Medicine/Healing

FDA approves psychedelic magic mushrooms ingredient psilocybin for depression trial

Researchers will dose participants with psilocybin while they receive psychological support. The firm hopes more countries will join the project as and when respective health bodies approve the use of psilocybin for clinical trials.   “If our studies are successful, we could be applying for marketing authorization in two to three years,” she said, describing depression as “a…

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Biography/Memoir

First they poisoned the… users

We do not have an overdose crisis. We have a poisoned drug supply. Fentanyl and its analogs are killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. Alarmingly and with ominous future implications, fentanyl-laced cocaine fatalities in Ohio are now outstripping fentanyl-laced herion fatalities. Who is adding fentanyl and carfentanil to the cocaine supply? Disconnected from…

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Modern Culture

The new wave of psychedelics in buddhist practice

Even the old guard is taking note of this development, recognizing the new generation’s skill in working with psychedelics and the advances in their therapeutic use. [Jack Kornfield writes}, “It has to be done carefully and with the boundaries that the Buddha offered regarding ethics—not to harm yourself and not to harm others.” Those pushing…

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Medicine/Healing

LSD to the rescue? Experts believe psychedelic drugs could treat mental disorders

Findings from a study presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association suggested that symptoms of social anxiety in autistic adults may be treatable with a combination of psychotherapy and MDMA … Research discussed also explored how LSD, psilocybin (known colloquially as “magic mushrooms”) and ayahuasca (a brew used by indigenous people of the…

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Anthropology

A push for drug decriminalization surges in countries around the world — could the US be next?

Two of Canada’s three main political parties, including Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party, added drug decriminalization to their official campaign  platforms earlier this year, signaling that candidates intend to campaign on decriminalization in the upcoming 2019 federal election. … The momentum has even spread all the way to the United Nations, which released a joint statement with the World…

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Biography/Memoir

Synthetic marijuana [laced with fentanyl, reportedly]… confirmed as cause of New Haven overdoses

Hawk, an Emergency Department physician with Yale New Haven Hospital, said that the drug that caused the overdoses was K2* laced with fentanyl.*K2 “a big potpourri” of potentially dangerous drugs. “There’s so much garbage that’s being sold and you can call it whatever you want to call it. Even the drug dealers don’t know.” -Dr.…

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Science

Scientists are finally set to mass-produce the active compound found in magic mushrooms

“Our findings set the stage for heterologous production of [psilocybin] in a controlled place for pharmaceutical purposes, using engineered microbial hosts, should the re-discovered pharmaceutical value lead to increased demands,” the researchers write in their report. After four decades of virtually ignoring the science of psychedelics, researchers tentatively returned to investigating how substances such as…

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Medicine/Healing

Hallucinogens: potential mental health benefits

Throughout the symposium presenters discussed need for additional research to gain better understandings of the implications of using such psychedelics as an adjunct to psychotherapy as well as legal and ethical issues needing to be considered. Traditionally psychedelics drugs are thought of as relics from hippie generations or taken by music festival and rave goers,…

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Psychology

Magic mushrooms can help quit smoking

The active compound found in magic mushrooms is called psilocybin and was administered to a handful of smokers. The six-year study aimed to uncover the mechanism in the brain that makes it so difficult to kick the habit ‘Cigarette smoking is today a huge public health scourge and there are no effective reliable treatments,’ said…

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