This Week in Psychedelics - 4.6.18

Cannabis

• Congress May Finally Be Ready to Legalize Hemp (Reason)
• Albuquerque City Council Votes to Decriminalize Marijuana Possession (Drug Policy Alliance)
• This State Could Allow Non-Residents Access to Medical Marijuana (High Times)
• CBD is cannabis that won't get you high. So why are so many people using it? (Chicago Tribune)
• Marijuana Dispensaries Are Keeping Cannabis Out Of The Hands Of Minors In Oregon (Forbes)
• Connecticut Legislative Committee Passes Recreational Marijuana Bill (Hartford Courant)
• California Today: In Oakland, a Clash of Artists vs. Big Cannabis (The New York Times)
• Terminal cancer patient claims cannabis has shrunk her brain tumours (Wales Online)
• Cannabinoids 101: What is CBG? (Real Stoned Times)
• Studies: Marijuana Legalization Associated With Reduced Opioid Prescribing Trends (NORML)
• Is it worth investing in Israel’s medical cannabis industry in view of the regulatory fluctuations? (The Times of Israel)
• Cannabis Investors Could Reap A Pot Of Gold, Says Analyst (Forbes)
• New Jersey cops search a man's anus, genitals for weed during traffic stop. See for yourself. (APP)
• Weedmaps: why 'Yelp for pot' is under fire for its Silicon Valley attitude (The Guardian)
• Most support Girl Scout’s right to sell cookies outside of legal marijuana dispensary (YouGov)
• Cheech and Chong get truthy about weed, LSD use 40 years after 'Up in Smoke' (Indianapolis Star)
• Binge Drinking Rates Drop In States With Recreational Marijuana Laws (Forbes)
• Australian cannabis companies are now allowed to export seeds, oil and raw material (Business Insider)
• Paediatricians call for medical marijuana trials for kids with autism, ADHD (The Advertiser)
• Hemp will save us from fire, cockroaches, heat, and microplastics (The Outline)
• Trio taking $5m bet on medicinal cannabis industry that doesn't exist yet (NZ Herald)
• Utah: Proponents Of 2018 Medical Cannabis Ballot Measure Achieve Signature Milestone (NORML)
• Canada’s Proposed Cannabis Packaging Regulations Could Help Move Entire Industry Forward (Cannabis Business Times)
• New Orleans: Marijuana Possession Arrests Plunge Following Enactment Of Decriminalization Ordinance (NORML)
• The Bumpy Road to Becoming the Martha Stewart of Cannabis (Entrepreneur)
• Plunging pot prices force black market growers into real jobs (Rooster)
• How To Treat Psoriasis With Cannabis (High Times)
• NORML Chapters Continue State-Level Push for Marijuana Law Reforms (NORML)
• Six arrested after £1.3m in cannabis seized in Northern Ireland (The Guardian)
• Lamar Odom Getting Into the Cannabis Business, Says Marijuana Helped With Rehab (The Blast)
• Tinley Produces Initial Batch of Cannabis Margarita and Provides Operational Update (GlobeNewswire)
• WeHo Rolls Out Licenses For Cannabis Consumption Lounges (Eater LA)
• Canadian Cannabis Producer Stocks Rise 0.8% in March (New Cannabis Ventures)
• State cannabis regulators to begin accepting commercial bids (WCVB)
• Ancillary carriers shy away from cannabis industry for fear of federal regulatory violations (Employee Benefit Advisor)
• State cannabis services to move into Times-Standard building (Eureka Times Standard)

LSD

• What Happens When a Blind Person Takes LSD? (Discover)
• Is LSD the new middle-class dinner party treat? (The Times)
• Forthcoming Microdosing Study Will Investigate How LSD Affects Insight (Psychedelic Times)
• Anxiety and Acid Flashbacks Made '2001: A Space Odyssey' the Masterpiece for Me (Thrillist)
• LSD, Sade, and more: Kacey Musgraves on the inspirations behind Golden Hour (Entertainment Weekly)
• Omaha Police: 12-year-old hospitalized after admitting to using LSD (KETV)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Are psychedelic mushrooms the next legalization frontier after cannabis? (Herb)
• A Beaverton Couple Is About to Gather Signatures to Legalize the Therapeutic Use of Psychedelic Mushrooms in Oregon (Willamette Week)
• Individual Experiences in Four Cancer Patients Following Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy (Frontiers)
• Here’s How Magic Mushrooms Probably Became Psychedelic (Seeker)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• The Long Strange Trip to Turn 'Molly' Into a $100 Million Pharmaceutical Medicine (Inc.)
• The 'war on drugs' is not working, says mum whose son died after taking ecstasy (ITV News)
• Instagram model and ex-boyfriend busted over 'MDMA drug-trafficking ring' (Mirror)
• Essex University student collapsed and died at uni party after taking MDMA (The Sun)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Scientists seeking people with 'encounters' while taking DMT (Spectrum News)
• Ayahuasca, Human Suffering and Our US veterans (Thrive Global)
• Scary, hot new drug called 'spirit molecule' (WND)

Dissociatives

• What Does It All Ketamine? (Discover)
• Man allegedly bit deputy after running away while presumably high on PCP (KVUE)

Opiates/Opioids

• Addiction Rehab is Broken. Can Technology Help? (WIRED)
• The Surgeon General Urges More Americans to Carry Overdose Antidote to Prevent Opioid Deaths (TIME)
• Tackling The Opioid Epidemic: Lessons From Portugal (NPR)
• FDA wants Facebook and Twitter to crack down on opioid sales (Engadget)
• People with Chronic Pain Will Protest the CDC’s Crackdown on Opioids (Tonic)
• Patients in 6 States to Get Free Overdose Antidote (U.S. News & World Report)
• Two Men Convicted in Multi-million Dollar Heroin Smuggling Ring Tied to the Taliban (Newsweek)
• Battling Heroin With A Hearse And A Prayer (NPR)

Kratom

• FDA Orders Mandatory Recall of Kratom-Based Herbal Supplements Over Salmonella Outbreak (TIME)
• Top 10 Reasons Why Kratom Should Be Legalized (Kratom Guides)
• Reader: Kratom Saved My Life From a Heroin Addiction (Westword)

Kava

• This murky tea is nature's Xanax (New York Post)
• Dumpling Duo: We put the the kava tea hype to the test (Daily Titan)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Why the fuck is fentanyl showing up in LSD, meth and cocaine? (Rooster)
• What It's Like for an American Drug Reformer to Go to a Country with a Compassionate System (AlterNet)
• Author Michael Pollan Is Coming to Portland to Speak About Psychedelics (Willamette Week)
• The Hairy Problem With Drug Testing (WIRED)
• Public housing ban on people with drug records likely to do more harm than good, research tell us (The Conversation)
• Former undercover officer on why police should 'declare peace' in war on drugs (ITV News)
• Drug use can have social benefits, and acknowledging this could improve rehabilitation (The Conversation)
• Drug checking: a harm reduction strategy (Alcohol and Drug Foundation)
• Psychedelic Chaos by Rita Kočárová - Beyond Psychedelics (Psychedelic Press)
• Does MoMA Downplay the Influence of Psychedelic Drugs on Adrian Piper’s Work? (Observer)
• We now call ‘bad trips’ ‘challenging experiences’. Here’s why that’s misguided. (Psymposia)
• ACT government, Groovin The Moo promoter in stalemate over pill testing (The Canberra Times)

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.

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.31.18

Image by DEZALB, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Last week we found out that Facebook provided private data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles to a political consulting firm called Cambridge Analytica. There has been a lot of stuff in the news about how to deal with this issue, and Wired wrote up an excellent guide about how to download your Facebook data and what to look for once you have it. So if you've still got a Facebook account by now, it's worth taking a look at this guide so that you can strip out anything that you don't want the company to know about you anymore. Bear in mind that Facebook will still have that information—they just won't be able to directly advertise to you with it, or use it to filter your News Feed.

2. I think this next one's pretty interesting. After the Chinese government shut down feminist groups online, women began using coded emoji to express their thoughts and enable communication in the feminist movement. For example, the emoji sequence "Rice Bunny"—where a user would use the bowl of rice emoji followed by the rabbi emoji—is pronounced "mi tu" when it is spoken aloud. This technique of using emoji to cleverly evade detection is innovative and impressive. I just love seeing stuff like this.

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

This Week in Psychedelics - 3.30.18

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Here’s how much marijuana you’d need to be eligible for the death penalty under federal law (The Washington Post)
• New Jersey Just Approved Medical Marijuana Program Expansion (High Times)
• Arizona Legislature Poised to Approve Using Medical Marijuana to Treat Opioid Abuse (Phoenix New Times)
• Marijuana could soon be LEGAL in parts of Australia - with lawmakers saying legalising the drug is 'better than prohibition' (Daily Mail)
• French Biotech Targets the Brain to Treat Cannabis Abuse (Labiotech)
• Does Cannabis Affect Hormone Levels? (High Times)
• A Stunning Small Home Made From Hemp (Living Big in a Tiny House)
• Does Cannabis Affect Cardiovascular Health? (High Times)
• A Dying Southern Town Needed a Miracle. Marijuana Came Calling. (The New York Times)
• Colombia Strives to Lead Global Pot Market, Pushing Out Peasant Growers (Cannabis Now)
• Mitch McConnell Wants Hemp Removed From Controlled Substances List (TIME)
• NOPD marijuana arrests plunged to 1 percent after ordinance change (The Times-Picayune)
• Alzheimer’s Patients in Puerto Rico May Get Cannabis-Based Treatment (High Times)
• Could cannabis help cure lung cancer? This man thinks so – and he's already spent £1.5m on research (Metro)
• Pennsylvania Medical Schools May Start to Study Cannabis (High Times)
• How Cannabis Tech Can Help Build a Better Cup of Coffee (Wired)
• Prospective analysis of safety and efficacy of medical cannabis in large unselected population of patients with cancer (European Journal of Internal Medicine)
• How Cannabis and Other “Drugs” Can be Gateways to a Better Life (Chacruna)
• Reader: Denver Doesn't Even Pretend to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (Westword)
• How to Brew Cannabis Kombucha (High Times)
• Review cannabis laws for potential recreational use in Victoria, report say (Cannabis Club Australia)
• CBD and the Psychedelic Receptor (Reality Sandwich)
• 'He's enjoying life more' – Mum of boy on medicinal cannabis scheme speaks about results (Tasmania Talks)
• Escape from the Underground: Lessons to the cannabis industry from craft beer (The Growler)
• Cannabis-infused beer is coming to Colorado (The Cannabist)
• Another view of traffic deaths blamed on cannabis in CDOT study (The Denver Post)
• Don't Call It Pot: My Dinner With San Francisco's Cannabis Gourmets (Mother Jones)
• Is Cannabis Allowed in Nursing Homes? (Leafly)
• Marijuana-Friendly States Want to Meet with Jeff Sessions to Resolve Cannabis' Legal Limbo (TIME)
• Gene Simmons Says He Was 'Wrong', 'Not Informed', About Cannabis (Ultimate Classic Rock)
• House committee approves, advances medical cannabis legislation (The Tennessean)
• Cannabis Activists Give Joints To Washington Lawmakers During Rally (High Times)
• Rush for Cannabis Business Permits Overwhelms Oakland (East Bay Express)
• London Group Launches Scare Tactic Campaign Against Cannabis (High Times)
• How to Correctly Use Marijuana Edibles (Cannabis Now)
• Cannabis Farmer-CEO Raising Capital, Navigating Complex New Market (Forbes)
• Medical-cannabis producer again locked up (Echo Net Daily)
• Cannabis Business Convention Comes to Boston (U.S. News & World Report)

LSD

• What LSD Taught Researchers About Mental Health Treatment (The Fix)
• LSD Might Save The World (But Microdosing Won't) (Tech Open Air)
• LSD at Princeton: New book blows minds (The Daily Princetonian)
• Boy, 15, stabbed his best friend during 'bad' LSD trip (Metro)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Scientists who want to study psychedelic mushrooms have to pay $7,000 per gram (Quartz)
• Oregon couple working on ballot initiative to legalize 'magic' mushrooms for therapeutic use (KVAL)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• The Most Popular Ecstasy Pills In the World — Ranked by Name & Color (Digital Music News)
• 'Is Psychiatry Ready for MDMA?' (ABC)
• Father's heartbreak at death of sons who died on same night from ecstasy and cocaine (Metro)
• Police warning to parents over pink ecstasy tablets (ITV)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• If You’ve Met Aliens While on DMT, These Scientists Would Like to Hear From You (Motherboard)
• A Doctor's Initiation into the Powerful Shamanic Brew Ayahuasca (Kahpi)
• A little-known hallucinogenic drug called DMT takes people to a place that feels 'more real than real' — here's what researchers know about it (Business Insider)
• Lawyers and venture capitalists do yoga and meditate in a new type of New York City coworking space that was created after its founder took a psychedelic drug in Peru – see inside (Business Insider)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• New research underway on ibogaine for the treatment of alcoholism (International Center for Ethnobotanical Education Research and Service)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Clare taxi driver, 25, dies hours after snorting what he thought was MDMA but was actually a synthetic drug called ‘Dr Death’, inquest hears (The Irish Sun)

Dissociatives

• Side Effects Stop Small Study of Repeated Intranasal Ketamine (Psych Congress Network)
• Mom says she gave daughters PCP after confusing bottle with vanilla extract (FOX59)

Opiates/Opioids

• Medicare Is Cracking Down on Opioids. Doctors Fear Pain Patients Will Suffer. (The New York Times)
• Senate Passes Bill to Make Increase Availability of Naloxone (U.S. News & World Report)
• In withdrawal: Treating the babies of Illinois' opioid crisis (Crain's)
• Prince toxicology report shows very high drug level, experts say (NBC News)
• Federal Ban On Methadone Vans Seen As Barrier To Treatment (HuffPost)
• Quitting Heroin in the Sunshine State (The New York Times)
• Frequent opioid users might be the best candidates for naloxone training, study finds (The Hub)

Kratom

• Case Report Reveals Another Possible Side Effect of Kratom (Monthly Prescribing Reference)
• Kratom Product Recalled for Potential Salmonella Contamination (Pain Medicine News)
• "Kratom Ruined My Life," User Says (Westword)
• Why Is Kratom Lab Testing Really Important? (Kratom Guides)
• Kratom becoming a problem for local Law Enforcement (My Panhandle)

Kava

• Kava consumption helps cut down alcohol consumption and gang affiliations in male Pacifika youth in New Zealand claims a researcher says. (TVNZ)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Will the Spirit of Burning Man Art Survive in Museums? (The New York Times)
• High Society: The Universal Impulse to Alter Consciousness (Kahpi)
• A trip to dreamland (The Boston Globe)
• The War on Drugs Breeds Crafty Traffickers (The New York Times)
• Why police boss thinks drug users should get to test their substances at clubs and festivals (Daily Post)
• The Mystery of the Terrifying Xanax Resurgence in America (VICE)
• Doing the Plant's Bidding: Reflections on the Congreso de Plantas Sagradas en Las Américas (Reality Sandwich)
• DREAMing about Drug Reform: An Interview with Arturo Lua Castillo (Psymposia)
• 'Mad Honey' and 4 Other Naturally Occurring Psychedelics (Inverse)
• Drug Overdose Death Rates in the U.S. Are Rising Everywhere, CDC Says (TIME)
• The solution to Australia's drug epidemic starts with a conversation (The Guardian)
• How China Is Using the Death Penalty for Drug Dealers: An Approach that Works (ExpertClick)
• What The Hell Is Happening With Pill Testing At Groovin' The Moo? (BuzzFeed 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 are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Three-Year Blogiversary!

Image by laura, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Today marks the three-year blogiversary of Think Wilder. It's been quite a busy year for me and for the blog. During the past year I started writing for Psychedelic Times, participated on a panel for a Psychedelic Career Day webinar (hosted by the Toronto Psychedelic Society), created a monthly Think Wilder email newsletter, and increased the output of blog posts on this site.

At the one-year blogiversary of Think Wilder, I announced a full 2.0 site redesign. That redesign made it easier to navigate through the site and improved its visual design. A UI/UX upgrade, if you will.

During last year's two-year blogiversary I made the promise that I would start writing more featured posts and dedicate more time to writing and working on the blog. That goal is sort of difficult to measure, but I do feel like I dedicated more time to writing and working on the blog and ended up publishing more featured posts toward the latter half of the year. I feel like this last year pushed me harder as a writer than any years prior, and I'm proud of the work that I accomplished—both with this site and other writing endeavors.

I have three announcements that I am excited to make about new pages that I have created for this site.

For a long time I think that it's been tough for a brand-new Think Wilder visitor to know where to get started on the site. That's why I created a new Start Here page that will give new readers a taste of what to expect from this blog. And if you've been around for a while but haven't checked out my back catalog of blog posts, you might like to take a look at it as well.

Although I have written for a few web sites in the past, I've been wanting to expand even more and start writing for some new blogs and publications. So to that end, I created a new Hire Me page to let publishers and editors know that I can be hired for freelance writing projects. I'm hoping that I can get some more clients and get featured on some other publications during the next year. If you have a blog or publication and are looking for writers, feel free to get in touch with me and we can find out whether my services would be a good fit for you.

In fact, I only started making some money from freelance writing projects during this past year. Ever since the start, Think Wilder has been a labor of love. I've put money and effort into the site but haven't made a cent off of this blog. Part of that is because I do not want to become an ad-supported project, and haven't been willing to host ads here. I've decided that I am more interested in giving the patron-supported model a try. Now there is a Support page on this site that will enable readers who are willing and able to donate to offset the expenses for keeping this blog can begin doing so. If you feel that you have gotten value from my blog in the past, I encourage you to make a donation to my Patreon account. I will be grateful for anything that you are able to contribute—thank you!

As you can see, it's been a busy year for Think Wilder. Each year this blog becomes more mature and my skills as a writer improve. I'm excited to see what happens during the next year and hope you'll stick with me on that journey.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.24.18

Image by pasja1000, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Undoubtedly the biggest news this week was a scandal involving Facebook. It turns out that the political consulting firm named Cambridge Analytica harvested private data from more than 50 million Facebook profiles—mostly without consent. That data was used by Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and has ties to Steve Bannon and GOP megadonor Robert Mercer (who recently donated $1 million to MAPS), which has raised ethical and potentially legal questions about the firm's business practices. The hashtag #deletefacebook became popular on Twitter shortly after this story broke, and users have been leaving Facebook left and right. If you are interested in securing your Facebook account, it would be worth your while to check out Wired's piece The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy, which has practical steps you can take to ensure that your account is as private as possible. However, you could also consider deleting your account entirely if you prefer. Just remember that even if you delete your Facebook account, the company may still be able to collect your data through its other apps—WhatsApp and Instagram. And plenty of other companies and websites are capable of collecting your information, anyway. Remember that if you're not paying for a product with money, you're almost always paying for it with something else. In this case it happens to be potentially sensitive private data.

2. Similar to the plot of an episode from Black Mirror's third season, China is expected to start banning citizens with a low "social credit" score from buying plane or train tickets for up to a year. This change will go into effect in May, and the social credit system will rate people based on criminal history, financial misdeeds, and what they purchase, say, and do. Citizens who receive a low score will face a variety of penalties; this travel restriction being one of the first to be announced. Hopefully this practice won't spread to other countries around the world, but we'll just have to wait and see.

3. One of Uber's self-driving cars struck and killed a woman in Arizona this week, which was the first time a pedestrian has died in connection with an autonomous vehicle. It still isn't quite clear how this happened, but some reports are saying that the woman walked across the road directly in front of the car—outside of the designated crosswalk and from the shadows—and that neither the vehicle's sensors nor the backup human driver were able to detect that she was there because it was nighttime. In other words, it sounds like this may have been the pedestrian's fault, not flaky software. However, even if Uber is to blame, the motivation for our society to transition to using autonomous vehicles is that they will be demonstrably better than human drivers—not 100% perfect. In my opinion, if self-driving cars are able to reduce car crash deaths by a significant amount then they should be considered a success.

4. Police in my hometown (Raleigh, North Carolina) recently obtained search warrants in order to ask Google to hand over data the company has about devices that were close to crime scenes at the time that the crime occurred. This is a new type of request, because the police are not looking for data related to specific users. Rather, they are asking to have the information about every mobile device within close proximity to the crime scene during the time that the crime occurred. And before. And after, as well—just for good measure. The data would be anonymized before the police get their hands on it, but it's creepy to think that our devices are continuously leaving breadcrumbs that could be used by police (or people with nefarious intent) to learn more about where we have been and where we might be going to next.

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