Biography/Memoir

Sacklers… hear from opioid victims live…

On Thursday [3/10/2022], speakers are likely to make “unbelievably searing, difficult” statements, Marshall Huebner, an attorney for Purdue, said in a related hearing the day before. The court-appointed mediator requested that no member of the Sackler family be allowed to respond to comments made by victims during the hearing. It’s slated to begin at 10…

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Science

Synthetic opioids stronger than fentanyl have cropped up in US

A group of synthetic opioids called nitazenes, even more powerful than fentanyl in some of its forms, has begun to emerge… Forensic experts have found that the syringes used in some overdoses contain a potent synthetic opioid class – nitazenes – which is up to 20 times more powerful than fentanyl – a drug that…

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Politics

Oregonians…

Oregon is the first state to allow the use of magic mushrooms, which have been used recreationally since the 60s in the United States. The legalization of psilocybin in Oregon is equivalent to cannabis, which was legalized for medical use in 1998 and for recreational use in [2014]. Magic mushrooms grow in the Northwest and…

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Spirituality

Committee gets an earful over… gifting ban

…community came out in force Tuesday [3/8/2022] to testify against a bill that would ban the gifting of the product. The proposal comes nearly a year after legalization… The General Law Committee debated a proposed bill that would prevent residents from gifting… or face up to a year in prison and $10,000 fine… “Enacting a…

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Science

[Gmo]… yeasts and how to make them produce psilocybin

…the last thing we did was to play around with the genetic code of the Psilocybe genes a little bit so that we could divert production towards some of the other intermediates and derivatives of the pathway… …we had to dig a little bit into the genome of Psilocybe cubensis to find the missing genes. We then introduced them…

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Anthropology

How mushrooms…

…get very clear about what your intentions are. If they’re about symptom relief, know that the mushrooms might ask you to go much deeper… Find your community first. Seek out others who are deeply engaged in their own healing processes… The American healthcare system can’t and won’t create the cultural container needed for this work…

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Modern Culture

Ethnobotany…

At a time when even used bookstores are hard to find, one can walk into this quiet, magical world of unusual books, make a cup of tea and read all afternoon. The study of ethnobotany looks at the relationship between plants, humans and fungi over time and between cultures and therefore involves many interconnected subjects.…

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Spirituality

What are entheogens…

Entheogens remove us from our day-to-day experience of life and, in some cases, remove us from time and space, imparting a sense of the infinite. By removing ourselves from the usual, by suspending our social context, through psychological transformation, we can often gain a better perspective of who we are and what we want from…

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Anthropology

[Medicalisation]… sociological… psychedelic

A major concern for researchers, medical professionals and commentators alike is the potential disjuncture between for-profit business models and public health… both Democratic and Republican legislators have been submitting measures to support more research into psychedelics, with some even presenting resolutions for the decriminalization and/or legalization of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes. Medicalisation refers to social…

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Politics

…bill increasing cannabis sales tax in Oregon dies

The 2022 Oregon legislative session will end without new cannabis taxes… legislation allowing city and county governments to increase local cannabis sales taxes from 3% to 10% died. During SB 1524’s hearing in the house committee on revenue, both Democrats and Republican indicated support for increasing the local sales tax city and county governments can…

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