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Published: 13 April 2023

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Adding menthol flavoring to electronic cigarettes may damage your lungs more than regular e-cigarettes do, a new study reveals.

A number of studies have suggested that e-cigarette vapor can cause lung inflammation, oxidative stress, DNA damage and airway hyper-responsiveness that can trigger asthma, Benam said. Vaping these substances can cause lung damage that impairs lung function. Menthol, he added, is such a toxic substance.

The common mint flavoring helps deliver lots more toxic microparticles, compared with e-cigarette pods that don't contain menthol. It's those microparticles that damage lung function, researchers say.
"Beware of additives in the e-cigarettes, if you vape, they can make you inhale more particles into your lungs. Don‘t assume that since menthol is a substance naturally found in mint plants and added to some food and beverages, it would be fine to inhale…Menthol flavoring leads to a significantly higher number of particle counts that one would take into their lungs by vaping them…E-cigarette aerosols are known to contain many harmful substances, such as nicotine and formaldehyde.”

Associate Professor Kambez Benam, Senior Researcher in the division of pulmonary, allergy and critical care medicine at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Medicine 

(Source: Menthol Vapes Could Be Even More Toxic to Lungs (webmd.com))

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Published: 12 April 2023

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A drug known as ketamine induces a mental state similar to psychosis in healthy individuals by inhibiting NMDA receptors in the brain. This creates an imbalance of excitatory and inhibitory signals in the central nervous system, which affects sensory perception. Experts believe that similar changes in NMDA receptors could be linked to perception changes in schizophrenia.

They found that ketamine increased “background noise” in the brain, making sensory signals less defined or pronounced. This, they noted, may explain the distorted perception of reality among people with schizophrenia or psychosis.

The researchers suggested that their findings mean that the distorted reality experienced in psychosis and schizophrenia may be triggered by more background noise, which in itself may be caused by malfunctioning NMDA receptors causing an imbalance of inhibition and excitation in the brain.

Their findings appeared in the European Journal of Neuroscience (Trusted Source).

(Source: Psychosis after ketamine: What happens in the brain? (medicalnewstoday.com)

Further reading Ketamine and Staying Away From the ‘K-Hole’ and Problematic Psychedelics – Prescribing Harm?

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Published: 21 March 2023

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Warning of “history repeating,” researchers list ten problems with psychedelic research that make conclusions about efficacy and safety uncertain.
March 20, 2023

Drugs like ketamine, psilocybin (mushrooms), LSD, and MDMA are at the forefront of a new wave of overhyped treatments for mental health problems that may fail to deliver on their promises, according to a new article by researchers Michael van Elk and Eiko Fried at Leiden University, the Netherlands. They write that psychedelic research is plagued by methodological problems that make the efficacy and safety of these drugs uncertain.

Despite the minimal research and its limitations, the drugs have been hyped as “miracle” drugs, with some, like esketamine, even receiving FDA approval—despite failing to beat placebo in five of its six initial efficacy trials (the sixth trial reached statistical, but not clinical, significance). In fact, last year, researchers wrote that the promotion of ketamine/esketamine treatments poses “a significant risk to the public.”
In their new article, published before peer review on the preprint server PsyArXiv, van Elk and Fried focus on the top 10 methodological problems rampant in psychedelic research, how these issues undermine the evidence base, and how researchers can avoid them in the future.

“These problems threaten internal validity (treatment effects are due to factors unrelated to the treatment), external validity (lack of generalizability), construct validity (an unclear working mechanism), or statistical conclusion validity (conclusions do not follow from the data and methods),” the researchers write.

Worse, they add, most psychedelic studies feature more than one of these problems, which makes the studies far more unreliable: “These problems tend to co-occur in psychedelic studies, strongly limiting conclusions that can be drawn about the safety and efficacy of psychedelic therapy.” 

For complete article

Also see LOBBYING FOR MEDICINE – AROUND WE GO AGAIN (THIS TIME IT’S PSYCHEDELICS)

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Published: 20 March 2023

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First TGA gives non-clinically trialled or fully vetted cannabis ‘medicines’ a short cut, now they just give a pass to Psilocybine, because this drug users group demand it – Science and Evidence be Damned?

"Members agreed that there was little additional evidence presented in this application … As such, the main barrier to down-scheduling psilocybine was therefore still a lack of established therapeutic value.

"Members expressed several concerns, including the broadness of the indication included in the proposal (treatment-resistant mental illness), the lack of phase III trials, and the problems associated with the translation from a clinical trial setting to clinical practice.

"The Committee agreed that the risk of diversion is low in a controlled medical environment, but noted that, contrary to the assertions of the applicant, there are significant risks of diversion at other points in the supply chain. In addition, not dispensing from a pharmacy would bypass the real-time prescription monitoring system, hence limiting oversight and governance. "There remains no approved therapeutic product containing psilocybine anywhere in the world."            TGA Board Minutes

The committee's advice for MDMA echoed these concerns. The committee also noted the Australian Medical Association's continued opposition to the down-scheduling. So, it was little surprise that the secret TGA decision-maker known as "the delegate" made the interim decision in October to keep the drugs prohibited.

For most drugs, that would be the end of the story — TGA insiders told Background Briefing it's uncommon for a final decision to diverge from the interim decision. But this time was different.
In the intervening months, Mind Medicine Australia doubled down on its campaign.

The group called for supporters to put in submissions opposing the TGA's interim decision, and more than 3,000 heeded the call. That's on top of the more than 13,000 public submissions the TGA had received before the interim decision.

The TGA delegate noted how few submissions came from actual psychiatrists or relevant organisations (submissions from the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and the Australian Psychological Society supported the interim decision not to down-schedule the drugs). The delegate said the submissions — largely corralled by MMA — were brief, and most failed to address any of the reservations expressed in its interim decision.

High-profile psychiatrist and Orygen CEO Patrick McGorry tweeted: "It is premature to allow psilocybin to be used beyond research trials. Can we be reassured that approval is not due to intense private lobbying/special pleading by a zealous private group?"

McGorry is conducting his own trial in the space, much like psychiatrist Nigel Strauss, who, despite long advocating for the potential of psychedelic therapy, felt the decision was premature.
"We're doing the research here, but it's early days still," said Professor Strauss. "And when you look around the world at all the research that's available, there hasn't been that much.

"I'm not really aware of what drove the TGA to make this change decision. All I can say, is that it's definitely not research because there hasn't been any great change … particularly in Australia.
Professor Strauss is concerned about how the decision was reached.

For complete story

Also see

• Cannabis as ‘Medicine?’: Pot Propaganda, Emotive Anecdote, Marketing Manipulation, and the Side Stepping of Science
• IS THE PSYCHEDELIC THERAPY BUBBLE ABOUT TO BURST?

     Shane W. Varcoe