The Alkaloid

Comic illustration of a curator holding a record sleeve at a wooden desk, with an amber ribbon flowing toward an empty recliner and headphones in an adjoining room.

The Alkaloid #36: Who DJs the Trip?

Who chooses the soundtrack for psychedelic therapy? An analysis of eight playlists finds only weak evidence for a shared musical arc, without testing whether the music helps patients.

Comic spread of a caller on a sofa and a headset-wearing listener at a laptop, joined by an amber line. Anonymous record cards overlap across the foreground.

Field Notes #15: What a Support Line Can Tell Us

A new database describes 25,419 Fireside peer-support interactions. It offers a view of help-seeking, not a league table of drug risk or proof that support works.

Comic illustration of a person sitting awake on a bed, looking toward a moonlit window. Moonlight crosses scattered papers beside a notebook with a cannabis-leaf motif.

Field Notes #14: Cannabis and Sleep, Still an Evidence Gap

Nine studies, 537 adults, and a very uncertain answer. A Cochrane review on cannabis for insomnia shows why feeling sleepy and treating insomnia need separate evidence.

Comic illustration of an alert participant in a clinic recliner beneath a fading purple and turquoise swirl, while a nurse sits at a desk below a wall clock.

The Alkaloid #35: The Shorter Trip Still Needs a Clock

A mebufotenin trial found an antidepressant signal and early discharge readiness. Its protocol still required four hours at the clinic. Those are different findings.

Comic illustration of a customer studying overlapping chemical graphs beneath three cannabis jars labeled INDICA, SATIVA and HYBRID.

The Alkaloid #34: The Label Isn’t the Chemistry

Indica, sativa, hybrid: familiar labels, unreliable predictions. What cannabis chemistry research can tell us—and what it cannot.

Comic illustration of a participant with a shoulder bag and a clinic staff member reviewing a map with home, peer-group and office icons beside an open doorway leading to a tree-lined path.

Field Notes #13: When the Trial Ends

Four former psychedelic-trial participants describe life after the final visit. Their accounts raise questions about aftercare, with company involvement disclosed.

Comic illustration of a silver-haired woman at a desk with an open notebook, branching neurons behind her, and separate circular insets showing a mouse beside a microscope and blood-sample.

The Alkaloid #33: The Brain’s Own Cannabinoids

What an ageing-brain review, a mouse experiment and human blood samples can tell us about cannabinoid signalling—and what they cannot establish.

Comic-style illustration of a large cannabis leaf beside an amber flame, with abstract molecular shapes drifting above a forest-and-lake landscape.

The Alkaloid #32: What the Flame Adds

Heating THC produced 79 small-molecule breakdown products in a new lab study. What the experiment shows, what it cannot tell us, and why better testing should serve people who use cannabis.

Comic illustration of newspapers beneath a blank speech balloon, beside a research notebook, a magnifying glass over a dot grid and response-card stacks of different heights.

Field Notes #12: Beyond the Breakthrough Headlines

A new US survey records health changes people attribute to five psychoactive drugs. Its small subgroups and different recall windows matter as much as the headlines.

Comic illustration linking an orange-fruited iboga shrub, a basket of roots, a shipping crate and a laboratory vial.

Field Notes #11: Who Gets Paid for the Root?

Gabon wants a share of the ibogaine boom. New reporting exposes the distance between paying for bark and sharing the value created afterward.

Comic illustration of a leafy kratom branch and an amber bottle with a tablet packet, connected by a blank tag examined through a magnifying glass.

The Alkaloid #31: The Leaf and the Label

Kratom leaf and concentrated 7-OH can share a name on the shelf without sharing a chemical profile. The distinction matters for safety, research and regulation.

Comic illustration of a masked, woman tending cannabis plants, a man packaging flower into jars and a woman working at a dispensary counter, with a cannabis jar in the foreground

The Alkaloid #30: The Jobs Behind the Jar

Before a cannabis jar reaches the counter, someone grows, harvests and cures it. Massachusetts' repeal debate is also about those paychecks, the businesses behind them and the limits of promises about what comes next.

Independent weekly reporting on cannabis, psychedelics, and plant medicine. Science, culture and capital — one dose at a time.

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