Mapping the Mind with Mushrooms 2018

The Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy (CSSDP) of Toronto are going to be holding their fourth annual Mapping the Mind with Mushrooms conference on September 22.

Mapping the Mind with Mushrooms returns to Toronto for its fourth year! This annual conference aims to bring the ongoing psychedelic research renaissance to the general public. Over the last 20 years, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and more have returned to scientific laboratories and have been informing neuroscience and therapeutic practice at an unprecedented rate. Hosted at the University of Toronto Earth Science Centre, we will bring together psychologists, philosophers and mycologists to address the current findings and implications of psychedelic mushrooms and more.

Be sure to add it to your calendar!

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Waymo's Self-Driving Cars Are Near: Meet the Teen Who Rides One Every Day

Tom Randall and Mark Bergen, writing for Bloomberg:

The Jackson family, along with some 400 neighbors in their Phoenix suburb, are volunteers in an ongoing test of Waymo’s autonomous ride-hailing business, which is expected to launch for paying passengers in the area by the end of the year. The Jacksons, who Waymo made available for this story, have largely ditched their own cars and now use self-driving vehicles to go almost everywhere within the 100 square-mile operating area: track practice, grocery shopping, movies, the train station.

Kyla acts like a diva with a private chauffeur, laughs her mom, Samantha Jackson, in an interview in Chandler last week. Access to robotaxis has even managed to convince this 17-year-old to put off an American rite of passage: getting her driver’s license. As Kyla puts it, “What’s the point?”

What's the point, indeed. I'm almost twice as old as Kyla, but I have felt the same way for a long time. This comprehensive update on autonomous vehicles is well worth a read.

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Magic Mushrooms: New Research on Psilocybin and Its Benefits

Marco, writing for Green Camp:

Much like the carefully orchestrated de-legalization of cannabis during the 1930’s, there was a powerful decades-long misleading campaign against psilocybin mushrooms which caused a deep-rooted fear and a subsequent public rejection of this substance. [...]

In the following section we will acquaint ourselves with psilocybin mushrooms a bit better, before moving on to the studies which demonstrate their extensive therapeutic potential.

This is an excellent resource for information about magic mushrooms, including a unique (and evidence-based) infographic titled "4 Medical Benefits of Psilocybin Mushrooms." And if you enjoy a good trip report, it's worth checking out the section about Marco's experiences with psilocybin mushrooms toward the bottom of the piece.

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This Week in Psychedelics - 8.3.18

Cannabis

• Georgia Quietly Becomes the Latest Country to Legalize Cannabis Use (High Times)
• Study: CBD From Marijuana Plus Chemotherapy Tripled Cancer Survival Rates In Mice (Forbes)
• Italy’s Health Minister Promises Medical Marijuana Expansion, With Sales In Pharmacies (Marijuana Moment)
• Researchers published a cannabis study that’s dangerously misleading (TNW)
• Black Lawmakers: Marijuana Decrim Is ‘Must-Do’ In First 100 Days of Democratic Congress (Marijuana Moment)
• Cannabis Farmers Will Qualify For Some Federal Funding (Forbes)
• China Is Blaming Canada For Its Cannabis Problem But Producing 50% Of The World's Supply (Forbes)
• Is Facebook Shadow Banning Marijuana Pages, Including Government Ones? (Marijuana Moment)
• A battle over pot pits the Mormon Church against an unlikely group: other Mormons (Los Angeles Times)
• Colorado Legalization Didn’t Increase Teen Marijuana Use, Another Study Finds (Marijuana Moment)
• Study: Patients Report Herbal Cannabis Provides Insomnia Relief (NORML)
• How legal cannabis actually made things worse for sick people in Oregon (The Guardian)
• New York Gov. Cuomo Forms Panel To Draft Marijuana Legalization Bill (Marijuana Moment)
• Molson Coors Turns to Marijuana as Beer Sales Drop (The Wall Street Journal)
• High-Witnesses: New Study Reveals How Marijuana Consumers Can Help Solve Crimes (Marijuana Moment)
• Pot-loving dogs: why cannabis extract is the new trend for our pets (The Guardian)
• World's First Non-Cannabis CBD Oil Is High on Hops (Westword)
• Colorado’s Marijuana Market Is Thriving, New Government Report Shows (Marijuana Moment)
• Medical Cannabis – New Developments in Germany, the EU and Canada (Labiotech)
• Marijuana Use Will No Longer Be Prosecuted In Manhattan (Marijuana Moment)
• Exposure to cannabinoids may exacerbate the psychological consequences of trauma (PsyPost)
• Pennsylvania: Dispensaries To Begin Selling Herbal Cannabis (NORML)
• Frequent Consumers Are Becoming Less Dependent On Marijuana, Study Shows (Marijuana Moment)
• Hemp Beer Is Dank, Delicious, and Coming Soon to a Bar Near You (Reason)
• Democratic Congressman Calls Marijuana A ‘Gateway Drug’ (Marijuana Moment)
• WeWork For Weed: The Beauty Queen Of Cannabis Blockchain Tackles Co-Working (Forbes)
• Oklahoma Board of Health Revokes Previous Undemocratic Meddling with Medical Marijuana (NORML)
• Three Medical Marijuana Measures Qualify For Missouri Ballot (Marijuana Moment)
• Cannabis For The Win: Sports Leagues See The Light On CBD (Forbes)
• Legislators From Across US Push Feds To Respect State Marijuana Laws (Marijuana Moment)
• Harris Poll: Majority Of Americans Want Marijuana Legalized (NORML)
• People use cannabis products for health problems like Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and acne — but misinformation and out-of-date regulations are stopping most from benefitting (Business Insider)

LSD

• Police: 19-Year-Old On Bad LSD Trip Tased 3 Times After Punching Windows, Cop (CBS Pittsburgh)
• The Definitive Guide to LSD Drug Testing! Does LSD Show Up On Drug Test? (Psychedelics Daily)
• Does microdosed LSD make you smarter? (Deutsche Welle)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• This Parasite Drugs Its Hosts With the Psychedelic Chemical in Shrooms (The Atlantic)
• New research examines how psychological insights from ‘magic mushrooms’ may help people stop smoking (PsyPost)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• A Healing Trip: Psychologists Are Testing MDMA to Treat the Trauma of Racism (MERRY JANE)
• MDMA Producers Are Dumping Tons of Waste in Nature Reserves (VICE)
• What is 'The Punisher'? The MDMA pills that are reportedly three times as strong as ecstasy (Liverpool Echo)
• FDA May Soon Allow MDMA Prescriptions for PTSD (Reason)
• Luke Campbell-Tapson died after taking extra strong MDMA at youth disco in Ilfracombe (Devon Live)

Ayahuasca/DMT/5-MeO-DMT

• Cops Are Investigating a Hallucinogenic Desert Toad Heist (VICE)
• Brazilian Ayahuasca Practitioner Arrested and Sentenced to Prison in Russia (Chacruna)
• Why Ayahuasca is an Effective at Treatment For Depression (Reset.me)

Dissociatives

• Ketamine Shows Promise as Treatment for Adolescents With Depression (Newsweek)
• Minneapolis police oversight office calls for stronger policy in ketamine report (Minneapolis Star Tribune)

Opiates/Opioids

• Ohio Police Chief Dies After Overdosing on Drugs He Stole From Evidence Room (Newsweek)
• A New Study Shows Just How Much Doctors Prescribe Opioids (TIME)
• Fentanyl maker says killing inmates with it is bad for the drug's reputation (Rooster)
• Meth is making a comeback; blame heroin, officials say (News3LV)
• Drug gang hid £1 million of heroin inside fire extinguishers (Metro)
• The 1975 Frontman Matty Healy Reveals He Was Addicted to Heroin: 'I Don't Want to Fetishize It' (People)
• Why Heroin Addicts Are Being Charged With Murder (Rolling Stone)

Kratom

• American Kratom Association Asks The National Institute On Drug Abuse To "Follow The Science" (PR Newswire)
• Safety Of Unadulterated Kratom Affirmed By The National Institute Of Drug Abuse (PR Newswire)
• Bali Kratom Dosage And How To Take It? (Kratom Guides)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Psychedelics’ Buddhist Revival (Tricycle)
• Study says psychedelic drugs may help repair our brains (Techly)
• We Embedded With Vigilante Drug Testers at the Gathering of the Juggalos (VICE)
• Is it time to do away with job applicant drug testing? (Vox)
• How Baltimore's first black mayor tried to end the war on drugs (The Inquirer)
• New figures reveal ‘woeful results’ of drug dog program (Echonetdaily)
• Google starts showing rehab ads again after a lengthy ban (Engadget)
• Legalizing All Drugs Would Boost Local, State, Federal Budgets (Reason)
• Mongolia's shamanic rituals – in pictures (The Guardian)
• A Math Theory for Why People Hallucinate (Quanta Magazine)
• What’s fueling the global rise in stimulant use? Experts have some theories (Salon)
• Here in Colombia, the hypocrisy of western cocaine users is laid bare (The Guardian)
• Over the Acid Rainbow (Medium)
• Therapy didn’t help my anxiety, so I turned to psychedelics and found more answers than I expected (Toronto Life)
• Middle-class cocaine users are hypocrites, says Met chief (The Guardian)

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.

Why Westerners Fear Robots and the Japanese Do Not

Joi Ito, writing for WIRED:

As a Japanese, I grew up watching anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, which depicts a future in which machines and humans merge into cyborg ecstasy. Such programs caused many of us kids to become giddy with dreams of becoming bionic superheroes. Robots have always been part of the Japanese psyche—our hero, Astro Boy, was officially entered into the legal registry as a resident of the city of Niiza, just north of Tokyo, which, as any non-Japanese can tell you, is no easy feat. Not only do we Japanese have no fear of our new robot overlords, we’re kind of looking forward to them.

It’s not that Westerners haven’t had their fair share of friendly robots like R2-D2 and Rosie, the Jetsons’ robot maid. But compared to the Japanese, the Western world is warier of robots. I think the difference has something to do with our different religious contexts, as well as historical differences with respect to industrial-scale slavery.

The Western concept of “humanity” is limited, and I think it’s time to seriously question whether we have the right to exploit the environment, animals, tools, or robots simply because we’re human and they are not.

A fascinating take. The Japanese are really onto something here.

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