This Week in Psychedelics - 7.31.20

Cannabis

• Congress Planning Vote On Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill In September, Sources Say (Marijuana Moment)

• Congress Votes To Protect Legal Marijuana (NORML)

• Democratic Party Delegates Reject Marijuana Legalization Amendment To 2020 Policy Platform (Marijuana Moment)

• Prescribed CBD could help people quit cannabis (Drug Science)

• Louisiana: Medical Cannabis Expansion Laws Take Effect (NORML)

• New York Senate Votes To Expunge Marijuana Convictions For More People (Marijuana Moment)

• New Jersey: Supermajority Back Legalization Measure Ahead of November Vote (NORML)

• Biden Proposes Federal Aid To Help States Expunge Marijuana Records (Marijuana Moment)

• Use of medicines mixed with marijuana allowed in local health promotion hospitals (The Nation Thailand)

• MD Judge: Cops Can’t Search You Because They Smell Weed (Filter)

• THC Microdosing Provides Pain Relief without Psychoactive Effects (Legal Reader)

• Navy Bans Hemp Shampoo For Sailors And Marines As Part Of Broader CBD Prohibition (Marijuana Moment)

• Survey: Many Employees Acknowledge Using Marijuana Immediately Following Their Pre-Employment Drug Test (NORML)

• First woman in Scotland prescribed cannabis legally after years of chronic pain (The Scotsman)

• Women Who Use Marijuana More Often Have Better Sex, Study Says (Marijuana Moment)

• Hedonism and Weed Leads to Happiness (Drug WarRant)

• Cannabis cravings: A new study addresses why it happens (Chicago Tribune)

• Cannabis lowers self reported headaches by nearly 50 percent (Drew Reports News)

LSD

• LSD Chemist William Leonard Pickard to be Released From Prison (Psymposia)

• How LSD is Made (DoubleBlind)

• Was Fleetwood Mac's Peter Green an Acid Casualty? (Celeb Stoner)

Magic Mushrooms

• Man Accused of Selling Mushrooms Faces Up to Twenty Years (Westword)

• Mindset Pharma Announces Filing of Groundbreaking Psilocybin Synthesis Patent (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Palliative Canadians await August 4th decision on psilocybin mushroom approval – TheraPsil urges Health Minister to ‘do the right thing’ (TheraPsil)

• Are magic mushroom edibles Canada’s next drug trend? (The GrowthOp)

• Shroom Expert Duo Releases 2020's First Psilocybin-Focused Cookbook Through Green Candy Press (Newsfile)

Ayahuasca

• Is Ayahuasca Cultural Heritage of Brazil? (Chacruna)

Novel Psychoactive Substances

• MindMed Completes Dosing 18-MC Phase 1 Study (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Crystal Structures of Hydrofumarate Salts of DMT Analogues EPT and MALT Solved (Psychedelic Science Review)

• Solved: The Crystal Structure of the Iodide Salts of DMPT and DMALT (Psychedelic Science Review)

Ketamine

• Ketamine May Help Treat MS-related Fatigue, Small Pilot Trial Suggests (Multiple Sclerosis News Today)

• Aleafia Health Approved by Janssen Pharmaceuticals to Administer Antidepressant SPRAVATO® (Psilocybin Alpha)

Datura

• Family poisoned in France after mistaking Hell's bells for spinach (CTV News)

Miscellaneous

• DC Officials Count Enough Valid Signatures To Put Psychedelics Decriminalization On Ballot, Activists Say (Marijuana Moment)

• Psychedelic drugs can greatly reduce psychiatric symptoms among special forces veterans, study finds (PsyPost)

• The Business Of Drugs: What Happened To Alexander Shulgin After The DEA Raid (Screen Rant)

• RIP Arnold Trebach, Who Helped Make Opposition to the Drug War Respectable (Reason)

• Empower Clinics Announces the Revocation of Cease Trade Order (Psilocybin Alpha)

• How Set and Setting Shape Psychedelic Cultures (Chacruna)

• Better living through chemistry? The CEO of Dr. Bronner’s wants to turn America on to drugs (Medium)

• The Psychedelic Picture Trip (Maps of the Mind)

• Novamind Closes the Acquisition of Cedar Psychiatry, a Leading Psychedelic Therapy Organization in the U.S. (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Are there Disadvantages to Microdosing Psychedelics? (DoubleBlind)

• New Psychedelic Online Conferences and Safe Spaces for People of Color (Chacruna)

• Ease restrictions on medical psychedelics to aid research, experts say (The Guardian)

• US Psychiatry Clinics Gear Up For New Psychedelic Treatments (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Entheos Foundation: Amadeus Diamond brings New Zealand psychedelic charity to life (Newshub)

• What It’s Like to Have Sex on Different Kinds of Psychedelics (DoubleBlind)

• Empower Clinics Reports Fiscal 2019 Results (Psilocybin Alpha)

• The Technodelic Augmented Reality of SoundSelf: Interview with Robin Arnott (Psychedelic Times)

• GreenStar Biosciences Announces Filing of Third Provisional Patent Application by Eleusian Biosciences (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Psychedelic Therapy Offers a Synergy of Biological, Psychosocial Interventions (Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Learning Network)

• Founders explain how microdosing on psychedelics has helped them spur new business ideas (Business Insider)

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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.

William Leonard Pickard Has Been Released From Prison

Another update on Pickard’s release from Psymposia:

Update: (July 27, 2020 / 9:41PM) A source has informed Psymposia that William Leonard Pickard was officially released from prison today, July 27, at 3PM PST. Pickard will be free from prison, but will be under supervised release for the next five years.

He’s out!

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DC Officials Count Enough Valid Signatures to Put Psychedelics Decriminalization on Ballot

Kyle Jaeger, writing for Marijuana Moment:

Psychedelics activists in Washington, D.C. have determined by watching officials verify their petitions that they’ve collected enough valid signatures to qualify a measure to decriminalize certain entheogenic substances for the city’s November ballot.

While the Board of Elections hasn’t made an official announcement yet, advocates have been observing the validation process since turning in their petitions earlier this month. As of Thursday, they said they crossed the valid signature requirement threshold, with more submissions still left to be counted.

The board is expected to formally announce the results of the certification process at an August 5 meeting. The campaign needs 24,712 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure and they turned in about 35,000 raw submissions.

Not only does it look like the House of Representatives is going to vote on a cannabis legalization bill in September, now DC residents will be deciding whether to decriminalize psychedelics in November. What an exciting time.

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Congress Planning Vote on Federal Marijuana Legalization Bill in September

Kyle Jaeger, writing for Marijuana Moment:

Leadership of the House of Representatives is moving toward holding a floor vote on a comprehensive federal cannabis legalization bill in September, multiple sources familiar with the developing plan tell Marijuana Moment.

The Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment and Expungement (MORE) Act—introduced by Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) last year—has already cleared his panel and was referred to several other committees. In the months since, advocates have been eagerly awaiting further action to advance the legislation to the floor.

While the coronavirus pandemic has stalled legislative efforts on a wide range of issues, sources in the advocacy world and an aide to a key House committee chair say that a floor vote of the MORE Act is now being planned for September.

Assuming the last few kinks get ironed out in time (which is not a guarantee at this point), later this year the House will vote on the MORE Act, which would deschedule cannabis, expunge prior convictions, and impose a 5% sales tax that will be reinvested into communities that have been most harmed by the drug war. Let’s hope it succeeds.

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Man Accused of Selling Mushrooms Faces Up to Twenty Years

Conor McCormick-Cavanagh, writing for Westword:

A Denver man accused of dealing psychedelic mushrooms is facing up to twenty years in prison and a $1 million fine. On July 23, prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado charged 28-year-old Kole Milner with one count of possession with intent to distribute psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms that is classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government.

Milner pleaded not guilty during his appearance in court that same day, and was allowed to leave on bond.

The charging of Milner restarts a long-dormant case that began when Drug Enforcement Administration agents searched Milner's Denver apartment in September 2019, and left with 906 live psychedelic mushrooms and 20.42 ounces of dried mushrooms. An attorney representing Milner declined to comment on the charge, as did the U.S. Attorney's Office.

It never ceases to boggle my mind that anyone thinks it’s reasonable to throw someone behind bars for having or selling magic mushrooms. They’re just psychoactive mushrooms, not lethal weapons!

But even though Denver decriminalized psilocybin mushrooms last year, it didn’t legalize sales. And since the state and federal governments didn’t change their stance, that means anyone in the city who possesses, manufactures, and/or distributes psychedelics is still at risk with the state police and the DEA.

Bear in mind that this is happening at the same time William Leonard Pickard and Clyde Apperson are being released from prison for manufacturing LSD 20 years ago, which means that the drug war probably isn’t ending anytime soon, even though it should.

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