More states legalize Pot 8) when for Oz?

[K]

V.A. Shuns Medical Marijuana, Leaving Vets to Improvise

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/us/marijuana-veterans.html

"One Vietnam veteran in the line said he was using marijuana-infused oil to treat pancreatic cancer. Another said that smoking cannabis eased the pain from a recent hip replacement better than prescription pills did. Several said that a few puffs temper the anxiety and nightmares of post-traumatic stress disorder.
...

A bipartisan bill introduced in the House of Representatives this spring would order the department to study the safety and efficacy of marijuana for treating chronic pain and PTSD. If the bill passes, the department could not only develop expertise about a drug that many veterans have turned to on their own — it may also start down the road toward eventually allowing its doctors and clinics to prescribe cannabis.
...

The department does have two small studies in their early stages. One, in San Diego, looks at whether cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive component of cannabis, can help patients during PTSD therapy; it is scheduled to continue through 2023.
...

One of the alliance’s workers, Jake Scallan, was sent to Iraq with Air Force security forces and came back with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. He said Veterans Affairs doctors put him on five different drugs for anxiety, depression, pain and sleeplessness.

“Honestly, there was no healing,” said Mr. Scallan, 30. “I was in such a fog I couldn’t deal with anything.”

After a suicide attempt and hospital stay in 2013, Mr. Scallan was persuaded by a friend to try marijuana for his anxiety and depression. “It was like I could suddenly breathe again,” he said.

He now uses a highly potent concentrate that he said has helped him put his life back together, hold down a job and get married, which he did in July. “I was really lost, and now I can function,” he said."

[K]

How Much Alcohol Is Safe to Drink? None, Say These Researchers

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/health/alcohol-drinking-health.html


Open access to the actual paper,
Alcohol use and burden for 195 countries and territories, 1990–2016: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016,
at
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31310-2/fulltext

From the NY Times article:

'While the study is among the largest of its kind, it was also observational, linking population-wide consumption to population-wide trends.
...
“The main difference between alcohol and smoking is that no one is surprised that smoking is bad,” said the lead author, Emmanuela Gakidou, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington.
“But there’s a lot of surprise, even among experts, that alcohol is as bad for you as it is.” '

From the paper:

[Skids]

Gee... I love beer.

[stui magpie]

^

I've gone off beer a bit, just mainly drinking Cab Shiraz.

Red red wine....................

[K]

Breast-Feeding Mothers Should Avoid Marijuana, Pediatricians Say

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/health/marijuana-breast-milk-mothers.html

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2018/08/23/peds.2018-1076

"∆9-THC was detectable in 34 (63%) of the 54 samples up to ∼6 days after last reported use..."

[Skids]

Australia Pushes for Easier Cannabis Access in Face of “Hidden” Opioid Epidemic

According to a recent report, opioid-related deaths in Australia have nearly doubled.

According to a separate report, opioid-related deaths in Australia nearly doubled from 2007 to 2016. The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW in Sydney released a report stating that 1,045 Australians died of opioid overdoses in 2016. Of the 1,045 opioid overdose deaths, 76 percent were attributed to pharmaceutical opioids.

https://hightimes.com/news/australia-pushes-easier-cannabis-access-face-hidden-opioid-epidemic/

[Skids]

Very informative segment on the Landline show on ABC.

We really need our government to wake up to this.

We're being left behind by the rest of the world.... as usual

[think positive]

Went past a shop in Freo this morning, it said Marijuana medicine! Nearly changed sides of th3 road, thought I was in Denver!

[K]

I noted a NY Times review of Pollan's book in a previous post ( http://magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1837599#1837599 ). There was a second one a while after the first. It must do wonders for book sales when a book is reviewed more than once in the same newspaper.


Michael Pollan Drops Acid — and Comes Back From His Trip Convinced

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/books/review/michael-pollan-how-to-change-your-mind.html

"Unlike many best-selling nonfiction writers, Pollan doesn’t write self-help books that cross-dress as narrative nonfiction. He’s entirely too skeptical for that. At the same time, though, he’s an often relentlessly sunny, affirmative writer.
...

With “How to Change Your Mind,” Pollan remains concerned with what we put into our bodies, but we’re not talking about arugula. At various points, our author ingests LSD, psilocybin and the crystallized venom of a Sonoran Desert toad. He writes, often remarkably, about what he experienced under the influence of these drugs. (The book comes fronted with a publisher’s disclaimer that nothing contained within is “intended to encourage you to break the law.” Whatever, Dad.)
...

Psychedelics are to drugs what the Pyramids are to architecture — majestic, ancient and a little frightening. Pollan persuasively argues that our anxieties are misplaced when it comes to psychedelics, most of which are nonaddictive. They also fail to produce what Pollan calls the “physiological noise” of other psychoactive drugs. All things considered, LSD is probably less harmful to the human body than Diet Dr Pepper.

Disclaimer aside, nothing in Pollan’s book argues for the recreational use or abuse of psychedelic drugs. What it does argue is that psychedelic-aided therapy, properly conducted by trained professionals — what Pollan calls White-Coat Shamanism — can be personally transformative, helping with everything from overcoming addiction to easing the existential terror of the terminally ill. The strange thing is we’ve been here with psychedelics before.
...

He also reminds readers that excitement around any purportedly groundbreaking substance tends to dim as studies widen. In the early 1980s, for instance, SSRI antidepressants were hailed as the answer to human melancholy; these days, most perform only slightly better than a placebo.

Where Pollan truly shines is in his exploration of the mysticism and spirituality of psychedelic experiences. Many LSD or psilocybin trips — even good trips — begin with an ordeal that can feel scarily similar to dissolving, or even dying. What appears to be happening, in a neurological sense, is that the part of the brain that governs the ego and most values coherence — the default mode network, it’s called — drops away. An older, more primitive part of the brain emerges, one that’s analogous to a child’s mind, in which feelings of individuality are fuzzier and a capacity for awe and wonder is stronger. As one developmental psychologist tells Pollan, “Babies and children are basically tripping all the time.”

You don’t necessarily need drugs to enter this strange, egoless realm of consciousness: Near-death experiences, meditation and fasting can get you there, too. But psychedelics get you there quickly, while greatly intensifying concomitant feelings of oneness with … whatever it is the quieting of our default mode network puts us in contact with.
...

Human consciousness is one of the greatest puzzles of existence, and will likely remain so, no matter what psychedelic enthusiasts might promise. In that sense, it probably doesn’t matter whether the doorway to heaven is in the dirt, among the fungi, or whether psychedelic visions are merely the churn of a poisoned brain. That’s the problem with psychedelics. They’re hard to talk about without sounding like an aspiring guru or credulous dolt. Michael Pollan, somehow predictably, does the impossible: He makes losing your mind sound like the sanest thing a person could do."

[Nick - Pie Man]

So a millennial was elected into the ACT legislative assembly and the first thing he does is try to make his recreational drug habit legal ..

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/act/new-labor-bill-would-make-using-and-growing-cannabis-legal-in-canberra-20180914-p503rs.html

[K]

Giant bricks of marijuana wash up on Florida beaches

https://www.theage.com.au/world/north-america/giant-bricks-of-marijuana-wash-up-on-florida-beaches-20180919-p504of.html

[K]

This is what happens to a shy octopus on ecstasy

https://www.theage.com.au/environment/sustainability/this-is-what-happens-to-a-shy-octopus-on-ecstasy-20180921-p5055s.html

'Robert Malenka, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Stanford University, who was not involved with this study, called for increased study of MDMA in an influential Cell paper in 2016.
...

Some people call MDMA "an empathogen" because "it reduces inhibition, it reduces social anxiety, it reduces the fear of social interaction", Malenka said. And because MDMA can curb hostility and anger, Malenka sees its value as a tool in neuroscience.

"I passionately believe we need to understand [what makes social interactions positive]," he said - nothing less than the "survival of our species" depends on it.
...

MDMA binds to a receptor for the molecule serotonin, a neurotransmitter that affects our mood. The receptor is like a vacuum at the end of a neuron that sucks up the serotonin molecules, Malenka said. MDMA flips the pump from a vacuum to a leaf blower, releasing more serotonin.

... "Octopuses are special because they are separated from humans by over 500 million years of evolution, but they are able to do so many complex, interesting cognitive behaviours," Dolen said.

They also appear to have something in their brains like the serotonin receptor in humans. ...

Considering the hugging behavior and similar part of the gene, the authors say there's evidence "the neural mechanisms subserving social behaviors exist in O. bimaculoides". Put another way, despite the 500 million years of separation between humans and octopuses, and our very different brains, what rewards us for social activity probably rewards octopuses, too.

Malenka, who called the approach in this report "very clever", said he was not totally convinced that serotonin and its receptor explained this behaviour. The genetic evidence is suggestive, but MDMA also interacts with neurotransmitters such as dopamine, he pointed out.

"Without a test like blocking serotonin and then retesting the effects of MDMA, you can't be sure that this is the mechanism," Bedi said. "However, I think that it is not an unreasonable hypothesis." '

[HAL]

Do you?

[think positive]

With all the pricks in prison, they felt the need to drug an octopus

Would have been a million volunteers

[K]

What Happens When You Give L.S.D. to an Elephant?

Humans keep finding ways to justify giving drugs and alcohol to animals.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/24/opinion/what-happens-when-you-give-lsd-to-an-elephant.html