This Week in Psychedelics - 5.25.18

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Cannabis

  • New York Democratic Party Endorses Legalizing Marijuana (Marijuana Moment)
  • Greens call for national approach for drug law reform as NT reconsiders cannabis penalties (GreensMPs)
  • EXCLUSIVE: De Blasio to tell NYPD to stop arresting New Yorkers for smoking pot in public (New York Daily News)
  • Cannabis used to grow wild in Europe but went extinct before first farmers arrived, research finds (The Independent)
  • Bill On Trump’s Desk Would Allow Marijuana (And Maybe MDMA) For Some Patients (Marijuana Moment)
  • New Study: Marijuana Leads to “Complete Remission” of Crohn’s Disease with No Side Effects (USA Health Times)
  • Cannabis: It matters how young you start (Science Daily)
  • Africa's first medical cannabis dispensary opens in Durban (Al Jazeera)
  • DEA Report: Marijuana Seizures Fell Nearly 40 Percent in 2017 (NORML)
  • Federal Prosecutors Pledge to Crack Down On Oregon’s Glut of Cannabis Leaking Across State Lines (Willamette Week)
  • Denver’s marijuana tax money being used to fund local projects (KDVR)
  • State urges Florida Supreme Court to stay out of 'homegrown' medical marijuana case (Orlando Weekly)
  • Why anti-marijuana group wants Michigan to legalize weed (Detroit Free Press)
  • Cannabis Industry Delivers 100,000+ Jobs And Billions In Tax Revenue (Forbes)
  • How My Cannabis Prescription Made Me Realize That Weed Should Be Decriminalized (The Intercept)
  • Arizona: Supreme Court Affirms That Lawmakers Cannot Ban Medical Cannabis Access on College Campuses (NORML)
  • Senator Jeff Merkley Cosponsors The Marijuana Justice Act (NORML)
  • With State Senate Bid, Cannabis Pro Leaps Into Politics (Leafly)
  • UK missing out on cannabis industry 'green rush' worth billions because of outdated policies, say experts (The Independent)
  • It's high time to change the law: Northern Territory set to allow the growing and smoking of marijuana (Daily Mail)
  • Cannabis Consumers Want Hollywood To Abandon Marijuana Stereotypes (Forbes)
  • Government looking at how to best source 'quality' medical cannabis for new access programme (The Journal)
  • Part 3, Is Cannabis Better for Chronic Pain Than Opioids? (Leafly)
  • Massachusetts To Study Race, Gender Disparities in Cannabis Industry (High Times)
  • Why Kiss Rocker Gene Simmons Took $2.5 Million to Promote Cannabis (TheStreet)
  • Cannabis ban is death sentence for my epileptic son (The Times)
  • ‘Sustainability Is Not Enough’: Why Cannabis Farmers Should Look to Regenerative Agriculture (Leafly)
  • Money Grows On Weed (The Worldly Magazine)
  • Checking In, Not Checking Out: Cannabis-Assisted Psychotherapy (Psychedelic Support)
  • Five facts you didn’t know about the cannabis industry (CNBC)
  • Former politician, high school teacher among those trying to make it in legal cannabis (The Star)
  • Home labs for extracting cannabis concentrates seen as emerging public safety threat (Press Herald)
  • Author Tao Lin Goes on a "Trip," Discusses How Cannabis Saved His Life (MERRY JANE)
  • Cannabis edibles being popped among Sydneysiders as concerns grow over their use (News.com.au)
  • Nurturing cannabis (Chemical & Engineering News)

LSD

  • Security Troops on US Nuclear Missile Base Took LSD (Bloomberg)
  • The bizarre true story of when the UK military tested LSD on Royal Marines (The Independent)
  • Watch the Virtual Reality Recreation of the LSD Trip That Inspired the Whole Earth Catalog (TIME)
  • The Loop Trip: How Two Kids on Acid Stumbled on the Theory of Everything (Psychedelic Frontier)
  • Victims of alleged LSD brainwashing experiments in Montreal plan to file lawsuit (CTV News)

Psilocybin/Magic Mushrooms

  • Magic mushroom treatment improves emotional face recognition in depressed patients (PsyPost)
  • Magic Mushrooms Could Help Treatment-Resistant Depression (The Fresh Toast)

MDMA/Ecstasy

  • Middle-class people are taking MDMA wrapped in cheese in a new trend called 'brieing' (Business Insider)
  • What a viral story about mums, MDMA, and brie teaches us about fake news (ShortList)
  • Man on five-day ecstasy binge was caught filling hotel bath with potatoes (Mixmag)
  • People Told Us the Cringe-Worthy Stuff They've Done on Ecstasy (VICE)

Iboga/Ibogaine

  • 150 Years into the opioid epidemic, many are resorting to ibogaine treatment (The Jerusalem Post)

Dissociatives

Opiates/Opioids

  • America's 150-Year Opioid Epidemic (The New York Times)
  • Opioid Crisis: What People Don't Know About Heroin (Rolling Stone)
  • The Deadly Opioid Fentanyl Has Made Its Way Into Street Drugs Like Cocaine, Meth and MDMA (Hornet)
  • How fentanyl could alter global drug policy (The Washington Post)
  • Opioid Crisis Compels New York to Look North for Answers (The New York Times)
  • Record-high opium production in Afghanistan creates multiple challenges for region and beyond, UN warns (UN News)
  • Surgeon general urges ER docs to advocate for evidence-based opioid treatment (Modern Healthcare)

Kratom

  • FDA Issues Warning Letters To Kratom Companies For Deceptive Medical Claims (Kratom Guides)
  • Kratom Legality 2018: What Is The Legal Status of Kratom In The US? (Kratom Guides)
  • A mysterious 'pain-relief' supplement has been linked to salmonella in 41 states (Business Insider)
  • Impressive Health Benefits Of Kratom (The Future of Things)
  • What New Research Tells Us About Kratom Benefits & Risks? (Kratom Guides)
  • Kratom distributed in NC recalled over salmonella fears (WTVD)
  • Mother suing Florida gas station that sold her son kratom pills that led to his death (KFDI)

Kava

Miscellaneous Psychedelics/Psychoactives/Drug Policy

  • The Spiritual Value of a Bad Trip: A Conversation with Richard Haight (Psychedelic Times)
  • What is Microdosing? (The Third Wave)
  • Evidence supports more pill testing (The Age)
  • How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics by Michael Pollan – review (The Guardian)
  • Changing the conversation to make drug use safer (The Lancet)
  • On Psychedelics: The Organic vs. Synthetic Fallacy (Adventures Through the Mind)
  • Visionary Plant Medicine Integration: Interview with Dr. Katherine Coder Pt. 2 (Psychedelic Times)
  • Why psychedelic drugs could transform how we treat depression and mental illness (Vox)
  • The Two Things Psychedelics Do to Most People With Depression (Tonic)
  • Opening Pandora's Box: Tips for Navigating a Psychedelic Future with Richard Haight (Psychedelic Times)
  • Minor drug users 'should not be charged' (BBC)
  • Dependence on a War on Drugs (Students for Sensible Drug Policy)
  • Potentiating Psychedelics (Psychedelic Heaven)
  • Meet the drug-sniffing dog that parents hire to snoop on their kids (Rooster)
  • Drugs policing: Federation spokesman calls for policy rethink (BBC)

Disclaimer: "This Week in Psychedelics" does not censor or analyze the news links presented here. The purpose of this column is solely to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation.

Image by Dahtamnay, courtesy of Creative Commons licensing.