This Week in Psychedelics - 3.23.18

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Congress Protects Medical Marijuana From Jeff Sessions In New Federal Spending Bill (Forbes)
• Study: Traffic Fatalities Have Not Increased As A Consequence Of Legalization (NORML)
• The Governor of Utah Just Signed A Medical Marijuana Bill (High Times)
• Canadians Who Smoke Weed Could Be Banned From Entering US (High Times)
• Should Medical Schools Start Teaching About Cannabis? (High Times)
• Research Reveals Link Between Coffee, Cannabis and Brain Function (High Times)
• Is home delivery for medical marijuana coming to Kentucky? (WCPO)
• In California, Learning How Marijuana Is an Unlikely Divider (The New York Times)
• This State Just Shut Down 40 Medical Marijuana Dispensaries (High Times)
• Colorado Lawmakers Form Nation's First Statewide Cannabis Caucus (NORML)
• Big Pharma has officially entered the Canadian cannabis industry (VICE)
• Shatter, Batter, Wax: How Cannabis Extracts Came to Be (Wired)
• Oklahoma: Lawmakers Move Forward To Preemptively Quash Medical Marijuana Vote (NORML)
• Mexico is going to have to build a wall to keep out American weed (Herb)
• Why won't the VA recognize the value of medical marijuana? (Here & There)
• The law keeping vets from marijuana might not actually exist (Herb)
• How pot-smoking became illegal in Canada (National Post)
• Avoid Most Cannabis Investment Funds For Now (Forbes)
• Dana Rohrabacher's Last Stand: California Conservative's Fate Could Hinge on Cannabis Vote (Leafly)
• Marijuana Is the New Gold for Mining Companies Going to Pot (Bloomberg)
• Is Walmart Doing Business With The Cannabis Industry? (Forbes)
• Racial Disparities Persist Among NYC Cannabis Possession Arrests (Uncle Cliffy)
• Voters In Illinois' Cook County Approve Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure (Forbes)
• Chicago Voters Embrace Cannabis Legalization in a Big Way (Leafly)
• Majority of American Studies Focus on Confirming Negative Myths About Cannabis, Instead of Testing Benefits (Disinfo)
• Blast From the Past: Ten Funniest Anti-Marijuana Commercials (Westword)
• Washington's Most Powerful Anti-Pot Official Is Named Sessions. It's Not Who You Think. (Politico)
• New podcast humorously highlights the heroes and hidden history of cannabis (Los Angeles Times)
• Major Risk To Cannabis Stocks On Verge Of Lifting (Forbes)
• Can Employers Rely on Federal Ban on Cannabis? (Workforce)
• Part 1, The Latest in Cannabis Research: Spring 2018 (Leafly)
• Iowa State's Marijuana Shirt Ban Case Costs School $1 Mln (U.S. News & World Report)
• Cannabis crackdown uncovers 10,000 marijuana plants, 30 guns and $50,000 cash (Stuff.co.nz)
• The Cannabis Industry Needs To Support Advocacy. Here's Why. (Forbes)
• Green Space Lounge Wants to Be the Upscale, Cannabis-Friendly Social Club Portland Never Knew it Needed (Willamette Week)
• A Dad Who Was Arrested For Growing Cannabis For His Sick Daughters Has Pleaded Not Guilty (BuzzFeed)
• Donors to medical marijuana effort are being kept under wraps. A Missouri man thinks that's wrong (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Cannabis Farmer Gets $1 Million Insurance Payout (Santa Barbara Independent)
• How Grass Roots Made It Through California's Changing Cannabis Climate (Leafly)
• O Cannabis: Pot and Pets, THC a No-No but CBD Shows Promise (Valley Advocate)
• Time for cannabis rethink? (Isle of Man)
• Part 2, How to Top Dress Cannabis Nutrients (Leafly)
• Better Marijuana Stock: Aphria vs. Aurora Cannabis (The Motley Fool)
• True Leaf Announces Cannabis Cultivation Team (Cannabis Business Times)
• Cannabis Collab Seeking New Members (The Source Weekly)

LSD

• New LSD Research May Help Explain the Brain Chemistry of Depression and Schizophrenia (Gizmodo)
• 'Microdosing' LSD is not just a Silicon Valley trend – it is spreading to other workplaces (The Independent)
• LSD: A wonder drug once again? (CBS News)
• Acid Drops: An Interview with Andy Roberts (Psychedelic Frontier)
• LSD blurs boundaries between the experience of self and other (EurekAlert!)
• South Lyon boy found naked and tripping on LSD (Oakland Press)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Are Mind-Altering Magic Mushroom Retreats the Future of Wellness Travel? (Well + Good)
• Denver to Vote This November on Whether to Decriminalize Magic Mushrooms (Psychedelic Times)
• 'Magic' mushroom research could lead to help for addicts (The Columbus Dispatch)
• Scientists trace why magic mushrooms evolved to be "magic" (Herb)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• The UK ecstasy guru from the 90s who influenced MDMA research forever (Dazed)
• MDMA-assisted Therapy (Sapiensoup)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• New Ayahuasca Study Reveals Its Psychological Benefits (Medium)
• 5 Common Misunderstandings about Ayahuasca Demystified (Kahpi)
• I Didn't Need to Drop Ayahuasca to Learn Something Deep About Community From This Coworking Space (Entrepreneur)
• Johns Hopkins University seeks DMT psychonauts who have met machine elves! (Boing Boing)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Exploring the power of ibogaine treatment with The Avante Institute (PR Newswire)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Homegrown festival warned of dangerous fake ecstasy drug (Radio New Zealand)

Dissociatives

• Column: Are Ketamine Clinics Profiteering or Leading Innovation? (MD Magazine)
• Study questions efficacy, safety of intranasal ketamine for depression (News-Medical)
• The Case for Ketamine in Treating Suicidal Ideation (Psychology Today)
• Snorting Ketamine May Not Be The Best Way to Treat Depression, Study Shows (Science Alert)
• Florida Woman High on PCP Gouges Mother's Eyes Out, Placed Them on Cardboard Box (Eurweb)

Opiates/Opioids

• President Trump's New Opioid Plan Includes the Death Penalty for Drug Traffickers (TIME)
• Sessions 'Strongly Encourages' Federal Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Some Drug Dealers (Reason)
• Opium production in Afghanistan reaches record high (Al Jazeera)
• Opioid Overdoses May Be Seriously Undercounted (KBIA)
• The Pain Refugees: The forgotten victims of America's opioid crisis (Harpers)
• Naloxone, Yes, But 3 Other Drugs Are Essential to Fight the Opioid Epidemic (Forbes)
• You May Have Traces of Cocaine or Heroin on Your Fingertips Right Now (Fortune)
• As libraries grapple with overdose crisis, Vancouver tells staff not to intervene (The Globe and Mail)
• Naloxone: What you need to know about this lifesaving drug (ABC News)
• US journalism students should undergo anti-overdose training (Al Jazeera)

Absinthe

• Elon Musk quietly went to 'technological superpower' Israel to drink absinthe and discuss the future of Tesla in the Middle East (Business Insider)

Kratom

• Kratom linked to Salmonella infections, CDC says (WSPA)
• Ask the doctors: Not enough is known about kratom to support its use (The Spokesman-Review)

Kava

• Kava: Inside the All-Natural High That's Sweeping America (Rolling Stone)
• Kava circles keeping young males away from alcohol and gangs, researcher says (Stuff.co.nz)
• Tudei issue revists reputational risk for Vanuatu kava industry (Radio New Zealand)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy During Prohibition (Chacruna)
• Two movements converge in Mexico at CryptoPsychedelic (Psymposia)
• Psychedelics Panel Invited to Mainstream Healthcare Conference (Chacruna)
• Norway's drug policies 'could set example for rest of the world' (The Independent)
• John F. Kennedy. President. Visionary. Meth head. (Rooster)
• The Art of Burning Man, Without the Burn (The Wall Street Journal)
• We have a drug that's effective against depression – now the government needs to let us use it (Spectator)
• Helen Clark backs festival drug-testing and injecting rooms (NZ Herald)
• Night Lives: Reducing Drug-Related Harm in the Night Time Economy (VolteFace)
• Into the psyche of Psychedelic Art (Media India Group)
• Psychedelics in the Age After Aquarius (Harvard Political Review)
• Nootropedia Teams Up with MAPS to Make Psychedelics Legal (Business Wire)
• It's time to integrate psychedelics into therapy (Big Think)
• Breaking the Cycle of Addiction, With Hallucinogens (HowStuffWorks)
• Clubbers need 'access to drug safety testing' (BBC)
• It's Not In Your Head - Psychedelics Are Making A Scientific Comeback (KTNV)
• Psychedelics and the Full-Fluency Phenomenon (Psymposia)

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.

The Seven-Point Meditation Posture

Image by nandhukumar, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

This is the fourth post in a series featuring helpful meditation techniques. Previous posts focused on introducing mantras, compassion meditation, and breathing meditation.

In previous blog posts about meditation I have discussed the benefits I have experienced by committing to a regular meditation practice, an introduction to mantras, and the fundamentals of compassion meditation and breathing meditation. You may have noticed from previous posts covering meditation that it is important to spend some time getting into a comfortable position before each meditation session. In this blog post I will introduce the concept of the seven-point meditation posture and explore some simple ways to incorporate it into your own meditation practice.

What is the Seven-Point Meditation Posture?

If you've ever seen a Buddha statue (and let's be honest—if you read Think Wilder regularly, then you've definitely seen a Buddha statue or two!), then you've most likely already seen this meditation posture in practice. The definition of the seven-point meditation posture is fairly self-explanatory.—it consists of seven distinct points, each of which corresponds with a separate area of the body. The posture has been used by meditators for thousands of years and serves as a solid foundation for a successful meditation practice. Before each meditation session it is helpful to check in with each of the seven points to make sure that the body is positioned as comfortably as possible. This will greatly impact the overall quality of the meditation session.

For someone who is new to meditating, this particular posture can be quite difficult to achieve. In fact, I am still working on improving my posture during meditation! Making even a small effort to practice the seven-point meditation posture can result in a more productive meditation practice, so it's worth giving a shot.

The Seven Points

Some meditation traditions present the following points in a different order than others, however the sorting order isn't all that important because all of the individual points add up to a complete picture of ideal posture, regardless of which ones come first. I am going to present them in the order that I first learned them, when I attended classes in the Tibetan tradition of Mahayana Buddhism.

1. Legs
   
   The first point in this meditation posture focuses on the legs. Those who are capable of sitting in Full Lotus Pose (also known as Padmasana) should do so. If you are unable to get into that position, perhaps you could try the Half Lotus Pose (Ardha Padmasana).
   
   If neither of those positions are comfortable enough for you to relax during your meditation session, then you could try sitting in a cross-legged position instead. Many people (especially in Western society) are unable to sit on the floor at all, and it is completely possible to modify the seven-point meditation posture so that someone sitting in a chair or on props can practice it.
   
   Make sure that you choose a sitting position that you can sit comfortably in for a long period of time, and do not feel like you have to choose the most impressive option—being comfortable and relaxed is more important than showing off.
   

2. Arms
   
   Next up are the arms. Your hands should be held loosely in your lap, with the right hand resting in the palm of the left, palms upward, thumbs lightly touching, forming the shape of a teardrop or flame. They should be positioned roughly 2-3 inches below the navel. Make sure to relax your shoulders and your arms. It can help to keep your arms slightly away from your body so that air can circulate. This will help prevent sleepiness during meditation.
   

3. Back
   
   The most important point in this series is the back, which should be straight, relaxed, and fully upright, as if the vertebrae were a stack of rocks effortlessly balanced in a pile. The position of the legs contributes greatly to how easy it is to keep a straight back. The higher your butt is and the lower your knees, the easier it is to maintain. Experiment with various sitting positions to see what works best for you.
   

4. Eyes
   
   In the beginning, it is typically best to keep your eyes fully closed because it helps facilitate concentration. This is completely fine. However, after you gain some experience with meditation it will become possible to leave your eyes slightly open in order to admit a little light, and to direct your gaze downwards, not focusing on anything in particular. This is optimal because closing the eyes can result in sluggishness, sleep, or daydreaming, all of which are obstacles to a clear meditation session.
   

5. Jaw and Mouth
   
   Keep your jaw and mouth relaxed, with your teeth slightly apart, relaxed, and with lips slightly touching.
   

6. Tongue
   
   It can be helpful to rest your tongue against the upper palate, with the tip gently touching the back of the teeth. This prevents the production of saliva, which reduces the need to swallow and can also eliminate the undesired side effect that many monks and nuns experience during extremely long meditation sessions—drooling.
   

7. Head
   
   Finally, slightly incline your head so that your gaze is directed naturally toward the floor in front of you. This is all about finding a proper balance—if your chin is held too high you may have problems with mental wandering and distraction, whereas if you drop your head too forward you may experience mental dullness or sleepiness.

Conclusion

Although it may be challenging at first, this meditation posture can really help cultivate concentration and mindfulness. Now that you have an idea of how to get into the seven-point meditation posture, I encourage you to begin to incorporate it into your own meditation sessions. Hopefully it will help deepen your practice and eventually lead to enlightenment.

Namaste.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.17.18

Image by Marisa04, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. The great physicist Stephen Hawking passed away this week at the age of 76. If you're not familiar with his work, it's definitely worth looking into. I first learned about Hawking by reading his book, A Brief History of Time back when I was in college. Most people know who Albert Einstein was, and I'd wager that Hawking was as influential to the study of science as Einstein was in his day. Both men changed the world for the better, and with Hawking's recent death we have truly lost one of the great minds of our civilization.

2. People have been losing their jobs to new technologies for a long time, but the frequency of this phenomenon has been increasing since the dawn of the Internet. Now that we have the opportunity to continue our education online, tech companies have poised themselves to essentially retrain the workers that they are replacing via automation. Online courses can prepare beginners for entry-level jobs in the tech industry in just eight to 12 months. This is one step in the right direction, which will hopefully do at least a little bit to deal with the issue that an estimated 75 million to 375 million workers worldwide will be replaced by automation by 2030. At least for now we can see that it may be possible to retrain entry-level workers to work in the tech industry.

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

This Week in Psychedelics - 3.16.18

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Ongoing Study Looks at the Efficacy of Cannabis-Based Treatments for PTSD (Psychedelic Times)
• Study: Marijuana Decriminalization Leads To Decreased Arrests, No Increase In Youth Use (NORML)
• Jamaica Welcomes Its First Legal Cannabis Retailer (Leafly)
• Is cannabis the answer to older people's booze problems? (The Guardian)
• 5 Ways New York City Can Reform Its Outrageous Cannabis Policy (Leafly)
• First Nations of Canada Petitioning For Cut of Cannabis Tax Revenue (High Times)
• Why Coffee Could Be the Opposite of Cannabis (Live Science)
• Could Cannabis Replace Traditional Labor Medications? (High Times)
• Legal Marijuana Is A Boon To The Economy, Finds Study (Forbes)
• United Nations Report Scolds Countries for Cannabis Legalization (Leafly)
• New Jersey Governor Doubles Down on Marijuana Legalization (NORML)
• Exercise and cannabis combine at Colorado gym (WREG)
• Iowa gets 21 applications for medical cannabis dispensaries (San Francisco Chronicle)
• This Woman Created A Cannabis Marketplace For The Design-Minded Stoner (HuffPost)
• Hollyweed: fledgling cannabis industry struggles to woo the stars (The Guardian)
• TV Personality Montel Williams to Speak About Medical Cannabis at New York Event (Multiple Sclerosis News Today)
• New Oakland ordinance blocks cannabis businesses from evicting residents (East Bay Times)
• Puff: Cannabis sample boxes are perfect for newbies and connoisseurs alike (48 Hills)
• Part 1, Choosing a Cannabis Plant Container (Leafly)

LSD

• How LSD Makes Music Profoundly Awesome (AlterNet)
• LSD Has Staying Power, Chemistry Explains Why (American Council on Science and Health)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Mushrooms May Have Developed Psilocybin to Ward Off Insects (Psychedelic Times)
• Will Psychedelic Mushrooms Be on Denver's Ballot in November? (5280)
• Are magic mushrooms the next medical marijuana? (Yahoo!)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• MDMA dampens the encoding and retrieval of emotional memories, study finds (PsyPost)
• Report: Lethal MDMA Substitute Found In 25% Of Ecstasy Pills In New Zealand (Your EDM)
• Ecstasy bid for post-traumatic stress disorder study (PerthNow)
• Family of teenager who died after taking MDMA save drug dealers from jail (Cornwall Live)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• 13 hospitalised in Christchurch after taking drugs they thought were MDMA (Newshub)
• Police concerned by emergence of new drug n-ethylpentylone sold as ecstasy (Newshub)

Dissociatives

• Ketamine Clinics Are Helping to Treat Depression (Chicago Magazine)
• Chelmsford schoolgirl took ketamine before stepping in front of a train at Shenfield station, inquest hears (Essex Live)

Opiates/Opioids

• Why a Study on Opioids Ignited a Twitter Firestorm (The Atlantic)
• Seattle's supervised heroin injection site plan appears to be faltering (KVI)
• Does naloxone really save lives? (The Globe and Mail)
• Many 18th century female writers took opiates (Deccan Chronicle)
• Congressional appropriators must fund naloxone to help fight state opioid epidemic (The State Journal)
• Naloxone Distribution is Saving Lives (Emery County Progress)
• Nasal naloxone spray coming to Sudbury (The Sudbury Star)

Kratom

• 47 more cases of salmonella linked to kratom (CNN)
• Specific kratom brands recalled amid nationwide outbreak (Food Safety News)
• Is Concern Around Kratom 'Drug Hysteria'? (Medscape)
• People Are Worried That the FDA Is Trying to Ban Kratom (Tonic)
• The Various Medicinal Uses and Effects of Kratom (Times Square Chronicles)

Kava

• Kava drinking research highlighted in global report (Scoop)
• Scientists react to kava concerns (Vanuatu Daily Post)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Which Black People Are Allowed To Trip? (HuffPost)
• DEA twitter account promotes Anslinger (Drug WarRant)
• Kansas Registers Drug Offenders as Well as Sex Offenders (Reason)
• ACLU Says Nebraska May Have Illegally Imported Execution Drugs (Reason)
• Humans of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (Psymposia)

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 - 3.10.18

Image by strecosa, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Tech companies are trying to develop machine learning and artificial intelligence into consumable products but have started to run into quite an interesting problem. Similar to a human being who has imbibed a psychedelic substance, machines are prone to hallucinations. All it takes is for a subtle change to images, text, or audio to fool a system into thinking that something is in front of them when it really isn't. This is both a difficult problem to solve and an extremely important one. Consider what would happen if an autonomous vehicle started machine-tripping and wasn't able to see stop signs or pedestrians, for example. Hallucinating artificial intelligence is a problem that will absolutely need to be solved before we can place our trust in these conscious machines.

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