This Week in Psychedelics - 2.25.22

Cannabis

• Where Is The Cannabis Industry Headed In 2022? (Forbes)

• The Media’s War on Cannabis (Volteface)

• Michigan marijuana recall reversal let businesses sell contaminated cannabis (MLive.com)

• Why you still can’t buy legal pot in N.J. 16 months after voters gave the go-ahead (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

• Customers At South Dakota’s Only Medical Dispensary Still Getting Arrested (High Times)

• The US cannabis industry now supports 428,059 jobs (Leafly)

• Cannabis shown to be an effective treatment option for back pain: Study review (The GrowthOp)

• New Law Could Help Free Louisiana Man Serving Life in Prison For Cannabis (High Times)

• South Dakota Governor Won’t Rule Out Vetoing Marijuana Legalization Bill That Passed The Senate (Marijuana Moment)

• New Zealand Police Reboot Illegal Cannabis Operation Search After Year of Inactivity (High Times)

• Marijuana Legalization Bill Heads To Delaware House Floor Following Second Committee Approval (Marijuana Moment)

• Oregon Lawmakers Take On State’s Illicit Pot Operations (High Times)

• Maryland Lawmakers Vote To Put Marijuana Legalization Referendum On November Ballot (Marijuana Moment)

• London drug trial a vital but ‘tiny’ step (Green World)

• College Students Who Use Marijuana Show Signs Of Greater Motivation Compared To Non-Users, Study Finds (Marijuana Moment)

• California Bill Would Protect Cannabis Users From Employment Discrimination (High Times)

• Our outdated marijuana laws put Americans in danger. It's past time for federal cannabis reforms. (USA Today)

• Three In Four Florida Voters Support Legalizing Marijuana, New Poll Finds (Marijuana Moment)

Magic Mushrooms

• Psilocybe ovoideocystidiata: The Ohio Valley Shroom Taking Over the World (DoubleBlind)

• Probing How Magic Mushrooms Might Help Cure Addiction (Discover)

• Oregon Senators Approve Psilocybin Equity Bill In Committee (Marijuana Moment)

• Oklahoma Lawmakers Pass Psilocybin Bill in Committee (Truffle Report)

• Second Hawaii Senate Committee Approves Psilocybin Task Force Bill, With Decriminalization Measures Still Pending (Marijuana Moment)

• Can ‘magic mushrooms’ make the trip to legal in conservative Utah? (The Salt Lake Tribune)

MDMA

• MDMA Doesn't Actually Cause Comedowns, New Study Finds (VICE)

DMT

• New study offers a detailed glimpse into the otherworldly encounters produced by the psychedelic drug DMT (PsyPost)

• The First-Ever Clinical Trial For DMT Use In Major Depressive Disorder Show Promise (The Dales Report)

• Tackling Trauma with Pharmahuasca and DMT (Psychedelic Science Review)

Mescaline

• Lophos Pharma: Exploring the Potential of Mescaline (Truffle Report)

Iboga

• Gabon Takes First Step Toward Legal Export of Sustainable Iboga (Lucid News)

Nitrous Oxide

• No laughing matter: sale of nitrous oxide banned to minors (The Brussels Times)

Ketamine

• N.B. clinic brings psychedelic drug to mainstream to treat PTSD (CBC)

Miscellaneous

• The Insights Psychedelics Give You Aren’t Always True (VICE)

• Your Brain on Psychedelics Might Look the Same as Your Brain on Religious Mysticism (DoubleBlind)

• Top Federal Drug Agency Funds Research On Differing Legal Marijuana Regulatory Models (Marijuana Moment)

• California’s Proposed Psychedelic Decrim Bill Paused in State Assembly (Lucid News)

• The Corporatization of Psychedelics Would Be a Disaster (Jacobin)

• Police Keep Arresting People For Drugs Even As Incarceration Rates Drop, Pew Study Finds (Marijuana Moment)

• Reclaiming Ownership of Your Body With Psychedelics (Psychedelics Today)

• At Harvard, Psychedelic Drugs' Tentative Renaissance (The Harvard Crimson)

• Utah Senate Committee Approves Psychedelics Study Task Force Bill That Already Passed House (Marijuana Moment)

• Is the Hype Around Psychedelics Bursting? (Psychology Today)

• What’s Next for Australia’s Psychedelics Movement? (Truffle Report)

• Why Victoria should review its response to drugs and decriminalise usage (The Age)

• After Its Vilification In The 1960s, There Is Now A Renaissance In Psychedelic Drugs To Help Treat Depression And Mental Health Issues (Forbes)

• Do Psychedelic Drug Therapies Actually Require Getting High? (Discover)

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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 catalog how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Not All Ayahuasca Is Made Equal

Jasmine Virdi, writing for Psychedelics Today:

As the use of ayahuasca becomes increasingly widespread, the Amazonian vine has extended its roots beyond the traditional indigenous and religious contexts of South America, lending itself to a newly evolving field of practice. However, the economic viability of ayahuasca ceremonies combined with the vine’s complicated legal status opens the field to a plurality of malpractice, particularly when it comes to what practitioners actually serve in the cup.

Since it is a plant medicine, ayahuasca naturally varies in quality (including differences in strength, chemical makeup, psychoactive and physical effect, and taste) depending on the plants that are used, where those plants come from, the skill of the person concocting the brew, and other factors. To better understand this phenomenon, researchers from Estonia and Brazil analyzed the differences in ayahuasca brews from multiple traditions:

Their study, yet to be published, analyzed changing distributions of DMT, harmine, harmaline, and tetrahydroharmine (THH) across 102 ayahuasca samples. These samples were taken from different locations in Europe and Brazil, spanning across different traditions including indigenous shamanic, Santo Daime, and neo-shamanic.

Interesting tendencies emerged based on the traditions from which the samples came, with indigenous brews showing a balanced ratio between the concentrations of DMT, THH, and harmine. Samples that came from the ayahuasca religion, Santo Daime, also showed a similar balance between chemical compounds, although some brews tended towards increased concentrations of DMT.

However, when it came to brews received from neo-shamanic facilitators of different backgrounds, there was notably more variation between chemical constituents, and on average, they contained substantially greater concentrations of DMT than indigenous brews.

This study found that the ayahuasca brewed in indigenous communities and the Santo Daime church is more consistent than the brews made by neo-shamans. Perhaps not surprisingly, neo-shamanic brews are more likely to include additional additives and contaminants, and some neo-shamans are effectively creating a counterfeit product and attempting to pass it off as legitimate ayahuasca. That’s because so-called “anahuasca” and “pharmahuasca” brews are not made from traditional plants but instead use different plants, fungi, or pharmaceutical drugs to imitate the effects of classical ayahuasca. Interestingly, this practice is virtually nonexistent within more established ayahuasca traditions:

Comparatively, there was no counterfeit ayahuasca found among disciplined ayahuasca traditions such as the Santo Daime and among indigenous practitioners. In South America in general, the raw materials to make ayahuasca are both abundant and affordable, removing any incentive to replace them with other plants or pharmaceuticals.

Kronman argues that “we as a community [need to] work to develop self-regulating mechanisms that foster and encourage transparent practices” and I agree. The issue is not that alternative brews should be avoided altogether (I’m all for responsible psychoactive experimentation), but rather that people who drink ayahuasca should always be informed about the specific plants that were used in the brew, and they should absolutely steer clear of drinking with facilitators who aren’t fully transparent about what is in their ayahuasca brew or act offended when asked what ingredients are in it.

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