Guy who wants to be in office has ideas about drugs

Posted on November 8, 2022 by Pete

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33 Responses to Guy who wants to be in office has ideas about drugs

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Servetus says:

November 9, 2022 at 8:53 pm

If Donald Trump is going to pound his drug war drums to advocate for lethal Chinese policies on drug enforcement and punishment, he needs to go all the way and promote the Chinese death penalty for insurrectionism.
- Pete says:
  
  November 9, 2022 at 8:59 pm
  
  Yeah, he’d never actually want any of the laws or rules he proposes to his mindless masses to apply to him or his family (or whoever supplies them with coke).
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Carlyle Moulton says:

November 20, 2022 at 6:42 am

The Chinese don’t have problems with human rights being applied to mere members of species homo sapiens whom authorities want gone nor with nicetys like “fair trials” and “due process” nor do other nations with the death penalty.

In nations that do execute drug criminals it is rarely applies to drug kingpins unless they get shot while resisting arrest because kingpins have dirt on the corrupt police and politicians who license there activities as trials would be embarrassing. Kingpins are lisensed on condition they inform on a few low level dealers and mules who can serve as scapegoats.

In Duterte’s Phillipines the police thought users were the problem not suppliers. If you get rid of all the miserable poor people who use drugs because they are miserable

If Trump is sincere he will have to streamline the legal system so that the time from arrest to conviction and execution can be cut to a few weeks at most. At least it will please his white supremicist mates as it will hasten the answer to the Negro question left over from Abe Lincon’s excesses of wokeness, freeing Black slaves.

Proponents of ethnic and social hygiene maintenance will also support Trump.
Servetus says:

December 3, 2022 at 12:13 pm

US veterans are making progress toward the use of psychedelics for treatment of their PTSD, with no help from Donald T. :

Last Veterans Day, former Texas Governor Rick Perry bounded onstage at a swanky affair in the ballroom of the Californian Hotel del Coronado. The audience of several hundred was not the crowd you might expect to pay $500 to hear a conservative politician. It was not made up of oil and gas industry professionals or would-be entrepreneurs seeking inspiration and business tips from the onetime presidential hopeful. The attendees were heavily represented by advocates for psychedelic therapy, gathered for an event called the “Strength in Numbers Gala to End Veteran Suicide.”

Our government, announced Perry, does “a great job recruiting young people into the military, teaching them how to break stuff⁠, but doesn’t know how to transition them back into the private sector.” Therapies using psychedelic adjuncts, he continued, were the answer. “I’m willing to put my reputation on the line so that young men and women who have sacrificed for us have the opportunity to have these compounds available to them, because it saves lives.” He concluded saying he was “damn proud” to be fighting to save “American patriot lives.”

If Perry strikes you as an unlikely champion of psychedelic treatments, then you haven’t been watching much conservative media lately. In recent years, outlets from Breitbart to Fox News have become busy with conservative boosterism for treating veterans with molecules that less than a decade ago were the fringe domain of ravers, psychonauts and a few coastal in-the-know therapists. Perry was himself introduced to the concept by Marcus Luttrell, a former Navy SEAL turned host on Glenn Beck’s conservative network TheBlaze. […]

…the starring role played by veterans and right-wing politicians in the current “psychedelic renaissance” represents the closing of a long, strange circle: the people and institutions most responsible for enforcing the criminalization of psychedelics are now lauded and prized as ideal treatment demographics. […]

https://www.truthdig.com/dig/long-strange-loop-psychedelics-ptsd/
- NorCalNative says:
  
  December 7, 2022 at 11:53 am
  
  I support the therapeutic use of psychedelics for veterans. Rick Doblin of MAPS has been working towards acceptance of the use of psychedelics for PTSD since the early 80’s. Not everyone appreciates his association with right-wing funders and/or his work with the military though.
  
  A link from the truthdig.com article from 2018 is revealing. David Nickles writing on psymposia had this headline: The Police, The Military, and Violent White Supremacism. He said, “For decades, MAPS and other proponents of psychedelic medicalization have justified their emphasis on treating police and soldiers as a political strategy in service to mainstreaming psychedelic drugs. This strategy perpetuates the logic of white supremacism, capitalism, and imperialism.”
  
  I learned in my cannabis studies that who gets PTSD, and how bad, depends on the current status of one’s endocannabinoid system. Military use of CBD with low-dose THC could help active-duty soldiers avoid or reduce PTSD symptoms without getting high. I think there’s serious ethical issues in authorized active-duty use of psychedelics and would be against it.
  
  What bothers me is that the political strategy employed by MAPS has chosen to elevate vet’s concerns and health over domestic forms of PTSD like rape or domestic violence. Apparently “raped women” can’t gather enough public-based sympathy and support to be the more viable option for research and use.
  
  I’ve never had MDMA before and would like to give it a try someday. We’ve got a couchmate who is a Vet that uses psychedelics, i.e., Son of Sam Walton and I’d love to hear his thoughts on this subject.
  - NorCalNative says:
    
    December 16, 2022 at 2:42 pm
    
    I found some info on how research psilocybin compares to dried mushrooms by weight. Sunil Aggarwal, MD, had a link from his twitter account.
    
    They listed 5 categories of dosing. Microdose, Low Dose, Moderate Dose, Full Dose, and “Heroic” Dose.
    
    A Microdose of dried mushrooms was (0.1-0.5 g) and compares to (1-5 mg) of pure psilocybin. Effects: A Good Day.
    
    A Low Dose of dried mushrooms was (0.5-2g) and equals (5-20mg) for the pure psilocybin. Effects: Mild euphoria, visual enhancements, distracted thoughts.
    
    A Moderate Dose of mushrooms was (2-3.5 g) compared to (20-35mg) for the pure psilocybin.
    
    A Full Dose of mushrooms was (3.5-5g) compared to (35-50mg) for pure psilocybin. Effects: Visuals, ego dissolution.
    
    A “Heroic” Dose was (5+ grams) for mushrooms and (50mg) for the pure psilocybin. Effects: Ego death, disconnected, default reality.
    
    Chewing more than a gram or two of dried mushrooms is about all I can handle. Need to buy a blender.
    - NorCalNative says:
      
      December 21, 2022 at 12:49 pm
      
      Sitting here freezing waiting for power to be restored in Fortuna. The 6.4 earthquake was a rough ride.
    - Son of Sam Walton says:
      
      December 25, 2022 at 6:18 am
      
      Is your house OK from the earthquake Nor Cal? What about your neighbors?
      
      Over here, it went from like 45 degrees to zero and negative numbers in under 18 hrs–snowed and the heater in my house went out right when the outside temp was at 3 degrees and dropping (and wind speeds to match freight trains), which caused me to have to spend over an hour in the attic working on it. And tomorrow it will be in the low 50s, like nothing happened.
    - NorCalNative says:
      
      December 25, 2022 at 10:40 am
      
      Merry Christmas MC and couchmates. I had some really minor damage to my place but there is a natural gas pipeline leak in my backyard that will need to be dug up and repaired. Lots of business’s in town had damaged inventory and lost store-front windows. A dozen or so homes were knocked off foundations. It’s amazing how much noise big earthquakes make. Some compare it to trains.
      
      My temps were never actually freezing, I’m just a candy ass when it comes to the cold weather. What you and a lot of the country is/was going through is something I’m glad to have avoided. When you guys were freezing our Nor Cal temps on the coast are 10 degrees above normal which means no frost or ice.
    - Servetus says:
      
      December 26, 2022 at 11:56 am
      
      Glad to hear you’re OK, NorCal. A neighbor of mine is a retired Cal professor who’s written a couple of books on earthquake architecture. He once said that no one has ever died in an earthquake while residing in a wood frame building. It seems wood flexes, while concrete breaks—good news for me, since I’m in a wood frame structure and the next big shake hasn’t hit the Bay Area yet. I was here for the Loma Prieta quake. I could hear it coming before it hit, like thunder in the distance.
Servetus says:

December 9, 2022 at 7:51 pm

Still more progress: who would have thought that by simply removing the sex drive of the yeast cell it could be turned into a detector for cannabinoids or molecules that can imitate cannabinoids and other substances in medicinal effects? Certainly not Trump or his minions. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen just made the leap:

8-DEC-2022 – Researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Science have modified a yeast cell to sense the active substances in cannabis and get it to turn red when it does. The result paves the way for more actors to discover new medicinal substances and for a new type of drug test that can be done with a smartphone.

The researchers also developed a portable plastic device with a yeast cell biosensor in it. Plant material, saliva, urine, blood and other material is placed into the gizmo. The device then uses the smartphone’s camera to see if the yeast cells light up, delivering its result in just 15 minutes. […]

“We have made a living sensor out of the yeast cell, which can now sense cannabinoids or molecules that have the same function as cannabinoids even if they look very different than cannabinoids. Among other things, the biosensor can be used to look for new substances with the same properties as cannabinoids. This could democratize medicinal development so that pharmaceutical companies aren’t the only ones equipped to discover new substances,” says Professor Sotirios Kampranis of the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, who headed the research. […]

Cannabinoids are known to be connected with sleep, appetite and pain relief. In fact we have them naturally in our bodies where they are calle endocannabinoids. This is precisely why the researchers chose to encode the ability to find cannabinoids in the yeast cells. But in principle, they could have done so for opioids or any other group of medicinal substances. This is precisely why the researchers chose to encode the ability to find cannabinoids in the yeast cells. But in principle, they could have done so for opioids or any other group of medicinal substances. […]

AAAS Public Science News Release: Scientists remove yeast cell’s sex drive and turn it into a cannabis tracker: Researchers at the University of Copenhagen’s Faculty of Science have modified a yeast cell to sense the active substances in cannabis and get it to turn red when it does.

Nature Communications: A GPCR-based yeast biosensor for biomedical, biotechnological, and point-of-use cannabinoid determination

Karel Miettinen, Nattawat Leelahakorn, Aldo Almeida, Yong Zhao, Lukas R. Hansen, Iben E. Nikolajsen, Jens B. Andersen, Michael Givskov, Dan Staerk, Søren Bak & Sotirios C. Kampranis.
Servetus says:

December 10, 2022 at 10:23 am

Understanding the use of cannabis and psychedelics for treating PTSD is being helped by research that reveals how the brain reacts to trauma in PTSD patients.

“Knowing what to look for in the brain when someone is exposed to trauma could significantly advance treatments,” said Suarez-Jimenez, a co-first author with Xi Zhu, PhD, Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology at Columbia, of this paper. “In this case, we know where a change is happening in the brain and how some people can work around that change. It is a marker of resilience.” […]

The possibility of threat can change how someone exposed to trauma reacts – researchers found this is the case in people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as described in a recent study in Depression & Anxiety. Suarez-Jimenez, his fellow co-authors, and senior author Neria found patients with PTSD can complete the same task as someone without exposure to trauma when no emotion is involved. However, when emotion invoked by a threat was added to a similar task, those with PTSD had more difficulty […]

…researchers observed people with PTSD had less signaling between the hippocampus – an area of the brain responsible for emotion and memory – and the salience network – a mechanism used for learning and survival. They also detected less signaling between the amygdala (another area linked to emotion) and the default mode network (an area of the brain that activates when someone is not focused on the outside world). […]

“This tells us that patients with PTSD have issues discriminating only when there is an emotional component. In this case, aversive; we still need to confirm if this is true for other emotions like sadness, disgust, happiness, etc.,” said Suarez-Jimenez. “So, it might be that in the real-world emotions overload their cognitive ability to discriminate between safety, danger, or reward. It overgeneralizes towards danger.” […]

Neuroscience: Researchers Reveal How Trauma Changes the Brain

Communications Biology: Sequential fear generalization and network connectivity in trauma exposed humans with and without psychopathology

Xi Zhu, Benjamin Suarez-Jimenez, Amit Lazarov, Sara Such, Caroline Marohasy, Scott S. Small, Tor D. Wager, Martin A. Lindquist, Shmuel Lissek & Yuval Neria
Servetus says:

December 26, 2022 at 12:12 pm

Music is added to ayahuasca treatments with positive results leading toward relieving people of their drug addictions:

26-DEC-2022 — …Ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic, means “vine of the dead” in Quechua, Perú’s primary Indigenous language […]

Traditional songs, known as icaros, are part of a treatment process for men rehabilitating from drug and alcohol addictions. Combined with traditional Amazonian medicine and psychotherapy, these icaros are used during ayahuasca healing ceremonies…a University of California, Riverside music researcher has captured the positive impact icaros play in men’s recovery.

About 67% of participants who completed a nine-to-12-month program at Takiwasi Center, did not return to substance abuse, according to previous research cited by Graham and his colleagues. About 86% of patients showed statistically significant improvements on the Addictions Severity Index, an assessment tool used to evaluate substance abuse treatment.

An analysis from 2017-19 assessed 180 responses. All patients reported that icaros changed their psycho-emotional state and that icaros effected healing related to “unblocking,” a process also known as “cleansing” and “removing,” referring to reports of ayahuasca’s purgative effects, both physical and psycho-emotional. […]

UC Riverside Science News Release: Music and ayahuasca’s role in treating substance use disorders in men: UC Riverside researcher finds the crucial role icaros, traditional Peruvian songs, play during ayahuasca healing ceremonies

Anthropology of Consciousness: Experiences of Listening to Icaros during Ayahuasca Ceremonies at Centro Takiwasi: An Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

Owain J. Graham, Gary Rojas Saucedo, Matteo Politi
Servetus says:

January 6, 2023 at 10:11 pm

Bad news for Big Pharma — Cannabis is overtaking opioids for pain relief:

As more U.S. states legalize cannabis … for medical and recreational use, increasing numbers of people are experimenting with it for pain relief. According to a new study published in JAMA Network Open, almost a third of patients with chronic pain reported using cannabis to manage it. […]

The fact that patients report substituting cannabis for pain medications so much underscores the need for research on the benefits and risk of using cannabis for chronic pain,” said Mark Bicket, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Co-Director of the Michigan Opioid Prescribing Engagement Network. […]
- NorCalNative says:
  
  January 7, 2023 at 4:12 pm
  
  The AMA and the JAMA are nothing but consistent in their anti-cannabis positions. They’ve had little interest in emerging cannabis science, or in encouraging physicians to study and keep up on the science. It’s no secret that Big Pharma has played a significant role (i.e., $) in ensuring this problem exists and continues to exist.
  
  My experience and study says cannabis AND low-dose opiates are the best for managing pain. An either/or scenario is pure political theater rather than evidence-based allopathic medicine. It’s best to remember that pain is not a singular experience because it’s always accompanied by an emotional response known as suffering. Where cannabis underperforms opiates in pain reduction, it outshines them in reducing suffering and the pain experience, within limits.
  
  A few CBD gummies post-surgery would be a bad idea. For many with chronic pain the benefits of cannabis-relief can literally be lifesaving.
  
  I’ve had some good pain relief from adding a moderate dose of Kratom (4-to-6 grams) to 100mg of Rick Simpson cannabis oil. I’m taking Kratom infrequently in order to keep from developing any Kratom tolerance. Not a fan of unregulated substances though cuz you never really know what you’re getting. However, when M.D.s refuse to prescribe opiates for chronic pain, you gotta do what you gotta do. Compared to dirty street drugs OTC Kratom seems the safer option.
Servetus says:

January 10, 2023 at 9:40 pm

Josee Guindon, DVM, PH.D., is named the 2023 William A Devane Young Investigator Award Honoree by the International Cannabinoid Research Society:

10-JAN-2023…cannabinoids in general are a relatively new field of study, and one around which Josee Guindon, DVM, Ph.D., has built her research career. For those efforts, she has been named the 2023 William A Devane Young Investigator Award honoree by the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS). Guindon, a tenured associate professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, will officially receive the award June 24-29 in Toronto at the ICRS’s 33rd Annual International Cannabinoid Research Society Symposium.

The award shines a light on researchers who have demonstrated dedication, perseverance and skill in studying and researching the endocannabinoid system. The unique and prestigious international award showcases investigators demonstrating outstanding contributions to the cannabinoid field within 15 years of receiving their Ph.D. […]

Guindon’s interest in the relationship between cannabinoids and pain and cancer management intensified several years later when she helped her mother battle cancer. Today, she also is studying the differences in treating pain and cancer in elderly patients versus young, including how sex differences continue to affect the ways in which men and women are treated as they age. In fact, three of her most recent peer-reviewed publications demonstrated the role of sex hormones and cannabinoids in pain (Blanton et al., 2021), in modulating breast and ovarian cancer tumor growth (McHann et al., 2021) and how cannabinoids influence ovarian tumor growth (Blanton et al., 2022).

“It’s quite a diverse field that has been booming extensively and a lot of NIH funding is put toward cannabinoids because of its legalization across many states now,” Guindon said. […]

AAAS Public Science News Release: TTUHSC’s Guindon earns international award for cannabinoid research
Servetus says:

January 19, 2023 at 8:03 pm

Prescription codeine sales are dropping as people switch to marijuana for pain relief.

“A reduction in the misuse of opioids can save lives,” said lead author Shyam Raman, a doctoral candidate in Cornell’s Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy. “Our research indicates that recreational cannabis laws substantially reduce distribution of codeine to pharmacies, an overlooked potential benefit to legalizing recreational cannabis use.” […]

The researchers analyzed data from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Automation of Reports and Consolidation Orders System (ARCOS) which tracks the flow of controlled substances in the U.S. These are their key findings from states that passed recreational cannabis laws:

•A reduction of 26% in pharmacy-based distribution of codeine and as much as a 37% reduction after recreational cannabis laws have been in effect for four years.

•Minimal impact on distribution of other opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and morphine in any setting.

•Minimal impact on codeine distribution by hospitals which are often have less permissive policies than pharmacies.

“This finding is particularly meaningful,” said senior author Coleman Drake, Ph.D., assistant professor of health policy and management at Pitt’s School of Public Health. “Among prescription opioids, codeine misuse is especially high. Our findings suggest recreational cannabis use may be a substitute for codeine misuse.”

AAAS Public Science News Release: Availability of recreational cannabis reduced demand for prescription codeine

Health Economics: Recreational cannabis and opioid distribution

Shyam Raman, Johanna Catherine Maclean, W. David Bradford, Coleman Drake
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Servetus says:

February 5, 2023 at 10:36 pm

Australia legalized psilocybin and MDMA for medical use:

03 FEB 2023 — Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said in a statement that starting July 1, psychiatrists may prescribe MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine), commonly called “Molly” or “ecstasy” by recreational users, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and psilocybin—the psychedelic pro-drug compound in “magic” mushrooms—for treatment-resistant depression.

“These are the only conditions where there is currently sufficient evidence for potential benefits in certain patients,” TGA said, adding that the drugs must be taken “in a controlled medical setting.”

Advocates of MDMA and psilocybin are hopeful that one day doctors could prescribe them to treat a range of conditions, from alcoholism and eating disorders to obsessive-compulsive disorder. […]
Servetus says:

February 15, 2023 at 10:50 am

Call for widespread distribution of Naloxone to reduce ODs:

15-FEB-2023 — “Now is the time to become more proactive in the fight against opioid-related deaths,” said Allison Ferris, M.D., corresponding author, chair of the Department of Medicine, program director of the internal medicine residency program, and an associate professor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “We propose a call to action for all health providers and state medical societies to ensure the widest distribution and easy availability of naloxone, including over the counter, which is likely to be FDA-approved very soon.”

The researchers say that patients for whom the benefit-to-risk ratio is positive include, but are not limited to, the 22.5 million people, or about 8.5 percent of the U.S. population ages 12 or older, who need professional treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use disorder. […]

Many patients who are prescribed high doses of opioids have witnessed overdoses but fewer than 3 percent have naloxone available for immediate use,” said Hennekens. […]

AAAS Public Science News Release: Researchers endorse widespread naloxone over the counter to prevent drug overdose deaths
Servetus says:

February 19, 2023 at 3:28 pm

Artificial Intelligence is being employed to design new drugs specifically targeting opioid addictions:

18-FEB-2023 — …Approximately three million Americans suffer from opioid use disorder, and every year more than 80,000 Americans die from overdoses […]

Kappa-opioid receptors are known to mediate brain rewards. “If you’re addicted and you’re trying to quit, at some point you will get withdrawal symptoms, and those can be really hard to overcome,” Salas Estrada explained, “after a lot of opioid exposure, your brain gets rewired to need more drugs. Blocking the activity of the kappa opioid receptor has been shown in animal models to reduce this need to use drugs in the withdrawal period.” […]

“Artificial intelligence has the advantage of being able to take huge amounts of information and learn to recognize patterns from it…machine learning can help us to leverage the information that can be derived from large chemical databases to design new drugs from scratch [and] reduce the time and costs associated with drug discovery,” […]

So far, the team has identified several compounds that have promising properties and they are working with collaborators to synthesize them and eventually test their ability to block the kappa-opioid receptor in cells, before testing them in animal models for safety and effectiveness.

Biophysical Society Newsroom: How AI can help design drugs to treat opioid addiction
Servetus says:

February 24, 2023 at 7:27 pm

Psilocybin helps people eliminate their addiction to nicotine.

24-FEB-2023…Lead author and University of Cincinnati postdoctoral researcher Neşe Devenot said the results demonstrate the potential psychedelics have to reshape self-perceptions to help people break free of old habits or addictions in the face of life’s daily triggers and temptations.

“We saw again and again that people had this feeling that they were done with smoking and that they were a nonsmoker now,” Devenot said. […]

One guided imagery exercise from the study framed nicotine addiction as an external force, manipulating behavior for its own ends like the zombie-creating fungus in HBO’s popular series “The Last of Us.”

“Like the Cordyceps fungi that functionally transforms insects into ‘zombified’ marionettes to serve the fungi’s own reproductive purposes, smoking behavior is characterized as a form of parasitic manipulation,” the study found.

Albert Garcia-Romeu, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, said psilocybin could serve as a catalyst to help motivate and inspire people to make a change with the help of cognitive behavioral therapy. […]

Some participants said the treatment with psilocybin made quitting feel easy compared to past experiences. Another said the cravings for nicotine used to be unbearable. But during the dosing session, the participant was unable even to imagine craving a cigarette.

“The concept seems firmly cemented into my reality even today, that cravings are not something that are real,” one said. […]

AAAS Public Science News Release: Psychedelics may help people reinvent themselves: People stopped smoking by seeing themselves as nonsmokers

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal: Psychedelic Identity Shift: A Critical Approach to Set and Setting

Neşe Devenot , Aidan Seale-Feldman, Elyse Smith, Tehseen Noorani, Albert Garcia-Romeu, Matthew W. Johnson.