Hear Dr. Gabor Maté, discusses
how ayahuasca offers addicts insight
into self-destructive behaviors
Welcome Collaboration between the United States National Center for Complementary & Integrative Health (NCCIH) and the U.S. Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs: Research on Mind and Body Interventions |
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Kentucky's New Heroin
Law Marks a 'Culture Shift'
Kentucky lawmakers passed wide-ranging legislation to combat the state’s heroin epidemic. The bipartisan measure represents a significant policy shift away from more punitive measures toward a focus on treating addicts, not jailing them.
The state will now allow local health departments to set up needle exchanges and increase the number of people who can carry naloxone, the drug that paramedics use to save a person suffering an opioid overdose. Addicts who survive an overdose will no longer be charged with a crime after being revived. Instead, they will be connected to treatment services and community mental health workers.
Kentucky drug deaths decline slightly
in 2012, but heroin deaths up sharply
Global Commission on Drug Policy
Why Hardly Anyone Dies From
a Drug Overdose in Portugal
Drug Decriminalization in Portugal:
Setting the Record Straight
Overall, this suggests that removing criminal penalties for personal drug possession did not cause an increase in levels of drug use. This tallies with a significant body of evidence from around the world that shows the enforcement of criminal drug laws has, at best, a marginal impact in deterring people from using drugs.17 18 19 There is essentially no relationship between the punitiveness of a country’s drug laws and its rates of drug use. Instead, drug use tends to rise and fall in line with broader cultural, social or economic trends.
CATO Institute
Burglary suspect breaks down after judge
recognizes him as childhood friend
An Amazing Double Rainbow from Heaven
and a Message of Love from Patch Adams
Terence McKenna Blesses America and the ACLU
Nature of Things: The Jungle Prescription
Leading Ayahuasca Researchers Share
Their Thoughts & Latest Research
Could Ayahuasca Treat Depression?
(this appears to be similar to the trials conducted with ketamine)
“It is possible that ayahuasca and other serotonergic psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, may be useful as antidepressants for particular subsets of patients in the future,” says Stone. “We await the results of well-designed, random controlled trials to determine clinical effectiveness.”
Further trials are under way. Draulio de Araujo, a neuroscientist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte in Natal, Brazil, and a co-author of the study, says that his team has already treated 46 (out of a planned 80) patients in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of ayahuasca and depression that began in January 2014. “We hope to finish it by the end of this year,” he says.