This Week in Psychedelics

Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine describes the value of his magic mushroom experiences, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks out against the war on drugs, and the Chicago City Council decriminalizes small amounts of marijuana in this week's psychedelic news.

• The new website "Psychedelics & Language," created by Dr. Diana Slattery of the Department of Xenolinguistics, provides extensive information about the bizarre linguistic phenomena—alien scripts, morphing symbolic systems, glyphs of living language crawling on every surface of a multidimensional world—encountered in altered states of consciousness. (Psychedelics & Language)


• DYAD, a psychedelic game for the PlayStation Network with a release date of July 17, is described as "a protracted sequence of total visual hypnosis." (Gamer Front)


• Maroon 5 singer Adam Levine describes the value of his magic mushroom and marijuana experiences: "I definitely, firmly believe that the experience I had on mushrooms made me understand certain things about myself that I probably wouldn't have otherwise." (Monsters & Critics)


• Ashton Kutcher filmed scenes for an upcoming movie in which Apple co-founder Steve Jobs gets high on LSD. The Daily Mail published images of Kutcher running through a field during filming and notes that the actor "appeared to have no difficulty channeling Jobs for the scenes." (Daily Mail, Computer World Singapore)


• New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become the latest leader to condemn the 40-year-old war on drugs. (Huffington Post)


• By a vote of 43 to 2, the Chicago City Council passed an ordinance that will decriminalize less than half an ounce of marijuana. (Huffington Post)


• Drug decriminalization will be investigated by Australia's top independent policy adviser under a plan promoted by three members of parliament. (The Age)


• The United Nations World Drug Report suggests that Australians and New Zealanders are the world's biggest recreational drug users. It cites 27 million people worldwide as "problem drug users," with cannabis remaining the most widely used drug globally. (Global Post)


• Police in Western Australia have stepped up patrols for magic mushrooms collected in the area. (Perth Now)


• Professor Alex Stevens, an expert in illicit drugs policy at the University of Kent, says that the UN's latest World Drug Report marks another failed opportunity to address the real issues surrounding the control of illicit drugs. (Kent)


• A British organization released a report on "Drug Decriminalisation Policies in Practice Across the Globe," which refutes a correlation between decriminalization and increased drug use. (Release) 
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• Transpersonal Psychology founder Stan Grof released his latest book, "Healing our Deepest Wounds: The Holotropic Paradigm Shift." Proceeds from the MAPS bookstore benefit psychedelic research. (MAPS)
  


• Boing Boing reviews Dr. David Nutt's new book, "Drugs: Without the Hot Air," which promotes evidence-based drug policies with an emphasis on harm reduction. "Drugs" was published by Cambridge's UIT Press in the UK and will be available in the US in September. (Boing Boing)


• Boing Boing reports on Steve Silberman's long, lyrical review of the re-issue of the psychedelic classic "Be Not Content," William Craddock's legendary novel of the glory days of US psychedelic counterculture. (Boing Boing)


• Oxford University Press published a new book on "Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know." (Oxford)


• A petition was launched in support of Uruguay, which is facing increasing pressure against marijuana legalization. (World War-D)


• The psychedelic music festival BoaBaB convened in Lebanon over four days and three nights. (Daily Star)


• A psychedelic music video for Trumpeter Swan's "Fools Parade" was filmed with 5,016 frames from an iPhone 4S camera filtered through PhotoTropedelic, an app that adds 1960s pop-art flair to smartphone images. (Wired)


• Photographer Fabian Oefner brings back bubbles with a psychedelic twist in his new high-speed photography series. (Huffington Post)


• Multimedia artist Josie Hyde performs her one-woman show, "Wind in a Mirror … Ayahuasca Visions" in Santa Barbara on July 14. (Santa Barbara Independent)


• Police seized cocaine, heroin, LSD, ecstasy, magic mushrooms, hash, marijuana, nitrous oxide, bath salts, guns, and cash at a Phish concert in Saratoga Springs, NY. (Record)


• Charlie Gilmour, the stepson of Pink Floyd guitarist Dave Gilmour, has been banned from London during the Olympics after swinging from a flag while high on LSD during student protest riots in 2010. (Telegraph)


• The Goa Police seized about 47,000 lbs of drugs, worth about $142,000, in 2011. (Times of India)


• A 21-year-old in the UK was spared jail time after admitting to dealing and cultivating cannabis and possessing magic mushrooms. (Tavistock Times Gazette)


• The nephew of UK aristocrat Lord Bath avoided jail time after stashing 26 cannabis plants, ecstasy pills, and magic mushrooms in his home. (Mirror)


• A naked man on LSD broke into an Alabama country club in search of a drink. (News 48)


• A Tennessee man was sentenced to 8 years in prison for possessing five ounces of magic mushrooms, three ounces of marijuana, and several pharmaceutical pills. (Times News)


• After famously fleeing the country while on trial, drug "kingpin" Tony Mokbel has been sentenced to 30 years in prison in Australia. (ABC)


• An Australian man was charged with growing large amounts of magic mushrooms after a warrant was issued related to marijuana. Police said it was "unusual" to find hallucinogenic mushrooms in Melbourne. (Diamond Valley Leader)


• A New Zealand bar manager was arrested and charged with importing ecstasy and LSD. (Yahoo News)


• A Drug Task Force detective appeared before a Kentucky court to present the investigation of the largest psychedelic mushroom growing operation seen in the area in the last 30 years. A search warrant resulted in the discovery of 4.2 pounds of "finished" mushrooms with a street value of $42,000 and an extensive growing operation in progress. (WBKO)


• North Carolina police arrested three men on trafficking charges for possessing 1,400 dosage units of liquid LSD. (Reflector)


• An 18-year-old California man was arrested after attacking police while apparently tripping on LSD. (Marin Independent Journal)


• A 17-year-old Florida teen survived a self-inflicted gunshot to the head in an attempt to end a bad mushroom trip. (WLWT News 5, Gawker)


• Toxicology tests determined that the Miami "cannibal" was under the influence of marijuana but not bath salts at the time of his attack. (Nine MSN)
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• In light of the Miami "zombie" attack, David Jay Brown discusses how sensationalistic reporting has helped to create misleading perceptions about psychedelics. (Patch)
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• An editorial argues that MDMA was wrongly blamed in a recent suicide. (AOTMR)
  

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.

Image by Christopher Martin Adams.

"This Week in Psychedelics" is a Reality Sandwich column that follows the multifaceted media appearances of this class of chemicals and their effects in popular culture. Share your psychedelic news links on the facebook page or twitter.