The obstacles to drug policy reform are both daunting and diverse. Powerful and established drug control bureaucracies, both national and international, staunchly defend status quo policies. They seldom question whether their involvement and tactics in enforcing drug policy are doing more harm than good. Meanwhile, there is often a tendency to sensationalize each new “drug…
The new publication marks the latest in a series of baby steps by a loose coalition of researchers and fund-raisers who are working to bring hallucinogens back into the fold of mainstream psychiatry. Before research was effectively banned in 1966 in the United States, doctors tested LSD’s effect for a variety of conditions, including end-of-life…
“There were no differences in any of the mental or physical health outcomes that we measured regardless of the amount or frequency of marijuana used during adolescence.” After tracking more than 400 men from their teenage years to their mid-30s, the scientists say chronic marijuana use does not lead to later physical and mental health…
But now a bill has been introduced in the state’s House of Representatives that would create something far more radical than taxed and regulated cannabis: a pilot program to use ibogaine in the treatment of substance use disorders. On March 10th, Rep. Paul Dame (R-Chittenden-8-2) and Rep. Joseph “Chip” Troiano (D-Caledonia-2) introduced H. 387, an…
“Under the [adopted] legislation, substances are… banned solely on the basis of whether or not they are psychoactive: regardless of any research or understanding of the potential harms or benefits of a given substance.” This legislation is tantamount to a prescription of approved psychological states: working, consuming, [producing]… the “legitimacy” of given substances has nothing…
“One of the implications of the continued growth of psychedelic festival culture is that the community of psychedelic users is becoming, with the help of the internet, more organised and more cohesive”. Furthermore, now this ‘spiritual movement’ has community meeting spaces, with their own rituals, traditions, codes and conventions. At these gatherings there is a…
“During recent months and years, there have been calls in the media (and to some degree in the professional literature) for the use of various psychedelic agents for psychotherapeutic purposes.” These have been proposed to be useful for various disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, depression, and various types of personality disorders. We are now…
“What people say is that whatever they’re doing, they seem to be doing it a little better,” Fadiman told Live Science. “They’re a little kinder, a little bit nicer with their kids.” Proponents report improvements in perception, mood and focus, minus the trippy tangerine trees and marmalade skies normally associated with psychedelics. “It’s like the…
“The psychedelics may invoke a temporary state of neural plasticity within the brain, as a result of which the person may experience changes in sensory perception, thought processing and self-awareness,” says Rucker. He tells Psychiatry Advisor that psychedelic drugs can act as a catalyst that stirs up the mind to elicit insights into unwanted cycles…
The main issue here is: Does psychedelic use lead to harming others? Does it lead to carelessness and heedlessness? Do we start disrespecting others through having altered our mind in this way? So if we do use psychedelics, this would be the bottom line: Is it harmful to others or harmful to ourselves? Original Article…
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