Biography/Memoir

DEA admits ‘racial, ethnic and class prejudice’ led to drug criminalization and the agency’s own founding

DEA Museum officials talked about the origins of federal drug prohibition and explained how the agency was ultimately created in conjunction with punitive policies… during the latest edition of its… video series… Library of Congress… …the history is being recounted by the archival arm of DEA itself, even as the agency continues to enforce criminalization…

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Politics

[In Oregon] …expect with… shrooms

Oregon voters actually approved two very different ballot measures in 2020 that both technically affect how… mushrooms are treated in the state… it does not allow dispensing psilocybin for use outside licensed facilities or for home cultivation… Measure 110 decriminalized [personal possession of] small amounts of [some] drugs, including [less than 12 grams of] psilocybin,…

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Psychology

Why taking psychedelics is a lot like scuba diving…

…how about the mental healthcare therapists and psychiatrists who work with psychedelics, in clinical trials and beyond – shouldn’t they also be experienced psychedelic divers before they work with these substances? Well. This is a sensitive question, I’ve come to realize. I have been hesitant to speak my mind about it… There are many parallels…

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Politics

Psychedelics face corrupting influence of financial interests

In a peer-reviewed essay published in the journal Anthropology of Consciousness… corporations should respect Indigenous, counterculture traditions… University of Cincinnati postdoctoral researcher Neşe Devenot says the field is fraught with ethical concerns and financial interests. The researchers said the irrational exuberance over the prospects of creating psychedelic treatment monopolies are incongruous with “the 6,000-plus years…

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Modern Culture

Why tripping at raves can be just as healing as ceremony

I’d argue that a more spontaneous strategy in the consumption of psychedelic drugs can aid in reducing anxiety and provide more fulfilling experiences without intrinsically increasing the risks of social or neurological consequences. A mindless approach to psychedelics not only transformed my relationship with the drugs themselves, but finally gave me the emotional, philosophical, and…

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Science

Psychedelic drugs… brain’s dynamic landscape

…LSD and psilocybin activate serotonin receptors on brain cells in a way that reduces the energy needed for the brain to switch between different activity states, according to a study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers… “Serotonin 2a receptors have a spatial distribution in the brain that appears to be optimized for lowering these state…

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Anthropology

Psychedelic research and the real world

The problem is that in the real world… people with characteristics that would have excluded them from the psilocybin trial are common… exclusion criteria are not the only problematic aspect… of psychedelics, however. Another is the psychotherapeutic component of the treatment, which is currently variable, time-consuming and extensive. In the psilocybin trial mentioned… two therapists…

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Science

…social… with psychedelics…

…we are planning a study right now using a citizen-scientist approach, says Sonja Lyubomirsky, a psychologist at UC Riverside. We’re going to ask people to get together with a friend and have a deep conversation. We’re going to have a placebo, which may be either a lower dose of the drug, or it could be…

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Politics

…suggests psilocybin for terminally ill patients has financial interest…

As part of their efforts to better understand DEA’s administrative process, Aggarwal [Washington State, Seattle] and his counsel have submitted several Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for relevant documents. DEA’s FOIA policy states that it will consider waiving or reducing fees if the requester is shows that the information is “in the public interest because…

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Science

…fentanyl overdoses…

Just a quarter of a milligram – 0.25 milligrams – can kill you. For a sense of just how little that is, a typical baby aspirin tablet is 81 mg. If you cut that tablet into 324 pieces, one of those pieces would be equal to a quarter-milligram. In the year ending in April 2019,…

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