Biography/Memoir

President Trump’s opioid panel will recommend nationwide drug courts, tightened requirements for prescribers

The commission will recommend the Department of Justice establish [more] drug courts in every federal district, and that individuals with substance use disorder who violate probation terms be diverted to a drug court… President Trump’s commission on combating the opioid epidemic plans to encourage the federal government to establish drug courts in every federal judicial…

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Politics

Neither justice nor treatment ; drug courts in the United States

[This report] is based on interviews with health care professionals, social workers, judges, lawyers, drug court staff, and drug court participants. “Drug courts regularly set participants up for failure. Few communities have adequate treatment facilities, insurance plans often won’t finance effective treatment programs, and the criminal justice objectives of drug courts often overrule the medical…

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Politics

An overdose death is not murder: why drug-induced homicide laws are counterproductive and inhumane

There is no evidence that enforcement of drug-induced homicide reduces drug use or sales, or deadly overdoses. Rather, the only behavior that is actually deterred is the seeking of life-saving medical assistance for fear of prosecution. This is especially true because police and prosecutors are widely abusing their discretion in investigating and prosecuting drug-induced homicide…

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Science

What LSD tells us about human nature

Healthy volunteers were injected with LSD while lying in an MRI scanner, and subjected to several other neuroimaging methods at the same time. This amounted to an arsenal of measurement that previous decades of psychedelic researchers could only dream of. ​Humans have gathered, cultivated, distilled, and manufactured all kinds of drugs for thousands of years.…

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Politics

Legalizing magic mushrooms could save California taxpayers millions of dollars

The news from the California Legislative Analyst’s Office was welcome by organizers of the statewide proposal, known for now as the California Psilocybin Legalization Initiative. “It’s definitely encouraging,” says Dimitric “Kitty” Merchant, co-author of the measure. “State and local governments could receive additional revenues, such as sales taxes from psilocybin sales permitted under this measure,”…

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Medicine/Healing

People are dying because of ignorance, not because of opioids

In many countries, including Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, opioid treatment may include daily injections of heroin, just as a diabetic may receive daily insulin injections, along with treating the patient’s medical and psychosocial issues. These patients hold jobs, pay taxes and live long, healthy, productive lives. Yet in the U.S., such programs are…

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