Porn has been the closest thing I’ve ever had to an addiction. Now, a couple of months dry from porn again — after only a momentary relapse! — it’s strange how abstaining from it can make you feel more alive… inews.co.uk/inews-lifest...

In the 1980s, amid fears of Soviet psychic warfare, the CIA commissioned an evaluation of a far out program teaching out of body experiences and 'remote viewing'. The report deemed it ‘plausible in terms of its essential objectives’ Latest for @wired.com www.wired.com/story/the-ci...

There were high hopes for psychedelic policy reform when Trump returned to the White House. Nine months into his second term, with a host of advocates in senior government positions for the first time in history, what happens next is anyone’s guess For the MAPS Bulletin maps.org/news/bulleti...

After an American died on a psychedelic retreat in Costa Rica, her family were forced onto a wild goose chase ‘I called the police to make a missing persons report and that’s how I found out she had passed.’ For Vice (who just reposted this on socials) www.vice.com/en/article/i...

The HyperCard inventor was a huge proponent of taking lower doses of 5-MeO-DMT, which is widely considered the strongest psychedelic in the world.

Bill Atkinson was a computing pioneer who effectively made Apple computers usable for everyday people. But few people know that later in life he was a secret advocate of what’s widely considered the world’s most potent psychedelic: 5-MeO-DMT New for WIRED www.wired.com/story/apple-...

The Psychedelic Turf Wars Have Begun But who is behind attacks in Toronto that have left shroom shops sprayed with bullets and rammed by trucks? And aren’t mushrooms supposed to dissolve the ego?! Latest for DoubleBlind newsletter.doubleblindmag.com/p/the-psyche...

I rounded up drug news of the last month for the first edition of THE BUMP. Includes the NYT Amy Griffin story, a barbershop banger from @matthabusby.bsky.social and @maxdaly.bsky.social on the secret of tusi's success. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Cocaine carnage is coming to Britain Budget blow has exploded beyond control 🖊️ Mattha Busby www.newstatesman.com/politi...

‘Soon as you’re at the boozer that’s what it’s all about. Have a drink and have a ‘shizzle mcnizzle’,’ one leading coke-using influencer recently told his 77,000 followers My first for New Statesman www.newstatesman.com/politics/soc...

'There’s people telling me I’m about to spend the rest of my life in prison over some edibles.' American basketball player Jarred Shaw talks to @matthabusby.bsky.social from prison in Indonesia

twenty strangers walk into a hikrodose, a portmanteau of microdose and hike; could a reconnection with nature come out? a fun one from @matthabusby.bsky.social, out today in @atmosmag.bsky.social 🌎

Mushroom-infused hikes have gotten a bad rap lately. Hikers have made headlines after becoming incapacitated and hallucinating. I hoped there would be no such mishaps at our more regimented and measured affair Inside the rise of hikrodosing for @atmosmag.bsky.social atmos.earth/science-and-...

Exclusive: The long-awaited WHO-commissioned review on coca leaves is unequivocal - No "evidence of clinically meaningful public health harms associated with use," but research "robustly" shows harms "associated with coca control strategies." Mattha Busby reports:

Human design, which places people into archetypal personality types, is approaching a high-watermark cultural moment. In the new season of Love is Blind: UK, a human design coach propels the phrase 'trust your spleen' into the zeitgeist For @wired.com www.wired.com/story/human-...

A great piece from this current issue of The Fence. @matthabusby.bsky.social usby.bsky.social dives deep into the hive mind of Simon Buxton: the "bee shaman" beloved by Tori Amos, who sat at the centre of a collapsing colony of cultish devotion and then disappeared www.the-fence.com/men-beehivin...

Is there no such thing as a bad trip, or can they actually be traumatizing? This debate is playing out in the psychedelics field… ‘Most young adults who get cancer feel they experienced personal growth from it. That doesn’t mean you want them to get cancer.’ statesofmind.com/psychedelic-...

What happens when your backyard is no longer private, and your life can be upended by a government ‘code enforcer’ with a silent camera in the sky? How one California county launched a drug war 2.0 on legal cannabis growers, and what it morphed into For @reason.com reason.com/2025/09/09/t...

Peyote is holy to many Native Americans. Can a band of true believers stop it from disappearing from the Texas-Mexico border? https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-texan/peyote-native-americans-texas-mexico/

When Daniel Khalife, a British soldier accused of spying for Iran, escaped from Wandsworth Prison, he became a social media celebrity... Was he a threat to national security? Or just a mixed up kid? My latest for GQ, a story of angst and espionage... www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/dani...

what does cocaine legalization have to do with climate change? from clandestine airstrips carved into the Amazon, to laundering drug money through dirty businesses—it's a whole lot more than you think, reports @matthabusby.bsky.social for @atmosmag.bsky.social 🧪🌎

‘The criminal infrastructure built principally for cocaine is increasingly facilitating illegal deforestation, timber trafficking, and illegal gold mining.’ Latest for @atmosmag.bsky.social atmos.earth/the-surprisi...

Went up north to try Britain's only water menu and talk to the "sommeliers" who are convinced water's the new wine www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Psychedelic experiences are leaving people feeling less rigid about notions of sexuality and arousal “The drug isn’t ‘making’ someone bisexual, polyamorous, or gender expansive, but its creating a window where they can explore what was already there.” New for SOM: statesofmind.com/beyond-the-b...

Now unpaywalled:

UK barbershops are opening at record rates — but many aren’t that concerned with cutting hair, as I inadvertently discovered one summer's day. Police suspect they’re cash fronts for gangs laundering drug trade profits For Esquire www.esquire.com/uk/style/gro...

The Rise of the Ketamine Spoon Akin to cocaine’s velvet excesses of the ’80s, today’s ketamine-fuelled ravers flaunt custom spoons — at once drug tool and countercultural statement — as the emblem of the dissociation generation For @doubleblindmag doubleblindmag.com/inside-the-k...

What if we could invent an ecstasy that lasted longer, packed more of a punch, and didn’t leave you stumbling around in a waking nightmare for days afterwards? It might be hard to believe, but that innovation may already be here... New for Vice www.vice.com/en/article/n...

Why aren’t we talking about bad shamans? My keynote on my frankly extraordinary and extremely weird journey reporting on the dark side of the psychedelic renaissance @breakingconvention.bsky.social is now on YouTube! youtu.be/EcaXdpK5xp4?...

German company Miraculix served a cease-and-desist letter to a US harm reductionist, claiming it owns the tech for the drug-checking kits he's been selling—a claim he strenuously rejects. @matthabusby.bsky.social reports:

can the Trump administration Make Ecstasy Great Again? many longtime advocates are hoping: it can!

I wrote about how a $20,000 psychedelic medicine training that promised education & healing ended with warring lawsuits, a hospitalized trainee, & multiple allegations of sexual assaults. Unpaywalled link for accessibility in reply www.businessinsider.com/dark-side-sh...

Maybe sobriety really is the new high. Or perhaps I’ve just become the kind of person who says things like that unironically www.vice.com/en/article/1...

my latest: Albert Varela claimed his corporate ayahuasca empire would free people's minds and offer them an escape from a world in crisis. But as Inner Mastery grew, its followers discovered a darker reality. for @theguardian.com Long Read

these visitors had planned to see a pristine natural paradise—only to be met with a climate-stricken wasteland upon arrival as global temperatures rise, this sort of tourist disappointment is becoming the norm, reports @matthabusby.bsky.social for @atmosmag.bsky.social 🌍🧪

The climate crisis is ravaging once-beautiful areas of natural beauty. Once idyllic tourist spots, heat and drought-stricken regions are far from the oases you'd see on Instagram. @matthabusby.bsky.social explores the impact on the land and the livelihoods of those who call it home.

Psychedelic therapy can cost hundreds of dollars a session. Some people are taking massive doses of hallucinogens and using chatbots to guide them instead, despite the risks. From @matthabusby.bsky.social: www.wired.com/story/people... s/

As psychedelic companies and therapy apps experiment with AI, people are already taking huge doses of drugs and using chatbots to process their trips ‘It's almost like your own self that you’re communicating with’ Latest for @wired.com www.wired.com/story/people...

This makes me want to compete in a space out competition. I think I might be good at it? www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/w...

Powerful and beautiful short movie www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Meet the psychedelic scientist @leorroseman.bsky.social who tripped with ASAP Rocky and helped craft a global hit single — with LSD 'I’d come to the studio with gifts. He saw me as a scientist doing an experiment and he liked the idea that he was the experiment.' doubleblindmag.com/that-time-aa...

How visionary healers became a fixture of contemporary American culture and politics, writes James Parker for The Atlantic. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

To join this doomsday cult, you have to believe its leader Abdullah Hashem is the messiah. His claims also include a theory that giant rabbits who wear clothes and speak control a faraway planet Oh, and 'we are looking for people who are willing to sell their homes' www.vice.com/en/article/a...

Jhaj now faces the prospect of another stint behind bars after the twisted stunt, which was just the latest in a long list of elaborate ploys designed to meet young women. For Vice www.vice.com/en/article/j...

Inside the race to turn 5-MeO-DMT, one of the most powerful psychedelic drugs in the world into a pharmaceutical.

Can psychedelics bring peace to the Middle East? At the Psychedelic Science conference delegates discussed MDMA clinics in the West Bank, rabbis drinking ayahuasca, and whether group tripping might heal national trauma. Plus many other questions... For Dispatch dispatch-media.com/tripping-wit...

The versatile cannabis plant could, some scientists think, one day be useful for lunar and Martian colonists. For now, researchers will subject its seeds to radiation in orbit and see what happens. www.wired.com/story/scient...

Two leaders in the mushroom supplement industry, Paul Stamets and Jeff Chilton, had been friends since the 1970s. Then they got into a feud about a seemingly simple question that is anything but… What constitutes a mushroom? For @latimes.com www.latimes.com/lifestyle/st...

I have a new story up in the NYTimes Magazine. Thanks to @mauraf.bsky.social for talking to me so many times for this one, and to everyone else who talked to me on the record, especially students and faculty, despite the risk. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/06/m...

New article in 'Salon' by Elizabeth Hlavinka about the bad & the good sides of 'bad trips', interviewing Eirini Argyri & myself about our work on the Challenging #Psychedelic Experiences Project exploring recovery & growth after post-psychedelic extended difficulties www.salon.com/2025/06/06/b...