Science

When getting high is [adult] hobby, not a habit

…offers the information in a spirit of radical transparency because he believes that if “grown-ups” like him would talk freely about the role of drugs in their lives, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in… [Dr. Carl Hart, a tenured professor of psychology at Columbia University, an experienced neuroscientist, a father] argues that…

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CDC [United States Centers for Disease Control] recommends drug-checking services

The CDC appears to be moving, at least in part, past a major barrier currently obstructs local harm reductionists interested in providing drug-checking and similar services: drug paraphernalia criminalization.  Currently, the range of institutionalized US drug-checking services pales in comparison to what’s offered by organizations in Canada and some western European countries. The Centre for Drug Policy…

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…DMT trials to take place…

DMT is a naturally occurring molecule which is found in hundreds of plants… secured approval to begin clinical trials with DMT. Research has suggested that people who’ve taken DMT, along with other psychedelics, can enjoy a long-lasting sense of connection with nature. A study that gave DMT to rats, meanwhile, found that it made them less anxious.…

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DMT alters cortical travelling waves

These results support a recent model proposing that psychedelics reduce the ‘precision-weighting of priors’, thus altering the balance of top-down versus bottom-up information passing. The robust hypothesis-confirming nature of these findings imply the discovery of an important mechanistic principle underpinning psychedelic-induced altered states. The present analyses were applied to the first EEG data on the…

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Psychedelics… face-to-face…

“It is a misnomer to say that all drugs are equally dangerous and hedonic”, says Andrew D. Penn, RN, MS, NP, CNS, APRN-BC, a Psych Congress Steering Committee member, associate clinical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and attending nurse practitioner at the San Francisco Veterans Administration. “It’s quite clear that these are…

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…microdosing can increase pain tolerance…

In a double-blind study, scientists utilized small doses… …was similar to what 20 mg of commonly used painkillers like oxycodone or morphine could bring about. This is important because unlike oxycodone and morphine… lack of addiction potential makes microdoses… a potential… for chronic or severe pain management. Original Article (The Swaddle):LSD microdosing can increase pain…

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The influence of society on the psychedelic experience

…expands the traditional meaning of set & setting in psychedelic therapy to include the broader contexts in which these substances are used. He calls this the “collective set and setting”: the broader cultural and social contexts in which these substances are used. This is something that pharmacological discourse has been reluctant to acknowledge over the…

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[Using baker’s yeast] to produce ‘magic mushroom’ active ingredient[s]

Researchers… approach to producing psilocybin but used baker’s yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, rather than bacteria. The yeast expresses a key enzyme involved in the same magic mushroom production pathway of psilocybin, which doesn’t involve the need for expensive chemicals. During their production of psilocybin and psilocin through synthetic biology, the yeast also produced intermediate products – molecules…

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The biggest challenges for psychedelic science today

The scientific study of psychedelics is not immune from broader crises that are currently ongoing in the scientific realm, like the replication crisis… and the increasingly privatized funding of research… What may further limit the researcher’s degree of freedom, is that most studies on psychedelics are sponsored by private foundations with a vested interest. In…

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UC Berkeley launches new center for psychedelic science and education

The center plans to collaborate with the Graduate Theological Union, an independent consortium of religious schools and theological institutes based in Berkeley and the larger San Francisco Bay Area, in the development of an immersive learning program on psychedelics and spirituality. The new… Center for the Science of Psychedelics will conduct research using psychedelics to…

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