hallucinogens
neurophilosophy | August 30, 2010This post is part of a Nature Blog Focus on hallucinogenic drugs in medicine and mental health, inspired by a recent Nature Reviews Neuroscience paper, The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders, by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer. This article will be freely available, with registration, until September 23. See the Table of Contents for more information on this Blog Focus, and read the other blog posts:
Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression (by Neuroskeptic)
Ketamine for Depression: Yay or Neigh? (by The Neurocritic)
Visions of a…
scientificactivist | March 23, 2007
Back in August, I reported on an ACMD study buried in the back of a UK government report. The study gave strong evidence that the current drug classification scheme in the UK was fundamentally flawed and was not based on the actual danger of a given drug. The study has now been published in this week's issue of The Lancet. The Guardian also has a nice piece on it today. The bottom line is that the current unscientific drug classifcations that the UK (and the US) currently rely on need to change. Now.
Here's what I originally wrote:
(1 August 2006) Yesterday, the House of Commons…
scientificactivist | August 1, 2006Yesterday, the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee released a report entitled Drug Classification: Making a Hash of It?, which challenges the logic behind current drug classifications in the UK, especially when tied to legal penalities. The report discusses specific cases where drugs were misclassified or their classifications were changed for political, rather than scientific, reasons. The report is particularly critical of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) for not doing enough to push for a more scientifically based drug classification system.
The…