~~~ Mattha Busby ~~~

the Guardian • January 5, 2023

‘This is another revolution’: could legalisation of cannabis transform Mexico’s economy?

The pungent aroma of cannabis and the sound of dub music fill the air at a hacienda as about 150 smokers, users, growers, activists and business people gather for Mexico’s second annual Toquefest. In anticipation of the long-delayed legalisation of...

the Guardian • October 25, 2022

‘Like being burned with cooking oil’: how tattoo removal became a booming business

When an 18-year-old Olivia Cerda got a vivid tableau featuring a snarling dragon and a grizzling tiger permanently etched across her entire back, there was not much thinking behind the decision. “I love traditional Japanese tattoos but I was just...

the Guardian • October 9, 2022

Why the health benefits of laughter yoga will make you smile

Friends, I must tell you, laughter yoga is not a comedy.” Dr Madan Kataria, a former GP and the creator of laughter yoga, an exercise programme involving prolonged laughter, is talking to more than 100 participants on one of his daily Zoom sessions....

the Guardian • July 20, 2022

‘It’s a mess and I’ve never seen anything like it’: global lost luggage crisis mounts

When Jenn Choi packed her and her family’s bags she feared for the worst. After hearing horror stories of checked airline luggage going permanently missing, she bought tracking devices for her suitcases to ensure she would not have to rely on a...

openDemocracy • July 15, 2022

Peyote: sacred psychedelic cactus under threat in Mexico

When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in Mexico half a millennium ago, they sought to convince Indigenous people that consumption of peyote, an inconspicuous cactus that contains the psychedelic drug mescaline, was akin to devil worship. But the...

Beatrice Society • June 22, 2022

Akashic Records: Is there an ‘Internet of Everything’?

“Are you nervous?” asks the medium. “Yes,” I reply, exasperatedly, as my heart beats faster. After all, she is about to access my soul – supposedly. Sitting opposite her, in her apartment in Mexico, she reassures me with her steady seriousness and...

May 16, 2022

Was the US Really Ever Trying to Win the War on Drugs?

When the former Bolivian president Evo Morales implemented the legalization of coca leaf growing in 2004, he knew he was taking a risk. The man who made his name as leader of a militant coca growers’ union then expelled the US Drug Enforcement...

Leafly • April 27, 2022

In Mexico, this city ordered its cops to let everyone smoke weed—and not just on 4/20

OAXACA DE JUÁREZ – Cannabis consumers here in Mexico’s culinary capital celebrated 4/20 by smoking and eating neon green weed-infused cake in front of the police. As heavily armed cops looked on, activists distributed slices of the pastel along with...

April 19, 2022

How 4/20 Became the Biggest Day in the Stoner Calendar

There is normally at least some sort of police disruption of the annual 4/20 celebrations in London’s Hyde Park as thousands from across the UK convene to commit an act of mass civil disobedience by smoking cannabis, in protest against laws which make...

openDemocracy • April 11, 2022

Túmin: the alternative currency rebuilding community in Mexico

The currency – usually, but not always, used alongside the peso in transactions (for example, paying half in each currency or receiving 20% change in Túmin) – was the brainchild of researchers from the Intercultural University of Veracruz, who were...

March 3, 2022

METADRIFT

The dawn of the internet age came with giddy predictions of a new more open and egalitarian era. Mattha Busby asks if NFTs might help do just to this. In 1973 the The New York Times posed the question, ‘Writers, Composers and Actors Collect...

the Guardian • February 20, 2022

How Covid changed medicine for the future

When Tom Pooley, 21, became the first person to receive an experimental vaccine against plague as part of a medical trial last summer after tests on mice, he was inspired by the thought that his involvement could help to rid the world of one of the...

VICE • February 7, 2022

Are Psychedelics the Future of Pain Relief?

For more than 15 years, Ainslie Course suffered from one of the most intense pains known to humans: cluster headaches. Sometimes nicknamed "suicide headaches", her main symptom was an excruciating pain that suddenly surrounded one eye in debilitating...

Leafly • December 16, 2021

Marijuana in Mexico: What it's like to be a cannabis consumer right now

MEXICO CITY – “I’ve got the best job in the world,” says Alejandra* as she rolls joint after joint at a cannabis dispensary in Mexico City. Plumes of smoke fill the air. A steady stream of customers come and go. Some purchase her pre-rolls, but most...

the Guardian • December 5, 2021

Tourists bask on a battlefield as drug gangs fight over Mexican resort town

Bright yellow police tape fluttered in the breeze outside a restaurant just off the main strip in the Mexican resort town of Tulum, as the lights of a nearby police truck flashed blue and red. Troops in camouflage fatigues stood guard outside the...

Dazed • November 15, 2021

Can the yoga world move past Osho and Bikram’s shady legacies?

Bikram hot yoga and Osho kundalini remain trendy yoga practices – but with allegations of exploitative dealings and criminal connections, yogis and practitioners are struggling with turning their backs on If you’ve felt sweat streaming down your body...

the Guardian • November 7, 2021

Will the magic of psychedelics transform psychiatry?

Imagine a medicine that could help people process disturbing memories, sparking behavioural changes rather than merely burying and suppressing symptoms and trauma. For the millions suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression,...

October 19, 2021

The Arms Race Fuelling the West Midlands' Gang Wars

On a summer afternoon in 2019, a drive-by shooting in broad daylight shocked the inhabitants of Birmingham. The volley of gunfire – eight shots in total – took place outside a primary school near the city centre. Witnesses saw a man stumbling for...

September 24, 2021

Tourists Are Now Smoking Toad Venom in Mexico’s Hipster Town Tulum

Emerging research suggests it reliably brings about mystical experiences, reduces depression, and relieves anxiety. But a significant minority of users report serious mental health difficulties after smoking the so-called “God molecule.” “I was...

September 24, 2021

The Drug Gangs Terrorising England's Steel City

The child was hit in the leg, and one of his friends narrowly escaped death when a stray bullet punctured the hood of his jacket rather than his neck and head. The broad daylight incident, outside a Sheffield sandwich shop, was one of at least 37...