Research: Psilocybin Improves Depression

Better living through chemistry.

Because corrupt Republican President Richard Nixon’s 50-year lost cause, failed social experiment of the “War on Drugs” and Nancy Reagan’s “just say no” have never, and will never, work, nor ever benefited anyone who needed help — only those who perpetuated the war.

And, because no one — NO ONE — has ever said “when I grow up, I want to become an addict,” nor waked up one day and said, “gee… I think I want to become an addict.”

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In September 2018, Johns Hopkins researchers suggested that psilocybin should be re-categorized from a schedule I drug — one with no known medical potential — to a schedule IV drug (the lowest classification) such as with prescription sleep aids, but with somewhat tighter control, and summarized their analysis in the October print issue of Neuropharmacology, a peer-review professional journal.

Dr. Matthew W. Johnson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins is one of the world’s leading researchers, and most published scientists on the effects of psychedelics on humans, and has conducted original and innovative research in the behavioral economics of drug use, addiction, and risk behavior. Dr. Johnson earned his Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the University of Vermont in 2004.

Dr. Johson spoke with JHU reporters about the research, and said, “We want to initiate the conversation now as to how to classify psilocybin to facilitate its path to the clinic and minimize logistical hurdles in the future. We expect these final clearance trials to take place in the next five years or so. We should be clear that psilocybin is not without risks of harm, which are greater in recreational than medical settings, but relatively speaking, looking at other drugs both legal and illegal, it comes off as being the least harmful in different surveys and across different countries. We believe that the conditions should be tightly controlled and that when taken for a clinical reason, it should be administered in a health care setting, monitored by a person trained for that situation.”

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One Dose Of Psilocybin Improved Neural Connections Lost In Depression, Study Says

By Joseph Guzman, July 6, 2021

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The psychedelic psilocybin mushroom has shown promise in treating depression, and a number of clinical trials into the fungus’s therapeutic effects have been conducted in recent years.

But now, a Yale University study published in the peer reviewed professional journal Neuron July 5, 2021, has shed light on how the compound psilocybin —the active ingredient found in so-called “magic mushrooms” — may produce antidepressant effects.

Researchers administered a single dose of psilocybin to mice and used a laser-scanning microscope to visualize dendritic spines in the rodents’ brains in high resolution. Dendritic spines are small protrusions found on nerve cells that play a key role in transmitting information between neurons. Previous laboratory experiments demonstrated promise that psilocybin, and the anesthetic ketamine, could decrease depression.

Stress and depression degrade and reduce the number of neuronal connections.

Within 24 hours of the single psychedelic dose, researchers observed an immediate and lasting increase in

The Trump Depression

Trump’s economy is SO BAD…

How bad is it?

Trump’s economy is so bad, that he has LOST MORE than was gained under his administration.

When he took the Oath of Office in January 2017, POS45 was given a THRIVING economy by his predecessor, the Black Democratic President (that’s GOT to gall POS45, don’t you know!?!) Barack Hussein Obama.

Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) from the St. Louis Federal Reserve, presented graphically data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis about our national economy.

And, just for funsies, and perspective, data from the First Quarter 2005 until Current – 2nd Quarter 2020 is shown.

And as you can see plainly, the last time the economy was performing at this level, was in the 1st Quarter 2015 – over 5 years ago.

5ive years.

That would be the next-to-last year of President Obama’s 2nd term.

Yeah.

Trump has

SQUANDERED AWAY EVERYTHING,

AND THEN SOME!

Kinda’ sounds like a Bible parable, or some such thing.

Isn’t that what he’s done historically with his casinos and their 6 associated Chapter 11 bankruptcies?

But look also at this: The sudden precipitous decline, the rapidly massive downturn in Trump’s economy is the WORST – THE WORST (he likes superlatives) – since records began being kept in 1947. Maybe even worse than the Great Depression.

But look also at this: The sudden precipitous decline, the rapidly massive downturn in Trump’s economy is the WORST – THE WORST (he likes superlatives) – since records have been kept in 1947. Maybe even worse than the Great Depression.

Trump’s economy is now at the point
where Obama’s economy was
in the 1st Quarter 2015.

Put another way, Trump has

The Economy WILL Crash. It’s only a matter of “WHEN?”

Economics has long been called the “dismal science.”¹

Perhaps it’s because they either a.) Tell the truth, or b.) Warn about bad things to come. Either way, it’s hardly a French tickler, and more like a Marquis de Sade.

But, some folks don’t enjoy hearing the truth, or as the actor Jack Nicholson’s character Guantanamo Base Commander Colonel Nathan Jessup raged upon the witness stand in the 1992 motion picture “A Few Good Men,” that “You can’t handle the truth!”

Of course, we’re familiar with how that movie turned out.

Free economies are based upon consumer spending. Period. Full stop.

If consumers don’t have money, they don’t spend. That’s easy enough to understand.

And, if anything, the coronoavirus pandemic has shown up how poorly prepared this president’s administration has been, and continues to be.

Again, those aren’t “nice words” to hear or read, but they are the unvarnished truth.

To say that “the economy is improving” is a mischaracterization of enormous proportion, so much so, and to the extent that, it’s either whistling past the graveyard, or Whistler’s Mother – both of whom are dead.

The economy was “doing well” according to some estimates. Those estimates included the DJIA, the stock indices of various firms and select industries, and some hedge funds. The “essential” worker bees were just hanging on by a thread in their retail, meat processing, and low-paid food service industry jobs. And once they got sick, they were fired, and… BAMMO! The shit hit the high-speed fan.

Suddenly, there were no more “worker bees” and the economic house of cards began to collapse with each puff of wind from COVID-19 patients’ coughs.

Fortunately, Congress (as in the House of Representatives) had the wisdom and foresight to actually bail out THE PEOPLE this time, and to give a much smaller hand-out to industry. The familiar cry “Where’s MY bailout!?!” was the primary sticking point with the previous administration in the process of recovery from “the Great Recession” when Big Business and industry got practically everything their hearts desired, but the people got nothing. Literally, nothing. Bupkis. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Not even a peck on the cheek after they were screwed.

This time, The People who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 were given an extra $600 per week of Unemployment Compensation, which was set to expire July 31. Ever seeking cheap labor to fill their stores, factories and farms, the Republicans decried the matter, but agreed to go along with the plan, hoping that the administration would  have a more cohesively unified plan to stop the assault of COVID-19 upon America’s lives, young and old, alike.

But as it became increasingly clear that nothing of the sort was going to happen, and that an extension of such benefits would likely become necessary because either businesses went belly-up, or couldn’t guarantee their employees’ safety on the job (as protection against COVID-19), the employees, many of whom were already at risk of serious injury from such infection, declined to return to work, and continued to draw their extra $600/week Unemployment Compensation.

But hey! A bright spot!

Facebook, Apple, Google, Amazon, and other industry monoliths were doing A-okay, and were even increasing profits! So yah… it was all sweetness and pleasantries once again for the Billionaire Class.

But The People.

Those pesky people.

Those essential sacrificial lambs of industry… what to do with them? Those who could – and still had jobs – worked from their residences. Those who, for whatever reason

Research: #Exercise Significantly Improves Anti-#Depression Therapy

For those whom are searching for adjunct, supplemental, or alternative therepeutic milieus, scientists and researchers have made some wonderful discoveries, and share the findings before the release of their research paper!

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Randomized controlled trial of physical exercise as augmentation to antidepressant therapy for late-life major depression in primary care

August 4, 2015

Summary
Progressive physical exercise plus sertraline anti-depressant therapy achieves higher rates of depression remission than non-progressive therapy plus sertraline, or sertraline alone in primary care patients with late-life major depression.

Study Design
121 primary care patients were randomized to

A Few Thoughts on #Suicide Following Robin Williams’ Death

The very fact that people care enough to attempt to prevent others’ suicide is evidence enough that 1.) People care, and; 2.) Life is worth saving.

So let’s talk about it.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2011 (the most recent year for which data are available), 39,518 suicides were reported, which makes suicide the 10th leading cause of death for Americans. That year, someone in the United States died by suicide every 13.3 minutes.

Expressed another way, 790 people in each of the 50 states died from suicide in 2011. That’s 2 per day, per state… every day, all year long.

And because of rounding to the closest whole number, 3018 are completely overlooked.

In 2005, there were more deaths by suicide than homicide.

In 2010, there were more deaths by suicide than those involving automobile wrecks.

In 2009, the United States Army identified that deaths from suicide by military veterans of the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan were

The iPhone Stimulus

Gonna’ get yours?

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By PAUL KRUGMAN, September 13, 2012

Are you, or is someone you know, a gadget freak? If so, you doubtless know that Wednesday was iPhone 5 day, the day Apple unveiled its latest way for people to avoid actually speaking to or even looking at whoever they’re with.

So is the new phone as insanely great as Apple says? Hey, I’ll leave stuff like that to David Pogue. What I’m interested in, instead, are suggestions that the unveiling of the iPhone 5 might provide a significant boost to the U.S. economy, adding measurably to economic growth over the next quarter or two.

Do you find this plausible? If so, I have news for you: you are, whether you know it or not, a Keynesian — and you have implicitly accepted the case that the government should spend more, not less, in a depressed economy.

Before I get there, let’s talk about where the buzz is coming from.

A recent research note from JPMorgan argued that the new iPhone

Two Numbers – ONE BIG, one small

$9,100,000,000,000

Nine TRILLION, one hundred BILLION…

Remember another number.

Two.

During the reign of King George W. Bush, just TWO of his failed policies have cost Americans $9,100,000,000,000.

What two failed policies are those?

The Bu$h tax cuts, and the creation of a Rx (prescription drug “benefit” written wholly by Big Pharmaceutical industry cronies.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s most current estimation of the population of the United States places 308,171,505 people in the United States as of December 17, 2009.

Put another way, that’s a cost of $29, 529 per person.

As a result of deregulation of the financial industries – banks, insurance and stock brokerages – thus creating one giant incestuous financial orgy, Americans have directly suffered under the thumbs of bankers and insurance companies, while their Wall Street cohorts, in conjunction with imaginative thieves, have twiddled and fiddled to create “investment derivatives” – essentially a Ponzi schemed fiscal fraud – out of thin air. That house of cards having collapsed, has revealed what was suspected all along. Outside the transparent dressing room of his glass house, the king had no clothes.

Driven by greed and an insatiable lust for more,