“Reading the Psychedelic Society many years ago, in a time when I immersed myself in the universe of McKenna’s writings and talks, I was captivated by the idea. Yet in the years to come my thoughts of the subject have become less certain and unequivocal”. Like many of McKenna’s ideas, the concept of the psychedelic…
“Of course, I have no way of knowing if the mushrooms that my great-great Grandfather Daugherty was allegedly harvesting were actually P. cubensis”. Nor do I know if the Choctaw or Chickasaw tribes even possess(ed) a knowledge of the visionary properties of coprophilic psilocybin mushrooms. I recount this anecdote only as a means of raising…
“Estimates on the number of U.S. Herion Addicts Range from 300,000 to 500,000.” The resurgence of the deadly drug has sparked a flurry of action from governors’ mansions and statehouses across New England and the Midwest to small-town police stations from northern Kentucky to Wisconsin. “It’s really on the top of everyone’s radar from a…
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented data on drug overdose death rates from 2001-2014, and it does not look good”. “Prescription drug overdose deaths have nearly tripled since 2001 Opioid overdose deaths have nearly quadrupled since 2001 Benzodiazepine overdose deaths have increased by more than 600% since 2001 Cocaine overdose deaths are up…
“After three months of treatment, the frequency of all seizures was reduced by a median of 45 percent in all participants. Almost half (47%) of the participants in the study experienced a 50 percent or greater reduction in seizures and nine percent of patients were seizure-free”. Among specific patient populations, DS patients had a…
The researchers said MDMA appears to enhance the extinction of the conditioned fear by altering neuronal activity in the amygdala, a brain structure associated with memory and emotions. Researchers have discovered that MDMA — commonly known as ecstasy or molly — speeds up the extinction of the conditioned fear response in mice. The findings help…
Forty years of dogged adherence to drug crop eradication and drug interdiction policies have been instrumental in hounding drug farmers and traffickers into increasingly fragile landscapes. New research—much of it using newly available real-time satellite imagery of forest loss—is bringing into sharp focus the devastating ecological costs of conventional drug policies, and how these can…
“I’m proud to announce that next year, I will be releasing the first-ever Surgeon General’s Report on substance use, addiction and health. We’re going to look at the best science on everything, from heroin and marijuana, to alcohol and prescription opioids.” Under the Obama administration, federal drug agencies have made a point to talk…
Neuropsychological investigation have found that long-term ayahuasca users had better performance than control subjects on tests of frontal function and on the WHO-UCLA auditory verbal learning test. Since the 1980s, churches in which ayahuasca is prepared and consumed have been spreading to urban centers initially in South America and then in North America and in…
The reputation of these compounds is undergoing rehabilitation, but we can’t know how long it will take to shrug off the weight of the mischaracterizations that have been heaped on them for years. While the full history of psychedelic research cannot be summarized concisely, it seems to have ended, at least for a time, with…
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