This Week in Psychedelics - 4.15.16

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.

Cannabis

  • How Can Cannabis Help Transgender People? (Leafly)
  • Do More Teenagers Smoke Pot When It's Legal? (Reason)
  • Cannabis Extracts: The Science Behind Cannabinoid and Terpene Extraction Methods (Leafly)
  • Half of Britain now backs legalising cannabis, poll finds (Metro)
  • Call for legalisation reignites cannabis debate in France (FRANCE 24)
  • The Word "Marijuana" Versus the Word "Cannabis" (The Stranger)
  • DOJ Accepts Decision Saying It May Not Target State-Legal Medical Marijuana Suppliers (Reason)
  • Cannabis Consumers: Debunking the 5 Biggest Stereotypes (Green Rush Daily)
  • How Cannabis Affects Male Infertility (ATTN:)
  • A Look Inside Mettrum, A Medical Cannabis Provider (The Huffington Post)
  • MassRoots Files To Be NASDAQ's First Cannabis Stock (Forbes)
  • Pennsylvania Poised to Become the 24th Medical Marijuana State (Reason)
  • Disabled Man Sentenced to Life in Prison Over Marijuana (ATTN:)
  • Pizza box unfolds into a weed pipe (Boing Boing)
  • Wide World of Cannabis: The Women Behind Weed Legalization in Chile (Merry Jane)
  • This Man's Letter to Justin Trudeau About Marijuana Is Going Viral (ATTN:)
  • Dosing Homemade Cannabis Edibles: Why It's Nearly Impossible to Calculate Potency (Leafly)
  • The Plight to End Stoner Culture and Make Cannabis Mainstream (Merry Jane)
  • Waterstones defends selling 'how-to' guides on growing and dealing your own cannabis (Express)
  • The Shake: The Feds Grow Brickweed and Cannabis Is a Staple in Spokane (Leafly)
  • Father and son's cannabis growing operation in Nelson medically motivated (Stuff.co.nz)
  • Ted Cruz Reiterates His Support for Marijuana Federalism (Reason)
  • In Photos: These "Dragon Balls" Contain 3,000 Grams of Pure Cannabis Oil (Leafly)
  • Judge Revives Maine's Marijuana Legalization Initiative (Reason)
  • Pot shops in Pagosa Springs, Fort Collins subjects of cannabis recalls (The Cannabist)

LSD

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

  • Girl, 16, Busted With Psilocybin, Cocaine in Lake Elsinore: Police (Patch)

MDMA/Ecstasy

  • MDMA For PTSD And Anxiety: Molly, Ecstasy May Be Legal As Medical Drug In Five Years (Inquisitr)
  • MAPS 30th Anniversary Fundraising Dinner to Raise Funds for MDMA PTSD Study (Psychedelic Times)
  • Former police officer escapes serving jail time after pleading guilty to possessing cocaine and MDMA (Herald Sun)
  • Club-drug trafficker eluded justice for 16 years, feds say (Orlando Sentinel)
  • Hundreds of MDMA pills found in 'yoga and meditation' room (Mackay Daily Mercury)
  • Middle schooler busted with ecstasy tries claiming pills were just Smarties (New York Daily News)
  • IT worker who died after consuming lethal liquid ecstasy could not have been a better son, family tell inquest quest (Belfast Telegraph)
  • Teenagers arrested after ecstasy tablets found in car (STV News)
  • Police: Manchester 'Molly' dealer nabbed after chase (FOX 61)

Ayahuasca/DMT

  • Ayahuasca therapy boom: Risky or life-changing? (CNN)
  • The new age of ayahuasca (ABC Online)

Peyote/San Pedro/Mescaline

  • Church's Suit Over Cannabis Use Is Burned Out (Bloomberg)

Iboga/Ibogaine

  • Making Ibogaine Treatment Legal in Vermont: An Interview with Bonnie Scott (Psychedelic Times)

Dissociatives

  • Everything You Need to Know About Ketamine (THUMP)
  • My Story: A Ketamine Diary with a Forrest Gump Twist (National Pain Report)
  • Man caught collecting package containing over €100,000 worth of ketamine sentenced to 10 years (Irish Independent)
  • Police: Meriden man found with PCP was "screaming, foaming at the mouth, banging head on car" (Meriden Record-Journal)

Opiates/Opioids

  • "Narco-State Afghanistan" Leads to Heroin Addiction in the USA (Global Research)
  • Why Fentanyl Is So Much More Deadly Than Heroin (Forbes)
  • The stunning spread of the opioid painkiller and heroin epidemic, in one map (Vox)
  • US Anti-Opium Effort in Afghanistan Is Total Failure (High Times)
  • Four Takeaways From The National Rx Drug Abuse And Heroin Summit (Forbes)
  • Harvesting opium in Afghanistan's poppy fields (The Baltimore Sun)
  • The Pendulum Swings for Opioid Prescribing (Journal of Palliative Medicine)
  • Naloxone not enough to solve fentanyl problem (Medical Xpress)
  • Amid Heroin Epidemic in US, Mexican Gov't Doesn't Know the Extent of Opium Cultivation at Home (CNS News)

Kratom

Kava

  • With SquareRüt Kava Bar, local couple hopes kava takes root in Austin (My Statesman)
  • Culture as a key to cutting NZ's Pacific crime rate (Radio New Zealand)
  • Man pleads guilty to possessing commercial quantity of kava after he was caught with 33kg at Darwin Airport (NT News)

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

  • Over 1,000 Leaders Worldwide Call for End to "Disastrous" Drug War, Ahead of UN Special Session (Drug Policy Alliance)
  • The Hopes and Fears of Psychedelic Science (VolteFace)
  • TripSit releases V3.0 of its drug combination chart (TripSit)
  • Airport Drug Sniffing Dogs Find Lots of Sausage But No Drugs (TIME)
  • Finding Drugs On Social Media: Young People Turn To Tinder, Instagram To Buy Weed, MDMA And Others (International Business Times)
  • Drink Cop Saves College Freshman From Rape (Digital Journal)
  • Another Sexual Assault in Service of the War on Drugs (Reason)

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 (and other psychoactives) are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.