Smokedot

Six years later, a study of psilocybin, the drug in certain magical mushrooms, has been released.  The study findings are incredible because the NIDA has a part in funding them: illegal drug use is beneficial.  Read the Associated Press article for more on what many in the psychiatric community have known since at least the 1970s and in the world since before time.  (You don't see a burning bush in the desert talking to you for no reason.) --sirt (not prote)

NEW YORK - In 2002, at a Johns Hopkins University laboratory, a business consultant named Dede Osborn took a psychedelic drug as part of a research project.

She felt like she was taking off. She saw colors. Then it felt like her heart was ripping open.

But she called the experience joyful as well as painful, and says that it has helped her to this day.

"I feel more centered in who I am and what I'm doing," said Osborn, now 66, of Providence, R.I. "I don't seem to have those self-doubts like I used to have. I feel much more grounded (and feel that) we are all connected."

Medical marijuana dispensaries and 215 patients would not be targeted by the investigation, Schadler said. The Humboldt Cooperative, a medical marijuana dispensary in Arcata, said Tuesday evening that federal agents had not interfered with business.

”We're not here to set policy or interfere with California's compassionate use laws,” Schadler said. The FBI is investigating “for-profit and corporate grow operations beyond the scope of 215.”

Attention: You are now free to float about the cabin.

Well, not yet, but maybe someday - that is, if Mason Tvert has anything to say about.

Tvert, a crusader for legalizing marijuana, has called for pot-smoking lounges in the nation's airports. His reason for doing goes beyond his cannabis liberation mission: He wants to help make flying safer.

"There's been this growing trend of alcohol-related air rage," he said Tuesday, alluding to episodes of drunken passengers creating in-flight disturbances.

Among the twelve states that have legalized the use and cultivation of medical cannabis, all but one (New Mexico) have experienced an overall decline in teen marijuana use since the enactment of their medi-pot laws. (Data was unavailable for New Mexico, which passed its law last year.) In seven of the twelve states, marijuana use among young people declined at rates that exceeded the national average.

"This report makes it more important than ever that we get past outdated, anachronistic views of marijuana," said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

The US Government believes the increase in potency is down to sophisticated growing techniques used by drug traffickers.

He said baby boomer parents might have misguided notions that the drug contains the weaker potency levels of the 1970s but said it can cause psychological, cognitive and respiratory problems, and lead users to "harder" drugs such as cocaine and heroin.

“It’s a clear shield for commercial operations,” said Mike Sweeney, 60, a supporter of both medical marijuana and a local ballot measure on June 3 that called for new limits on the drug in Mendocino. “And we don’t want those here.”

The outcome of the ballot measure is not known, as votes are still being counted, but such community push-back is increasingly common across the state, even in the most liberal communities. In recent years, dozens of local governments have banned or restricted cannabis clubs, more formally known as dispensaries, that provide medical marijuana, in the face of public safety issues involved in its sale and cultivation, including crime and environmental damage.

JPG Magazine posted a photo essay of some wild herb growing in Nepal.

The discussion table included invited representatives from police and sheriffs, prosecutors and the American Civil Liberties Union, a lone doctor, a medical-marijuana patient advocate, and the sponsor of the bill mandating a limit.

Although the health department sought public comment in an unusual set of workshops around the state before drafting a rule — which will start the clock on a set of formal hearings — Gov. Christine Gregoire directed it to seek more comment from law enforcement and the medical community, which were barely represented among the hundreds who spoke at the workshops.

California's medical marijuana patients are one step closer to being protected against work place discrimination after a bill made its way through the state Assembly this week.

Assembly Bill 2279, authored by Assemblyman Mark Leno and co-authored by Eureka's Assemblywoman Patty Berg, would make it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee because of their status as a medical marijuana patient or caregiver or for failing a drug test.

”Voters have said that marijuana has legitimate medical uses, and this bill says workers shouldn't be punished for having medical needs,” Berg said in a statement.