1,000-Year-Old Pouch Contains Traces of 5 Ancient Psychoactive Drugs

Peter Hess, writing for Inverse:

Long before ayahuasca became popular among Silicon Valley seekers, it was the domain of specialized healers and spiritual leaders. Archaeologists have long known that ancient peoples throughout the Americas consumed various plant-based drugs to heal, find meaning, and connect to a spiritual world, but research published Monday in PNAS suggests that they were used even more widely than scientists suspected.

In the paper , an international team of archaeologists identified traces of five different psychoactive chemicals in a bundle of belongings dating back to about 1,000 years ago. The objects, found in Cueva del Chileno, a rock shelter in the Andes in present-day Bolivia, include animal-skin pouches and a headband, as well as spatulas, two trays, and an intricately carved tube — tools that were most likely used for sniffing a plant-based psychedelic drug.

Using radiocarbon dating, the team showed that the leather bag containing the objects dates back to somewhere between 905 and 1170 CE. And using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry, they found that the kit contained traces of cocaine, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), harmine, bufotenine, and benzoylecgonine — psychoactive chemicals that are all found in various plants native to South America.

Humans have been using psychoactive drugs since time immemorial. Now we have proof that people have been working with these particular substances for at least a thousand years. What’s amazing about this story is that these chemicals did not originate from the area where the bag was found:

Perhaps most significantly, the plants that produce the chemicals analyzed at the site do not grow in the place where they were found. The archaeologists note that while the site is located in the mountains, at an elevation of almost 13,000 feet above sea level, most of these plants grow in the lowland forests of the Amazon.

In other words, these shamans were either acquiring these drugs from a trading network or going on long treks to collect them on their own.

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TSA to Travelers: We’re Not Looking for Your Weed

Zach Harris, writing for MERRY JANE:

According to a new report from Forbes, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) posted a photo of a cannabis leaf on the agency’s official Instagram page on 4/20. The social media post also included a note to travelers, clarifying their hands-off approach to pot.

“Are we cool? We like to think we’re cool,” the TSA caption reads. “We want you to have a pleasant experience at the airport and arrive safely at your destination. But getting caught while trying to fly with marijuana or cannabis-infused products can really harsh your mellow.”

“Let us be blunt,” the tongue-in-cheek warning continues. “TSA officers DO NOT search for marijuana or other illegal drugs. Our screening procedures are focused on security and detecting potential threats. But in the event a substance appears to be marijuana or a cannabis-infused product, we’re required by federal law to notify law enforcement. This includes items that are used for medicinal purposes.”

So they’re not actively looking for cannabis, but if they find it while searching your bags for other contraband they will still get law enforcement involved. Sure, it’s better than going full narc, but at the end of the day this doesn’t sound all that “cool” to me.

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Illegal Pot Market Booming in California Despite Legalization

Thomas Fuller, writing for The New York Times:

In the forests of Northern California, raids by law enforcement officials continue to uncover illicit marijuana farms. In Southern California, hundreds of illegal delivery services and pot dispensaries, some of them registered as churches, serve a steady stream of customers. And in Mendocino County, north of San Francisco, the sheriff’s office recently raided an illegal cannabis production facility that was processing 500 pounds of marijuana a day.

It’s been a little more than a year since California legalized marijuana — the largest such experiment in the United States — but law enforcement officials say the unlicensed, illegal market is still thriving and in some areas has even expanded.

“There’s a lot of money to be made in the black market,” said Thomas D. Allman, the sheriff of Mendocino County, whose deputies seized cannabis oil worth more than $5 million in early April.

Legalization, Sheriff Allman said, “certainly didn’t put cops out of work.”

California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has declared that illegal grows in Northern California “are getting worse, not better” and two months ago redeployed a contingent of National Guard troops stationed on the border with Mexico to go after illegal cannabis farms instead.

California’s legal cannabis market isn’t doing so hot.

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Getting ‘California Sober’ Showed Me a Kinder, Gentler Way to Do Drugs

Michelle Lhooq, writing for Broadly:

I decided to quit all drugs, including alcohol, except weed and psychedelics for a year. (Psychedelics encompass a wide spectrum of drugs, but for my purposes, I’m limiting them to LSD, psilocybin, DMT/ayahuasca, and other trippy varietals; I am definitely not doing molly.) I call this “Cali sober,” a term some people also use when they quit everything but weed. I’d experimented with month-long stints of total sobriety before, so I knew I could survive it.

This is an interesting concept. I know several people in my own life who have given up all drugs except for cannabis and psychedelics, and admittedly I’m leaning toward doing the same myself—99% of the time, at least. Other drugs are fun to experiment with from time to time but there’s not necessarily much value to be gleaned from trying them, whereas cannabis and psychedelics have the potential to change your life for the better. When it comes to your physical and mental health, going California sober could be the best thing you’ve ever done.

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Film Review - Psychonautics: A Comic's Exploration of Psychedelics

The documentary Psychonautics: A Comic’s Exploration of Psychedelics, featuring stand-up comedian Shane Mauss delving into the fascinating world of psychedelic drugs, debuted at the Dances With Films festival last June but wasn’t released to the general public until just last month. I was waiting with eager anticipation to watch this film from the moment I first heard about it, and now that I’ve watched it a few times since its release, I figured I’d share my thoughts on it.

Unless you’re already familiar with him, you might be asking yourself, “Who is Shane Mauss?” Well, as I mentioned earlier, Shane is a stand-up comedian with a wacky sense of humor. He’s also the host of the comedy science podcast Here We Are and a fellow psychonaut. After spending the last few years exploring psychedelics in a lot of his work, Shane was inspired to make a documentary about the topic in order to show the world that these drugs aren’t necessarily as scary as someone who is psychedelically-naïve might expect.

Psychonautics starts off mighty strong—and fast. The film opens up with a shot of Shane painted from head to toe in glow-in-the-dark body paint made from the MAOI Peganum harmala (also known as Syrian rue), right as he’s about to smoke DMT on camera. He looks at the camera in a slightly creepy way, ignites his lighter, and then leans in to take a hit.

Before he has a chance to inhale the DMT vapor, the film cuts to a stand-up comedy routine where Shane is telling the crowd that he was just let out of a psych ward two weeks earlier because he overdid it with psychedelic drugs. So much for trying to show the world the psychedelics are completely harmless!

A proper introduction follows these two opening scenes, and Shane shares a few stories about his upbringing in Wisconsin, his relationship to drugs, and his career as a comedian, Next, some of his fellow comics talk about him for a little while. Then the movie starts to talk about some of the scientific research concerning psychedelics before launching into the first section of the film: psilocybin mushrooms.

During the mushrooms portion, Shane accompanies Eric Osborne (the founder of a legal psilocybin retreat center in Jamaica at MycoMeditations) as they go hunting for mushrooms in an undisclosed location somewhere in Kentucky and talk shop about everything related to psilocybin mushrooms. This is a pretty laid back part of the movie and it’s chock-full of humor and silliness, just like the rest of the film.

After the mushrooms section, the film goes over a few other classic psychedelics: MDMA, LSD, ketamine, DMT, and ayahuasca. As Shane progresses through the various drugs, things start to get more and more intense until he reaches the mental breakdown that was foreshadowed in the beginning of the film.

So what were my overall impressions of the film? Well, first off I should mention that I’m a pretty big fan of Shane’s work. I saw his psychedelic-themed comedy routine called A Good Trip a few years ago when he came to Raleigh, NC and laughed my ass off for two hours straight. That’s where I found out his podcast Here We Are, which blends together the odd bedfellows comedy and science, two things that I definitely enjoy. After going home, I started listening to his podcast, and have kept up with it ever since.

Psychonautics is engaging and well-polished. The narrative arc is tight and easy to follow, it keeps the viewer’s attention the whole way through, and it supplies a fairly thorough overview of everything related to psychedelics, including the relevant scientific research, the history of the drug war, and the harms of prohibition. If you’re a hardcore psychonaut like me, a lot of the material might be familiar, but reviewing what you have learned over and over again is a tried and true method that can help you really internalize the information, so it’s still well worth a watch. And if you’re brand-new to psychedelics or want to introduce someone else to them in a lighthearted (and somehow serious) way, this is a solid option for those purposes too. Mixing science with humor can make new information a bit easier for some people to swallow, after all.

A bunch of well-known leaders in the psychedelic movement are featured in the film, including Rick Doblin, Dennis McKenna, James Fadiman, David Nichols, Emanuel Sferios, and some of the world’s top psychedelic researchers and comedians. No psychedelic documentary would be complete without a few super trippy visual representations of psychedelic experiences that can be had with the different drugs discussed in the film, and fortunately Psychonautics doesn’t disappoint. Each psychedelic drug has a unique visualization style that is similar to what you could expect from taking said drug, which certainly helps keep things interesting.

Shane is currently on a stand-up tour across America (dates can be found on his website, linked above) so he might come somewhere near you soon, and you should go see him if you get the opportunity. But if that’s not an option, then you can at least watch Psychonautics to get a feel for what he’s all about.

Bottom line: if you’re into psychedelics and have a sense of humor, you should definitely check out this documentary.