This Week in Psychedelics - 9.22.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• California Officially Calls On Feds To Reclassify Marijuana (Forbes)
• Pennsylvania Democratic Party Adopts Marijuana Legalization Into Policy Platform (NORML)
• New Hampshire Marijuana Decriminalization Takes Effect (Forbes)
• Study: Medical Cannabis Registrants Reduce Their Prescription Drug Use (NORML)
• Orrin Hatch Sponsors Medical Marijuana Research Bill (Inquisitr)
• The 28 States Where a Little Pot Can Still Send You to Jail (Reason)
• Study: Perceived Marijuana Access Declining Among Youth (NORML)
• Medical Professionals Brace for Cannabis (Santa Barbara Independent)
• Pot shampoo to cannabis sommeliers: Inside one of America's biggest marijuana business conventions (The Independent)
• NORML Canada Testifies In Parliament On Impending Legalization (NORML)
• Detroit Voters Will Have Say in Cannabis Regulations (Leafly)
• Growing Clean Cannabis to Pass California's New Rules (East Bay Express)
• Dr. Oz Defends Medical Cannabis on 'Fox & Friends' (Leafly)
• 2017 NORML Conference and Lobby Day In Brief (NORML)
• How Cannabis Can Combat the Opioid Epidemic: An Interview With Philippe Lucas (Leafly)
• Roger Stone Wants to 'Crush Jeff Sessions' (ATTN:)
• New Brunswick Announces $90 Million Cannabis Buy (Leafly)
• Johnson City Press: Riding the green wave: Science Hill graduates growing cannabis in Arizona (Johnson City Press)
• In Denver, Marijuana Users Aren't Hard-Core Partiers -- They Really Just Want To Sleep (Forbes)
• Cloverdale readies for cannabis businesses coming to town (Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
• Sen. Al Franken Is Evolving On Marijuana (Forbes)
• Ontario Government Aims to Sell Cannabis for $10 a Gram (Leafly)
• Denver and Colorado Springs Residents Both High on Legalizing Cannabis (Westword)
• The Loss of an Activist, the Passing of a Friend, James Bell (NORML)
• Parents explain to their kids why they smoke weed (Boing Boing)
• Meet the sexy bikini models who've started a cannabis-themed Instagram page celebrating their devotion to weed (The Sun)
• Cannabis Crunch – No Go On Pot Drones, Uruguay's Cash Only Weed Shops, And The Feds Are Coming For Your MMJ Data (Psychedelic Times)
• Male vs. Female Cannabis: How to Determine the Sex of Your Plant (Leafly)
• Cannabis Industry Weekly Recap 9/15/2017 ( Forbes)
• Wynne's cannabis retail plan a buzzkill (Toronto Sun)

LSD

• How Renaissance Painting Smoldered with a Little Known Hallucinogen (Hyperallergic)
• Coroner said woman at music fest died from LSD overdose. Now, he says she didn't (The San Luis Obispo Tribune)
• Name-Place-Animal-Thing: Of Productivity and LSD (The Wire)
• This bizarre anti-LSD video from 1969 is about a woman and her talking hotdog (Mixmag)
• Rare Military Footage Reveals LSD Tests on Soldiers (The Fix)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Psychedelic Mushrooms May Soon Be Legal In California, What Could That Mean For Us? (Dance Music Northwest)
• Psychedelic mushroom user to perform at UF (The Independent Florida Alligator)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) Selects Montrium's eTMF Platform as They Begin Phase 3 Studies of MDMA-assisted Psychotherapy for PTSD (Markets Insider)
• Hair Test Reveals All the Drugs Actually Hiding in Ecstasy Pills (Inverse)
• MDMA on the Mountaintop (Reality Sandwich)
• Police accused of turning blind eye to ecstasy-related crime after drop in convictions (The Telegraph)
• Law Student Dies of Ecstasy Bag Bursting in Her Stomach (Noiseporn)
• Father of four who died after taking ecstasy was "crying out for help" (Norwich Evening News)
• Police raids after children poisoned by ecstasy (Liverpool Echo)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Ayahuasca Afterglow—How Post-Trip Mindfulness May Play A Part In Treating Depression (Psychedelic Times)
• Florida's Ayahuasca Church Wants to Go Legal (Motherboard)
• Why One Man Left His 6 Figure Salary & What He Did Instead (Collective Evolution)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

• 50 Years Ago: Battle over peyote divides council (Navajo Times)

Dissociatives

• Video: Can Ketamine Help You Reduce Problem Drinking? (Psychedelic Frontier)
• Michael Thase, MD: Can Ketamine Curb Depression? (MD Magazine)
• Juvenile Bipolar Disorder: Intranasal Ketamine Effective, Well-Tolerated (Psychiatry Advisor)

Opiates/Opioids

• Opioid Overdoses Are Shortening Overall Life Expectancy (TIME)
• The Affordable Care Act Is Being Exploited to Foster Opioid Relapse (TIME)
• Heroin must be treated like public health crisis that it is (Cincinnati.com)
• Fentanyl Importation Reaches 'Shocking' Levels, Says Prosecutor (Reason)
• CVS Pharmacy Will Limit Prescriptions for Opioids (TIME)

Absinthe

• University partnership develops Scotland's first absinthe (Heriot-Watt University)
• 5 Places in Bangalore That Serve Absinthe (Hungry Forever)

Kratom

• Kratom is safe for consumers: DEA got it wrong once; let's not repeat mistake (SILive.com)
• Coroner reveals details behind kratom overdose report (Adirondack Daily Enterprise)
• Kratom controversy: DEA taking the right approach (SILive.com)
• SPECIAL REPORT: What is Kratom, and why would you use it? (KMTR)

Kava

• 10 Incredible Health Benefits of Kava (TG Daily)

Khat

• Somalia: HirShabelle State Rejects Federal Government's Embargo on Miraa Flights in Jowhar (Somali Update)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Beyond Materialism: Interview with Rita Kočárová about International Transpersonal Conference 2017 (Psychedelic Times)
• Who Am I? Yoga, Psychedelics & the Quest for Enlightenment by Allowah Lani (Psychedelic Press UK)
• Charles L Raison, MD: A History of Psychedelics in Psychiatry (MD Magazine)
• Prince William discusses 'massive question' of legalising drugs (The Guardian)
• Balancing the Divine Feminine and Masculine in Medicine Circles (Reality Sandwich)
• A Buddhist Contemplates the Merits of Meditating on Psychedelics (Disinfo)
• How Psychedelic Science Privileges Some, Neglects Others, and Limits Us All (Psymposia)
• People Who Trip on Psychedelics Are More Likely to Be Environmentally Conscious (AlterNet)
• Charity warns that 'legal high' ban has led to switch to other illegal drugs (The Pharmaceutical Journal)
• Reconsidering LSD, other psychedelic drugs for treating depression, anxiety (Genetic Literacy Project)
• The Real Story of Shamanism: No Need to Don a Headdress or Take Hallucinogens (Ancient Origins)
• Psychedelic drugs: is it time to rethink our perspective? (ABC)

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.

Weekend Thoughts - 9.16.17

Image by Jess Hamilton, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. The value of Bitcoin has plummeted due to orders from the Chinese government against its citizens using the cryptocurrency. The government doesn't want the Chinese people to use Bitcoin because it allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment processes entirely—instead they can pay for goods and services directly. This feature of the blockchain technology that serves as the foundation for Bitcoin has led some people to worry that the cryptocurrency will be used for money laundering and criminal activities as well. 

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 9.15.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• California bans using drones, self-driving cars from delivering weed (The Daily Dot)
• Congress Passes Three Month Budget Continuation – Marijuana Protections Included (NORML)
• Ontario Shocker: Province to Restrict Legal Cannabis Sales to 150 Government-Run Stores and One Website (Leafly)
• International drug treaties need an urgent revamp as more countries legalize cannabis (ZME Science)
• Patients to get easier access to medicinal cannabis under Greens bill (The Guardian)
• Blockchain Company Aims to Transform Australia's Medical Cannabis Sector (Leafly)
• Senator Orrin Hatch introduces medical marijuana research bill (Boing Boing)
• Hawaii Says It's 1st State to Go Cashless for Cannabis Sales (Leafly)
• Canadian Cops Claim They Won't Be Ready for Marijuana Legalization by 2018 (Reason)
• Cannabis Consumption Has Increased, but Not Because of Legalization (Leafly)
• Cannabis Lounges Looking More Likely in Las Vegas (Leafly)
• Charities Just Say No To Cannabis Contributions (Forbes)
• Annual High Times' Cannabis Cup attracts thousands to Clio (Michigan Live)
• California County Calls for State Aid to Combat Cannabis Farms (Leafly)
• Want to Get Into California's Legal Pot Market? Expect a Regulatory Morass (Reason)
• Cannabis advertising takes to the skies (Los Angeles Times)
• Meet Dr. Dina: Pot Doc to the Stars and 'Cannabis Consultant' on 'Disjointed' (Variety)
• Last Week in Cannabis — IRS Abuse, Weed Banks, And Putting Pot Up Your Butt (Psychedelic Times)
• 'Get the Criminal Elements Out of the Sale of Marijuana': The Week in Cannabis Quotes (Leafly)
• Woman, 49, given just months to live claims cannabis oil CURED her brain tumour after chemotherapy failed (Daily Mail)
• City told to say no to cannabis (Taft Midway Driller)

LSD

• Peter Sarsgaard Tackles LSD, CIA Mind-Control and Political Dissent in 'Wormwood' (The Hollywood Reporter)
• Want to, Like, Really Connect With Nature? Try Some LSD (Lifehacker)
• Incredible rare footage shows US soldiers being dosed with LSD in government-sponsored experiments that sparked "chaos" (Mirror)
• Before LSD, I was a militant anti-theist (Psymposia)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Magic mushrooms take a trip into clinical trials (Financial Times)
• Two parents' fight to set up the largest ever magic mushroom trial for depression is nearly over (International Business Times)
• The first time I ate mushrooms a Papua New Guinea shaman showed up (Psymposia)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• FDA Gives Okay For PTSD Sufferers To Start Ecstasy Trials (Inquisitr)
• MDMA and ecstasy deaths on rise in the south east (Get Surrey)
• Teen hospitalised after taking 'Blue Transformer' ecstasy pill - which he swapped for two cigarettes (Liverpool Echo)
• Person from Epsom among nine in South East to die from taking MDMA last year (Surrey Mirror)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• DMT is the Most Unbelievable Psychedelic Drug Known to Man (High Existence)

Salvia Divinorum

• Scientists Want to Synthesize Salvia's Hallucinogenic Molecule for a Surprising Reason (Gizmodo)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Unintentional drug use continues among molly users in EDM party scene (EurekAlert!)

Dissociatives

• Is Cough Syrup Hallucinogenic? Medicine Influenced Man to Kill Wife, Toxicologist Says (International Business Times)
• Intravenous Ketamine Quells Pain in Lyme Disease When Opiates and Other Drugs Fail (ProHealth)
• Mood Effects of Ketamine Linked to Circadian Timekeeping (MD Magazine)
• A notorious party drug from the '60s is quietly becoming a treatment for depression in India (Scroll.in)
• 'A lot of questions about ketamine' - keeping people drug-safe at Electric Picnic's welfare tent (The Journal)
• D.C. Man Gets 7-Year Prison Sentence For Conspiracy To Distribute PCP (Morningside Maryland)
• Report: Man Who Died in Struggle With Deputies Had Taken PCP (U.S. News & World Report)
• Driver Had PCP, Weed & Booze In Her System At Time Of Fatal Crash: Charges (DNAInfo)

Opiates/Opioids

• Synthetic salvia may be an opiate alternative without the addiction (SlashGear)
• 2 scientists are locked in a race to develop a groundbreaking vaccine for heroin, but it might not be a 'magic bullet' (Business Insider)
• U.S. Heroin Deaths Have Increased 533% Since 2002 (Forbes)
• Virginia Department of Health handing out Naloxone for free (WDBJ)
• Is U.S. in Afghanistan because of opium poppies?: Letter to the Editor (Cleveland.com)
• 7 things to know about heroin (Cincinnati.com)

Kratom

• How Long Does it Take to Get Addicted to Kratom? (Kratom Guides)
• Just like heroin and it's legal: DEA taking closer look at kratom (SILive.com)
• Kratom debate reaches new level (Adirondack Daily Enterprise)
• Upstate NY police sergeant died of overdose on legal, controversial drug kratom (NewYorkUpstate.com)

Kava

• Police witness drop in kava thefts (The Fiji Times)

Khat

• The surprising place where cash is going extinct (BBC)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• The First Graduating Class of the CIIS Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies and Research (Psychedelic Times)
• The therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs (The Washington Post)
• Experts Are Hoping to Bring Medical Psychedelics in the Mainstream (ATTN:)
• 10 Reasons to End the War on Drugs and the War on Sex Workers (Psymposia)
• I Spent a Month Testing Comedown Cures (VICE)
• Psychedelic cluster busting headache medication saves me. And it's completely illegal (Psymposia)
• Dutch YouTubers Get High In The Name Of Science – And Clicks (Worldcrunch)
• Can Illegal Drugs Save Lives? Stunning Studies Point Toward Endless Possibilities (The Cheat Sheet)
• Looking back on Silicon Valley in 2016: Unicorns, Psychedelic Drugs, and Disruption (Disinfo)

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.

Weekend Thoughts - 9.9.17

Image by Waywuwei, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Happy Saturday y'all! Below, I have rounded up some things for you to think about this weekend:

1. Elon Musk is a busy man. He's involved in the SpaceX project, Tesla Inc., SolarCity, and much more. Over Labor Day Weekend he tweetstormed his prediction that artificial intelligence (not North Korea) will be the cause of World War III. It's not a long read—probably only a minute or two—but it's worth considering, as it's something that could potentially affect us all in the near future.

2. I was featured in a roundup post on Self Development Secrets this past week that covered The Best Self-Help Books that you might like to check out. My choice was What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles, which I found very helpful for my career and personal life when I first read it three years ago. If you've never heard of it before, give it a shot—I really enjoyed the "Flower Exercise" chapter which has several exercises that are designed to help the reader identify their favorite fields of interest, preferred kinds of people to work with, transferable skills, preferred salary range and desired level of responsibility, preferred places to live, and personalized goal, purpose, or mission in life. Thank you to Self Development Secrets for reaching out to me and asking me to write a blurb for their post!

That's all for this week's edition of Weekend Thoughts. Until next week, keep thinking wilder.

This Week in Psychedelics - 9.8.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Despite Legalization, Adolescent Marijuana Use Hits 15-Year Low (Reason)
• Amendment to Cut Funding of DEA's Cannabis Eradication Program (NORML)
• Gaetz Introduces Amendment for Medical Marijuana Research (NORML)
• House Rules Committee Blocks Amendment Protecting Medical Marijuana (Reason)
• American Universities Offering Cannabis Classes This Fall (Forbes)
• Bonamici Files Amendment Preventing Federal Interference of State Hemp Laws (NORML)
• Congressman Heck Introduces Marijuana Banking Amendments (NORML)
• Colorado Cannabis Sales Funnel $9.2M Into School Health Programs (Leafly)
• Hemp Comes Home (Reason)
• Cannabis Tribes Form Cannabis Association (Indian Country Today)
• Does the First Amendment Protect Spiritual Cannabis Use? A D.C. Activist Plans to Argue For It (Psymposia)
• California Won't Ban Cannabis Ads, for Now (Leafly)
• North Texas Experts Explore the Cannabis 'Green Rush' (D Magazine)
• California is about to open its first legal cannabis shops and it's posing a huge problem for local pot farms (The Independent)
• Cannabis Growers Accused of Offering California Sheriff $1M Bribe (Leafly)
• Sonoma State University launches professional cannabis business series (Santa Rosa Press Democrat)
• Last Week In Cannabis—New Jersey May Legalize, Cabbie Wins MMJ Case, And More (Psychedelic Times)
• Investing in Cannabis? Ask These 3 Questions Before You Do (Leafly)
• Meet the companies launching Maryland's cannabis industry (The Baltimore Sun)
• Massachusetts' Top Cannabis Regulator Says He's Committed to Timely Rollout (Leafly)
• Cannabis church leader's pet peacock brutally killed (USA Today)
• How Are Canadian Patients Using Medical Cannabis? (Leafly)
• The Game Changer for Paragon and the Cannabis Industry (The Merkle)
• Cannabis workshops begin this week (Mad River Union)
• Stockton may temporarily tap brakes on cannabis businesses (Stockton Record)
• Cannabis Industry Weekly Recap 9/1/2017 (Forbes)

LSD

• Meet the World's First Online LSD Microdosing Coach (Rolling Stone)
• Netflix's 'Wormwood' Spotlights CIA's Secret LSD Mind Control Experiments (The Fix)
• Memories from the Summer of Love: Meet the '60s Couple Who Helped 'Turn on the World' to LSD (People)
• Meet the professor who self-administered 73 high-dose LSD sessions (Psymposia)
• The Upside of LSD: This Guy Wants You to Microdose on Psychedelics (OZY)
• Researcher To Study The Effects of LSD Microdosing on Cognitive Function (Collective Evolution)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• Scientists Discover Why Magic Mushrooms Evolved Psychedelic Powers (Inverse)
• Will California Legalize Mushrooms? (The Fix)
• The Chemical In Shrooms Can Now Be Made In A Lab, & It Could Help Sufferers Of Mental Illness (Bustle)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Why The FDA's 'Breakthrough' Nomination For MDMA Matters (Psychedelic Times)
• Ecstasy Is on Its Way to Becoming a Legal Treatment for PTSD (Lifehacker)
• Dude Leaves Contact Info On Bag Of MDMA -- Gets His Dumbass Arrested (Magnetic Magazine)
• Embarrassed Pill Takers Tell Us Their Worst Ecstasy Stories (VICE)
• British teenager died in Ibiza after five bags of ecstasy exploded in her stomach, finds coroner (The Independent)
• Police warn public of 'ecstasy' pills containing ketamine (Mixmag)
• Woman dies and two men taken to hospital after taking ecstasy (The Guardian)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• Dimethyltryptamine (DMT): a biochemical Swiss Army knife in neuroinflammation and neuroprotection? (NCBI)
• Spiritual But Secular (United Church Observer)
• Man fined for having drug used in Amazon (Irish Times)

Salvia Divinorum

• Synthetic simplification of hallucinogen pays off (Chemical & Engineering News)

Dissociatives

• Use of ketamine for depression shows rapid, long-lasting effects: study (New York Daily News)
• 30 years ago, PCP seemed like the most threatening drug to America's future (MuckRock)
• How Do 4 Alternative Treatments for Bipolar Disorder Stack Up? (Psych Central)

Opiates/Opioids

• Will California Beat Seattle in Building a Safe Drug Injection Facility? (Reason)
• The Right Chemistry: The long and colorful history of opium (Montreal Gazette)
• How Many More People Have to Die From Heroin and Fentanyl Before We Try Something Different? (Reason)
• Canadian schools stock up on naloxone kits in wake of growing opioid crisis (Global News)
• More Access Granted to Naloxone in Arkansas (KARK)

Kratom

• Editorial: Many defend use of plant kratom (Plattsburgh Press Republican)
• Super Green Indo Kratom: How It Differs From Green Malay And Green Maeng Da? (Kratom Guides)

Kava

• Selling kava with a wink and a buzz (Missoula Independent)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• People Who Have Taken Psychedelics Are More Likely To Be Environmentally Friendly (IFLScience)
• Neurosis is Natural: Human Development and Rites of Passage with Neal M. Goldsmith, Ph.D. (Psychedelic Times)
• Coming Out of the Psychedelic Closet to Your Parents (Psychedelic Times)
• 4 Philosophers Who Experimented With Psychedelics (Big Think)
• A Reverend's Moving Sermon About Psychedelics and Religion (Psychedelic Frontier)
• Scientific doping will lift scholarship to new heights (Times Higher Education)
• Eight Things to Do After You've Taken Psychedelics (Psymposia)
• Rethinking serotonin could lead to a shift in psychiatric care (Imperial College London)
• The 21st century psychedelic renaissance: heroic steps forward on the back of an elephant (Springer Link)
• Psychedelics, Personality and Political Perspectives. (PubMed)
• My biggest conclusion after years writing about drugs (Psymposia)

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.