John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis

Former ONDCP Director John P. Walters is at it again, only this time he has help from Donald Trump’s former US Attorney General, prohibitionist William P. Barr. Barr joins Walters in authoring a Hudson Institute publication claiming that marijuana is dangerous and its legalization was a big mistake. Their announcement was quickly debunked online here and here.

The Hudson Institute was originally founded by a nuclear war strategist named Herman Kahn who later became the inspiration for the character portrayed by Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick’s movie Dr. Strangelove. John Walters became the Institute’s CEO in 2021, and William Barr joined in 2022 as a “distinguished fellow.” What distinguishes Barr and Walters is an attitude common to the Nazis who viewed marijuana as “polluting the Aryan immune system.”

Blood pollution (or purity) and decadent foreign bodies were top priorities for Nazis. It’s why pot smokers were sent to concentration camps along with Jews, Roma, intellectuals, writers who criticized the Reich, private citizens who grumbled about the Reich, and other social outliers such as opioid and cocaine addicts. Identity cards carried by drug users incarcerated in the camps were colored red while ID cards for Jews were purple. Since the Second World War little has changed for people like former KKK leader David Duke and American Neo-Nazis who accuse Jews of working hard to get America stoned. They say Jews control the marijuana industry. They don’t. The US cannabis industry is democratically authorized by a voter majority and it’s defined and controlled by state governments and local laws.

Fascism seeks to redefine freedom. Under fascism people are free to do as they are told and the government is free to do as it wants. One way of creating a fascist society—other than engaging in drug wars—is to imitate Barr, Walters and the Nazis who dumb down their dialog and message to prevent their listeners or readers from engaging in complex and critical reasoning. Lies become the rule. Relevant science and research gets ignored or suppressed. For tyrants seeking political or social dominance drug hysteria is an easy effective tool that can be used against unproven enemies of the state or society.

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21 Responses to John Walters and William Barr linked to Nazis

  1. Son of Sam Walton says:

    Do you think the Nazi’s view on marijuana was shaped by the League of Nation’s Drug Laws of the 1920s, coinciding with the decadence of the Weimar Republic and scapegoating further economic glut coming in after 1928?

    • Servetus says:

      Interesting question. All of it played a role. I think religious differences and conflict are the main motivators behind drug prohibitions. Religion influenced the Nazis in this case. They adopted a severe fascist approach to drug enforcement because they found it useful to do so and because Catholicism and other religions have been waging drug wars for centuries.

      Drugs are a moral issue for most religions and little else. Petty moral issues get prioritized over the secular concerns of life and death. Somehow feeling good is bad. It certainly doesn’t benefit a religion if a drug out-competes a faith that promises its believers happiness and a better life but fails to deliver.

      In Hitler’s case he was an avowed Catholic, a former alter boy who needed the neutral backing of the Church to carry out the Holocaust and his war. To please the Church and get it to ignore him he was required to be a good Catholic in every aspect – that meant Hitler had to be publicly anti-drug – even though he became a heavy user of speed and morphine thanks to his personal physician who continually dosed him so that Hitler could carry out his crazed mission day or night.

      The problem for Catholicism is it’s gone nowhere on the drug issue since at least the 19th century. Their dogma is seriously out of date. The justifications the Vatican uses regarding recreational drug use are always circular: people shouldn’t use drugs because then they would be using drugs, etc. Below is how the current Pope Francis feels about cannabis, what may someday turn out to be considered the most medicinally beneficial plant on earth:

      A reduction in the spread and influence of drug addiction will not be achieved by a liberalization of drug use. – Pope Francis (2013)

      A Catholic Church catechism further states:

      The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense.

      Secularism and science have played effective roles in countering the drug war only recently. In the last ten years alone there’s been a massive infusion of science into the debates. The literature and discussion on the topic keeps growing. A book is due out in a few weeks that finally reveals details of the bizarre history and relationship between Nazis, drug enforcement, and US drug laws. I will review it here when it becomes available.

      • Servetus says:

        German author Norman Ohler’s newest book Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age reveals the remarkable origins and hidden agendas of modern drug enforcement in post World War II America with new information derived from the archives of Sandoz Pharmaceuticals and the Nazi German Reich. Files from both sides of the Atlantic reveal that German psychedelics research sparked the CIA’s MKUltra program. Both the Nazi SS and the Americans were working toward obtaining a reliable truth serum. They believed it could win wars. For a period of time the primary candidate was Albert Hofmann’s LSD-25.

        When Allied Forces took control of Berlin after World War II, the United States inherited the Nazi drug war’s methods, as it became necessary to enforce existing German laws in the American Zone. Harry J. Anslinger, Commissioner of the US Federal Bureau of Drugs, was made aware of the Nazis’ legal framework and was greatly inspired by it. Ohlen notes:

        The Nazis had made quick work of drug-users, packing them off to concentration camps—for Anslinger a welcome approach. The high-ranking American government official clearly wasn’t bothered by the ideological thrust of the Nazi drug war, but by its being directed against Jews, with their supposedly higher level of drug consumption. He openly acknowledged his own racism, once describing a Black informant with a racial epithet in a letter to FBN district supervisors. Another characteristic statement of Anslinger’s is this one made before the US Congress: “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men.” It’s no surprise that in Washington he was openly referred to by the nickname “Mussolini”—and not just on account of his unfortunate appearance. […]

        The goal of the US’s top drug enforcer was to implement a global “policy shift toward a strong policy of prohibition” by means of the newly founded United Nations. What he had in mind was nothing less than to create a regulatory framework for combating the drug trade that would be applied to the entire postwar world. Continuing the racist methods of the Nazis, who had perfected the notion of “combating narcotics” as a means of oppressing minorities, was fully consistent with his worldview.

        Drug enforcement came with wartime bonuses for the Nazis. It made a mass surveillance system for identifying and detaining opponents of fascism much easier to justify and achieve. In the United States, it attained similar goals when it was applied to oppressing different races or cultures.

        Anslinger went on to forge a global policy of Nazi-influenced drug enforcement through the United Nations and the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The policies would evolve badly and have a negative impact on medical science. Ohlen writes that the Nazi and MKUltra fiascoes added much to the peculiar chemophobia regarding psychedelics that until recently made governments and corporations like Sandoz reluctant to do medical research or develop new and effective psychedelics-based drugs.

  2. Servetus says:

    Swiss researchers investigated what effects if any medicinal marijuana had on mental health in the United States. Their results show marijuana benefits its medical users and does not cause mental problems for recreational users.

    4-APR-2024 — In a new study, researchers from Basel have now investigated whether medical cannabis legislation in the USA is improving the situation for sick people and whether it has a negative impact on the mental health of the overall population. […]

    For their analysis, the researchers combined two large datasets. They used data from almost eight million people who took part in telephone surveys between 1993 and 2018 as part of the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which collects data about mental well-being, among other things. But they also used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which collects information on health-related issues such as drug use in the United States.

    The researchers formed different groups using statistical assignment. They include individuals who are highly likely to abstain from using marijuana, to use marijuana as a recreational drug or to use it for medical reasons. It was also possible to identify individuals with a high probability of chronic pain. Mental health was measured using self-assessment, in which respondents reported the number of days they had had mental health problems in the previous month. […]

    Using statistical methods, the researchers were able to estimate the impact of the legal approval of marijuana for medical use. The result: Easier access improves the mental health of individuals who use marijuana for medical reasons. The same applies to people who are very likely to suffer from pain. The study authors estimate that these two groups spend 0.3 days less per month in poor mental health due to the change in the law.

    At the same time, the researchers found no effect on the mental health of recreational users or on younger populations. “Overall, our results show that medical cannabis legislation in the USA benefits the people it is intended for without harming other groups,” summarizes the study leader, Prof. Alois Stutzer from the University of Basel. […]

    University of Basel: https://www.unibas.ch/en/News-Events/News/Uni-Research/Liberalization-of-medical-marijuana-and-mental-health-in-the-USA.html

    Health Economics Policy and Law: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/health-economics-policy-and-law/article/medical-marijuana-laws-and-mental-health-in-the-united-states/D655A58049CC6194FC716EB78435F320

    Jörg Kalbfuss, Reto Odermatt and Alois Stutzer

  3. Servetus says:

    Researchers at Dartmouth College reveal Cannabis receptors are among receptors implicated in the way the brain regulates emotions:

    3-APR-2024 …”Our results showed that receptors for cannabinoids, opioids, and serotonin, including 5H2A, were especially rich in areas that are involved in emotion regulation,” says senior author Tor Wager, the Diana L. Taylor Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience and director of the Dartmouth Brain Imaging Center at Dartmouth. “When drugs that bind to these receptors are taken, they are preferentially affecting the emotion regulation system, which raises questions about their potential for long-term effects on our capacity to self-regulate.”

    Serotonin is well-known for its role in depression, as the most widely used antidepressant drugs inhibit its reuptake in synapses, which transmit signals from one neuron to another.

    5H2A is the serotonin receptor most strongly affected by another exciting new type of treatment for mental health — psychedelic drugs. The study’s findings suggest that the effects of drugs on depression and other mental health disorders may work in part by altering how we think about life events and our ability to self-regulate. This may help explain why drugs, particularly psychedelics, are likely to be ineffective without the right kind of psychological support. The study could help improve therapeutic approaches by increasing our understanding of why and how psychological and pharmaceutical approaches need to be combined into integrated treatments. […]

    ScienceDaily: Researchers map how the brain regulates emotions–Study identifies multiple emotion regulation systems, providing targets for therapy

    Nature Neuroscience: A systems identification approach using Bayes factors to deconstruct the brain bases of emotion regulation.

    Ke Bo, Thomas E. Kraynak, Mijin Kwon, Michael Sun, Peter J. Gianaros, Tor D. Wager.

  4. Servetus says:

    University of Leipzig researchers examine the molecular mechanisms of the opioid receptors and their different functions:

    12-APR-2024 — Drugs that target opioid receptors sometimes have severe side effects. Thousands of people around the world die every day from overdoses involving opioids such as fentanyl. An international team of researchers has taken a closer look at the molecular mechanisms of these active substances. The research, carried out by Dr Matthias Elgeti, a biophysicist at Leipzig University, in collaboration with research groups from the US and China, has now been published in the journal Nature.

    Opioid receptors are of great pharmacological interest because opioid substances regulate the perception of pain. “Our findings provide insights into how an opioid receptor can perform different functions. It is able to reduce pain, but also to regulate digestion or breathing,” explains Dr Elgeti, co-first author of the study from the Institute for Drug Discovery at the Faculty of Medicine. […]

    Opioid receptors are members of the large family of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which control many signaling processes in the body, such as taste and smell, while others bind neurotransmitters and hormones or are activated by light. Understanding the molecular interactions of these receptors with drugs and other signaling proteins is very important for drug development. As all GPCRs are structurally very similar, the researchers hope that their findings on the opioid receptor can be applied to other receptors. […]

    Univesitat Leipzig: Researchers Shed Light on the Molecular Causes of Different Functions of Opioid Receptors

    • NorCalNative says:

      I’ve applied what little mental skills I have to the study of cannabinoid G-coupled protein receptors like CB1 and CB2 over the last ten years. This study you reference is about opioid G-protein coupled receptors. They both are also known as 7-transmembrane receptors due to the way the protein chains pass through the cellular membranes. Kind of like a needle and thread.

      Kratom tickles the G-protein coupled opiate receptors. It’s an agonist at the Mu opioid receptor and a mixed agonist/antagonist as the delta and kappa opioid receptors. I’m struggling with weigh-bearing issues related to osteoarthritis and sciatica. Taking a modest 3-gram dose of Red Bali Kratom allows me to go grocery shopping and do yard work. Shit saved my ass!

      At the 3-gram dose I’m getting more cocaine-like stimulation than analgesia. However, it’s enough of a boost and mild analgesic to allow me to get shit done. It’s constipating and causes sexual dysfunction so I take it sparingly as possible. I had over a decade where I had opiate-dependance from morphine (MS Contin.)

      I try to not take it more than 3-days-in-a-row to minimize potential tolerance development. If you were to use it daily and multiple times daily you WILL develop an opioid tolerance that will cause withdrawal symptoms if you quit cold turkey. I save it for when I really need it and it’s my rescue medication. I wish I could say cannabis offered me similar benefit but it’s not really even close to how Kratom helps me. The fact I can purchase this stuff legally without prescription ROCKS.

      • NorCalNative says:

        More on opiate receptors. I had a physician who recommended Salvia Divinorum. He later asked me to keep his recommendation confidential after discussing it with his advisor.

        Salvia Divinorum is the most potent naturally occurring hallucinogen, and is unusual in that it interacts with only ONE receptor in the human brain– the kappa opioid receptor (KOR).

        I smoked it three times maybe 20-years-ago and it was definitely interesting. I bought it at a head shop. Don’t know if it’s still available today. Hallucinogenic experience through an opiate receptor just seems odd to me.

        An almost instant hallucinogenic experience is a TRIP! I likened it to passing through a threshold. A few times a small dose got me to the door but not through it. A larger dose did the trick. I’ve seen YouTube videos of people who would tie themselves to something so they wouldn’t wander around while high. Trippy stuff.

        One time I felt like I was being rolled up in a carpet while a pair of glowing eyes stared at me from a distance. Red glow in darkness. It was a bit weird. Another time I became a rose growing on a stone fence. My existence was stationary and all I could see was roses and fence.

        There are studies on Salvia, that due to its use of the Kappa opioid receptor it’s considered a substance that can help with addiction. A few times after coming down I would have this feeling of well-being and peace. Really nice. I think that’s what my doc (who was featured on a PBS special titled “Chinese Medicine Master”) was hoping for. He was prescribing morphine and I think he was interested in getting me off the opiate.

        I think he’s doing telemedicine now due to narcolepsy. Once while he was doing electro-acupuncture on me (why he went to China for PBS) he left the office for about twenty minutes while I had several needles in me. I got good results for the electro-acupuncture but this occasion I had trouble keeping my position and when I moved the needles were a bit painful. He never said anything and I learned about his narcolepsy later. Pretty sure he had to take a short nap.

  5. Servetus says:

    More that might be useful, Mount Sinai researchers have identified a brain pathway that is affected by addictive drugs:

    18-APR-2024–…researchers, in collaboration with scientists at The Rockefeller University, have uncovered a mechanism in the brain that allows cocaine and morphine to take over natural reward processing systems. Published online in Science on April 18, these findings shed new light on the neural underpinnings of drug addiction and could offer new mechanistic insights to inform basic research, clinical practice, and potential therapeutic solutions.

    “While this field has been explored for decades, our study is the first to demonstrate that psychostimulants and opioids engage and alter functioning of the same brain cells that are responsible for processing natural rewards…“These findings provide an explanation for how these drugs can interfere with normal brain function and how that interference becomes magnified with increasing drug exposure to ultimately redirect behavior compulsively towards drugs—a hallmark of addiction pathology.”

    …researchers were able to track how individual neurons in a forebrain region called the nucleus accumbens respond to natural rewards like food and water, as well as to acute and repeated exposure to cocaine and morphine in a cell-type-specific manner. They discovered a largely overlapping population of cells that respond to both addictive drugs and natural rewards, and demonstrated that repeated exposure to the drugs progressively disrupts the cells’ ability to function normally, resulting in behavior being directed toward drug-seeking and away from natural rewards…

    “After withdrawal from the drugs, these same cells exhibit disorganized responses to natural rewards in a manner that may resemble some of the negative affective states seen in withdrawal in substance use disorder.”

    “By tracking these cells, we show that not only are similar cells activated across reward classes, but also that cocaine and morphine elicit initially stronger responses than food or water, and this actually magnifies with increasing exposure,”….

    Moreover, the research team identified a well-established intracellular signaling pathway—mTORC1—that facilitates the disruption of natural reward processing by the drugs. As part of that discovery, investigators found a gene (Rheb) that encodes an activator of the mTORC1 pathway that may mediate this relationship, potentially providing a novel therapeutic target for future discovery in a field of medicine that currently offers few effective treatments. […]

    “We’ve known for decades that natural rewards, like food, and addictive drugs can activate the same brain region,” says Dr. Friedman. “But what we’ve just learned is that they impact neural activity in strikingly different ways. One of the big takeaways here is that addictive drugs have pathologic effects on these neural pathways, that are distinct from, say, the physiologic response to eating a meal when you are hungry or drinking a glass of water when you are thirsty.” […]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: A common pathway in the brain that enables addictive drugs to hijack natural reward processing has been identified by Mount Sinai

  6. totally off topic query to my couchmates… just knowing someone here might have an insight.

    I now spend my winters travelling and camping in the SW – exploring (so far) both the Mojave and Sonoran deserts. A place I camp often in the Mojave National Preserve had a fantastic datura season and I arrived in time to catch the last of their summer blooms. Pertinent to the timing of my camping there, the datura were the only flowering plants left with blossoms.

    Early to mid autumn the Mojave stays pretty warm and the bees were still active and the one flower left to them was the jimson weed.

    My question is: would the honey made from those flowers be psychedelic?

    And I ask it here because this is a pretty select group of minds. Asking in a forum like the Shroomery might be too public and lead to some “explorer” trying to track down – and possibly find – a datura honey crop.

    • Servetus says:

      Minus a chemical analysis, my guess is there is little or no trace of datura ingredients like scopolamine or atropine in the datura nectar. It might discourage cross pollination by bees and hummingbirds, and datura would likely not have evolved a flower that does that. Blitzed bees buzzing about their beehive is not an evolutionary advantage either. Atropine, BTW, is the go-to-drug for treating nerve gas poisoning in humans, which is why I’m glad my neighbor has a datura growing in their front yard. It’s always best to be prepared in the event of chemical warfare.

  7. Sharri Krugh says:

    I plan on starting a blog and would eventually like to bring in ad revenue, should I start out on a free website or should I buy a domain?.

  8. Servetus says:

    The University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing is offering a new free education course called Educating Nurses in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy (PAT):

    6-MAY-2024 – [A] free comprehensive course is designed to prepare nursing professionals for the pioneering field of psychedelic assisted therapy (PAT), aligning with the latest advancements in mental health treatment and Penn Nursing’s commitment to social justice in healthcare. […]

    Nurses are champions of social justice, and this course emphasizes the role of nurses in advocating for equitable access to PAT. It addresses the importance of dismantling healthcare disparities and ensuring that the therapeutic potential of psychedelics is accessible to all, particularly marginalized communities. Each lesson plan is supported by a wealth of resources, including detailed slides, reading lists, and supplementary materials, crafted by Penn Nursing faculty through extensive literature reviews and theoretical synthesis. These materials are also applicable for use by researchers, educators, and other healthcare providers interested in psychedelics. […]

    Penn Nursing: Now Available from Penn Nursing: Innovative, Online Psychedelic Course

    Online Penn: Educating Nurses in Psychedelic Assisted Therapy

    • Son of Sam Walton says:

      I hear the VA offers ketamine therapy.

      • Servetus says:

        There’s more that’s happening in Los Angeles. A psychedelic therapy and ecological medicine symposium will be held at UCLA on May 10, 2024:

        UCLA Health is set to host a unique symposium this week to explore the evolving research in psychedelic therapies and how combining it with reconnection to natural world could help to amplify their mental health benefits.

        The all-day symposium on May 10 at the UCLA campus will bring together the expertise and insights of researchers from UCLA Health’s Psychedelic Studies Initiative and the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviors as well as filmmakers, psychiatrists, urban planners, indigenous health experts, writers and environmental leaders from throughout the world.

        “Promising clinical trials of psychedelics such as psilocybin, ayahuasca and others for depression, substance use disorder and end of life anxiety have led to a surge of interest in, and research support for their clinical use,” said Dr. Helena Hansen, Jane and Terry Semel Institute interim director. […]

        A full agenda can be found online at https://reconnect.ucla.edu/activities/ […]

        Ecological medicine is a relatively new field of research into the interconnections of the health of the environment, ecosystem and living organisms.

        UCLA Health is proposing to integrate these two fields of study through the construction of a “Living Ecological Medicine Laboratory” on the enclosed rooftop deck of the Semel Institute at the UCLA Health campus. Envisioned as a green space with native plant gardens and a refuge for pollinators, the proposed outdoor lab would allow researchers to test the efficacy and safety of psychedelic-assisted therapies in greenspace exposures. Additionally, researchers and clinicians would have access to neuroimaging and research facilities within the same building.

        The May 10 symposium will run from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT on May 10 and will be livestreamed via Zoom. Attendees and members of the press may register to attend at https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ld-morT0rHdzxlji2jv1zGIUJ1JsyFEu0#/registration

        AAAS Public Science News Release: Psychedelic therapy and ecological medicine symposium to be held at UCLA

      • Servetus says:

        Ketamine’s biophysical effects in the brain have been modeled in the Department of Computational Neuroscience and Medical Engineering at the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT:

        21-MAY-2024 — A World Health Organization Essential Medicine, ketamine is widely used at varying doses for sedation, pain control, general anesthesia and as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. While scientists know its target in brain cells and have observed how it affects brain-wide activity, they haven’t known entirely how the two are connected. A new study by a research team spanning four Boston-area institutions uses computational modeling of previously unappreciated physiological details to fill that gap and offer new insights into how ketamine works. […]

        The core advance of the study involved biophysically modeling what happens when ketamine blocks the “NMDA” receptors in the brain’s cortex—the outer layer where key functions such as sensory processing and cognition take place. Blocking the NMDA receptors modulates the release of excitatory neurotransmitter glutamate.

        When the neuronal channels (or doorways) regulated by the NMDA receptors open, they typically close slowly (like a doorway with a hydraulic closer that keeps it from slamming), allowing ions to go in and out of neurons, thereby regulating their electrical properties, Adam said. But, the channels of the receptor can be blocked by a molecule. Blocking by magnesium helps to naturally regulate ion flow. Ketamine, however, is an especially effective blocker.

        Blocking slows the voltage build-up across the neuron’s membrane that eventually leads a neuron to “spike,” or send an electrochemical message to other neurons. The NMDA doorway becomes unblocked when the voltage gets high. This interdependence between voltage, spiking and blocking can equip NMDA receptors with faster activity than its slow closing speed might suggest. The team’s model goes further than ones before by representing how ketamine’s blocking and unblocking affect neural activity. […]

        The model makes another prediction that might help explain how ketamine exerts its antidepressant effects. It suggests that the increased gamma activity of ketamine could entrain gamma activity among neurons expressing a peptide called VIP. This peptide has been found to have health promoting effects, such as reducing inflammation, that last much longer than ketamine’s effects on NMDA receptors. The research team proposes that the entrainment of these neurons under ketamine could increase the release of the beneficial peptide, as observed when these cells are stimulated in experiments. This also hints at therapeutic features of ketamine that may go beyond anti-depressant effects. The research team acknowledges, however, that this connection is speculative and awaits specific experimental validation.

        “The understanding that the sub cellular details of the NMDA receptor can lead to increased gamma oscillations was the basis for a new theory about how ketamine may work for treating depression,” Kopell said. […]

        AAAS Public Science News Release: Study models how ketamine’s molecular action leads to its effects on the brain — New research addresses a gap in understanding how ketamine’s impact on individual neurons leads to pervasive and profound changes in brain network function.

        Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Ketamine can produce oscillatory dynamics by engaging mechanisms dependent on the kinetics of NMDA receptors

        Elie Adam, Marek Kowalski, Oluwaseun Akeju, Earl K. Miller,
        Emery N. Brown, Michelle M. McCarthy, Nancy Kopell.

  9. Servetus says:

    Brain receptor sites are identified for 5-methoxytryptamines for anti-depressant therapy by Mt Sinai Hospital scientists:

    8-MAY-2024 — In a study published … in Nature, the team reported that certain psychedelic drugs interact with an underappreciated member of the serotonin receptor family in the brain known as 5-HT1A to produce therapeutic benefits in animal models.

    “Psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin have entered clinical trials with promising early results, though we still don’t understand how they engage different molecular targets in the brain to trigger their therapeutic effects,” says first author Audrey Warren, PhD, …“Our study highlights, for the first time, how serotonin receptors like 5-HT1A likely modulate the subjective effects of the psychedelic experience and also play a potentially pivotal role in their clinically observed therapeutic outcome.”

    LSD and 5-MeO-DMT, a psychedelic found in the secretions of the Colorado River Toad, are known to mediate their hallucinogenic effects through the serotonin receptor 5-HT2A, though these drugs also activate 5-HT1A, a validated therapeutic target for treating depression and anxiety…the team synthesized and tested 5-MeO-DMT derivatives in cell signaling assays and cryo-electron microscopy to identify the chemical components most likely to cause a drug to preferentially activate 5-HT1A over 5-HT2A. That exercise led to the discovery that a compound termed 4-F, 5-MeO-PyrT was the most 5-HT1A-selective compound in this series. Lyonna Parise, PhD, …tested that lead compound in a mouse model of depression and showed that 4-F, 5-MeO-PyrT had antidepressant-like effects that are effectively mediated by 5-HT1A. […]

    “We’ve demonstrated that psychedelics have complex physiological effects that span many different receptor types,” emphasizes first author Warren, “and are now ready to build on that finding to develop improved therapeutics for a range of mental health disorders.”[…]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: Mount Sinai scientists unravel how psychedelic drugs interact with serotonin receptors to potentially produce therapeutic benefits

    Nature: Structural pharmacology and therapeutic potential of 5-methoxytryptamines

    Audrey L. Warren, David Lankri, Michael J. Cunningham, Inis C. Serrano, Lyonna F. Parise, Andrew C. Kruegel, Priscilla Duggan, Gregory Zilberg, Michael J. Capper, Vaclav Havel, Scott J. Russo, Dalibor Sames & Daniel Wacker.

  10. Servetus says:

    The Federal Register (the Daily Journal of the United States Government) is requesting public comments regarding the legalization of MDMA (Midoafetemine Capsules):

    Federal Register: Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee; Notice of Meeting; Establishment of a Public Docket; Request for Comments-Midomafetamine Capsules

    Comments will be made public. A meeting is scheduled for June 4, 2024.

    Agenda: The meeting presentations will be heard, viewed, captioned, and recorded through an online teleconferencing and/or video conferencing platform. The Committee will discuss new drug application 215455, for midomafetamine (MDMA) capsules, submitted by Lykos Therapeutics, for the proposed indication of treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder. The Committee will be asked to discuss the overall benefit-risk profile of MDMA, including the potential public health impact.

  11. Servetus says:

    College students prefer to enroll in colleges in states where recreational marijuana is legal:

    29-MAY-2024 — New research has revealed up to a 9% increase in college freshmen enrollments in US states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with states without such legalization. The study … found that the increase was from out-of-state enrollments, with early adopter states and public non-research institutions experiencing the most pronounced increases.

    Recreational marijuana legalization did not negatively impact degree completion or graduation rate, and it did not affect college prices, quality, or in‐state enrollment.

    The findings suggest that some students perceive recreational marijuana legalization as a positive factor that influences their college choice. […]

    AAAS Public Science News Release: Does recreational marijuana legalization affect a state’s college enrollment?

    Economic Inquiry: From high school to higher education: Is recreational marijuana a consumption amenity for US college students?

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