Science

Chronic lower back pain: Can a psychedelic… come to your rescue?

“It’s a massive problem,” said Patrick Finan, the Harold Carron Professor of Anesthesiology in the School of Medicine and the co-principal investigator for the trial. “Chronic lower back pain is growing in prevalence, particularly as people age and medicine improves to keep people active longer.” Finan said there is encouraging research now that psilocybin may…

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Science

…kratom extracts

History has shown that developing enriched natural product elixirs or purified active agents, as with cocaine from the coca shrub and morphine from the opium poppy, can be both a blessing and a curse. Concentrated kratom extracts are analogous to these historical examples. Though the extracts may provide benefits to some, they may also result…

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Biography/Memoir

California… ‘magic mushrooms’

An initiative that sought to ask voters to decriminalize so-called magic mushrooms and products containing psilocybin failed to qualify for the 2024 ballot when it missed last week’s deadline to submit signatures. That followed Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto last year [2023] of a bill that would have decriminalized a short list of natural psychedelics, including “magic mushrooms.”…

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Science

Cannabis holds potential to prevent and reduce severity of COVID-19, while treating long-term symptoms, study finds

Researchers at Dalhousie University in Canada carried out a comprehensive review of the scientific literature, publishing their findings about marijuana as a preventive therapeutic in the Journal of Clinical Medicine… The study found that “cannabinoids have been shown to prevent viral entry, mitigate oxidative stress, and alleviate the associated cytokine storm” of early COVID-19 infections.…

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Science

Effects of external stimulation on psychedelic state neurodynamics

Stronger external stimulation increases baseline entropy and reduces the drug effect. Results show that while brain entropy increases with LSD under all of the experimental conditions, it exhibits the largest changes when subjects have their eyes closed. Furthermore, brain entropy changes are consistently associated with subjective ratings of the psychedelic experience, but this relationship is…

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Politics

Marijuana meets criteria for reclassification as lower-risk drug, FDA scientific review finds

Marijuana has a lower potential for abuse than other drugs that are subjected to the same restrictions, with scientific support for its use as a medical treatment, researchers from the US Food and Drug Administration say in documents supporting its reclassification as a Schedule III substance… The FDA documents, which are posted online, “reflect HHS’ evaluation of…

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Anthropology

Narco-deforestation and its climate impact in Central America

Recently the growing connection between deforestation and drug trafficking in Central America has led to what researchers from Oregon State University have called ‘narco-deforestation’. Increasingly, evidence suggests that increased drug trafficking networks are linked to forest losses in Central America: this is most likely accelerated by the fact that 86% of global cocaine transits through this region before reaching…

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