[sageabilly]

It's great to see the advances in research that are being done around Psilocybin, MDMA, and Ketamine as the results that are coming out look incredibly promising.

That being said, godDAMN how in the hell is anyone ever going to take studies like this seriously when they're being reported as "Magic Mushrooms" in Scientific American of all places? This isn't raver kiddies eating dried who-knows-what out of ziplock bags at raves, this is a controlled dosing of psilocybin in a medical setting for treatment of a serious illness. The stigma around researching these drugs is never going to go away unless the language itself changes.

[davidw]

> Scientific American

My wife got that for a year, and I was quite unimpressed. It's not that detailed, mostly, and there's a lot of not very rigorous editorializing, from what I recall. Also, their 'please renew' campaign was quite deceiptful, sending us some kind of "you owe $$$!!!" notice that was really "you owe $$$ if you want to resubscribe".

[function_seven]

> Also, their 'please renew' campaign was quite deceiptful, sending us some kind of "you owe $$$!!!" notice that was really "you owe $$$ if you want to resubscribe".

It amazes me how the entire magazine industry is like this. The most staid and respectable publications have circulation departments that make my local used car dealer look like a saint. It's a huge disconnect, and has always bothered me.

[aninhumer]

I remember when I was subscribing to The Economist, and they had a dark pattern in the process to trick you into paying for another publication. I strongly considered cancelling (and only didn't because I was ordering for other people as well.)

[CWuestefeld]

I've had that with them, too. While it's true that they're not super detailed, I'm also not an expert in every field, and in the majority of articles I found it a good balance. But years later, perhaps I've moved beyond that.

I subscribed for several years until I got tired of their political agenda. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was a feature article on cleaning up landmines in southeast asia. Now, surely this is an important topic, but it's not what I come to a science magazine to read about.

From there I moved to American Scientist magazine, which I found a bit deeper in many cases, and much better regarding editorializing.

[sageikosa]

Maybe I'll check that out. I stopped reading Scientific American in the 1990s due to the editorial bent.

[fapjacks]

It used to be so good back in the early 90s!

[fluxquanta]

Whenever pot-culture words come up in "reporting" about medical treatments I immediately tune out. That's not to say there aren't any potential health benefits but "toking herb" (or whatever) isn't the best way to present them to people who still demonize it.

[civilian]

I know there's been an effort to use the word "Cannabis" as a way to sound legitimate, instead of pot/weed/marijuana. Do you react better to 'cannabis'?

[protomyth]

You're right, I don't react better at all. They should stick with saying "THC and related compounds" instead. Its basically the same argument I have for the thorium folks, do not use "reactor" or "nuclear" in any naming or marketing.

[tgb]

The word "nuclear" was dropped from MRI (nee NMRI) to improve its influence. And, surprisingly, I was even able to find significant documentation of this fact [1], I was honestly expecting it to be folklore at best. Though my own research [2] kind of contradicts the idea that 'nuclear' was ever a popular part of the name. Or maybe it was [3], I dunno.

[1] http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?ar... [2] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=NMRI%2CMRI%2C+... [3] https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=nuclear+magnet...

[civilian]

I like it. I'm going to start referring to GMOs as "Advanced Varieties" and PHP as "Clarified Perl". :D

[tim333]

Not sure that's going to wash with Thorium. Thorium reactors are very much full on nuclear reactors whatever you call them.

(See the decomissioning section on the 1964-1969 Oak Ridge thorium reactor if you think they are problem free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment...)

[mjevans]

Sort of like my own personal stance on 'breeder reactors' being 'waste reduction reactors'.

The problem with most of that 'waste' (at least the non-byproducts kind) is that it's exactly that, actual waste instead of burnt fuel.

[fapjacks]

What about "spent nuclear waste reactors"? It's a big long-winded, but fully conveys that it runs on spent nuclear waste. I suppose it could be parsed weirdly.

[yarou]

I think the word you're looking for is cannabinoids. You don't call opiates "morphine and related compounds".

[protomyth]

True, but morphine and opiates in a known bad along with cannabinoids not sounding much better. Acronyms and "compounds" don't set off the hate generally.

[mistercow]

I don't see a strong argument that "THC" is any better. Everyone knows what THC is.

[nsxwolf]

Well every medical marijuana dispensary I've seen looks like a head shop. Granny walks in with arthritis and walks out with her "blueberry kush" and wearing a crochet rainbow hat.

[marssaxman]

Nothing wrong with head shops.

[cnp]

> That's not to say there aren't any potential health benefits but "toking herb" (or whatever) isn't the best way to present them to people who still demonize it

> Whenever pot-culture words come up in "reporting" about medical treatments I immediately tune out

Ever think that you're contributing to the problem? Just ignore the editorializing.

[fluxquanta]

>Ever think that you're contributing to the problem?

How? The articles aren't for me. I'm fine with pot being legal for medical purposes or otherwise. The articles usually seemed to be aimed at (probably older) people who think marijuana is the devil's weed, and using stoner slang as part of an article to illustrate the positive side effects is counterproductive, in my opinion. Why does it matter if I ignore the article at that point?

[legulere]

That's also why I can't take medical cannabis serious. With medicine you want exact doses and cut all stuff that's potentially giving by-effects. So what you want is e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabiximols

[instakill]

That's not how it works though. Many of the people running the cannabis studies have mentioned that the THC or CBD cannabanoids don't work alone. Cannabis has over 100 such cannabanoids. Nobody is definitively certain of the effects of this list outside of the 5 main ones.

So "cutting all stuff that's potentially giving by-effects" is idealistic and not currently possible without reducing the efficacy of the cannabis.

[elif]

There are about 113 cannabinoids in weed, while that pot spray only contains 2. With reefer, exact doses do not matter because unlike most medicine, its active ingredients are endogenous and non-toxic.

I'm sorry that 420 culture causes your bias, but that's not a fault of the plant.

[jmilloy]

Note that it was also published simultaneously in Nature, which is I think the original.

[arxpoetica]

A return to alchemy...

[nxzero]

A return to science...