The director of Montreal’s public health department is welcoming a recent report by Toronto’s board of health pushing the federal government to decriminalize all drugs.A Health Canada report last month found that nearly 4,000 Canadians died from an apparent opioid overdose in 2017, including 303 opioid overdose-related deaths in Toronto. That prompted Toronto’s health board urging…
More than 150 studies on ayahuasca now appear on PubMed, the federal database of peer-reviewed research. People generally know serotonin as a neurotransmitter that regulates emotions and serves as a mood stabilizer. Serotonin transporters are proteins that aid in the facilitation of serotonin throughout the nervous system, and what McKenna and his team discovered in…
In 2014, Dede Goldsmith started a campaign to amend the RAVE Act. “Specifically, I am asking for language to be added to the law to make it clear that event organizers and venue owners can implement safety measures to reduce the risk of medical emergencies, including those associated with drug use, without fear of prosecution by…
Last August 2017, the agency streamlined that process by deeming MDMA a “breakthrough therapy,” meaning it “may demonstrate substantial improvement” over current options. MDMA, which was banned by the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1985, could be available by prescription as soon as 2021. The rehabilitation of MDMA, a.k.a. “ecstasy” or “molly,” is directly related to…
Drug-war passions are fading … in that shifting social context, companies and public employers, including the military, might want to take a second look at whether pre-employment drug testing actually does the job it was designed to do. It’s possible, though far from certain, that hiring applicants who test positive for opioids is riskier than…
[Toronto’s Medical Officer of Health] Dr. Eileen de Villa is also recommending Ottawa convene a task force made up of people who use drugs, alongside experts in policy, health care, human rights, mental health and criminal justice experts “to explore options for the legal regulation of all drugs in Canada.”She is urging the city’s board…
Another route to legality may shorten the wait for suffering patients, however: including the drugs in the “right to try” and Expanded Access programs. Psychedelics fit the criteria. People living with incurable conditions — cancers and neurodegenerative conditions, such as ALS — often experience anxieties, grief and depression associated with the progressive debility and impending…
[Adele] I know how progressive the values within this movement are, but there is this major disconnect from other progressive movements as far as representation goes… [Leia]: Extractive economy… [Adele] : Even though our movement employs, for the most part, some very out-of-the-box thinking, it is still impacted by these same old values and trends that…
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