The Drug Science Podcast

Cory Doctorow is a Canadian-British citizen of Eastern European Jewish descent and, frankly, it is no less difficult to grasp his vast interests and points of expertise than his family roots. After attending four universities without obtaining a degree, Cory’s career started with co-founding free software P2P company called OpenCola and selling it to the Open Text Corporation after four years. Later Doctorow relocated  to London and worked as European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation helping to establish the Open Rights Group, before leaving the EFF to pursue both fiction and non-fiction writing full-time.  He is also an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licences for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, and post-scarcity economics. Academically, he was named the 2006–2007 Canadian Fulbright Chair for Public Diplomacy at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, and in 2009, Doctorow became the first Independent Studies Scholar in Virtual Residence at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Doctorow is also a Visiting Professor at the Open University in the United Kingdom. In 2012 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from The Open University. If you want to find out how data surveillance, AI, and monopolization can be connected to drug policy, be sure to tune in to this episode! Blog: www.pluralistic.net Books: www.craphound.com/shop Podcast: www.craphound.com/podcast   Newsletter: https://mail.flarn.com/mailman/listinfo/plura-list/Medium: https://doctorow.medium.com/RSS: https://pluralistic.net/feed/Twitter: https://twitter.com/doctorow  Drugs without the hot air: Making Sense of Legal and Illegal Drugs - without the hot air “Nutsack”Harm reductionSelective enforcementElectronic frontier foundationAssociation for Computing MachineryStatement on principles for the development and deployment of equitable, private, and secure remote test administration systems.Bruce AlexanderDanah BoydNetwork effectSwitching Costs  ★ Support this podcast ★

Niamh Eastwood is the executive director of Release, the national centre offering legal services for drug users.   She started at Release as a legal advisor. Now, having worked in drug policy for the last fifteen years she’s co-authored many of Release’s advice booklets and drug policy related papers including ’The Colour of Injustice: 'Race', Drugs and Law Enforcement in England and Wales’. One of the aspects of drug laws she’s most passionate about is how disproportionately they affect the most vulnerable in society.  Accordingly, she’s advocating for drug policy reform in the UK by giving talks and lectures, contributing to drug policy journals and publications as well as drafting many of Release's briefings for parliamentarians and policy makers.   Release The Numbers in Black and White: Ethnic Disparities in the Policing and Prosecution of Drug Offences in England and Wales MDMA (Ecstasy)  Cannabis Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis Heroin Police told not to use smell of cannabis in stop and search amid racism allegations  Amber Marks Drug Detection Dogs and the Growth of Olfactory Surveillance: Beyond the Rule of Law? Cocaine Psychedelics Drug Action Against Drugs Release’s playing cards  ★ Support this podcast ★

In this week’s episode we'll meet Dr Mendel Kaelen, CEO of Wavepaths, a London-based company researching and developing methods for music-assisted psychotherapy.  Prior to Wavepaths, Dr Kaelen worked as a PhD student and post-doctoral neuroscientist at Imperial College London with a special focus of the role of music in psychedelic therapy. Combining his passion to both music and neuroscience he advocates for the therapeutic use of music in talks and publications that has been featured in Nature News, San Francisco Chronicles, Vice Motherboard, Rolling Stone, TEDx and others. Tune in to this week’s episode to gain some insight on how music actually affects our brains and hence ourselves.  KetaminePsychedelicsOut of body experience Magic mushroomsRobin Carhart-HarrisBeckley FoundationAmanda FeildingAyahuascaLSDPeyoteHelen BonnyInsight (psychology)Peak experienceParahippocampusVisual cortexBrocas area (inferior frontal gyrus)Planum temporaleTimbreDefault mode networkThe entropic brainHyper-connectivity in the brain under specific drugsPrecuneus Serotonin 2a receptorPyramidal neuronsPredictive codingWavepathsMichael Pollan Brian EnoGrateful DeadAcid TestBuchla synthesizers ★ Support this podcast ★

Dan Carden is a British Labour Party politician serving as the MP for Liverpool Walton since 2017. A self-proclaimed “proud Scouser”, Carden highlights his close relationship with Liverpool’s working class and recalls his father being the shop steward during the Liverpool dockers’ dispute. From his early years he cared deeply for his community, standing on picket lines as a young boy and then going into politics. He studied International Relations at the London School of Economics where he also took the position of Chair of the University Labour Club. In his 20s however, while clearly being on a path to a brilliant career in politics, Carden developed a drinking problem. Now, he talks openly about this difficult experience as it brought into light the gaps in support for alcohol users in the UK. Carden therefore, advocates for changes in the logistics behind treating alcohol addiction as well as for ending the stigma affecting its sufferers. In this week’s episode Dan Carden and Professor, David Nutt will be discussing how we can change the way we deal with problematic alcohol use for the better.Why is alcohol consumption so normalised despite being far more dangerous than multiple illegal drugs? Why don’t we talk more openly about the harms from alcohol?Tune in to the episode to find out!'Choose to live': Dan Carden's emotional speech about alcohol addictionUniteLiverpool dockers’ disputeBinge drinkingInsight (psychiatry) ★ Support this podcast ★

Professor Mike Barnes is a consultant neurologist and an expert cannabis physician. He dedicated his career to the development of neurological rehabilitation as well as medical cannabis awareness and education. After holding multiple senior NHS management positions, chairing Neurological Rehabilitation in the UK and years of clinical practice, professor Barnes brings his expertise to educate clinicians and patients about the benefits of medicinal cannabis and CBD wellness. He also is an advocate for a sensible and robust approach to medical cannabis prescribing and industry growth in the UK.  In his recent discussion paper entitled “Ten Recommendations for Government” he explores what Government can do to address what is currently a great missed opportunity for the country to secure the economic and patient benefits of a new approach to medical cannabis and CBD well-being products. Professor Nutt and professor Barnes will be talking about medical cannabis. Should our future doctors obtain proper education on how to use botanical medicines? Should we change the way we think about drugs and treatments?Tune into this week’s episode to find out!Interested in learning more about Project Twenty21? Find out more about the project hereHow to prescribe medical cannabis?Learn more about medical cannabis Download medical cannabis resourcesProfessor David Nutt, live in London Ten Recommendations for Government - Discussion Paper - UK Medical Cannabis and CBD MarketCannabisMultiple sclerosisHypobaric oxygen therapyNeurological rehabilitationWorld Federation for NeuroRehabilitationBotoxSpasticityMotor neurone diseaseCannabidiol (CBD)Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)GW pharmaceuticalsSativexMedicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)PCDH19 EpilepsySchedule 1 drugsMedical Cannabis Clinicians SocietyMaple Tree ConsultantsSubarachnoid hemorrhage ★ Support this podcast ★

Norman Baker, described by our host, professor Nutt, as “the first and last truly honest politician” is a Liberal Democrat and former MP for Lewes in East Sussex. Following three years as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department of Transport he was promoted to Minister of State at the Home Office in 2013. However, rejection of many of his progressive suggestions including ones on drug policy e.g. legal use of medical cannabis for pain relief in cancer and multiple sclerosis patients, lead to his resignation from this position in 2014. Now, he advises the campaign for better transport in the UK and makes his voice heard by having authored multiple books including his autobiography “Against the Grain”. Tune in to this week’s episode to learn more about his interesting insights to UK politics and especially to UK’s drug policies.Professor David Nutt, live in London Against the grainDrug decriminalization in PortugalDrug consumption rooms in DenmarkSafe injection facilitiesCannabis Home officeJeremy HuntSpAD - Special adviserNick Timothy and Fiona HillGreen industrial revolutionDavid Kelly… And What Do You Do?Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 ★ Support this podcast ★

Dr Margaret Ross is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and Psychotherapist from Melbourne, Australia and the Chief Principal Investigator for Australia’s first psilocybin assisted psychotherapy study.  Throughout her career, her main focus has been youth mental health and more recently cancer and palliative care. Following working as a research psychologist and clinical trial coordinator for The University of Melbourne and Orygen Youth Health, Margaret decided to move into researching alternatives for her oncology patients who were terrified of dying and experiencing existential distress in the face of their diagnosis. After seeing the compelling results of US-based research into the use of psilocybin assisted therapy for patients with existential distress in the face of terminal cancer, she decided to set on a fight so that similar treatments would soon become an option within Australia. Have a listen to this week’s episode in which professor Nutt and Dr Ross talk about the land of Golden Wattle - a DMT-rich plant - fighting for its Drug policies being based on Science.Recent Australian TGA Independent Expert Panel on MDMA and psilocybin consultation  PsilocybinRandomized controlled trial (RCT)Open label doseTrial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for DepressionDrug Scheduling in the UKStandard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons (Australia)National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) EntheogensGolden WattleDMTDr Ben Sessa KetamineTherapeutic Goods Administration (TGA)PitjantjatjaraLSD ★ Support this podcast ★

Theresa Marteau is a British health psychologist, professor, and director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge. Her initial research concerned communicating risk information and found out that people usually don’t change their behaviours despite receiving any form of information about preventable diseases like type 2 diabetes or certain types of cancer. Hence, she decided to redirect her focus on the non-conscious rather than conscious processes that could improve people’s health behaviours e.g. reducing glass size to reduce alcohol consumption. Through that research, she’s demonstrated that it is the change in government policies or population-level interventions - putting nudge theory into practice - that present a potential for the improvement in our population’s health. For these notable findings and contributions she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2017 Queen's Birthday Honours List. Nudge theory Social psychology Milgram experiment Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View by Stanley Milgram Spatial, temporal, and demographic patterns in prevalence of smoking tobacco use and attributable disease burden in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 Impact of bottle size on in-home consumption of wine: feasibility and acceptability randomised cross-over study Shopper lab Impact of minimum unit pricing on alcohol purchases in Scotland and Wales: controlled interrupted time series analyses ★ Support this podcast ★

Today’s episode features Dr Peter Gasser, the president of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy. Professor Nutt and Dr Gasser talk about the rather unusual and innovative attitude to psychedelic research in Switzerland.  How can Britain learn from the Swiss? What are the drug policies in the Albert Hofmann’s - the discoverer of LSD - country? Dr Peter Gasser is a Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist and the President of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy since 1997. After LSD was criminalized worldwide he was the first person to conduct research on psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Additionally, he holds a permission for and provides treatment using MDMA and LSD. MDMALSDSwiss Medical Society for Psycholytic TherapyInternational Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Birthday of Albert HofmannAlbert Hofmann PsilocybinPost-traumatic stress disorderMAPS - Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic StudiesWar on drugs - US political campaign The Psychedelic Renaissance Pilot study on LSD-Assisted Psychotherapy for Anxiety Associated With Life-threatening DiseasesEnd of life anxiety Obsessive-compulsive disorderCluster headachePsycholytic therapy with MDMA and LSD in Switzerland - MAPS article  ★ Support this podcast ★

This week on the Drug Science podcast, Professor Deborah Mash tells us about Ibogaine. A hallucinogenic compound derived from the roots of a West African shrub, sometimes used as a treatment for heroin or cocaine addiction.Professor Mash found herself trying to reverse the damage that cocaine had caused on the streets of Miami, Florida. To explore new and novel therapies, she took a flight to Amsterdam to examine whether a West African shrub could be cure to cocaine and heroin dependency.  Since that fateful trip, she’s been at the forefront of Ibogaine and Noribogaine research in the US. Now, she’s bringing that research to the UK for a landmark Ibogaine study in Manchester, England. Could Ibogaine be one of the most clinically significant advances in addiction medicine of the 21st century? Deborah Mash is one of the world's foremost experts on the hallucinogenic drug ibogaine. She is the CEO and Founder of DemeRx Inc., a clinical-stage drug development company advancing ibogaine and its active metabolite noribogaine for the treatment of opioid use disorder. DemeRx has partnered with ATAI Life Sciences -- a global biotech platform with a special focus on psychedelic medicine -- to develop ibogaine for those suffering from opioid use disorder. Building on the extensive human data available around ibogaine, DemeRx and ATAI will submit Clinical Trial Applications for a Phase II study in opioid-dependent patients. This joint venture will also develop screening procedures, dosing guidelines, and best practices for opioid withdrawal management to ensure patient safety.Enrol to the MAC Ibogaine Clinical trial DemeRxMiami’s drug war Brain Endowment BankNational Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)CocaethyleneDrug Free America Howard LotsofNoribogaineRick Doblin Cerebellar Toxicity Buprenorphine U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)PsilocybinMAC ManchesterAlexander Shulgin  Allopregnanolone (Brexanolone)  ★ Support this podcast ★