This Week In Psychedelics 20

A professor in Singapore is under investigation for linking psychedelics with creativity, negative attention on the drug known as “bath salts” is harming sales for actual bath salts, and British Columbia’s chief provincial health officer declares the safety of pure ecstasy in this week’s psychedelic news.

• Dr. Perry Kendall, Canada’s chief provincial health officer in British Columbia, stated that pure ecstasy can be safe for adults and suggested an evidence-based method for emulating and controlling psychoactive substances. (NPR, Star)
• A National University of Singapore (NUS) professor is under investigation for suggesting that psychedelics might be used to boost creativity without harming personal health. (Today)
• The government of Uruguay announced its plan to legalize the sale of marijuana (possession and use are already legal). According to the proposal, marijuana would be available through a user registry and subject to quality control and traceability. (Networked Blogs)
• On Alexander Sasha Shulgin’s 87th birthday, a senior lecturer of neurobiology at UC Berkeley explained why Shulgin and Albert Hoffmann should receive Nobel prizes for their pioneering work on the relationships between specific chemical compounds, brain physiology, and mental experience. (UC Berkeley)
• AlterNet reports that legal research on a range of currently illegal drugs indicates that psychedelics may help cure PTSD, alcoholism, and cluster headaches. (AlterNet)
• The recent spike in negative attention for the synthetic drug known as “bath salts” is harming the business for actual bath salts, which are a safe and therapeutic addition to bathing. (HLN)
• The Friendswood Police Department in Texas issued an alert concerning 25i-NBOMe, a “new drug being sold to youth at area rave parties.” The drug does not currently appear as a prohibited substance in the Texas Controlled Substance Act. (Ultimate Pearland)
• Mick Palmer, a 33-year police practitioner and commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, writes that contrary to frequent assertions, drug law enforcement has had little impact on the Australian drug market and other markets around the world. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Recent reports on the criminalization of drugs in Australia have all concluded that the criminal law is a counterproductive and harmful way to deal with the issue of drug use and addiction, and that prohibition has failed. (ABC)
• David Jay Brown describes research suggesting that psychedelic drugs might enhance telepathic, precognitive, and psychokinetic abilities. (Santa Cruz Patch)
• David Jay Brown speculates that psychedelics like DMT may help us speak to intelligent alien life forms. (Santa Cruz Patch)
• The Independent interviewed people affected by each decade’s drug of choice since the 1950s. Regardless of the motivations and consequences, all agree that Britain needs to find new ways of approaching the war on drugs. (Independent)
• The details of Obama’s history with smoking marijuana are revealed in a new biography by David Maraniss. (Huffington Post)
• David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, was arrested after a protest demonstration during which he harvested industrial hemp plants inside a steel cage in front of the White House. (Mediaite)
• The Bureau of Land Management issues a Special Recreation Permit to Black Rock City, LLC authorizing a population of 60,900 people during this year’s Burning Man event. (Fox Reno)
• Ashton Kutcher will portray Steve Jobs in a new biopic that will include Jobs’ “heavy experimentation” with LSD. (Daily Mail)
• A euro-trance dance performance at the Norwegian Developers Conference in Oslo–rumored to have been arranged by Microsoft Norway without the knowledge of corporate headquarters–likens CSS to LSD and XML to ecstasy, ostensibly in a bid to promote Microsoft’s “Azure” cloud computing service. (Extreme Tech)
• A Vanity Fair feature article describes the movers behind Haight-Ashbury and 1967’s Summer of Love. (Vanity Fair)
• The Psychedelic Light and Sound festival highlighted the psych-inspired sounds, visuals, and fashion based out of Austin, TX. (KUT)
• Moviemaker Oliver Stone opened up about his drug use in a new magazine interview, revealing his appreciation for marijuana, LSD, mescaline, mushrooms, and ayahuasca. (Vanity Fair, Jam)
• Accepting the “Filmmaker on the Edge Award” from John Waters at the Provincetown International Film Festival, Roger Corman described his only LSD trip: “My trip was wonderful. If it had followed my own experience, the movie could have been considered a promotional film for LSD.” (Hollywood Reporter)
• Actress and model Jerry Hall, the former wife of Mick Jagger, described how an LSD trip when she was 14 led to her becoming a model. (RTE)
• Larry Hagman, best known as playing Texas oilman J.R. Ewing on TV’s “Dallas”, recalled his mind-altering experiences under the influence of LSD at a psychedelic conference in Los Angeles. (National Enquirer)
• Scientific American asks whether Terence McKenna was goofing about his psychedelic 2012 prophecy. (Scientific American) 
• Wired Magazine describes how the psychedelic animation pioneered in The Beatles’ 1968 film “Yellow Submarine” helped pave the way for the diverse world of animation that we enjoy today. (Wired)
• A Kickstarter project seeks to make a documentary on Pittsburgh Pirates baseball player Dock Ellis, who pitched a no-hitter while tripping on LSD in 1970. (Boing Boing)
• Denis O’Hare of HBO’s “True Blood” describes Episode 8 as “an acid trip in the Vampire Authority world” and vampires behaving in unusual ways. (Seattle Pi)
• Encore’s “Reel to Reel: This week in film” features director Mitch Schultz’s “DMT: The Spirit Molecule,” after the book by Dr. Rick Strassman. (Encore)
• Fashion designer Stella McCartney’s latest collection is dubbed “softly psychedelic” by the Sydney Morning Herald. (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Gizmodo sponsored a photo contest for psychedelic blacklight portraits. The results ranged from painted pregnancies to bubble self portraits made with marinated highlighters. (Gizmodo)
• RMIT researcher and Dutch designer Wouter Walmink built his own “psychedelic” direction-indicating bicycle helmet. (Gizmodo)
• Los Angeles-based metal band DMT released their second music video, “American Evolution.” (mi2n)
• Gas stations in Michigan have weighed whether to carry synthetic marijuana, packaged as “incense” under the brands K2 or Spice. (Crain’s Detroit Business)
• The top three candidates for Mexico’s presidency have promised a major shift in the country’s drug war strategy, placing a priority on reducing the violence in Mexico rather than on blocking the flow of drugs to the US. (NY Times)
• Police arrested seven people on drug charges in areas around Fort Armistead Park, home of the annual Starscape music festival. (Glenburnie Patch)
• Only a few weeks after finishing a seven-year term for possessing LSD, a 31-year-old man was arrested for making methamphetamine and sentenced to 10 more years in prison. (PJ Star)
• An 18-year-old was arrested on felony drug possession charges after 44 tabs of LSD and 17 ecstasy pills were discovered during an investigation following a routine traffic stop. Although the teen originally refused permission for police to search inside his vehicle, he unknowingly gave probable cause when he confessed to having a marijuana pipe in the car. (The Friendswood Journal)
• Indian police raided a party in Hyderabad, arresting five people for possession of cocaine, MDMA, and LSD. Sources said this was the first time that MDMA was seized from a rave party in the city. (Deccan Chronicle, Times of India)
• Police in Hyderabad, India are finding it difficult to track LSD as it is “imported and supplied by peddlers through a paper aborber,” making it very difficult to detect. The police have no other leads other than from informants and a phone tapping system. (Times of India)
• Telegraph blogger Damian Thompson writes about anxiety regarding the increasing popularity of drugs like LSD and MDMA amongst India’s middle-class youth. (Telegraph)
• Authorities seized approximately two pounds of marijuana, 287 miscellaneous pills, more than 200 LSD doses, crystal amphetamines, cocaine, heroin, psychedelic mushrooms and “more than 100 smoking devices” at “Camp Glow,” a music festival in Virginia. Deputies learned of the event from a noise violation and returned two days later with a search warrant. (WUSA9)
• Police arrested a New Hampshire man for LSD possession and for selling balloons of nitrous oxide close to a Phish concert. (Metro West Daily News)
• A man who supplied chocolate bars laced with magic mushrooms to a motorcycle gang has been put on home detention for six months in New Zealand. (Stuff, Christchurch Court News)
• Alabama police are looking for a 20-year-old man in connection with a drug bust involving ecstasy and LSD. (Hartselle Enquirer)
• After receiving information from CrimeStoppers, an anonymous crime tip hotline, police arrested two East Caroline University students for trafficking drugs including LSD, ecstasy, and marijuana. (WITN, Reflector)

Disclaimer: “This Week in Psychedelics” does not censor or analyze the “news” links presented here. The purpose of this blog is to catalogue how psychedelics are presented by the mass media, which includes everything from the latest scientific research to misinformation. This presentation format encourages an open dialogue, and allows for misinformation to be noticed and addressed by interested and informed parties. We provide the content; you provide the analysis and debate.