Transformational Festivals and the New Psychedelic Revolution

Wesley Thoricatha, writing for Psychedelic Times:

In the 60’s there used to be this idea of creating this commune where people could gather together and live and grow veggies and all that stuff, and I think now we’re more of this gypsy global tribe where we have these nodes that we come together at and then we go apart again. I hadn’t been to Lightning in a Bottle in years, and there were so many people there- you go from one hug to the next. The more time you spend within the family, the more people you meet, and the more you feel at home. That sense of belonging I think is one of the things that transformational festival culture has been able to provide. It’s more and more rare in today’s society.

This is an excellent interview with James Oroc, author of the recent book The Psychedelic Revolution: The Genesis of the Visionary Age.

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Psychedelics And Male-Perpetrated Violence

The Third Wave:

Male-perpetrated violence is, unsurprisingly, soaked throughout culture and history. It’s not just a phenomenon confined to the bloody sands of ancient battlefields or the slave trade of America and Europe’s shameful legacies. It’s reflected in modern domestic violence statistics, showing that male-perpetrated domestic violence accounts for 91% of all domestic abuse prosecutions, and that 87% of all domestic homicides are perpetrated by men. 

There is clearly a very current, prevalent, systemic issue with male-perpetrated violence in society. The incel movement is just another way in which this problem is being highlighted. And we need to do something about it.

Since the early 2000s, studies have consistently shown that psychedelics are associated with reductions in violence. A recent survey of more than 1,200 men and women had several important findings:

• Emotional dysregulation (the inability to understand and control emotions) is associated with increased levels of domestic violence in both men and women.

• The men in the study who had taken psychedelics were associated with improved emotional regulation, however this finding did not exist with the women.

• Men with a history of psychedelic use are half as likely to commit violence against a partner.

These findings are not only interesting—they could also aid in healing the world by helping men get in touch with their feelings for the first time, which may lead to a significant reduction in overall violence.

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This Week in Psychedelics - 6.22.18

Cannabis

• Canada becomes second country to legalise cannabis use (The Guardian)
• Portugal's parliament legalizes cannabis-based medicines (Reuters)
• Oklahoma voted to legalize medical marijuana (Vox)
• Marijuana legalization is having its best year ever (Vox)
• Poll: Record Percentage Of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana (NORML)
• Texas Republican Party Endorses Marijuana Decriminalization (Forbes)
• Home Office looks at allowing cannabis oil for boy with epilepsy (The Guardian)
• Senate Democratic Leader Introduces Far-Reaching Marijuana Descheduling Bill (NORML)
• New York: State-Commissioned Report Will Recommend Legalizing Marijuana (NORML)
• What Might Medical Cannabis Mean for our Children? (Beckley Foundation)
• Why Are Cannabis Industry Leaders Donating to Anti-Immigration Candidates? (Cannabis Wire)
• Full marijuana legalization up for a vote today in Delaware House (Delaware Online)
• New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker to Allow Patients who are Prescribed Opioids to Access the State's Medical Marijuana Program (Drug Policy Alliance)
• Why a Top Conservative Politician Is Calling for Marijuana to Be Legalized in the U.K. (TIME)
• Counting Canada, More Than 100 Million People Live in Places Where Pot Is Legal (Reason)
• Alexander discusses DOH's plans to legalize recreational marijuana (Spectrum News)
• NYPD Will Start Using Summonses, Not Arrests, for Marijuana (The New York Times)
• Legislation To Protect Legal Consumption In Federal Housing Introduced (NORML)
• Massachusetts crafts 'social equity' program to help minorities and drug offenders enter marijuana industry (MassLive)
• Senators Vote To Block Marijuana Banking Amendment (Forbes)
• Pot pros to budtenders: stop telling pregnant ladies to smoke cannabis (Rooster)
• PAX’s ‘Session Control’ helps you control your vape high (Engadget)
• NORML Releases Comprehensive Report Summarizing Local Decriminalization Laws (NORML)
• Sister-in-law of Home Office Minister who banned cannabis oil confesses: I have used it too, so make it legal (Daily Mail)
• Will Marijuana Be Legal in the U.S. Anytime Soon? Canada Law Revives Talk of Weed Legalization Nationwide (Newsweek)
• Denver Contradicts Itself by Targeting Previously Tolerated Cannabis Tour Buses (Reason)
• What is cannabis oil and how does it work? (The Guardian)
• Will Doug Ford change how Ontarians buy legal marijuana? (CityNews Toronto)
• Can cannabis oil really treat epilepsy and what would impact of medicinal reclassification be? (The Independent)
• This New Data Reveals the Scale of the UK's Cannabis Industry (VICE)
• Review needed on medicinal cannabis cases, says May (BBC)
• Cannabis 101: Where Entrepreneurs, Lawyers and Caregivers Go To Learn (Forbes)
• Higher Standards Pop-up Offers Next-Level Cannabis Accessories (Hollywood Reporter)
• Marine veteran gets first look at cannabis products (The Gainesville Sun)

LSD

• Meet the Canadian “Psychedelic Revolutionaries” Who Pioneered LSD Research (MERRY JANE)
• When Timothy Leary Got Artists to Take LSD (Artsy)
• Considering Microdosing LSD for Treatment-Resistant Depression? Read This First (Third Age)
• Johnny Depp Admits He Gets Lines Fed to Him on Set, Believes LSD Would’ve Helped Find Osama bin Laden Faster (Indie Wire)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Psilocybin Mushrooms vs. LSD for Mental Health Issues (Psychedelic Heaven)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Study: Ecstasy could be far less dangerous than past research suggests (Big Think)
• MDMA Being Used in New Trials to Help Beat Alcoholism (Your EDM)
• FDA Moves Closer to Approving Ecstasy (The Beacon)
• Ecstasy-assisted psychotherapy is bringing peace to people with PTSD (Yahoo! News)
• Patrick Coakley died after taking fatal MDMA overdose (Kent Online)
• Student who supplied killer ecstasy to friend says he should not be blamed as taking drugs is university 'culture' (The Telegraph)

Ayahuasca/DMT/5-MeO-DMT

• New Study: Ayahuasca Tea Rapidly Helps Patients Overcome Severe Depression (Kahpi)
• Enhancing Your Ayahuasca Experience: Harnessing the Power of Intention and Belief (Kahpi)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Gabon's sacred plant 'Iboga' under threat of extinction (Africanews)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Cartoon Dystopia: 25I-NBOMe and Why You Should Test Your LSD (Psymposia)

Dissociatives

• Minneapolis police asked medical workers to use ketamine on suspects (The Seattle Times)
• First Ketamine Guidelines for Pain Released (WebMD)
• Ketamine a safer option for agitated patients and providers (EMS1.com)
• Can Ketamine Cure Depression? (Psychedelic Heaven)
• PD: Man on PCP did pushups in the middle of the road (CT Post)

Opiates/Opioids

• Facebook redirects would-be opioid buyers to crisis helpline (Engadget)
• How legal drug companies helped revive the heroin trade (The Washington Post)
• Afghanistan is producing more opium than ever before (We Are The Mighty)
• Researchers May Have Underestimated the Number of Opioid Overdose Deaths (TIME)
• Many Doctors Give Morphine to Babies Born With Opioid Addiction. A New Study Suggests There's a Better Way (TIME)
• Opiate addiction and the history of pain and race in the US (The Conversation)
• Purdue Pharma, company behind Oxycontin, just laid off its entire sales team (VICE News)
• Heroin use in Pacific Northwest linked to incurable kidney disease (UW Medicine Newsroom)

Kratom

• The House Just Passed a Bill That Could Make Kratom Illegal (Inverse)
• What Is It Like To Be High On Kratom And What It Feels Like? (Kratom Guides)
• 3 Best Kratom Strains You Should Try If You Suffer From Anxiety (Kratom Guides)
• How Much Does An Ounce Of Kratom Cost? (Kratom Guides)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• New law gives critically ill people 'Right to Try' psychedelics (Rooster)
• The DEA Is Worried Sick About Touching Contaminated Drug Money (The Daily Beast)
• Alleged Silk Road Mentor Indicted, Extradited to United States (Reason)
• Can People Who Had a Drug Addiction Ever Drink Alcohol? (Tonic)
• New Study Shows Drug War Sends Users to Dark Web (Reason)
• We need to offer safety drugs testing to users across society, not just at festivals and nightclubs (Metro)
• Psychedelics Are Promising, But Many Psychiatrists Don't Want to Use Them (Tonic)
• Congress Wants To Give Jeff Sessions Unprecedented New Drug War Powers (Reason)
• Staten Island Law Enforcement Won’t Stop Fighting the War on Drugs (The Village Voice)
• Psychedelic Drugs Promote Neural Plasticity (Worldhealth.net)
• While we discuss cannabis oil, we should remember that the government is blocking life-saving research into MDMA and magic mushrooms (The Independent)
• Would psychedelics really lead to democratic transformation? (Open Democracy)
• Mental health of a self-selected sample of psychedelic users and self-medication practices with psychedelics (ResearchGate)
• Psychedelics and Male-Perpetrated Violence (The Third Wave)
• Transformational Festivals and the New Psychedelic Revolution: A Conversation with James Oroc (Psychedelic Times)
• A mind-bending psychedelic art temple is coming to Upstate New York (Time Out)
• The Underground World of Psychedelics and the Potential of Plant Medicine (NYU News)
• Psychonautics: A Comic’s Exploration Of Psychedelics (Film Threat)
• The Power and Promise of Psychedelics: Michael Pollan Show Us How to Change Our Minds (AlterNet)
• Drug Checking in Latin America: the Countries Leading the Way (Talking Drugs)
• How underground groups use psychedelic drugs for healing (Futurity)

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.

Beyond Psychedelics 2018

I'd like to take a moment to show some support for a wonderful three-day psychedelic conference that is starting in Prague next week—Beyond Psychedelics 2018. This event is a global multidisciplinary forum on psychedelics held in the Czech Republic, a country with a longstanding history of psychedelic research. In their own words, the conference will “review current challenges and risks, explore the basis of safe use and sensible integration, and create new synergies.” Attendees can expect to be a part of a global conversation about “the potential of psychedelics, alternative states of consciousness, and technologies in the current social climate.” There will also be two days of Pre-Conference Workshops on the topics of Integrative HR Psychotherapy and Psychedelic Integration. Please click the links above to learn more about this excellent conference.

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This Week in Psychedelics - 6.15.18

Cannabis

• Canadian Senate Signs Off On Historic Cannabis Regulation Measure (NORML)
• President Trump Expresses Support For Bipartisan Marijuana Fix (NORML)
• Expect Fully Legal Weed Within 5 Years, Says Former Top Pharma Lobbyist and Congressman Billy Tauzin (Reason)
• Parisians queue for cannabis after softening of drug laws  (The Telegraph)
• Minneapolis cops halt low-level marijuana stings after racial disparity revealed (StarTribune)
• CBD Could Help People Smoke Fewer Cigarettes (Tonic)
• Oklahomans To Decide In Two Weeks On Providing Medical Marijuana Access (NORML)
• Meet the Cannasexuals: Can your vagina get high? (BBC)
• UN Drug Committee Finds Cannabis an Effective, ‘Relatively Safe Drug’ (Leafly)
• Five Danish political parties support legalisation of cannabis (The Local)
• Senators Include Medical Marijuana Protections In Justice Department Bill (Forbes)
• The Pot Industry Is Overwhelmingly White, and One Congresswoman Wants to Change That (Rolling Stone)
• 7 mayors want pot removed from federal list of illegal drugs (Associated Press)
• House Appropriations Committee Blocks Cannabis Banking Amendment (NORML)
• Subjective Reports Positive for Cannabis in MS, but Caution Urged (Medscape)
• Senate Majority Leader Announces Progress On Hemp Reform Legislation (NORML)
• S.C. Democrats overwhelmingly supported medical marijuana on the ballot Tuesday. Experts weigh in on what that really means. (Charleston City Paper)
• How Will Employers Handle Cannabis In The Workplace? (Civilized)
• Congressional Black Caucus Announces Support for Marijuana Law Reforms (NORML)
• Uruguay struggling to meet demand for legal marijuana (Associated Press)
• Using Marijuana to Treat Opioid Addiction (The Fix)
• Can Legal Cannabis Help Slow the Opioid Drug Epidemic in the U.S.? (TheStreet)
• How Mapping Marijuana DNA Could Change the Future of Pot (Rolling Stone)
• Rules around marijuana marketing irk some in the cannabis industry (CBC)
• Marijuana Cultivation Is Where Cannabis Workers Can Earn The Largest Salaries (Forbes)
• How to Throw a Cannabis Dinner Party (High Times)
• Ask a Stoner: What Are Some Good Psychedelic Strains? (Westword)
• Art Of The Deal: Trump Looks To Trade Cannabis Legalization for Justice Department Nominees (Forbes)
• How The Cannabis Industry Became America's Hotbed Of Invention (Forbes)
• U.S. Markets 'Definitively' Missing Out on Capital by Barring Cannabis Companies (TheStreet)

LSD

• Did An Acid Trip Change Your Life? Scientists Want To Know About It (Futurism)
• LSD And Toxic Lies (The Third Wave)
• '70s Flashback: When Howard Stern Took LSD (CelebStoner)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• LSD and magic mushrooms could heal damaged brain cells in people suffering from depression, study shows (The Independent)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Why is Britain suffering from an ecstasy overdose? (ShortList)
• Cannabis and MDMA use is on the rise among Irish young people (Extra.ie)
• This Piece of Art Is Made Out of 4,000 Ecstasy Pills (VICE)
• Warning as deadly blue ‘Punisher’ and ‘Duracell’ ecstasy pills found at Manchester’s Parklife Festival (The Sun)

Ayahuasca/DMT/5-MeO-DMT

• DMT vs. 5-MeO-DMT (Psychedelic Heaven)
• Ayahuasca Healings Is a One Stop Online Destination for All Information Relating to Ayahuasca (Digital Journal)

Morning Glory Seeds

• UAE legal Q&As: What is the punishment for being caught having taken 'Morning Glory'? (The National)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Warning over potent 'fake MDMA' drug which causes psychosis and keeps users awake for three days (The Telegraph)

Dissociatives

• Ketamine is likely one solution to prevent school massacres, doctors agree (Rooster)
• Ketamine and Psychedelic Drugs Change Structure of Neurons (Neuroscience News)
• Hit-and-run suspect ran over Deep Ellum bartender while smoking PCP, passenger says (Dallas News)

Opiates/Opioids

• One easy, cost-free thing Trump can do to ease the opioid crisis (The Washington Post)
• Lack of evidence casts doubt on police claims of officers overdosing after accidental opioid contact (The Star Vancouver)
• Beyond Books: How Libraries Are the Latest Front in the Opioid Fight (Governing)
• Big Opium's fines could approach Big Tobacco's as lawsuits mount (Rooster)
• Afghanistan is producing a lot more opium than before the US invasion. The US just can't stop it (Business Insider)
• Nan Goldin's Misleading OxyContin Story Feeds the Myth of 'Highly Addictive' Pain Pills (Reason)

Absinthe

• What Can We Learn About Moral Panics from Absinthe? (Patheos)

Kratom

• Kratom Advocates Take Their Fight To Washington As Potential Federal Ban Looms (HuffPost)
• Kratom Could Be Illegal Before It Gets a Chance to Solve the Opioid Crisis (Inverse)
• Can Kratom Be Detected In Urine And Drug Test? (Kratom Guides)
• Photos: US hunger for opioid alternative drives Kratom boom in Indonesia (Hindustan Times)
• 5 Kratom Strains to Help Increase Your Productivity At Work (Kratom Guides)
• Edmonton kratom retailer frustrated by 'aggressive' Health Canada raids (CBC)
• Yellow Maeng da Kratom Review: Origin, Benefits and Side Effects (Kratom Guides)

Kava

• Kava is the ‘anti-caffeine’ (Greenville Journal)
• More Improvements Needed In Kava Sector (Fiji Sun)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Psychedelics Promote Structural and Functional Neural Plasticity (Cell Reports)
• How Big Pharma Hopes to Make Psychedelics Profitable (The Market Mogul)
• Psychedelic drugs promote neural plasticity in rats and flies (EurekAlert!)
• Men who have used psychedelics are roughly half as likely to commit intimate partner violence (PsyPost)
• E3 Attendees Get High on Digital Psychedelics (GlobeNewsWire)
• Can psychedelics help prevent suicide? (Big Think)
• Group Therapy for Psychedelic Integration (Chacruna)
• Balancing Cultural Traditions and Science in Entheogenic Research: A Conversation with Brad Adams, Ph.D. (Psychedelic Times)
• New Resolution Demands Congress Apologize For Failed Drug War (Marijuana Moment)
• Why Is Everyone Into Microdosing Right Now? (Girlboss)
• This Is Why Xanax Is Blowing Up in America (VICE)
• Trump Should Hurt Sessions by Helping Drug Offenders (Reason)
• Can Psychedelics Induce Flow States? (The Third Wave)
• The Holy Trinity of Music, Religion, and Psychedelics: Interview with Tim Ferson of OM Collective (Psychedelic Times)
• I talked with Adam Strauss about Ketamine for OCD, Trip Sitters, and The Mushroom Cure Los Angeles (Psymposia)
• Why Are Rhode Island Democrats Pushing a Bill That Could Send Some Drug Dealers to Prison For Life? (Medium)
• 1 In 3 Adults In The U.S. Takes Medications Linked To Depression (NPR)
• Drug testers at festivals will tell you if that MDMA you bought is actually sugar (Metro)
• As Mind-Altering Drugs Meet The Mainstream, The D.C. Psychedelic Society Is Bringing The City's 'Trippy People' Together (DCist)
• Agony and Ecstasy: Psychedelics as the next big health remedy? (The Irish Times)
• Psychedelic Drugs Can Cure 'The Most Painful Condition Known to Man' (Andrew Joseph)

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.