While most studies have been small, and the understanding of how psychedelics operate on the brain remains limited, those driving the research can barely contain their excitement. Uncertainty about how drugs like psilocybin and MDMA actually work is one reason to avoid irrational exuberance about the healing power of psychedelics. Original Article (Chronicle of Philanthropy):A…
Education was key. A lot of people who were opposed changed their minds when we were able to talk face to face and explain that there’s a lot of potential benefits here. It had people at the very least, if they were opposed, get on the fence and do their own research. On the night…
…a major city (Oakland) in California is moving to consider a measure that [is calling] for an end to arrests and prosecutions of people for possessing additional psychedelic drugs such as mescaline cacti, ayahuasca and ibogaine. The investigation and arrest of adults for using, cultivating or distributing the psychedelics—sometimes referred to as entheogens—would be classified as “amongst the lowest law enforcement priority” for…
The win also maybe, possibly, clears the way for people to grow shrooms without concern for legal repercussions, but only for their own personal use… “One of the more innovative aspects of… [Initiative 301] is at the point where the supply equals the demand. [When] the consumer is also the producer—that form of production here…
“Governments are increasingly finding they can neither justify nor afford maintaining the war on drugs,” Hawkins pointed out. “Leaders are looking for exit strategies, as we are now seeing in Mexico.” Mexico’s president released a new plan last week that called for radical reform to the nation’s drug laws and negotiating with the United States to…
There is much more that could be said about clinical trials, but we do not have space here. Just a short reminder: Alcohol and tobacco did not have to go through them. Statistically-sound clinical trials were introduced in the 1940s to ensure the safety and efficacy of new drugs and treatments. This is, of course, not the…
The measure made the possession, use or cultivation of the mushrooms by people aged 21 or older the lowest-priority crime for law enforcement in the city of Denver and Denver County. Arrests and prosecutions, already fairly rare, would all but disappear. Voters in Denver, a city at the forefront of the widening national debate over…
The initiative… [will] not… [allow] the mushrooms to be sold under Denver’s cannabis businesses. “It’s a signal to the rest of the country that at least here in Denver we are ready to start remove some of these substances off the controlled substances list,” said Kevin Matthews, 33, who organized the decriminalization campaign. “A lot…
A number of individual nations are moving faster than the United Nations; and in turn, many regional and local jurisdictions are outpacing nations. People on the ground—grassroots activists and civil society—are providing the real leadership … “Civil society is more present, more powerful, and more well -funded than in decades past,” she said. “It has…
Over the last two years, Oregon’s legal cannabis industry has run into an unforeseen green rush snafu. No, the state’s teens aren’t all addicted to the devil’s lettuce, and local workers aren’t running heavy machinery into walls like prohibitionists might have predicted. Senate voted [in April 2019] to advance the temporary licensing freeze by a…
