Psilocybin Mushrooms
Credit: AP /Peter Dejong

NEW YORK — Research into mind-and perception-altering drugs flourished in the 1950s, then floundered amid an atmosphere of demonization and illegalization in the following decades, particularly under the Nixon and Reagan administrations.

Yet researchers are taking up the cause again, exploring the possibility that psychedelic compounds might effectively treat afflictions including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and anxiety — much the same as their peers set out to do decades ago.

From Imperial College London to John Hopkins University in Baltimore and New York University, there are murmurs of a renaissance in psychedelic research and thought.

In 2006, Roland Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a team of researchers published a groundbreaking article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance.” The paper concludes that, “When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences.” Two-thirds of those involved in […]

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Colorado State Capitol
Credit: Shutterstock

The fight for a statewide single-payer health-care system has shifted from the Green Mountains to the Rocky Mountains: Colorado citizens are about to put single-payer up for a statewide ballot referendum in the 2016 election. If voters approve, the state constitution will be amended to create a statewide, publicly financed, universal system for the first time in US history.

After a long struggle, Vermont’s proposal for a similar plan died in January 2015, after a decision by the governor to abandon the plan. Green Mountain Care, as it was known, is the closest any state has come to implementing a public health-care system that covers everyone. So the failure was a major disappointment for advocates for social justice everywhere. But the setback didn’t stop activists in states across the country from pursuing similar reforms. Many in these states watched events in Vermont closely – to see what worked and what didn’t and to avoid the pitfalls that proved fatal.

Paul Krugman

No doubt surprising many of the people watching the Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders cited Denmark as a role model for how to help working people. Hillary Clinton demurred slightly, declaring that “we are not Denmark,” but agreed that Denmark is an inspiring example.

Such an exchange would have been inconceivable among Republicans, who don’t seem able to talk about European welfare states without adding the word “collapsing.” Basically, on Planet G.O.P. all of Europe is just a bigger version of Greece. But how great are the Danes, really?

The answer is that the Danes get a lot of things right, and in so doing refute just about everything U.S. conservatives say about economics. And we can also learn a lot from the things Denmark has gotten wrong.

Denmark maintains a welfare state — a set of government programs designed to provide economic security — that is beyond the wildest dreams of American liberals. […]

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Credit: www.opposingviews.com

You’d be surprised how often a toddler with a gun accidentally injures or kills someone.

This is flippant language to use about tragic situations, but the scenario of a small child finding a firearm, being curious about it and accidentally shooting someone, is staggeringly common—about once a week by the best count. It’s a scenario the pro-gun forces never talk about, perhaps because it can’t by any stretch be solved by still more guns. According to a recent report in the Washington Post, toddler gun accidents happen on at least a weekly basis, that we know of. Only the most tragic cases make the news, and otherwise, no one is really counting.

Sometimes the toddler is on the receiving end, as in Chicago this past weekend when a 6-year-old killed his 3-year-old brother while playing a game of cops and robbers. Other times, a curious wee tot is the one who fires what he (and it is usually a boy) presumes to be a toy. Two weeks ago, a 2-year-old in South Carolina found […]

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In this Aug. 31, 2015 photo, Josue Torres-Rubio, of Wapato, Wash., who is serving time on charges for robbery, residential burglary and possession of a stolen car, poses for a photo inside his solitary confinement cell at the Washington Corrections Center, in Shelton, Wash. Credit: AP /Ted S. Warren

Excerpted from “LOCKDOWN ON RIKERS” by Mary E. Buser. Published by St. Martins Press. Copyright © Mary E. Buser, 2015.

At the end of a long cinder-block corridor, a correction officer in an elevated booth passes the time with a paperback book. Across from the booth, a barred gate cordons off a dim passageway. Along the passageway wall are the words: central punitive segregation unit.