Think Wilder

Cannabis

All eyes on Canada as first G7 nation prepares to make marijuana legal (The Guardian)
Bipartisan Legislation Introduced To Protect States That Have Legalized Marijuana (NORML)
65 percent of Americans say it’s ‘morally acceptable’ to smoke pot (The Washington Post)
Study: Majority Of Chronic Pain Patients Replace Opioids With Cannabis (NORML)
Legalising cannabis ‘could earn Treasury £3.5bn’ (The Guardian)
Republican Rules Committee Blocks Veterans Medical Cannabis Amendments (NORML)
Banned from Wall Street, US cannabis companies go north (CNN)
Looking For Big Returns In The Cannabis Market? Look East, Not West (Forbes)
Virginia: Crime Data Shows Surge In Marijuana Arrests (NORML)
Colorado's Governor, Who Founded a Brewpub, Nixes Cannabis 'Tasting Rooms' (Reason)
Some California hospitals report uptick in ER visits for cannabis (Daily Democrat)
Part 3, The Most Common Qualifying Conditions for MMJ (Leafly)
L.A. Supervisors Support Bill to Automatically Expunge Some Cannabis Convictions (LA Weekly)
Portland Has Nearly Twice as Many Pot Shops as Liquor Stores (Willamette Week)
Watch This: Celebrities Keep Educating Conan About Cannabis (Leafly)
It's The 1st Day Cannabis Licenses In Mass. Can Be Issued, But Expect A Slow Rollout (New England Public Radio)
Why we must legalise cannabis now for the sake of public health (The Guardian)
A Dietitian's Surprising Take on Cannabis Edibles (U.S. News & World Report)
The Ontario Election: What Does It Mean For Cannabis? (Leafly)
NORML's Jared Polis Endorsement and Growing Power of Marijuana Voters (Westword)
High time India, the land of bhang, legalises marijuana: Shashi Tharoor (ThePrint)
Everything you wanted to know about cannabis legalization … but forgot to ask (The Guardian)
Why we need better, smarter, panic-free education on cannabis (The Conversation)
These Are The 4 Big Buzzwords in the Cannabis Industry Right Now (Entrepreneur)
The Cannabis Strains of Summer (for Every Tolerance Level) (East Bay Express)
California’s First Cannabis Business Owners Policy Approved (Insurance Journal)
Medical cannabis and the challenge for regulation of medicines (The Conversation)
Cannabis industry leaders opine on budding business (Bristol Herald Courier)

LSD

The political significance of LSD (Open Democracy)
‘Largest ever LSD haul in Germany’ seized in Rhineland-Palatinate (The Local)
Sheriff: Wrong-way driver on LSD thought he was in video game 'Grand Theft Auto' (KVAL)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

California won't vote on psilocybin this year. Denver still might. (Rooster)
What Ever Happened to Denver's Magic Mushroom Initiative? (Westword)
When A Maryland Man Posted Pictures Of Morel Mushroom On Facebook, The Cops Showed Up (Inquisitr)
What It’s Like to Trip on the Most Potent Magic Mushroom (The Atlantic)
Psychedelic Medicine 101: Psilocybin and the magic of mushrooms (New Atlas)

MDMA/Ecstasy

Yours for £2: artist Chemical X donates ‘ecstasy’ work as prize for drug test charity (The Guardian)
Festival goers warned of high dose batches of ecstasy following deaths in UK (Independent.ie)
MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy Mitigates PTSD Symptoms (Medscape)

Ayahuasca/DMT/5-MeO-DMT

Is it Cultural Appropriation for White People to Drink Ayahuasca? (Kahpi)
Spiritual exploration is the top reason people consume 5-MeO-DMT, study finds (PsyPost)
A Shamanic View of How Ayahuasca & Nature Communicate With Us (Kahpi)
Psychedelic tourism thrives in Peru despite recent killing (San Francisco Chronicle)
Ayahuasca Pilot Study Investigates the Meaning of Life and Death: Interview with Brad Adams, Ph.D. (Psychedelic Times)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

The Essential Guide to Mescaline (The Third Wave)

Synthetic Cannabinoids/Psychoactive Research Chemicals

Synthetic Weed Is Back, Bigger Than Ever, and Scary as Hell (The Daily Beast)

Dissociatives

From Chaos To Calm: A Life Changed By Ketamine (WMOT)
NPR (yet again) writes uncritically about ketamine for mental illness (Health News Review)
Guidelines for Use of IV Ketamine Infusions for Acute Pain Management Released (MD Magazine)

Opiates/Opioids

High Schoolers Who Use Heroin Commonly Use Multiple Other Drugs (NYU News)
Naloxone Recalled Due To Particulate Matter (CBS Pittsburgh)
A new study shows stigma is hurting our response to the opioid epidemic (Vox)
She Went to Jail for a Drug Relapse. Tough Love or Too Harsh? (The New York Times)
Suggested Paths to Fixing the Opioid Crisis (JAMA Network)
U.S. Hunger For Opioid Alternative Drives Boom in Borneo Jungle (Bloomberg)
This Is Your Hand on Opioids: Trump's 'Very Bad Commercials' Rely on Dishonest and Pernicious Scare Tactics (Reason)
She paid nothing for opioid painkillers. Her addiction treatment costs more than $200 a month. (Vox)
Farmers tell govt to lift ban on cultivation of opium (The Tribune)

Absinthe

Absinthe Market will touch a new level in upcoming year – Key Players involved in the research (The Financial)

Kratom

6 Most Common Myths About Kratom (Kratom Guides)
Kratom advocates fight FDA crackdown (Washington Examiner)
Buying Kratom In Canada? Is that Kratom legal In Canada? (Kratom Guides)
FDA warns about possible contaminated herbal supplement parents may need to worry about (KUTV)
Where To Buy Kratom In New York And Is It Legal? (Kratom Guides)
What Are The Best Kratom Strains For Pain? (Kratom Guides)
Top Extracts Botanicals Review – The Best Vendor To Buy Kratom Online (Kratom Guides)
What Is The Legal Status of Kratom In Tennessee? (Kratom Guides)
Companies Leading In Selling Kratom And CBD/Hemp Products Online (Kratom Guides)
Is Kratom Legal In Florida In 2018 (Kratom Guides)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

Psychedelic drug use associated with reduced partner violence in men (EurekAlert!)
FDA Monitors Social Media for Drug Abuse Trends (Pain News Network)
Michael Pollan Drops Acid — and Comes Back From His Trip Convinced (The New York Times)
How should we be teaching students about drugs? (Psymposia)
Rhode Island Wants to Treat Drug Dealers Like Murderers (Reason)
With The Rise Of Legal Weed, Drug Education Moves From 'Don't' to 'Delay' (NPR)
Bangladesh accused of using drugs war to hide political assassinations (The Telegraph)
The Feds Are Raiding the Offices of Doctors Who Prescribe Addiction Medication (Tonic)
Festival drug-testing shows a way to reduce harm (The Economist)
How psychedelic drugs made a comeback (DailyO)
A debate over plant consciousness is forcing us to confront the limitations of the human mind (Quartz)
Bestival to offer drug testing facilities for first time in bid to prevent more drug-related deaths (The Independent)
The Stigma Surrounding Hallucinogens Took Root in Western Colonialism (71 Republic)
Michael Pollan & the Objectification of the Psychedelic Experience (Disinfo)
Manchester's night-time adviser backs drug testers for festivals and clubs (The Guardian)
On Religious Sacraments: Holy Crackers and 'Evil Drugs' (Andrew Joseph)
Renewed interest in psychedelics as potentially useful therapeutic agents (Drug and Alcohol Research Connections)
We've been fighting the drug war for 50 years. So why aren't we winning? (The Appeal)
The Myth of People Who “Don’t Use Drugs” (Psychedelic Heaven)
About Me: Lawyer, Writer, Psychedelic Enthusiast (Andrew Joseph)
Psychedelics and Personality (ACS Publications)
The UK’s Cruel Drug Laws Ruin Lives, Including My Son’s (Talking Drugs)

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.

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

*Image by Lisa Omarali, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.*

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

1. There was yet another great piece at Ask The Festival Lawyer this week. This time, the topic is: are drug testing reagent kits technically legal and do they qualify as drug paraphernalia? The bottom line is that testing kits are essentially legal under all federal drug laws, and for the most part are legal for personal ownership under state laws. However, owners of head shops in states where drug paraphernalia laws include the a limitation on devices that "identify, analyze, or test" controlled substances should be wary that they may technically fall on the other side of the law because they are operating a business. All in all, it comes down to something I've talked about a few times on Think Wilder—shouldn't harm reduction practices that enable people to have know the purity of what they are planning to ingest be allowed?

2. Defying a Supreme Court decision, the country of India banned pornography websites and then reversed its decision less than 48 hours later, after worldwide criticism. But ISPs are still going to block the websites anyway. Regardless of your personal opinion about pornography, is it right for an entire country to block access to parts of the Internet?

3. I enjoyed this take on the struggle with social media. Points made include the reinforcement of one's ego when seeking likes and comments, the ability to make connections with strangers who live far away, the lurking possibility of those connections becoming mere distractions, and the balance between honesty and fakery that exists when promoting one's work on social media platforms. As someone who spends a fair amount of time on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the Psychedelic Chat on Slack, I can definitely relate to a lot of the points made here. I find that choosing to use social media involves a lot of responsibility, and is not always strictly a fun experience.

4. Speaking of banning things, Los Angeles county is planning to move forward with banning EDM festivals altogether following the deaths of some patrons of HARD Summer Music Festival last week. The deaths have been anecdotally attributed to MDMA, but there isn't any solid evidence to confirm that at this time. It seems to me that improving (and in some cases, simply implementing) harm reduction practices would be a better solution than restricting an entire music genre's ability to put on a music festival.

5. I'm really fascinated by the infographics that have been making their way around the Internet that show what happens one hour after consuming a can of Coca-Cola or Diet Coke. I had a love affair with sodas for a large portion of my life, but gave them up almost entirely a few years ago. Nowadays I only have a soda once or twice a year, and I am glad that I have cut back so drastically from the days when I used to drink 192 ounces of Mountain Dew every day!

6. A piece on the differences between deliberate mindfulness and effortless mindfulness.

7. New scientific research showing that a diet high in leafy greens, beans, berries, wholegrains and wine can slow cognitive decline. Eat your fruits and veggies!

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