This Week in Psychedelics - 8.14.20

Cannabis

• Arizona Marijuana Legalization Initiative Officially Qualifies For November Ballot (Marijuana Moment)

• Montana Will Vote On Two Marijuana Legalization Measures In November, State Confirms (Marijuana Moment)

• Here are the new cannabis rules proposed for South Africa – including limits, penalties and criminal records (BusinessTech)

• New research raises questions about the link between cannabis use and depression among adolescents (PsyPost)

• New Initiative To Legalize Marijuana Sales Filed In D.C. (Marijuana Moment)

• Spanish Cannabis Approved for Import to Germany (Cannabis Industry Journal)

• Four More Ohio Cities Will Vote On Marijuana Decriminalization This November (Marijuana Moment)

• Where Vice Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris Stands On Marijuana (Marijuana Moment)

• Boomers Smoke Twice as Much Medical Cannabis as Millennials, New Survey Says (MERRY JANE)

• New Jersey Now Allows Medical Marijuana Recommendations Via Telehealth Amid Coronavirus (Marijuana Moment)

• Study: Most Americans in Legal States Express “Positive Perceptions” of the Cannabis Marketplace (NORML)

LSD

• Acid Dreams: The Profit Potential of LSD (Investing Daily)

Magic Mushrooms

• New company to put psilocybin on dissolvable sublingual strips to help treat depression (Leafly)

• First-Of-Its-Kind Clinical Trial To Study Psychedelic Treatments For PTSD In Veterans (Forbes)

• New Psychedelic Research Nonprofit Teams with Johns Hopkins University for Real-World Study on Use of Psilocybin Mushrooms (PR Newswire)

MDMA

• MAPS And The Road To FDA Approval For MDMA (Benzinga)

DMT

• Metabolizing DMT – The Differences Between Oral Administration and Smoking (Psychedelic Science Review)

Ayahuasca

• New Study Shows Ayahuasca’s Benefits When Used in a Traditional Setting (Lucid News)

• Mestre Irineu: A Black Man Who Changed the History of Ayahuasca (Chacruna)

• A Response to “Early Reflections on Interviews with Palestinians and Israelis Drinking Ayahuasca Together” (Psymposia)

Iboga

• Abuses and Lack of Safety in the Ibogaine Community (Chacruna)

Synthetic Cannabinoids

• New and Accurate Drug Test for “Spice” (Reality Sandwich)

Ketamine

• Coloradans Dosed With Ketamine During Police Confrontations Want Investigation (KUNC)

• American Society of Ketamine Physicians, Psychotherapists and Practitioners Announces Standards of Practice in the Therapeutic Use of Subanesthetic Ketamine (PR Newswire)

• Investigators Uncover Antidepressant Response Mediator to Ketamine (HCPLive)

Miscellaneous

• Why Don’t More Black People Use Psychedelics? (Medium)

• The Defund the Police Movement is Coming for the DEA (VICE)

• What Are the Long-Term Effects of Microdosing Psychedelics? (DoubleBlind)

• Psychedelic drugs reduce depressive symptoms by helping individuals accept their emotions, study suggests (PsyPost)

• On Your Next Psychedelic Journey, Let an App Be Your Guide (WIRED)

• How Would Dismantling the DHS Affect the War on Drugs? (Filter)

• What is Psychedelic Therapy? Common Trends, Practices, and Foundations in the Field (Psychedelics Today)

• Yield Growth Announces Name Change and Provides Corporate Update (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Field Trip Psychedelics Inc. Expands Stateside With Psychedelic-Enhanced Psychotherapy Clinic in New York City (PR Newswire)

• Eleusis sheds light on psychedelics that relieve asthma in rats with no mental effects (Fierce Biotech)

• Meet the Woman Who Wants to Sell Psychedelic Drugs to Scientists (Futurism)

• The Political Value of Psychedelics (Reality Sandwich)

• Mind Medicine (MindMed) Inc. Announces Q2 2020 Financial Results (Psilocybin Alpha)

• How to Embrace the Effects of Psychedelics Without the Drugs (Elemental)

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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.

Book Review - MindApps

With an increasing amount of psychedelic research being published each and every year, those of us with an interest in consciousness have found ourselves needing a more specific framework and language that could be leveraged to analyze and discuss altered states of consciousness. MindApps: Multistate Theory and Tools for Mind Design, written by Dr. Thomas B. Roberts and published earlier this year, presents a so-called “multistate theory” as a potential framework to fill that need.

Although a lot of energy being pumped into psychedelic research is focused on finding ways to heal the sick, another equally viable application for these drugs is the betterment of well people and benefit optimization/maximization. After all, why should these powerful plants and chemicals be relegated to only those members of society who qualify as having a condition or disorder? In MindApps, Roberts explores this concept and many others in a unique, innovative, and intriguing manner.

In case you aren’t already familiar with the author, Thomas Roberts is professor emeritus at Northern Illinois University, where he’s been teaching the world’s first catalog-listed psychedelics course since 1981. He is a founding member of the Multidiscipinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a former visiting scientist at Johns Hopkins, editor of Spiritual Growth with Entheogens, and the author of the books Psychedelic Horizons and The Psychedelic Future of the Mind.

After a brief foreword by James Fadiman (author of The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide), Roberts opens the book with a description of his first psychedelic trip, which took place at Lake Tahoe in February 1970. As is the case for many psychonauts, Roberts’ first psychedelic experience had an enormous impact. While it wasn’t his first introduction to psychedelic ideas per se, it did send him further down the psychedelic path, which eventually led to the writing of this revolutionary book.

For those of you who don’t already know, the term “psychedelic” means “mind-manifesting,” and Roberts’ mind has graciously manifested several ideas that are introduced in the book: ideagens, mindapps, multistate theory, mind design, and mindapp artificial intelligences.

Roberts proposes the concept of the “singlestate fallacy,” which is the “hegemonic assumption that all worthwhile thinking takes place only in our ordinary, default mindbody state,” or what most people refer to as our normal waking state of consciousness. This fallacy has as its opposite a framework that Roberts has coined as “multistate theory,” a collection of many different kinds of “mindapps” into one single large, inclusive group.

You might be wondering, “What are mindapps?” Roberts explains them by using a clever analogy: “apps are to devices as mindapps are to minds.” In other words, you can “install” them on your mind for a variety of reasons and benefits. Mindapps include things like exercise routines, meditation, psychoactive plants and chemicals, yoga and the martial arts, sleep and sleep deprivation, chanting, dream work, breathing techniques, and many more like them.

MindApps explores an innovative concept dubbed “MindappAI,” which entails synthesizing new mindbody states and developing them to their highest potential. This will be a task for psychologists and other so-called “mind designers” to tackle, whipping up fresh recipes involving two, three, or even more mindapp ingredients, creating new mind-body states, relating their characteristics, and researching and perfecting them through trial and error.

Mindapps have a myriad of possible use cases—Roberts argues that they can be used to enhance the sciences and save the humanities, and that a newly emerging field of psychedelic philosophy will need to make use of them in order to reach it’s full potential.

The book closes with several points of justification for qualifying multistate theory as a new paradigm, and I have to say that I found Roberts’ argument to be quite persuasive.

But wait, there’s more! Three appendices follow the final chapter, exploring some very intriguing topics—a syllabus for a psychedelic class, how psychedelics can use the corporate system to spread around the globe, and the story of how Roberts created the LSD holiday known as Bicycle Day. These appendices are very thought-provoking and I’m interested to see what a world with widespread psychedelic college classes and psychedelic corporatism might end up looking like.

I found MindApps: Multistate Theory and Tools for Mind Design to be an excellent book. This is the first of Roberts’ books that I’ve read, and I was so impressed with it that I am looking forward to checking out his other works. If you have any interest in psychedelics, consciousness, mind design, or any of the other topics mentioned in this review then you will definitely like this book.

Click here to buy the book.

Disclaimer: Think Wilder is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. I may earn a small commission for my endorsement, recommendation, testimonial, and/or link to any products or services from this website.

In addition, the author provided a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. However, this is not a sponsored post—all thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

Book Review - Getting Higher

Whether you are an experienced psychonaut or a first-time tripper, absorbing understandable and accurate advice about the psychedelic experience before embarking on an entheogenic journey can be extremely valuable. Although I have several years worth of personal experience and tips and tricks that I have picked up from many sources along the way, I was pleasantly surprised to find Julian Vayne's book Getting Higher: The Manual of Psychedelic Ceremony to contain plenty of suggestions and ideas that were new to me, which I will gladly be able to bring to my own psychedelic practice.

A section titled "Setting Out" describes a variety of things that someone may consider doing before embarking on a psychedelic journey, including cleansing the body with a bath or shower, fasting or making other intentional dietary changes, carefully choosing the clothes they are going to wear, cleaning and decorating the physical space, saying prayers or setting an intention, and lighting candles or incense. Additionally, choosing a group of people to trip with that have mutual trust and respect should be a priority. The end of a psychedelic ceremony can involve a formal conclusion to the session. For example, you could give thanks to the spirits of the medicine, extinguish a fire that has been burning through the night, or open the curtains to let the light in, if the experience has happened inside.

The next chapter introduces the concept of practices that can be done outside of psychedelic ceremony that will help you navigate the psychedelic experience. These include breathwork, meditation, various activities involving sound (such as listening to pre-recorded music, making music, drumming, singing, chanting mantras), and a vast array of different types of movements (synchronized or freeform spontaneous dancing, checking in on one's posture and balance, gestures, sensual and sexual activities, etc.).

Another chapter focuses on activities that can be done while high that will guide or intensify the experience for the psychonaut, such as artistic explorations like drawing or painting, consciously consuming content, holding or observing objects that are significant to the tripper, playing games, going on a journey in nature, venturing into a museum on a "museum level" dose, participating at a rave or music festival, experimenting with divinatory practices like tarot or the I Ching, and creating an environment of sensory deprivation like with a float tank. Vayne also goes into great detail about how to plan, organize, and execute an effective medicine circle, which is a way to have a structured—yet highly meaningful—psychedelic experience in a group setting. In fact, there are several descriptions of ceremonies scattered throughout the book that are provided so the reader can gain ideas and inspiration for creating their own unique practice.

Although there can sometimes be a feeling in the psychedelic community that it is imperative to the success of the movement for its members to approach and speak about psychedelics exclusively in a serious manner, Vayne suggests that strict divisions between the concepts of using psychedelics for spirituality, play, and enjoyment are not needed. I tend to agree.

While it is not a primary focus of the book, it does include some scientific research. For example, there is a small section regarding the effects that psychedelics have on the physiological health of the human brain. Research has shown that psychedelics may enhance organic brain processes such as neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain cells to form new connections), and the compounds found in some psychedelics have been demonstrated to cause neurogenesis (the formation of neurons from neural stem cells) in vitro. There are a few more scientific snippets in the book, but it mainly looks at what one can do to create the most optimal conditions for a psychedelic experience.

I was ultimately extremely impressed by Getting Higher, which contains plenty of legitimate advice for psychonauts wishing to take their trips to new levels of intensity or learn how to move through the psychedelic space more effectively. This book is certainly worth reading, regardless of one's skill level with psychedelics, but I do feel like it may be appreciated more by people who have had a few trips under their belt than by complete novices. Perhaps this will even increase the re-readability of this book—for me at least. Only time will tell. However, I am confident that the suggestions in Getting Higher that I highlighted and/or wrote down in my own notes will be helpful for my own psychedelic practice for years to come.

4/5 stars. 135 pages.

This Week in Psychedelics - 2.3.17

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

• Marijuana Prices Are About to Change (ATTN:)
• Colorado Report Says Adolescent Marijuana use 'Has Not Changed Since Legalization' (Reason)
• What Happens to Your Brain If You Start Smoking Weed Before 17 (ATTN:)
• Where Is The Future For Marijuana Banking Reform? (NORML)
• Burger King Drive-Thru Workers Arrested After Allegedly Selling Marijuana at the Drive-Thru (TIME)
• Maine Becomes Eighth State to Eliminate Marijuana Possession Penalties (NORML)
• California Looks to Build $7 Billion Legal Cannabis Economy (Leafly)
• Neurobiologist illuminates the under explored potential of cannabis to address opioid addiction (Science Daily)
• Alaska Rejects Plan to Allow On-Site Consumption at Cannabis Stores (Leafly)
• Hemp and Pot Restrictions Not Dying Fast Enough (Reason)
• Understanding Medical vs. Adult-Use Cannabis Dispensaries (Leafly)
• Cannabis, the hottest new pet supplement (The Signal)
• What Does Gorsuch Think About Cannabis? Not Much. (Leafly)
• Will Cannabis Have Appellations Like Wine? (Merry Jane)
• Cannabis Tax May Not Cure Ailing State Budget (GoodTimes)
• The Many Ways the Cannabis Industry Lacks Traditional Marketing Expertise (Entrepreneur)
• Taxes and Red Tape Keep Colorado's Marijuana Black Market Profitable (Reason)
• Canadian Cannabis Producer to Begin Exports to Chile (Leafly)
• Fun Cannabis History Facts That Will Impress People (Merry Jane)
• How Cannabis Ecommerce Challenges Are Driving Web Innovation (The Advocate)

LSD

• Science Has Finally Discovered Why LSD Trips Last So Long (Maxim)
• LSD's grip on brain protein could explain drug's long-lasting effects (Science News)
• LSD Helps Explain How Our Brains Assign Meaning to Experience (Seeker)
• Russell Brand compares being a dad to LSD trip (Daily Star)
• How 'micro-dosing' LSD helped a woman to 'improve her mental health and save her marriage' (The Independent)
• Give us this day our daily dose: Ergot, LSD and the Israelites (Psychedelic Press UK)
• Denzel Nkemdiche lost passion for football, experimented with LSD at Ole Miss (The Comeback)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

• A psychedelics expert says magic mushrooms will be approved for depression by 2027 – here's why (Yahoo! Finance)
• Magic Mushrooms as Mental Health Treatment (U.S. News and World Report)
• A man who took magic mushrooms for a scientific study said it helped him see a basic truth about relationships (Business Insider)
• Magic mushroom' drug eases cancer patient anxiety (Knowridge Science Report)

MDMA/Ecstasy

• Government-Approved Study of MDMA for PTSD Accepting Applications for Participants Soon (The Joint Blog)
• Someone Tried To Make A POV Experience Video Of MDMA (Stoney Roads)
• Three pupils 'collapse after taking ecstasy at prestigious school' (Metro)
• Teen drug dealer admits selling ecstasy which killed tragic schoolgirl and left two others in hospital (Mirror)

Ayahuasca/DMT

• 9 Investigates: Local church offering 'legal' ayahuasca (WFTV)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

• ART SEEN: Artist explores contemporary meaning of peyote and ayahuasca (Vancouver Sun)

Iboga/Ibogaine

• Recovering From Addiction: Interview with Ibogaine Aftercare Provider Justin Hoffman (Psychedelic Times)
• New York Times Carries a Full Page Ad about Plant Medicine Ibogaine to Combat the Opiate Epidemic Presented by Social Movement "Your Mind Has Rights" (Satellite Press Releases)
• The Latest Addiction Treatment is Making Noise – Ibogaine Claims to Offer Addiction Interruption (Military Technologies)
• Global ibogaine: A lucrative safe-haven for the cannabis industry? (The Leaf)
• Ibogaine Aftercare and Integration: Interview with Justin Hoffman and Tishara Lee Cousino (Psychedelic Times)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

• Teen died after taking LSD-type drug, stripping and jumping into river (Exeter Express and Echo)

Dissociatives

• How Ketamine Could Be Used to Treat Alcoholism (Munchies)
• Ketamine's Versatility Makes it a Powerful Tool for EMS (JEMS.com)
• Can Craving for Cocaine Be Blocked in Addicted Individuals? (Psychology Today)
• Antidepressants Induce Resilience and Reverse Susceptibility (Science Daily)
• How Ketamine could cure depression (Drug Target Review)
• Lawyer says client on PCP when he lit fire in Springfield courthouse (MassLive)

Opiates/Opioids

• Life-saving naloxone prices soar along with its usage (Lancaster Online)
• Afghanistan: As Taliban Depends More on Heroin Anti-Cultivation Efforts Plummet (Breitbart)
• Health groups want to increase access to naloxone (The Washington Times)
• DEA seizes $1.8 million in heroin, fentanyl (Boston Herald)
• Kroger pharmacies make Naloxone available without a prescription (WHSV)
• Fix Narcotic Abuse Cycle Before Throwing Naloxone at Every Overdose Patient (JEMS.com)
• Could THIS stop heroin addictions? Scientists discover electroshock therapy helps to reduce cravings (Daily Mail)

Absinthe

• When Happy Hour Was "Green Hour" in Paris (Smithsonian)

Kambô

• Five Methods to Reduce Overall Risk When Taking Kambo (Psychedelic Times)

Kratom

• National Institute of Health study on "Dangers of Kratom" references evidence that doesn't exist (MuckRock)
• DEA Asked Public To Comment On Its Proposed Kratom Ban And 99 Percent Opposed It (The Huffington Post)
• DEA withdraws plan to ban kratom (Gates-Chili Post)
• Controversial Kratom Growing in Popularity (Monthly Prescribing Reference)

Kava

• Krave Kava Bar opens in Greensboro (Greensboro News & Record)
• Greater Binghamton's first kava bar to open on First Friday (Binghamton Homepage)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

• Ethan Nadelmann's Farewell Letter to Drug Policy Alliance Staff (Drug Policy Alliance)
• Rodrigo Duterte Just Put the Philippines' Drug War on Hold (TIME)
• Senate Judiciary Advances the Nomination of Marijuana Prohibitionist Jeff Sessions to be the Attorney General (NORML)
• Here's That Time Jeff Sessions Wanted to Execute Drug Dealers (Reason)
• A Healing Crisis to Make You Whole: Breaking Down the Benefits of Holotropic Breathwork (Psychedelic Times)
• The truth about 'microdosing', which involves taking tiny amounts of psychedelics like LSD (Business Insider)
• Bluenosers latest, literal drug trip doc in the works (The Chronicle Herald)
• Repairs Uncover Cocaine Worth $434K in Airplane's Nose Gear (NBC 6 Miami)
• Bay Area Patients Find Psychiatric Relief From Psychedelic Therapy (CBS San Francisco)

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.