House of Psycedelic Drugs

I hate the TV show House. Not because I find that it's innaccurate as lots of people do. It's just the character of House is so abbrasive. Someone needs to punch him and then kick him in his bad leg while he's down. The wife enjoys House and therefore I am forced to endure some of it. Last episode House gave a young patient mushrooms (psilocybin) for cluster headaches. Pardon? Apparently phycedelic drugs are useful for cluster headaches. The Multidisciplinary Association for Psycedelic Studies (MAPS) is all about encouraging research into these popular recreational drugs for treatment of some medical conditions. In addition to psilocybin for cluster headaches there is marijuana for chronic wasting disease and ecstasy (MDMA) for post tramatic stress disorder (PTSD). Here is a great Nature article on the founder of MAPS and other info on psycedelic therapies. While some of the stuff on the MAPS website is super sketchy (like this account of a mother and son peyote trip as a right of passage) and I was initially very skeptical about this avenue of research however there probably is some really good research that can be done in this area if it wasn't for laws about limiting access to 'fun' recreational drugs. There is no denying their bioactivity and compared to some approved drugs probably have less toxicity. So before I have to deal with another House episode perhaps I should make sure that I'm well prepared for the inevitable induction of a House induced cluster headache.

Harmful marijuana

Today at lunch we were discussing the ironic front page story of a recent "Metro" newspaper cover. In it patients complained about the 1500% markup (150$ an ounce) health Canada is supposedly making on the sell of medical marijuana. It seems health Canada probably wants to sell the therapeutic herb at market value so that patients are not tempted to resell at a profit. In any case, compared to other types of medication it is still cheap, and Canada is being pretty progressive in this matter compared to its southern neighbour. We were also discussing the possible adverse effects of marijuana, considering the recent re-classification that was done in the UK, which while putting marijuana as safer than nutmeg, cigarettes and alcohol, still scored more harmful than ecstasy or LSD. Most of the adverse effect come from the smoke inhalation, which could be avoided by using other delivery methods without combustion. However, propaganda still rages in the States and some of the adverse effects attributed to smoking marijuana (picture above) are definitely not based on sound science, with statements such as: clogged synapses, brain damage, cancer and "destroy" number of chromosomes!!!