This Week in Psychedelics - 9.18.20

Cannabis

• House Postpones Vote On Bill To Federally Legalize Marijuana Until After Election (Marijuana Moment)

• These states are voting on cannabis legalization this November (CNN)

• Vermont Bill To Legalize Marijuana Sales One Step Away From Governor’s Desk After House Vote (Marijuana Moment)

• Vermont House Approves Marijuana Expungement And Decriminalization Expansion Bill (Marijuana Moment)

• How cannabis use impacted mental health during COVID (Cannabis Health News)

• Virginia House And Senate Approve Marijuana Expungement Bills (Marijuana Moment)

• NORML Files Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court Challenging Cannabis’ Schedule I Prohibited Status Under Federal Law (NORML)

• Nebraska Medical Marijuana Activists Will Pursue 2022 Ballot Measure After Court Blocks This Year’s Effort (Marijuana Moment)

• Cannabis Pilot Programs Are Sprouting in Europe (Cannabis Wire)

• Mississippi Medical Marijuana Ballot Language Threatens To Confuse Voters With Two Questions (Marijuana Moment)

• Cancard Will Effectively Decriminalise Medicinal Cannabis In The UK From November 1st (Seedsman)

• Policy Briefing: World Health Organisation Cannabis Rescheduling And Its Relevance For The Caribbean (TalkingDrugs)

• Slim Majority Of Arizona Voters Support Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure, New Poll Finds (Marijuana Moment)

• Americans will spend $60 billion on illicit marijuana this year, report says (Leafly)

• USDA Approves Hemp Plans For Utah And Another Indian Tribe (Marijuana Moment)

• The Feds Are Funding a Study to See If Milk From Hemp-Eating Cows Will Get You High (MERRY JANE)

• Missouri Sends $2.1M In Medical Marijuana Revenue To Military Veterans Health Programs (Marijuana Moment)

• Cheap Cannabinoids That May Cure Cancer (Nanalyze)

LSD

• Scientists Uncover the Molecular Origins of an LSD Trip (Inverse)

• Figuring Out a Mouse-Sized Dose of LSD (Psychedelic Science Review)

• LSD Won’t Make a Good Painkiller (Pain News Network)

Magic Mushrooms

• Usona Puts New Psilocybin Synthesis Method in the Public Domain (Lucid News)

• First clinical trial launched to test psilocybin therapy for depression in cancer patients (News-Medical.net)

• Stopping a Too-Intense Mushroom Trip: Should You Even Try? (DoubleBlind)

MDMA

• Australians Are Lending Their Weight to Get Shrooms and MDMA Rescheduled (VICE)

Ayahuasca

• Legal Ayahuasca Churches Are Spreading Across Canada (VICE)

• Ayahuasca Makes you See, and Tobacco Makes You Dream (Chacruna)

• Ayahuasca Impacts the Big 5 Personality Traits (Psychedelic Science Review)

• A Woman Takes Ayahuasca and Discovers a Universal Truth (Patheos)

Peyote

• Indigenous Voices in Peyote Conservation: Preserving Medicine for Future Generations (Psychedelic Today)

Nitrous Oxide

• Aurora City Council Approves Temporary Ketamine Ban For First Responders (CBS Denver)

PCP

• Daniel Prude video initially withheld by Rochester police, documents show (Fox News)

Miscellaneous

• UC Berkeley launches new center for psychedelic science and education (Berkeley News)

• Can Psychedelics Treat Physical Illness? (DoubleBlind)

• Ann Arbor to consider decriminalizing psychoactive mushrooms, plants (Detroit Metro Times)

• Why Psychedelic Medicine Startups Are Poised To Get A Share Of Next Billion Dollar Market (PR Newswire)

• Compass Pathways Seeks $100 Million IPO For Psilocybin-Based Treatment (Seeking Alpha)

• How COVID-19 Has Impacted the Psychedelic Community (High Times)

• Why Set and Setting Matters for Microdosing (Medium)

• Compass Pathways IPO to Begin Trading 18th September on Nasdaq: CMPS (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Federal Workplace Drug Testing Proposal Could Discriminate Against People Of Color (Marijuana Moment)

• Women in the History of Psychedelic Plant Medicines (Chacruna)

• How Psychedelics Are Entering the Mainstream (Psychology Today)

• Could Group Therapy Make Psychedelic Drug Treatments More Accessible? (Forbes)

• IntelGenx inks double deals to develop oral film psychedelics for psychiatric use (Fierce Pharma)

• Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth (Chacruna)

• Red Light Holland’s Science and Innovation Division, Scarlette Lillie Joins Medical Psychedelics Working Group with Leading Academics; Professor David Nutt and Professor Jo Neill (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Conscious Parenting with Plant Medicine Allies (Reality Sandwich)

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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.

Can Psychedelics Treat Physical Illness?

Suzannah Weiss, writing for DoubleBlind:

Psychedelics have been investigated over the past few years for their ability to help with various mental health conditions, including anxiety, depression, and PTSD. What’s less well-established—but equally promising—is their potential to help people heal from physical health conditions.

Using psychedelics to treat physical health issues, such as pain, is a particularly interesting application. Can’t wait to see more research come out in this area in the near future.

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Aurora City Council Approves Temporary Ketamine Ban for First Responders

Audra Streetman, writing for CBS Denver:

In a unanimous vote Monday night, Aurora City Council approved a resolution to temporarily ban first responders from administering ketamine to subdue patients during an arrest. Ketamine was the drug that paramedics used to sedate Elijah McClain on the night of Aug. 24, 2019.

Police confronted McClain as he was walking home from a convenience store. A struggle ensued and McClain was placed in a carotid hold before paramedics administered 500 mg of ketamine. McClain went into cardiac arrest twice on the way to the hospital and died days later.

The City of Aurora has launched a review of McClain’s arrest and subsequent death. Included in that review will be the administration of ketamine. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment will also task a committee to review the drug’s use for purposes of sedation and treatment of excited delirium.

Councilman Curtis Gardner introduced the proposal to stop ketamine sedation by paramedics and said he weighed the potential risks to first responders.

I’m glad to see this temporary ban on ketamine sedation by first responders. This is an area that needs serious reform, as it impacts the general public and disproportionately affects BIPOC in this country. There is absolutely no reason that people should be dying from ketamine overdoses caused by paramedics or police. Absolutely none at all.

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UC Berkeley Launches New Center for Psychedelic Science and Education

Yasmin Anwar, writing for Berkeley News:

Fifty years after political and cultural winds slammed shut the doors on psychedelic research, UC Berkeley is making up for lost time by launching the campus’s first center for psychedelic science and public education.

With $1.25 million in seed funding from an anonymous donor, the new UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics will conduct research using psychedelics to investigate cognition, perception and emotion and their biological bases in the human brain.

The center is also developing a program for educating the public about this rapidly advancing field of research. Initial experimental studies will use psilocybin, the principal psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms.

Another psychedelic research center, and this one will also include an educational component.

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Usona Puts New Psilocybin Synthesis Method in the Public Domain

Ann Harrison, writing for Lucid News:

The nonprofit Usona Institute has developed a new technique to synthesize kilograms of pharmaceutical grade psilocybin and placed this information in the public domain where it cannot be patented.

Awesome move by Usona.

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