Medicine/Healing

Santa Cruz could decriminalize magic mushrooms

“It’s going to be the lowest priority for police officers, who possess, use, and cultivate these plants and fungi for adults’ personal use,” said Santa Cruz city Vice Mayor Justin Cummings. [a/v video transcript] The proposed resolution would declare the investigation and arrest of individuals involved with adult possession, use, or cultivation of psychoactive plants…

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Psychology

Psychedelics are back…

“There’s a lot of data out there showing that too little serotonin can lead to habitual repetitive thinking,” Austin De La Cruz, Pharm D., clinical assistant professor at the University of Houston College of Pharmacy, said. “An individual might think that they’re not good enough, no one understands them, no one loves them, everything is terrible.”…

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Psychology

Beyond prohibition of plant medicines

The medical profession has spent many years establishing a monopoly over the right to provide medicines, wresting this power away from traditional healers, and it’s not going to hand that power back over without a struggle. Another very real danger is that the prohibition of plant medicines will end, only for them to then be…

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Psychology

Love… magic mushrooms

You don’t just feel things when you’re on mushrooms. They make you psychically [physically, and emotionally] understand and absorb your surroundings. The liberation of psilocybin is upon us. Earlier this year, Denver voted to decriminalize magic fungi and activists are now lobbying congress to do so nationally. Shrooms aren’t having a moment; they’re reclaiming their rightful place at…

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Medicine/Healing

When harm reduction expansion stifles activism: A lesson from Europe

In most of Western Europe, as across the world, drug users are still stigmatized, still criminalized, still marginalized, still considered second-class citizens. This will not change without user-led advocacy. “Harm reduction interventions in the main in Western Europe are delivered either by national health services or by non-governmental agencies that focus on health interventions,” said Niamh…

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Medicine/Healing

Oregon lawmakers… [postpone] kratom [regulation]

“This wasn’t quite ready for prime time this year, but I do hope that the advocates continue to work on this issue,” said one Oregon Senator. Kratom can act as… [both a pain reliever and a] stimulant when ingested. It’s made from the leaves of a tree native to southeast Asia, and it’s become popular…

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Medicine/Healing

CBD shows some potential for treating opioid addiction

This anti-addictive effect lasted for a week after the CBD was administered. A study in rats published in the Journal of Neuroscience found that CBD decreased heroin cravings in rats that had previously been trained to self-administer heroin. And a small study conducted in humans, published in the journal Neurotherapeutics, showed that taking CBD seemed…

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