Think Wilder Is Going Back to Its Psychedelic Roots

For the last year or so I’ve been running an experiment on this blog and my YouTube channel by trying my damnedest to cover the hottest news about all psychoactive substances in my weekly link roundups and monthly/yearly news recaps. But that’s about to change.

Think Wilder is going back to its psychedelic roots. Moving forward all of my link roundups and news recaps will focus on plants, fungi, animals, and chemicals that can be reasonably classified as “psychedelic”.

Before you object, let me first clarify that this doesn’t mean that I won’t ever publish anything about non-psychedelic drugs again. You’ll still see content related to mind-altering substances like cocaine, heroin, alcohol, and nicotine from time to time—in the form of feature pieces or link posts. However, I won’t be focusing on drugs like these in my regular roundups and recaps.

The rest of this blog post explains why I’ve come to this decision, so if you’re interested in the reasons behind the change then you can keep reading. If you’re not, then at least now you know what to expect in the future from Think Wilder.

Rewinding back to the end of 2018, after 3.5 years of covering mostly psychedelic news on a weekly basis, I began to cover all psychoactive drugs. As I explained in that that year's recap:

Earlier this month I polled the Think Wilder audience on Twitter and Facebook about the overall scope of the blog, asking if I should narrow my focus to exclusively write about psychedelics or expand it to cover other psychoactive substances as well. Thank you to those of you who responded. Most people seemed to be interested in psychedelics, but a few reported that they found information about other drugs to also be valuable. After mulling it over for a few weeks, I decided to expand the scope of the blog to focus on all psychoactive substances. First of all, I wanted to avoid practicing drug chauvinism, the belief that some drugs are inherently “better” than others. I also feel like there is significantly more honest reporting about psychedelics than there is about drugs like stimulants and depressants and wanted to help balance things out. But most importantly, I realized that although I’m far more familiar with psychedelics and am by no means an expert on other drugs, I still have a healthy interest in psychoactive substances in general and want to see them fairly covered. I added a “cocaine” section to this year’s post, and you can expect to see news about other psychoactive substances like benzodiazepines and deliriants in the near future.

Many of those things remain the same today. I don’t want to participate in what I termed “drug chauvinism” at the time (although I have since come around to prefer the term “psychedelic exceptionalism”). Instead, I want to promote the ethos of drug positivity throughout my work.

I still think there is more decent reporting about psychedelics than other psychoactive substances, but have learned that I truly feel like I have more to contribute to the psychedelic niche than in the overall drug niche.

And I have maintained a strong interest in all things psychoactive and love learning more about non-psychedelic drugs. However with all of that said, I still have decided to make a change.

There are two main reasons why:

First and foremost, narrowing the scope of my regular news coverage will significantly cut down on the amount of time it takes to create link roundups and news recaps so I can focus on other projects that keep getting put on the backburner.

To give you an idea of how much time I’ve put into covering drugs over the last five years, each weekly link roundup takes anywhere from 10-20 hours to complete, while monthly recap videos take about 10 hours and monthly recap blog posts take about 20 hours. All of that work is done without any outside funding other than my Patreon patrons. (By the way, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to those of you who are supporting me there and invite everyone else to become a patron to help keep my work going.)

Since covering non-psychedelic drugs takes up about half of the time it takes to produce my link roundups and news recaps, dropping them from my regular updates should enable me to spend more time covering psychedelic news as thoroughly as possible and free me up to work on other content and projects that I’ve been wanting to create for a long time.

Second, I feel like I’ve drifted away from what I want Think Wilder to be.

When I first started this blog I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do with it. But after a couple years I started to realize that I really wanted to focus on psychedelics, spirituality, and technology. Expanding my scope to cover all psychoactive drugs was a departure from my original intention and didn’t really reflect my true passions.

My initial—and most influential—experiences with drugs involved psychedelics, not uppers, downers, or other all-arounders. Although I do have limited experience with some non-psychedelic drugs, I am by no means an expert on them and have come to the realization that it’s better to leave coverage of those substances to people better equipped to discuss them.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, this news doesn’t mean that this marks the last time I’ll ever cover non-psychedelic drugs on Think Wilder. I have some ideas for psychoactive drug content that have been bouncing around in my noggin for the last few years, and hopefully some of them will come to fruition sooner or later. And I still plan to link to big news stories about non-psychedelic drugs, too.

This decision has been difficult for me to make and it feels bittersweet. On one hand, I’m fascinated by psychoactive drugs and love learning about them, but on the other hand I just don’t feel called to continue going down the path I’ve been following any longer.

These changes are effective immediately. This week’s link roundup will return to the original name that the column sported until the end of 2018 (“This Week in Psychedelics”) and the news recaps at the end of the month will be called “This Month in Psychedelics”.

I hope that everyone who was tuning in for psychedelic content is excited about this news and that those of you who come here for news about all psychoactives understand where I’m coming from. Obviously I can’t please everyone and I just have to listen to what I feel is right for me. Thank you for your understanding and feel free to contact me to let you know what you think about this announcement.

In Defense of the Concept of Addiction

Stanton Peele, writing for Filter:

The term—and concept of—“addiction” is regularly frowned upon or even attacked by people in our field. But it won’t disappear, nor should it.

There are four groups or schools of thought that de-emphasize or disparage “addiction.” And their reasons for doing so all have value.

But for me, their arguments point us not to the abandonment of the term, but to its reconception in order to make it accurate and useful.

Before I elaborate, I’ll summarize these “anti-addiction” groups and their positions.

Peele goes on to briefly explain why psychiatrists, epidemiologists, critics of an expanded view of addiction, and harm reductionists often argue against the idea of addiction. Following the introduction is his stance on addiction, which I find to be quite compelling. In fact, this is one of the best pieces of writing on the topic that I’ve ever come across.

I highly suggest you give it a read too.

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Go Take the 2020 Global Drug Survey

At the end of every year the Global Drug Survey opens up, inviting people from around the world to take part in the world’s biggest anonymous drug survey.

Since its inaugural run in 2014, the survey data has revealed information about new substance use trends, helping to guide the development of saner drug policies and distributing up-to-date harm reduction tips and techniques.

In addition to asking the usual questions, this year the Global Drug Survey is also zeroing in on a few new topics: how people use cannabis to treat their illnesses, what drinkers regret doing while drunk, how MDMA users take the drug over the course of a night, and how people self-medicate with psychedelics.

If you’ve taken drugs this year then you should fill out this survey. It can take a while to complete, especially if you’ve used a wide variety of substances, but the data will contribute to a better understanding of how the world uses drugs and educate people on how to use them in the safest possible way.

Time is quickly running out so you better jump on it fast if you want to participate—the submission period ends on January 5th.

Apple to Remove Vaping Apps From Store

Ina Fried and Mike Allen, writing for Axios:

Amid growing health concerns over e-cigarettes, Apple will remove all 181 vaping-related apps from its mobile App Store.

Apple is acting from a good place here, yet still missing the mark. Vaping saves lives, and reducing access to vape technology makes it more difficult for people to choose an alternative to smoking cigarettes. And as far as cannabis vapes go, PAX is already lobbying against this decision:

PAX says that while it respects Apple's leadership, it is concerned with Apple's ban because it prevents consumers in legal stages from "having access to important information and the ability to better control their cannabis experience."

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CDC Says Vitamin E Acetate Is a “Very Strong Culprit of Concern” in Vaping-Related Lung Injuries

Paul Armentano, writing for NORML:

A representative at the US Centers for Disease Control for the first time today identified vitamin E acetate as a “very strong culprit of concern” in EVALI (e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury). Their announcement comes after health officials found the oil in the lungs of 29 patients sickened following their use of portable e-liquid vaporizers.

Writing in the agency’s journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, investigators concluded, “Based on these data from 29 patients, it appears that vitamin E acetate is associated with EVALI.”

The first mention of vitamin E acetate as a potential cause of these vaping health issues on Think Wilder was in the This Week in Psychoactives blog post from September 6. The vaping experts I follow on Twitter have been correctly pointing to this contaminant since then, but many official sources (media and government) tried to blame e-cigarettes. One of the worst offenders has been the CDC, which stubbornly pointed its finger at e-cigarettes rather than the actual source of the problem—illicit THC vape cartridges. It’s a crying shame it took more than two months for the folks over there to start spreading accurate information about this.

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