Prescription Ecstasy and Other Pipe Dreams

Here's an interesting interview on the status of psychedelic drug research worldwide called Prescription Ecstasy and Other Pipe Dreams. From the article:

"If MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies) has its way, the days of prescription psychedelics may not be too far away. For those who know the history of psychedelic research, this eventuality has been a long time coming. But others — who may only be familiar with the intense emotions and activities around the “War On Drugs” over the past several decades — may be surprised to learn how much progress MAPS has made.

Jag Davies is the Director of Communications for MAPS, a non-profit research and education organization that assists scientists to design, obtain approval for, fund, conduct and report on research into the healing and spiritual potentials of psychedelics and marijuana. He joined Steve Robles, Jeff Diehl and myself on The RU Sirius Show."

Albert Hofmann 101th Birthday

On this here 101th(!) birthday of Albert Hofmann, discoverer of LSD, I bring you his book LSD: My Problem Child.

Cookers

Guess it's time for an indie movie recommendation - and I'm talking the original sense of the word indie. Cookers is a paranoia story about two young outlaw drug addicts, who steal a van-load of chemicals used to cook crystal-meth. The couple sets up a lab in a rural farmhouse intent on cooking a batch of grade-A speed. Strange and terrifying things start to happen at the house and they don't know if they're hallucinating from all the speed or if it's real... The brilliant meth addict portrayal warrants a 9 out of 10 in my book.

Psilocybin

Klubværelset på P1 handler i denne omgang om de euforiserende psilocybin-svampe. Denne her udsendelse er, så vidt jeg kan huske, det bedste jeg nogensinde har set og hørt i de danske medier om emnet! Jeg troede ikke, at man kunne komme så langt omkring emnet på så kort tid. Godt gået, Rasmus-mayn.

Nedenfor en lille time-lapse video af hjemmedyrk.

Grass

Grass is a great documentary on the history of marijuana in USA. It's narrated by Woody Harrelson, and it's funny and informative. You'll like those old American educational film clips. You can watch it at Google Video.

Weeds

I highly recommend the show Weeds. It follows a suburbian single mother selling weed, and the mood of the show is just excellent.

Europe Just Says Maybe

The article Europe Just Says Maybe from Newsweek is an excellent overview of the state of illegal drugs policy in Europe. It shows an European trend moving from old fashion no tolerance to damage control.

Christiania

P1's retspolitiske program Lige Lovligt har lavet en udmærket udsendelse om Christiania. Bare så du ved det.

Tom Cruise on Psychiatry

Interesting. It turns out to be Tom Cruise who a go at trying to start the discussion on the theoretical grounds in the field of psychiatry. He's quite a bit off on communication skills in this interview clip, but it is worth the watching.

To anyone interested in what this is all about I highly recommend Eliott Valensteins book Blaming The Brain. Excellent critical walk-through of the history of psychiatry.

Rusmidler

If you seek information on drugs, you should visit Erowid - a really impressive collection of informaion. Know this archive. And know Lycaeum - another impressive large of information on the subject of psykoaktive substances.

Ecstasy

De fleste af de ting, du har læst om MDMA (Ecstasy), er baseret på uvidenskabelig og direkte forkert forskning. Denne artikel gennemgår de forskningsresultater, du er blevet fremlagt, i Ekstra Bladets forgange kampagne og lignende. Tænk Parkinson's, 'huller i hjernen', dopamin- og serotoninmangler og billeder af 'din hjerne, og din hjerne efter Ecstasy'.
Rick Doblin, Ph. D, fra MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies), har siden 1986 arbejdet for at genskabe muligheden for MDMA-research, og bringer her et par store myte-busters. Formen er ret videnskabelig, så vær forberedt på at læse langsomt. Til gengæld kan du bagefter fortælle folk, at de tager fejl. Det er herrefedt.

Update:

Sundhedsstyrelsen lavede i 2002 en undersøgelse af indholdet af ecstasypiller. Imponerende initiativ, synes jeg. Citat fra rapportens indledning:

"I sommeren 2000 fokuserede pressen på ecstasy på baggrund af flere dødsfald blandt unge der havde taget ecstasy samt rygter om tilsætning af heroin til ecstasytabletter.
For at styrke den nationale overvågning af ecstasy besluttede Sundhedsstyrelsen og Rigspolitiet at igangsætte et projekt bl.a. med det formål at få viden om hvad ecstasytabletter egentlig indeholder, og hvilke ændringer der sker over tid hvad angår indholdsstoffer og stofkoncentration."