“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…
“So far the studies indicate that MDMA assisted psychotherapy significantly reduces PTSD symptoms”. Although MDMA has been administered to more than 1,000 subjects with only one report of an unexpected serious adverse event (which ended when the drug wore off), the drug doesn’t come without risks. It can increase heart rate and blood pressure and…
There is no convincing evidence that moderate MDMA use is associated with structural or functional brain alterations in neuroimaging measures. The lack of significant results was associated with high methodological heterogeneity in terms of dosages and co-consumption of other drugs, low quality of studies and small sample sizes. Original Article (Elsevier): Neuroimaging in moderate MDMA…
To put Garcia’s formulation in terms of a contemporary Silicon Valley venture capitalist might understand, LSD was a disruptive technology. And where did Kesey get the idea to conduct experiments on human beings with LSD? In 1959, he was an LSD [test participant] himself in tests conducted by the CIA. Original Article (Boingboing.net): The CIA’s…
Last week, the acting chief of the Drug Enforcement Administration called medical marijuana “a joke…” …during a Q&A with reporters. Now, medical marijuana patients are calling for his head, with an online petition demanding his resignation attracting nearly 10,000 signatures on change.org “What really bothers me is the notion that marijuana is also medicinal —…
While it’s true that peyote, like cannabis, was politically packaged as a sheep’s in wolfs clothing in the late 1960’s to ensure its classification in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), reversing that original CSA classification is a more difficult task for peyote than cannabis. The 2 principal reasons for this include: 1)…
Right now, ahead of the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs, governments and international organizations are discussing the future direction of drug policy which will determine policies of countries for the next ten years. We are asking you to stand in solidarity with people who use drugs, their families and communities by…
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has responded to the ‘leak’ of its briefing paper calling for the decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use. Before considering this response, it’s important to be clear this wasn’t really a ‘leak’ in the classic sense. The document was to be presented by the UNODC at…
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