Stephan: One of the many tragedies arising from America's insane drug policies has been the loss of psychoactive drugs as tools of therapy. The research is very clear that they can be extraordinarily effective in psychiatry and for problems like PTSD.
Further Suggested Reading:
* A lovely, illustrated history of mind-altering drug use: High Society by Mike Jay Park (Street Press, 2010).
* More on the sixties, the CIA, LSD, etc.: Acid Dreams by Martin Lee and Bruce Shlain (Grove Press, 1985) and Storming Heaven -- LSD and the American Dream by Jay Stevens (Grove Press, 1987).
* A glorious mytho-poetic encyclopedia of psychoactive substances: the Pharmako trilogy by Dale Pendell (North Atlantic Books, updated editions 2010).
* For the current state of psychedelic science, policy, and controversy, subscribe to the journal from MAPS -- the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Substances (www.maps.org).
The California ballot initiative for partial marijuana legalization (Proposition 19) may have been defeated for the moment, but nevertheless more than four million voters said ‘yes’ to it. Between the recent reduction in California’s penalties for use — now reduced to a fine for possession of under an ounce of marijuana — and the burgeoning medical marijuana industry, clearly the times are a-changin’. There are many hundreds of thousands of certified medical marijuana users in California, and twelve other states now have some reduction in marijuana criminalization as well. With scientific research into the clinical effects of psychedelics also burgeoning and a growing number of papers indicating benefit for various psychiatric conditions (post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, terminal illnesses, and drug addiction), thereby bolstering historic claims for clinical utility, and with the horrific costs of failed prohibition more and more obvious to the public, decriminalization — if not legalization — has become more of a possibility. With this as background, it is imperative to undertake a public reevaluation of where we are with respect to psychedelic use, its risks, and its potential to support personal, spiritual, and cultural transformation.
The History: Ancient and Modern
Psychoactive substance-induced alteration of consciousness is ages old, the […]
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
JASON PALMER, - BBC News (U.K.)
Stephan:
A study using census data from nine countries shows that religion there is set for extinction, say researchers.
The study found a steady rise in those claiming no religious affiliation.
The team’s mathematical model attempts to account for the interplay between the number of religious respondents and the social motives behind being one.
The result, reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas, US, indicates that religion will all but die out altogether in those countries.
The team took census data stretching back as far as a century from countries in which the census queried religious affiliation: Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.
Their means of analysing the data invokes what is known as nonlinear dynamics – a mathematical approach that has been used to explain a wide range of physical phenomena in which a number of factors play a part.
One of the team, Daniel Abrams of Northwestern University, put forth a similar model in 2003 to put a numerical basis behind the decline of lesser-spoken world languages.
At its heart is the competition between speakers of different languages, and the ‘utility’ of speaking one instead of another.
‘The idea is pretty simple,’ said Richard Wiener of the […]
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
, - United Press International
Stephan: Thanks to Damien Broderick, PhD.
CLEVELAND — U.S. researchers say they’ve made a breakthrough in the development of low-cost hydrogen fuel cells that one day could power electric cars.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland say catalysts made of carbon nanotubes dipped in a polymer solution can outperform traditional platinum catalysts in fuel cells at a fraction of the cost.
The scientists say the new technology can remove one of the biggest roadblocks to widespread cell use: the cost of the catalysts.
Platinum, which represents at least a quarter of the cost of fuel cells, currently sells for about $30,000 per pound, while the activated carbon nanotubes cost about $45 per pound, a Case release said Tuesday.
‘This is a breakthrough,’ Liming Dai, a professor of chemical engineering and the research team leader, said.
Soaking carbon nanotubes in a water solution of the polymer for a couple of hours coats the nanotube surface and pulls an electron partially from the carbon, creating a net positive charge, researchers said.
When placed on the cathode of an alkaline fuel cell, the charged material acts as a catalyst for the oxygen-reduction reaction that produces electricity by electrochemically combining hydrogen and oxygen.
In testing, the researchers’ carbon catalyst fuel cell produced as much power […]
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
ERIC DOLAN, - The Raw Story
Stephan:
The first ever investor-grade analysis report of the medical marijuana market in the United States found that it will soon rival the market for Viagra.
The report, released Wednesday by the independent financial analysis firm See Change Strategy LLC, found that medical marijuana now has a $1.7 billion market and predicts that it will double in the next five years.
‘Medical marijuana markets are rapidly growing across the country and will reach $1.7 billion this year,’ Ted Rose, editor of the report, said. ‘We undertook this effort because we noticed a dearth of reliable market information about this politically charged business.’
The growth of the market is being driven by increased patient access and the adoption of regulations that facilitate the sale of medical marijuana. The sale of medical marijuana has been legalized in the states of Arizona, California, Colorado, Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey, New Mexico, Maine, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia. The possession, usage, purchase, sale, and/or cultivation of marijuana is still prohibited under the federal Controlled Substance Act.
‘Hundreds of businesses exist around the country that cultivate and sell marijuana to customers,’ Rose added. ‘Many of these businesses emerged in the wake of the Obama Administration’s decision to […]
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Thursday, March 24th, 2011
PAOLLA VILLA, - University of Colorado at Boulder
Stephan: As this trend goes on, we are shown over and over again that early hominoids were not the primitive brutes they were once believed to be. Old myths die hard though, and one still frequently sees them described in this way in much of the media.
A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren’t dimwitted brutes as often portrayed.
The conclusion comes from the study of scores of ancient archaeological research sites in Europe that show convincing evidence of long-term fire control by Neanderthals, said Paola Villa, a curator at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Villa co-authored a paper on the new study with Professor Wil Roebroeks of Leiden University in the Netherlands.
‘Until now, many scientists have thought Neanderthals had some fires but did not have continuous use of fire,’ said Villa. ‘We were not expecting to find a record of so many Neanderthal sites exhibiting such good evidence of the sustained use of fire over time.’
A paper on the subject was published in the March 14 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Neanderthals are thought to have evolved in Europe roughly 400,000 to 500,000 years ago and went extinct about 30,000 years ago. Neanderthals ranged over much of Europe and stretched to Central Asia. Neanderthals were stockier than anatomically modern humans and even shared the […]
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