This Week in Psychedelics - 10.1.21

Cannabis

• Bill To Federally Legalize Marijuana Approved By Key House Committee (Marijuana Moment)

• Marijuana Arrests Fall Precipitously Nationwide in 2020 (NORML)

• California Governor Signs Bill To Allow Medical Marijuana Use In Hospitals For Severely Ill Patients (Marijuana Moment)

• Kansas City, MO: City Council Approves Measure Eliminating Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing for Most City Workers (NORML)

• Hundreds prescribed medical cannabis in bid to persuade lawmakers to offer it on NHS (Mirror)

• Mississippi Lawmakers Move to Implement Medical Cannabis Legislation (High Times)

• Los Angeles: District Attorney to Vacate Some 60,000 Marijuana Convictions (NORML)

• DEA Still Insists Marijuana Has No 'Accepted Medical Use' (Reason)

• The Making Of New York’s $150 Million ‘Cannabis Campus’ (Forbes)

• What are they smoking? CNN says study found cannabis could double heart attack risk – but did it? (The Cannigma)

• Pennsylvania Lawmakers Unveil Marijuana Legalization Bill With Focus On Social Equity (Marijuana Moment)

• Your Smartphone Can Tell If You’re High On Marijuana, Study Finds (Forbes)

• Nebraska Advocates Launch Signature Drive For 2022 Medical Marijuana Ballot Measures (Marijuana Moment)

• Curbside Recreational Weed Pickups End in Massachusetts (High Times)

• Federal Grant Approved to Study Medical Marijuana Impact in Arkansas (High Times)

LSD

• Cannot treat LSD and its carrier material as separate, says court Cannot treat LSD and its carrier material as separate, says court (The Times of India)

Magic Mushrooms

• From Sugar To Psychedelics: The European Companies Testing Biosynthetic Psilocybin In Humans (Forbes)

• Decrim California’s Plan to Regulate Psilocybin Via Ballot (Truffle Report)

• My Bipolar Mother's Quest For Relief With Magic Mushrooms (VICE)

• Oregon Board to Vote on Psilocybin Facilitator Program (Truffle Report)

• Red Light Holland: Initial Results From Red Light Oregon Market Research in Oregon Show 86% of Adults Interested in Psilocybin Services are Interested in Microdosing (Psilocybin Alpha)

MDMA

• MINDCURE Launches “Desire Project” To Treat Female Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder With MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Levels of MDMA and cocaine in river running through Glastonbury Festival site so high they could harm wildlife, scientists say (Independent.ie)

• Police urging parents to inspect Halloween candy after ecstasy discovered (Fox News)

• MDMA: A Catalyst for ED-PTSD Treatment (Psychedelic Science Review)

DMT

• Companies Compete to Create DMT Therapies (Lucid News)

Ayahuasca

• Will Smith Embarked On A Dozen Ayahuasca Rituals In Peru After Denzel Washington Sold Him On The “F*ck It 50s” (BroBible)

• Man charged after alleged sex assault linked to ayahuasca ceremony (CBC)

Novel Psychoactive Substances

• Delix Therapeutics Closes $70 Million Series A Financing to Advance Pipeline of Novel Psychoplastogen Therapeutics to Treat Brain Disorders (Psilocybin Alpha)

• BetterLife Files Patent for TD-0148A for Treatment of Cluster Headaches and Related Disorders (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Mindset Pharma Expands Pipeline: Identifies Additional Next Generation 5-MeO-DMT-Inspired Lead Candidates (Psilocybin Alpha)

Ketamine

• Ketamine use on patients with excited delirium and cocaine intoxication increases intubation rate (News-Medical.net)

Miscellaneous

• Ending The Silence Around Psychedelic Therapy Abuse (Mad in America)

• Can Psychedelic Drugs Treat Physical Pain? (Scientific American)

• Toronto University Health Network Launches Psychedelic Psychotherapy Research Centre (Psilocybin Alpha)

• Seattle City Council Takes First Step Toward Decriminalizing Psychedelic Plants And Fungi (Marijuana Moment)

• Florida Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Study Psychedelics (Truffle Report)

• DoubleBlind Magazine's First-Ever Psychedelics Billboard Campaign Is Turning New Yorkers On To Plant Medicine (Benzinga)

• Psychedelics might reduce internalized shame and complex trauma symptoms in those with a history of childhood abuse (PsyPost)

• Massachusetts Lawmakers Discuss Drug Decriminalization And Safe Injection Sites At Hearing (Marijuana Moment)

• Bay Staters for Natural Medicine on Easthampton Decrim (Truffle Report)

• ‘Psychedelics renaissance’: new wave of research puts hallucinogenics forward to treat mental health (The Guardian)

• Are Psychedelic Drugs the Answer to Veterans’ PTSD? (Men's Health)

• 19-Year-Old New Hampshire Lawmaker Prepares Bills To Decriminalize Psilocybin And All Drugs (Marijuana Moment)

• Elon Musk Embraces Potential of Psychedelics at CodeCon (High Times)

• How Effective Is Fireside Project's Psychedelic Hotline? New Study Aims To Find Out (Forbes)

• Psychedelics and Pregnancy: A Look Into the Safety, Research and Legality (Psychedelics Today)

• Pantheistic Insights: Vegetarianism in Psychedelic Culture (The Oak Tree Review)

• 'The End In Mind' Conference Answers Questions About Psychedelics For End-Of-Life Patients (Forbes)

• Community Alert! Arrests and Encounters with Law Enforcement are Increasing (Chacruna)

• People Are Facing Legal Repercussions for Serving Plant Medicine — Here’s What’s Being Done to Help Them (DoubleBlind)

• Does psychedelic microdosing work? Brain study will be the real acid test (The New Daily)

• Psychedelia in the Soviet Union (Reality Sandwich)

• The Mystical Experience Defines Psychedelics (Lucid News)

• Investors Turning to Psychedelic Market as Renaissance Continues into New Wave of Diseases (PR Newswire)

• Why Psychedelic Therapy Needs Best Practices & How to Get There (The Third Wave)

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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.

Weekend Thoughts - 3.11.17

Image by Andrea Kirkby, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. Possibly the biggest news this week (as far as Think Wilder readers would be concerned) was WikiLeaks' publication of CIA hacking secrets, titled "Vault 7". The release contains 8,761 documents and represents "the majority of [the CIA] hacking arsenal including malware, viruses, trojans, weaponized 'zero day' exploits, malware remote control systems and associated documentation," according to WikiLeaks. Among the most interesting to U.S. citizens are vulnerabilities found in the iOS, Android, and Windows operating systems, methods to compromise end-to-end encrypted chat applications, and the ability to turn Samsung smart TVs into listening devices. From my understanding, most of these exploits require the CIA to have physical access to a device, not that the encryptions themselves were broken. It's worth taking a look to familiarize yourself with how the agency has been carrying out its operations so far, and what its capabilities are when it comes to spying on people using technological means.

2. The situation at the U.S. border has gotten more complex over the past several weeks. A new development in that story occurred this week when Border Patrol started increasing their demands for passwords and searching private electronic devices. And it turns out that they're legally allowed to do so. When traveling inside the U.S. border, the TSA is not allowed to confiscate devices or ask for passwords, because citizens are protected by the Fourth and Fifth amendments. But since Border Patrol is not technically located inside of the border, those protections do not necessarily apply. For now, Border Patrol is operating inside of a grey area, unimpeded by our rights against unreasonable searches and self-incrimination. If you're interested in protecting yourself as much as possible when traveling abroad-and-back, I suggest taking a look at the Electronic Frontier Foundation's "Pocket Guide To Protecting Your Data".

3. In interesting nutrition-related news, new research shows that there was no such thing as a "typical Neanderthal diet"—some Neanderthals ate meat, and others were strict vegetarians. This development throws some shade on the so-called "Paleo Diet", which may be more accurately represented as a "no-carb diet", because the true Paleo Diet consisted of whatever was available in one's environment. Essentially, the findings represent a more adaptive type of being:

"Those that occupied southern regions with relatively warm climates, consumed different types of foods, including meat and vegetables," says Luca Fiorenza from Monash University (not involved with the study). "But Neanderthals that lived in very harsh conditions, such as northern Europe, were forced to rely on the limited sources available—meat."

It's nice to know that the scientific findings back up the conviction that I always held, which was that our ancestors just ate whatever was around so that they could continue surviving—not that they were strict carnivores or strict vegans.

4. I'm a huge fan of the Instant Pot, which is a combination slow-cooker, pressure cooker, rice cooker, and more. I use it nearly every day to batch cook recipes, and find the device easy to use, easy to clean, and a massive time-saver. The BBC wrote a feature story on the success of the Instant Pot and how it developed a cult following that is worth a read. And if you're interested in purchasing one, I definitely advise it! I might suggest waiting until this year's Amazon Prime Day (if you are an Amazon Prime customer) because they were sold at a nice discount during last year's Prime Day event.

5. As a regular book reader, I especially enjoyed this article showing 10 reasons why reading is important. The various benefits include sharpening your mind, lowering stress levels, increasing your vocabulary, enhancing your imagination, and boosting your sleep—among many others! So if you needed any reasons to increase your reading time, look no further!

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

Weekend Thoughts - 9.12.15

Image by William, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. A brief summary of how being vegan tremendously helps the environment. Aside from the scientifically-proven health benefits and demonstrating compassion toward animals, this article details how vegans are actively combatting the largest source of carbon emissions (meat), how climate change creates and exacerbates human and animal health issues, the plunging cost of vegan diets compared to omnivorous diets, and how vegans have a drastically-reduced carbon footprint. Studies have shown that vegans save 1,100 gallons of water, 20 pounds of CO2 equivalent, 30 square feet of forested land, 45 pounds of grain, and one animal's life each day. To me, going vegan was a no-brainer decision, although it can require a bit more planning and acceptance of increased responsibility than the standard American diet. Having been a vegetarian for two years and a vegan for 1.5 years, I don't see myself ever going back to my prior omnivorous ways and greatly enjoy my current lifestyle and diet. I do understand that it is not for everyone, but I believe that everyone can take steps, no matter how big or small, toward a more sustainable diet.

2. An article on the "dark side" of coffee explores the harms that the drink can cause and suggests healthier alternatives for readers to try. Although many people have no doubt seen studies showing that coffee is beneficial to health, there is enough contradictory evidence showing that it is actually damaging instead. I imagine that we may be in an era that believes coffee is beneficial to one's health, similar to how previous generations believed cigarettes were healthy. The article is definitely worth a read, and it's worth considering whether drinking coffee is actually helping you or not. I would suggest doing what I have done before: cut out coffee for several days, weeks, months, or years, and then return to it and see how you feel.

3. Is American car culture being replaced by technology and social media? An article explores the emerging trend of age-eligible teenagers who opt-out of obtaining their driver's licenses at 16. Back in the day, teenagers were more-than-excited to earn their licenses as soon as they hit the required age mark, but nowadays they are opting to wait longer. The article proposes the idea that maybe the ability to reach more people and explore more of the world via a mobile phone has replaced the desire to get behind the wheel. 

4. I enjoyed this light-hearted piece about the science behind why we kiss. It turns out that it is a combination of nature and nurture—kissing most likely originated from a missed attempt to smell another human up-close-and-personal style, and the act is a learned behavior that most hunter-gather societies don't share.

5. Former federal prisoner Michael Santos explains how he learned about the Internet and published a website from inside prison. His story is full of great tidbits, like how he realized a lot had changed in society when he got online and saw that the average attention span was drastically shorter due to the short formats that social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and Vine have popularized. I was especially enchanted by the way that he used the Internet to help him achieve success in the real world, which is generally a very difficult for ex-prisoners to do.

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

Weekend Thoughts - 7.11.15

Image by markheybo, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

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

1. A splendid article from The New York Times recapping the Grateful Dead's Fare Thee Well tour. Having live streamed all the shows from the comfort of my couch (traveling to the Santa Clara and Chicago did not work out for me), I felt like this article did the tour justice.

2. Following this week's Fare The Well theme, here is a solid article describing the demise of Shakedown Street, the area that existed in parking lots outside of venues where Deadheads tailgated, sold, and traded goods before, during, and after the shows. From my experience, Shakedown Street lives on at lots outside of certain bands' shows and music festivals. It's not gone or dead, it's just in different places. "You just gotta poke around."

3. I really enjoyed a recent piece on Reality Sandwich that discusses the American religious right to use psychedelics in an effort to "yoke" with the universe. (In this sense, "yoking" refers to becoming one with the universe, in the same way that "yoga" means "union".) It articulates some of my beliefs better than I feel I ever could, and is definitely worth a read.

4. Americans ate 400 million fewer animals in 2014. This may indicate that Americans are increasingly eating less meat and/or becoming vegetarians/vegans, which is great news.

5. Speaking of eating less meat, Arby's wants you to do exactly the opposite. The company has set up a "Vegetarian Support Hotline" for "tempted vegetarians" to call for advice on whether or not to eat its new Brown Sugar-Glazed Pepper Bacon. Supposedly there will be an option to leave a message, so please feel free to troll away!

6. In yet another example of how super awesome asset forfeiture and the DEA is, agents stole $44,000 of cash from a nail salon owner at JFK Airport. There is no evidence that the accused party ever violated the Controlled Substances Act, and now he has no recourse to recover his stolen funds.

7. In case you haven't seen it already, check out some of the psychedelic images that are being randomly generated by Google's DeepDream code.

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