Anthropology

Oregon House passes bill to transport cannabis across State lines

It’s a very strong statement by the Oregon Legislature that will reverberate across the country. “There are serious environmental, patient access, public safety, regulatory compliance, economic and social justice issues that would be solved or ameliorated by allowing interstate commerce in cannabis.  This issue is important to us all.” Original Article (OPB and Adam Smith):Oregon House…

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Medicine/Healing

CBD shows some potential for treating opioid addiction

This anti-addictive effect lasted for a week after the CBD was administered. A study in rats published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that CBD decreased heroin cravings in rats that had previously been trained to self-administer heroin. And a small study conducted in humans, published in the journal Neurotherapeutics, showed that taking CBD seemed…

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Biography/Memoir

Pushes to make it easier to study [psilocybin-containing] mushrooms and other psychedelic drugs

Legislation [was introduced] on Friday, June 10, 2019 to remove a legal barrier that scientists say makes it unnecessarily difficult for them to study the medical benefits of psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and MDMA. “Academics and scientists report that provisions like this create [stigma] and insurmountable logistical hurdles to researching schedule I drugs,” the summary…

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Psychology

[Is it]… time to legalize psilocybin mushrooms?

While… [some] initiatives, including the “medicalization”… are an important step in the right direction… it is time to go further. In contrast to “legalization,” “decriminalization” involves the loosening of criminal penalties… [for the use of the natural variety found in over one hundred species of psilocybin-containing mushrooms that grow worldwide] and, as in the case…

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Psychology

They broke my mental shackles’: could magic mushrooms be the answer to depression?

If common antidepressants dull emotions to help people cope… psilocybin [containing mushrooms] work… on our serotonin system to heighten emotional responses and encourage people to actively confront their depression, which can prompt enduring shifts in mind-set. Much about the neuroscience of psychedelics remains unknown, but fMRI scans of patients’ brains after taking psilocybin showed reduced…

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Science

Hemp fibres ‘better than graphene’

Electric cars and power tools could harness this hemp technology, the US researchers say. The waste fibres from hemp crops can be transformed into high-performance energy storage devices, scientists say. They “cooked” cannabis bark into carbon nanosheets and built supercapacitors “on a par with or better than graphene” – the industry gold standard. Original Article…

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Biography/Memoir

Leading U.S. prosecutors visit Portugal to learn about drug decriminalization

Twenty prosecutors from major cities across the U.S. are touring Portugal this month to learn about the successful implementation of the country’s drug decriminalization law. In Portugal, where all drugs were decriminalized in 2001, the prosecutors will observe the impacts of that nationwide policy, which according to research has reduced incarceration rates and improved public health…

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Politics

California activists take first steps to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms statewide

…crafting a 2020 ballot initiative to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms for medical and religious purposes in California. While the measure would simply lift criminal penalties for psilocybin, the group’s website also states that the campaign is meant to “build the framework for eventual legalization.” Original Article (Marijuana Moment):California activists take first steps to decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms…

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Politics

Oakland City Council decriminalizes all “natural psychedelics” in landmark resolution

Unlike last month’s landmark initiative in Denver, which specifically targeted psychedelic mushrooms, this broader resolution groups together a variety of plants and fungi under the banner of entheogenic plants or plant compounds. The term entheogen generally refers to psychoactive substances used in religious or spiritual contexts. The Oakland resolution more specifically defines the term in reference…

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