Field Notes
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.
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Cannabis and psychedelic science coverage from The Alkaloid.
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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.
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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.
Field Notes
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.
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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.
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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.
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The Alkaloid #29: The Right to Have It. Nowhere Legal to Buy It.
Massachusetts could preserve an adult's right to possess cannabis while closing recreational shops and ending home grows. Who benefits—and what would police be asked to do again?
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The Alkaloid #28: The Medicine Needs More Than a Molecule
The FDA is asking who delivers psychedelic care, how patients are protected, and who pays. The practical work extends well beyond the drug.
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The Alkaloid #27: From the Parking Lot to the Poster
Cannabis gets an official place in the event program. What two upcoming events promise, and what a small music study can actually tell us.
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The Alkaloid #26: The 227 Smells of Cannabis
A new cannabis genetics paper cataloged 227 volatile terpenes across six cultivars. The fun part is what those compounds reveal about flower, genes, and why your nose keeps finding more than a THC label can say.
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The Alkaloid #24: The Same Three Grams
Two clinical trials of lion's mane both gave subjects three grams a day. One of them used ten times more mushroom than the other. Seventeen years of research, seven small trials, and still no agreement on what a dose is. Plus Curaleaf goes hostile on Aurora, and Yale prices federal legalization.
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The Alkaloid #23: The Question It Was Asking
PsiDeR was built to answer whether the NHS could run a psilocybin trial at all. It could. The 12.92-point depression result everyone reported is a secondary outcome, and the researchers said so plainly. Their press office left that part out. Plus: the Senate blinks on hemp.