Daily Archives: July 25, 2022

The guide stood before a small group in a dimly lit tepee.

Do you want to be entertained, or to go deep? he asked.

The answer came in giddy unison: Go deep!

Good, he said. That was a trick question.

The people got cozy on the pillow-strewn floor as the guide went to his keyboard. Gentle synthesizer music filled the tent. The ceremonial sound bath had begun.

Nearby, men and women in flowing white garb and fedoras sat around a fire, munching on mind-altering fungi. Others convened for a cannabis-puffing prayer session, during which helpers passed out joints and rang singing bowls.

These ethereal scenes took place at a gathering last month in the Cuyama Valley in California, where some 200 people convened for a weekend of tripping and glamping hosted by DoubleBlind, a new media outlet for the psychedelic set.

In addition to its biannual print magazine, which its founders say has a circulation of roughly 5,000, DoubleBlind is tapping into this market of therapeutic and spiritual seekerdom with a website and instructional videos bearing titles like Ego Death: What Is It? and Smoking Weed While Tripping.

There are also online courses that range in price from roughly $75 to $170, on topics including How to Use Psychedelics, How to Microdose and How to Grow Mushrooms. Class materials promise to teach you everything you need to know to get the most out of your journey with these powerful medicines.

The weekend event, called Mycologia, was DoubleBlinds first curated gala of this sort. The price was $450, which included meals and swag, and attendees could bring their own tents or pay more for deluxe lodging. The company promoted the sleep-away gathering with ads touting the chance to connect with fellow psychonauts at our first psychedelic festival!

DoubleBlind was started in 2019 by two journalists, Shelby Hartman, 32, and Madison Margolin, 31, who overlapped while getting their masters degrees in journalism from Columbia University.

Ms. Hartman, DoubleBlinds chief executive, has written for Vice and LA Weekly and worked as an editor at the cannabis website Herb. Ms. Margolin, the editorial director, has published in outlets such as Playboy, Tablet and The Village Voice. Both said they were shaped by hallucinogenic episodes before their journalism careers took off.

As a kid, I had such a hard time focusing, Ms. Hartman said. Ayahuasca actually reached into my brain and showed me.

I heard the ayahuasca say to me, This is what its like to focus, she added.

Ms. Margolin grew up in Los Angeles amid the first generation of hippies: her father, the criminal defense attorney Bruce Margolin, represented the LSD proponent Timothy Leary and was close with Ram Dass, the New Age guru formerly known as Richard Alpert. Ms. Hartman had a more conventional upbringing, in Orange County, Calif.

The idea to start the publication came to Ms. Hartman in 2018, after a period of bouncing between cities and backpacking overseas. She pitched the notion to her friend Ms. Margolin, who was receptive. The enterprise was financed primarily by Ms. Hartmans family (not trippers, but pleased to underwrite), with smaller donations from venture capitalists.

From the start Ms. Hartman and Ms. Margolin had in mind the kind of upscale magazine that might sit comfortably on a Silver Lake or Park Slope coffee table alongside Kinfolk and Dwell.

We wanted these meaty stories with a really high-end aesthetic, Ms. Margolin said.

A friend of Ms. Hartmans, the designer David Good, gave the publication a chic minimalistic look, with warm pastel tones and retro serif typefaces.

We said, No fractals allowed, Ms. Hartman said.

At the Los Angeles launch party in 2019, Ms. Hartman quieted the cheers with a mantra Ommmmm and said, DoubleBlind is one very small sliver of a massive movement thats spreading around the globe right now to wake up.

Its feature articles have some gravitas. In addition to a thoughtful remembrance of Ram Dass soon after his death, DoubleBlind has covered topics like sexual assault at music festivals and what drugs might be beneficially administered to those with brain damage.

Magazines also carry interactive portions, including guided meditations and soothing playlists for a trip, available via QR code. In the fourth issue, readers sent in their own psychedelic testimonies. Growing up an atheist, I now have an unshakable belief god is real, one read, and its everything.

The DoubleBlind merch section has some kitschy items, like vials of sacral balancing oil (sold out), but the brand ethos, by and large, is more do-good than Day-Glo. Service-style articles have the tone of an experienced, good-natured pal lending a hand: Being outside on acid is generally a delight; Do you think its time for mom to trip?; Dont talk to trippers like theyre children that can really send people into a negative place; and, more practically, Dont forget the sunscreen! Other stories have elucidated terms like microaggression and white fragility and instructed readers how to implement anti-racist practice as a form of psychedelic harm reduction.

DoubleBlind belongs to a California media tradition that goes back at least to the 1960s, when the artsy underground paper The Oracle of the City of San Francisco carried contributions by Mr. Leary; ads for early Grateful Dead shows; and helped organize the citys Human Be-In, in 1967, the event that sparked the Summer of Love.

In the 1980s and 90s, a similar spirit animated Mondo 2000 (tagline: will fry your circuits), which published cyberpunk tales and highlighted the work of the dolphin-whisperer John C. Lilly and Terence McKenna, the author known for his eclectic writing about magic mushrooms and prehistoric human evolution. In the 2010s, books like Michael Pollans How To Change Your Mind put forth a scientific, and sympathetic, take on mind-altering substances for the farmers-market crowd.

The use of psychedelic drugs is now teetering on the edge of respectability, with about one-third of American voters professing a belief in their curative effects. Psychedelic-focused pharmaceutical companies have grown in recent years, coinciding with successful decriminalization efforts in cities such as Oakland, Denver and Seattle. As the movement goes on, DoubleBlind is making a bid for the psychonaut mantle.

I could see that they really got it, said Mr. Pollan, who appeared in a DoubleBlind webinar last year. Theyre trying to invent and reinvent the culture of psychedelics for a different generation.

During a recent staff meeting on the patio behind Ms. Hartmans Echo Park apartment, the DoubleBlind team discussed the pleasures and pitfalls of psychedelic entrepreneurship.

We are part of a system that is inherently problematic, Ms. Hartman said.

Heads nodded in agreement.

She added, But weve got to do our best.

Someone lit a joint. After it had been passed around and smoked to a stub, the group stepped inside. Maxwell Josephson, a 33-year-old web designer, led a meditation session, with singing bowl accompaniment. Purse your lips as if you are sipping through a straw your favorite beverage, he said. Imagine the breath nourishing your heart. Taste some fruity flavors. Maybe a nice ros.

At last months festival, attendees carried duffel bags into luxury tents or pitched their own on a dusty hillside. DoubleBlind did not provide hallucinogens, but festivalgoers brought their own and shared provisions. Several bands played while the visitors lounged by a pool in various states of undress, sipping kombucha.

Ms. Hartman and Ms. Margolin strolled the grounds. A participant in bangles approached and said, What is happening here is just so special.

Thank you, Ms. Hartman said, with a little bow.

Stacks of DoubleBlinds seventh print issue lay here and there. The guests included a real-estate-agent-turned-death-doula and a shamanic healer who dispensed bags of shrooms with a business card. In addition to a medic, two psychedelic coaches were on standby in case someones trip went south.

Mark Abraham, a barista from Redlands, Calif., swapped reminiscences over cups of wine with Kate Joosten, a nurses assistant who had come to Mycologia from Las Vegas. Mr. Abraham said he believed that Jesus was a plant shaman whose original wisdom had been lamentably lost to time. At one point, Ms. Joosten said, Psychedelics have more uses than the government wants you to think.

Gloria Park, a lawyer who was wearing flowers in her hair, stood near the dining corner, where charcuterie boards had been arranged among other offerings. This is that kind of life-blowing-up experience that will ripple out into the world, she said.

One guest sat among friends at a picnic table with her eyes scrunched, sniffing a bundle of sage. Georgia Love, a DoubleBlind staff photographer, snapped pictures of people against the high desert backdrop, to be used for future promotions. Were getting such great moments of community, Ms. Love said as she peered through a viewfinder.

As the afternoon wore on, pairs and trios split off to wander the hills.

One woman offered a companion a psychedelic from her bag: Do you want a little DMT?

Oh, yes.

Its life-changing.

At sunset, campers stood on a hillside with views of the darkening valley. Someone improvised a squealing tune on a saxophone as three women unfurled long silken scarves and did a languorous dance. A voice, speaking to no one in particular, sounded out, Thank youuuuuuuu!

The moment the sun dipped below the ridge, the assembly let out a feral chorus of yips and howls.

Link:

Keeping the Hippie Dream Alive - The New York Times

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has been sued over a failure to respond in due time torequests for psychedelics and cannabisrecords, reported Marijuana Moment.

This new suit centers on the DEAs alleged unlawful policy of delaying responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, specifically pertaining to psychedelics and marijuana documents that advocates say theyve sought for legal and journalistic purposes."

DEA flouts these principles of transparency and good government, reads the lawsuit. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a Justice Department FOIA guidance on policy, emphasizing that "agencies should be responsive to requests in an open and timely manner."

Among the sues, a Texas doctor cited in Texas federal district courtthe erroneous DEAs interpretation of right to try laws as it concerns psilocybin. Attorneys Matt Zorn and Kathryn Tuckerboth worked on that case as well.

Plaintiffs have laid out the reasons why they are impacted by DEAs refractoriness on FOIA requests, "the agency has adopted an unlawful policy and pattern or practice of designating requests as complex, regardless of the actual complexity of the documents sought," reads the lawsuit.

For its part, the DEA has said that the requests raise unusual circumstances that exempt them from the statutorily imposed timeline for responding. Also, the DEA defense says that "assigning the FOIA inquiries is complex because retrieving the documents in question might involve coordinating with outside offices."

This policy and pattern or practice rest on a perversion of FOIAs plain language, stated the suit. Plaintiffs are attorneys and their clients who have submitted FOIA requests to DEA only to have the agency unlawfully ignore the statutes processing deadlines merely because the requested records were not present at DEAs FOIA office.

Now, the plaintiffs are asking the court to enjoin the Justice Department and DEA from applying the unlawful policy and pattern or practice and directing defendants to take immediate corrective action to prevent future FOIA violations.Image by Benzinga

More here:

DEA Sued Over Delays To Open Records For Psychedelics And Cannabis - Benzinga - Benzinga

On this weeks Trade to Black podcast, TDR Founder Shadd Dales andlead financial writer Benjamin Smith tackle this weeks news in the cannabis and psychedelics industry. The big news this week is the Cannabis Administration Opportunity Act being introduced to Senate. But theres some more thoughts on the NDAA and Netflixs docuseries on psychedelics, and the potential changing of sentiment towards the industry.

Heres some highlights:

The Cannabis Administration Opportunity Act was introduced with many of the same tenets as it had in July 2021. Pretty much the same thing, says Benjamin. And nobody believes its going to pass thanks to the situation with the Senate.

Why are they presenting this bill now? Even the original April introduction date didnt really make sense. Its not like the Safe Banking Amendment, which was included in the NDAA. Theres a lot of pressure to get it rammed through.

Benjamins got some theories, building on the conversation last week.

The Medical Marijuana and Cannabinoid Research Expansion Act was introduced to congress last week. So far, it looks like its being fast-tracked for action. Theres a possibility it could be sent to the Presidents desk next week.

Should it get past congress, itll be the first cannabis bill presented to the President. Shadd and Benjamin speculate on how this piece might change government sentiment towards cannabis, especially since the senate has been so reluctant to pass legislation.

The past 18 months hasnt been kind to the cannabis industry, senate and congress side-eye notwithstanding. The buzz on social media has a lot of sentimental people pushing strong on Tier 1 MSOs, and theres a lot of hope for legislative changes.

Benjamin says the first word that comes to mind is complicated when he thinks about the next year for cannabis. The industry looks like it will have no trouble continuing to thrive, but it might look a little bit different when it comes to an investment thesis.

Be sure to tune in to hear what he and Shadd have got to say regarding the investor outlook and let us know if you agree. You can join in the conversation on Twitter and YouTube in the comments. Were always happy to hear from our listeners.

Also up on this episode: What Mitch McConnells actions mean for the Safe Banking Act between the House and Senate versions of the Bill, why he and other Republicans seem to be against gaining a fresh perspective on cannabis, and the Netflix documentary on psychedelics How to Change Your Mind. All this and more on Trade to Black.

To view the previous Trade To Black Podcast,click here.

Excerpt from:

Trade to Black Podcast: the Senate Vs the Cannabis Administration Opportunity Act - The Dales Report

Supplied

Jonathan Falconer's new comedy show takes on the science of getting high.

University of Otago teaching fellow and stand-up comedian Jonathan Falconer once had what felt like a powerful revelation while on psychedelic drugs.

It felt so profound that he wrote it down. In the morning, he looked at the piece of paper.

It said: YOLO (you only live once).

The experience is part of Falconers new comedy show, The Science of Getting High, which he will perform at Christchurchs Good Times Comedy Club on Friday.

READ MORE:* Have a Good Trip: Stars yarn about psychedelics in entertaining Netflix doco * Book Review: How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics, Michael Pollan* Mixing comedy and science

Psychedelics have given me profound insights, but then the most basic, kindergarten-level perception of things that felt incredibly profound at the time, he said.

The show is a mix of stand-up comedy, insights about drugs and material from his lectures on pharmacology.

I thought, if I am a mediocre lecturer and a mediocre comedian, maybe I could be a great stand-up comedian talking about drugs.

Supplied

Falconer brings his scientific expertise to comedic use in his new show, The Science of Getting High.

Falconer said the show covers everything from how dopamine works in the brain to the flaws of human memory and perception, and the use of psychedelics as therapeutic drugs.

Research is growing into whether psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, and LSD can be used to treat depression.

It has been an interesting journey for psychedelics. I try and use science to be as objective as you can be about drug harm and therapeutic potentials.

Psychedelics are tools. They are not a magical key that will unlock the truths of the universe.

He sees no conflict between his comedy show and his academic career.

If I stick to the science, there can be no blowback.

I am not taking a Timothy Leary attitude of telling people to take drugs and leave school.

I am trying to do it as sensibly and scientifically as possible.

Falconer grew up in San Diego, California, and moved to Dunedin four years ago. He has been performing stand-up comedy for eight years and finds great joy in making an audience laugh.

Of course, being a pharmacology expert, he can instantly summon the neuroscientific reason for this joy. Something to do with surprise and the production of dopamine in the brain.

There is something about making people laugh that feels amazing.

View post:

Otago academic and comedian takes on the science of getting high - Stuff

Natural psychedelics arent too hard to find if you know where to look. With the right mushrooms, toads, or plants, a trip is within reach. One of the lesser known natural psychedelics comes from a plant but is most ingested as a food honey. Yes, theres naturally occurring psychedelic honey in the world, though its not the easiest to come by.

This rare substance contains a psychoactive element. Known as deli bal in the original Turkish, mad honey is a reddish bee-flower byproduct whose hallucinogenic properties come from its origin plants. Entomologist Arathi Seshadri reveals the dark side of the sweet stuff.

The secret ingredient is grayanotoxin, a neurotoxin named for nineteenth-century American botanist Asa Gray. Also known as andromedotoxin, acetylandromedol, or rhodotoxin, grayanotoxins come from plants in the Ericaceae family. This includes Rhododendron, Pieris, Agarista, and Kalmia genera, according to Seshadri. Indeed, this toxin is present in the flowers nectar, so honey that bees produce from this flower contains grayanotoxin.

Other components of Rhododendron contain these neurotoxins too. So far, researchers have isolated more than 25 types of this toxin in rhododendrons, though it appears grayanotoxins 1 and 3 are the primary toxic segments.

Grayanotoxins are compounds known as cyclic diterpenes that work their magic by binding to voltage-gated sodium ion channels in cells. The toxins basically hold open sodium channels, keeping them activated continuously. This causes a state of depolarization in the cell, allowing sodium ions to flow freely within it instead of remaining polarized to one part of the cell. This leads to dizziness, general muscle weakness, and potentially paralysis.

Sodium channels of cells in skeletal muscles are more responsive to these toxins than those in heart muscles, though grayanotoxins can affect both these types of cells as well as the central nervous system.

Commercially sold honey often comes from many sources, so any toxins are heavily diluted to the point of ineffectiveness. Whats more, rhododendron contains varying levels of grayanotoxins depending on the time of year, so a bee would need to pollinate almost exclusively rhododendron flowers to make mad honey.

Dont worry about eating mad honey by mistake. Its a reddish color and tastes bitter, burning the throat. Mad honey is known to make users feel dizzy and nauseated. Other effects include blurred vision, vomiting, excessive sweating, convulsion, headache, paralysis, and more.

Warning: Experimentation group Erowid recommends against consuming any part of the plant. And for good reason: Mad honey goes from medicinal to poisonous very quickly. Poisoning by mad honey called mad honey disease can be characterized by dangerously low blood pressure and interruption of electrical impulses between different parts of the heart.

In humans, intoxication is rarely lethal, in contrast to cattle and pet poisoning cases, Seshadri says. Lethal or not, mad honey ingestion can lead to irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmias, which can be life-threatening.

Most mad honey comes from Nepal and Turkey, though other countries where intoxication has been reported include China, Philippines, Korea, Indonesia, Japan, Austria, Germany, Brazil, and the Pacific Northwest region of North America.

Effects can come on within 20 minutes to three hours of consumption, and it could take several days for someone to recover fully from the disease. However, grayanotoxins are metabolized and excreted fairly quickly, so a lower-dose intoxication lasts about one day.

This psychedelic honey has been used as an aphrodisiac, an alternative treatment for GI disorders like dyspepsia and gastritis, and hypertension.

The first recorded instance of mad honey poisoning is from 401 B.C.E. by Athenian military commander Xenophon. Turkish King Mithradates also used mad honey as a weapon against Pompey the Great in 67 B.C.E.

This byproduct can be found floating around the Internet, but remember it can be dangerous to consume. If youre looking for a more faithful Winnie-the-Pooh experience, stick to regular supermarket honey.

LEARN SOMETHING NEW EVERY DAY.

Read the original here:

Can mad honey get you high? A bee expert reveals the answer - Inverse