• What is DMT and why you should care. (Psychedelics Daily)
• NM veterans vouch for ayahuasca therapy (Albuquerque Journal)
• Wook Describes His Wild Method of Transporting DMT Crosscountry (Your EDM)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Cambridge student 'confused' after taking legal high, inquest hears (The Guardian)
• German therapist convicted of botched psychedelic experiment (San Francisco Chronicle)

Dissociatives

• Your Healthy Family: Ketamine being used to treat PTSD and severe depression (KOAA)
• The Effect of a Single Dose of Intravenous Ketamine on Suicidal Ideation: A Systematic Review and Individual Participant Data Meta-Analysis (The American Journal of Psychiatry)
• OKC grandmother arrested after child swallows PCP (KSWO)
• Police: Driver arrested after crashing into vehicle while on PCP (The Herald-News)

Opiates/Opioids

• Afghan opium production at all time high (Daily Times)
• NJ pharmacies can now dispense naloxone without prescription (American Pharmacists Association)
• DEA puts synthetic opioid fentanyl on par with heroin and meth (Washington Examiner)
• US conducts airstrikes on Afghan opium labs (NewsPatrolling)
• America's Opioid Epidemic Is Costing Hundreds of Billions of Dollars (TIME)
• U.S. Strikes on Taliban Opium Labs Won't Work, Say Afghan Farmers (U.S. News & World Report)
• New York asks residents to carry naloxone to reverse drug overdoses (The Journal News)

Absinthe

• Absinthe Was Once Banned for Being Evil—Now It's Just Meh (The Wall Street Journal)

Kratom

• Can Kratom Help With Withdrawal From Methadone? (Kratom Guides)
• Using Kratom For Suboxone Withdrawal (Kratom Guides)
• Seeking Alternative Addiction Treatment, Mainers Experiment With Kratom (Maine Public)
• FDA finally rules on kratom: It's a potential killer (New York Post)
• Where FDA Sees Deadly Drug, South Florida Advocates See Natural Alternative To Prescription Drugs (WUSF)
• Denver bans sale of Kratom, drug often used as painkiller (9NEWS)
• Mom of man killed by kratom calls for research, not ban (WTSP)

Kava

• Vanuatu pushes standardisation of kava industry (Radio New Zealand)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Hunting for the Most Potent Psychedelic Toad Venom on Earth (VICE)
• Psychedelic Treatments for Cluster Headaches (Psychedelic Times)
• What The Women's Rights Movement Shares With The Drug War (High Times)
• Could Oregon Be the First State to Legalize Psychedelic Therapy? (Psymposia)
• Psychedelic society launches in Glasgow to try to change the law on mind-altering drugs (The Herald Scotland)
• Mainstreaming psychedelics. Are we there yet? (Rick Strassman MD)
• Hallucination machine lets you blow your mind without taking psychedelic drugs (RT)
• LAPD Officer Gaxiola Caught Allegedly Planting Cocaine on Suspect by Own Body Cam Footage (ATTN:)
• Mind menders: how psychedelic drugs rebuild broken brains (New Scientist)
• WATCH: Fox News host wants you to have a psychedelic experience before you die (Raw Story)

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 are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Weekend Thoughts - 11.18.17

Image by maneepoi, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Ever since Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market earlier this year, I've been wondering how that would affect the Whole Foods shopping experience. Now we have our first hint of what's to come—Whole Foods will be offering a set of special discounts for Amazon Prime members. It seems that Prime will become the official rewards program for Whole Foods. As a current Prime member, I'm happy to see yet another perk being added to my membership. It's worth clicking through the link to take a look at the specific items being discounted at this time, and I imagine we'll see more to come soon.

2. Tesla made some pretty cool announcements this week—a new big rig Tesla Semi and a fancy-looking Tesla Roadster that is expected to come out in 2020. There are plenty of nifty features packed into the Semi, like a 500-mile range, Enhanced Autopilot, jackknifing prevention, sensors for blind-spot detection, and data collection to assist with fleet management. It also looks pretty cool—at least I'd be in favor of replacing today's big rigs with Tesla's version, that's for sure. But that's not all that Tesla announced at their event; the upcoming Roadster was a nice surprise for those in attendance. Elon Musk claimed that the car would be the fastest production car ever made, and it boasts a 620-mile range, zero-to-sixty in less than 2 seconds, and a top speed of over 250 MPH. I'm glad to see some innovative products being previewed by Tesla, but I do wonder if they're going to be scalable, because Tesla has recently run into issues with producing a sufficient quantity of its Model 3 offering.

3. If you're like me, it's probably been a while since you've taken a look at how much information you're sharing with others on social media. There is a guide that shows you how to lock down your Facebook account with more privacy that is worth checking out. In fact, there may be some settings that you would've sworn were set differently than they actually are...

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