What is Monkey Dust?

Alex Matthews-King, writing for The Independent:

Police officers in the West Midlands are warning of a “public health crisis” over a new synthetic drug known as monkey dust that can be bought for as little as £2.

The drug causes hallucinations and paranoia, and users have been known to climb trees and buildings and will lash out at members of the emergency services who approach them. [...]

Monkey dust is also known as MDPV and comes as an off-white powder which can be swallowed, injected or snorted.

I can't say that I know much about MDPV, but I did enjoy Steve Rolles' tweet thread takedown of this article published by The Independent. 

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Norway to Test Free Heroin for Drug Addicts

Dominick Reuter, writing for AFP:

Norway, which has one of the highest deadly drug overdose rates in Europe, will test prescribing free heroin to the most serious addicts to improve their living conditions, the government said on Friday.

The Norwegian Directorate for Health and Social Affairs has been tasked with proposing an experimental project to identify patients likely to benefit from the programme, to examine the implementation method, and to calculate the costs.

While the FBI is causing more harm than good by raiding heroin users, Norway is preparing to address its substance abuse issues with a more innovative, and likely effective, approach.

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Man Dies After Swallowing Heroin During FBI Raid

John Diedrich, writing for Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

The FBI, Milwaukee police and other law enforcement agencies raided several homes early Wednesday as part of a bust targeting a gang with Chicago connections that was moving kilograms of heroin in Milwaukee, authorities said.

Several of the defendants apparently ingested packets of heroin before agents and officers entered the homes, sources said. Several of them later became ill while being held in the Waukesha County Jail, the sources said.

The Drug War strikes again.

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People With Depression and Anxiety Could Benefit From Hallucinogens

Elly Belle, writing for Teen Vogue:

A growing body of evidence, which includes recently released research, suggests that there might be quite a few benefits of hallucinogens for mental health disorders including depression and anxiety.

Imagine being a teenager in today's world and seeing this article in your latest edition of Teen Vogue. The times they are a-changin.

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This Week in Psychedelics - 8.10.18

Cannabis

• Congress Finally Can Tell Hemp From Pot (The Atlantic)
• Neighborhood Marijuana Dispensaries Don’t Increase Teen Use, Study Shows (Marijuana Moment)
• Colorado secretly created a way to police medical marijuana doctors, a lawsuit suppressed for years alleges (The Denver Post)
• New Source of Cannabidiol Not Derived From Cannabis or Hemp (24/7 Wall St.)
• Congressional Ban On D.C. Marijuana Sales Drives Arrests, New Police Data Suggests (Marijuana Moment)
• New Federal Employment Protections Bill Introduced For Marijuana Consumers (NORML)
• FBI, DEA orchestrate massive raid of suspected illegal marijuana grow operations across Denver metro area (The Denver Post)
• Michigan Cop Forced an 80-Year-Old Great Grandmother To Spend a Night in Jail Over an Expired Medical Marijuana Card (Reason)
• Lawmakers In U.S. Territory Vote To Legalize Marijuana (Forbes)
• North Dakota Likely To Vote On Marijuana Legalization In November (Marijuana Moment)
• Already 91 per cent of Aussies support medicinal cannabis and over the counter purchases may soon become a reality (News.com.au)
• Oklahoma Governor Approves Less Restrictive Medical Marijuana Regulations (Marijuana Moment)
• Nevada And Alaska Marijuana Sales Far Exceed Projections (Marijuana Moment)
• Oak Park company designs oral, quick absorbing cannabis (Chicago Daily Herald)
• Almost One-Fifth Of California Consumers Still Buying Illegal-Market Marijuana, Report Finds (Marijuana Moment)
• Ohio Is Having Trouble Finding Producers for Cannabis Edibles Market (Forbes)
• Study Finds Teens Who Vape More Likely to Consume Cannabis Later (High Times)
• California Marijuana Products Delayed by Backlogs in Testing Labs (NBC San Diego)
• New York Inches Towards Legalizing Recreational Marijuana (Reason)
• Kevin Smith’s ‘Hollyweed’ TV Show Isn’t Top-Shelf Marijuana Content (Marijuana Moment)
• Climate change is turning the Middle East's breadbasket into a cannabis farm (CNN)
• Police chief gives green light to cannabis users to grow and sell drug in their own home (The Telegraph)
• Cannabis Goes Universal in This Campaign Showing Pot Users From All Walks of Life (Adweek)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Which U.S. state will be the first to legalize shrooms? (Big Think)
• Psychedelic mushrooms may help smokers kick the habit (Earth.com)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Man Arrested After Filling Hotel Bathtub With Potatoes High On MDMA, "It Felt Like The Right Thing To Do" (Comic Sands)
• A prescription for MDMA? We're getting closer (Big Think)
• 'Donald Trump' MDMA pills tested at Bestival have double the dose (Bournemouth Echo)
• When I Knew it Was Time to End My Relationship With MDMA (Tonic)

Ayahuasca/DMT/5-MeO-DMT

• Synthetic vs Toad and Finding a 5-MeO-DMT Ceremony: A Conversation with James Oroc (Psychedelic Times)
• Ayahuasca is the new frontier for 'psychedelic feminism' (ABC.net.au)
• San Jose man shot in remote jungles of Peru during spiritual retreat (The Mercury News)
• Oakland company accused of smuggling hallucinogenic toad venom from Hong Kong (East Bay Times)

Salvia Divinorum

• What is Salvia Divinorum? (Psychedelics Daily)

Dissociatives

• Everything You Should Know About Taking Ketamine (Tonic)
• Ketamine offers lifeline for people with severe depression, suicidal thoughts (CNN)
• Ketamine infusion well-tolerated in small sample with mood disorders (Healio)
• KC teen’s PCP-laced shotgun spree kills Chinese missionary, a father of 4, police say (The Kansas City Star)

Opiates/Opioids

• Touching Fentanyl Is Not Dangerous. Will This Video Finally Prove That? (Slate)
• Police to use heroin antidote naloxone in cells as drugs death rise (Chronicle Live)
• Officials Are Trying to Block a Needle Exchange Program From Operating in Orange County (TIME)
• Months of U.S. Strikes Have Failed to Curtail Taliban Opium Trade (The Wall Street Journal)
• Dr. Robert Newman, Apostle of Methadone Treatment, Dies at 80 (The New York Times)
• Oregon K-9 saved by Narcan after exposure to contraband heroin in jail (KIRO)
• Naloxone Saved Demi Lovato and Thousands More. Why is it Controversial? (RealClearLife)

Kratom

• Kratom – Can it benefit MMA fighters and combat athletes? (My MMA News)
• How Kratom Relieves Different Types of Pain? “Kratom for Pain” (Kratom Guides)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• A push for drug decriminalization surges in countries around the world — could the US be next? (The Hill)
• Indian State Moves To Decriminalize Drugs (Marijuana Moment)
• Tories pile pressure on Theresa May to allow safe injection room for drug users (The Independent)
• How and why people 'microdose' tiny hits of psychedelic drugs (CBC)
• How the US drug war fuels migration, violence and trauma (Salon)
• LGBQ teens more likely to use illegal street drugs (KFGO)
• Why GDP includes the illegal drugs trade (BBC)
• Britain has more drug deaths per head than any other country in Europe, research claims (The Sun)
• Eating this fish could give you three days of nasty, LSD-like hallucinations (ZME Science)
• The Detroit Psychedelic Conference brings the international science of consciousness home (Detroit Metro 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.