A naked man who climbed to the top of a towering rock at Goat Rock state beach near Jenner (CA) and then jumped off to the shock of onlookers suffered severe fractures and other injuries Thursday evening, emergency medical personnel said.

It appeared the man was under the influence of a drug, and it wasn't clear how much pain he felt despite having compound fractures, Monte Rio Fire Chief Steve Baxman said.

"He would scream every once in a while, and then when we moved his leg he would say, ‘That feels better,' " Baxman said. "He was conscious, but he wasn't really all there."

Supervising State Beach Ranger Damien Jones said the man claimed he had taken the hallucinogen LSD and also had been drinking.

Witnesses described seeing him crawl naked up the rock and then jump off around 7:50 p.m., Jones and Baxman said.

"It was probably a 100-foot fall," said Sonoma County Sheriff's Sgt. Dave Thompson, who was at the scene as part of the crew of Henry 1, the office's helicopter.

The witnesses saw him hit a rock shelf about a third of the way down, before tumbling the rest of the way to the beach, Jones said.

"He didn't fall," Baxman said. "He wasn't pushed. People said they watched him jump. Maybe he thought he could fly. I don't know. It's still a mystery."

Authorities were unable to find the patient’s car, his clothes or any identification, and he apparently was not cogent enough to identify himself.

[Thanks Luke!]

Another good reason to join the military?

A pair of psychiatric experts think they’ve got the answer to the soaring number of troops coming back from war with PTSD: have them undergo intensive psychotherapy -- while they’re rolling on ecstasy.

Dr. Michael Mithoefer and Anne Mithoefer, a psychiatric nurse, are the South Carolina pair who've been spearheading research into ecstasy, known clinically as MDMA, since 2000. After one successful study on 21 PTSD patients between 2004 and 2008, they’ve now received the final okay from FDA and DEA officials to start a study entirely devoted to former military service members.

"My sense is that, especially after we published the results of the first study, these institutions are more open to the idea," Dr. Michael Mithoefer tells Danger Room. "Obviously, this is still new and experimental, and it can take time to get through to big institutions."

With $500,000 in funding from MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies), the two are recruiting 16 veterans -- they’re hoping for a 50-50 split between men and women, and want most of the participants to have been diagnosed within the last 10 years.

"These will mostly be veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, because longer duration of PTSD means more complicating factors," Dr. Mithoefer says, adding that he does anticipate enrolling 4 vets from earlier wars and is still accepting applications.

From NewScientist:

From the relaxing effects of cannabis to the highs of LSD and ecstasy, illegal drugs are not generally associated with the lab bench. Now, for the first time in decades, that is starting to change.

For almost 40 years, mainstream research has shied away from investigating the therapeutic benefits of drugs whose recreational use is prohibited by law. But a better understanding of how these drugs work in animal studies, and the advancement of brain-imaging techniques, has sparked a swathe of new research. What's more, clinical trials of MDMA (ecstasy), LSD and other psychoactive drugs are starting to yield some positive results. This could lead to a call for governments to take a new approach to the funding and regulation of research into the potential benefits of such chemicals.

Smoking marijuana does help relieve a certain amount of pain, a small but well-designed Canadian study has found.

People who suffer chronic neuropathic or nerve pain from damage or dysfunction of the nervous system have few treatment options with varying degrees of effectiveness and side-effects.

Neuropathic pain is caused by damage to nerves that don't repair, which can make the skin sensitive to a light touch.

Cannabis pills have been shown to help treat some types of pain but the effects and risks from smoked cannabis were unclear.

To find out more, Dr. Mark Ware, an assistant professor in family medicine and anesthesia at Montreal's McGill University, and his colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial -- the gold standard of medical research -- of inhaled cannabis in 21 adults with chronic neuropathic pain.

Investigators used three different strengths of the active drug -- THC levels of 2.5 per cent, six per cent and 9.4 per cent, as well as a zero per cent placebo.

"We found that 25 mg herbal cannabis with 9.4 per cent THC, administered as a single smoked inhalation three times daily for five days, significantly reduces average pain intensity compared with a zero per cent THC cannabis placebo in adult subjects with chronic post traumatic/post surgical neuropathic pain," the study's authors concluded in Monday's online issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

[Thanks Jim!]

From the Billboard Liberation Front.

[Thanks Jim!]

Today marks the beginning of the Burning Man Festival in the wastelands of Nevada. Thousands of people will pour out into the desert, abandoning day jobs, relationships and social norms to dance around in one hundred degree heat wearing capes and glitter. For anyone unfamiliar with Burning Man, it's a weeklong event dedicated to self-expression, community reliance and sexual contact under the guise of spirituality. I know this because I went last year for the first and last time. I went seeking a utopian enclave of open-minded and accepting brothers and sisters, I followed rumors of a culture rising from the desert clay and supporting itself for seven days on nothing but love, understanding, and a little pharmaceutically induced introspection. Instead I found misguided, fat men in tie-died t-shirts with exposed genitals caked in dust. Suffice it to say, Burning Man let me down.

[Thanks Sam Hell!]

Nature editor Noah Gray asked four neuroscience bloggers to write an opinion piece for the September issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, called "The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders." Here are the results:

Distorted perceptions and an altered state of mind: two reasons why psychedelics have always attracted not only fascination, but also controversy for decades. A recent Perspective in Nature Reviews Neuroscience entitled "The neurobiology of psychedelic drugs: implications for the treatment of mood disorders", by Franz Vollenweider & Michael Kometer explores why there is a renewed interest in the clinical potential of psychedelics for treating mental disorders, after nearly a 40 year gap in clinical experimentation. Anticipating a significant interest in this topic, Nature Publishing Group has made this manuscript freely accessible for 1 month. In addition, we offer a four-part series of essays by some of the best neuroscience bloggers to help you explore the literature and discuss the most important aspects:

1.) The secret history of psychedelic psychiatry by Moheb Costandi
2.) Serotonin, Psychedelics and Depression by Neuroskeptic
3.) Ketamine for Depression: Yea or Neigh? by The Neurocritic
4.) Visions of a psychedelic future by Vaughan Bell

[Thanks Mo!]

Not psychedelic mushrooms, and not poisonous either, just located in really treacherous places:

The victims have died after falling into rocky crevasses and gorges or from similar physical mishaps, rather than from inadvertently eating poisonous fungi.

Authorities said an early and bountiful mushroom harvest in the Alpine valleys of northern Italy had attracted more people than usual to scour the woods and forests in search of succulent funghi to bring to the dinner table.

Many of them were unfit and ill-equipped, venturing into remote areas without proper footwear or rainproof clothing, and without checking weather forecasts.

Collecting wild mushrooms as autumn approaches is an extremely popular pastime in Italy.

[Thanks Dropper!]

Experiential journalist Rak Razam is interviewed by anthropologist Robin Rodd from James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, on all things ayahuasca, Down Under. What are the cultural uses of ayahuasca in Australia and how does it relate to other entheo cultures in South America and elsewhere in the world? Without an unbroken shamanic lineage, Aussiehuasqueros have had to stitch their shamanic practice from multiple sources, sometimes united in a cultural synergy for group shamanizing. The hybridization of not just ayahuasca, but of Amazonian shamanism itself is potent in the Australian counterculture as it births a new hybrid modality suited to the conditions on the land. But what of the cultural archetypes, do they remain the same? How do Australian aboriginal spirits and energies affect the mix? Is there something activating in the vibrational frequency of the Australian Land itself, its songlines and energetic grid, and how does all of this tie into other indigenous prophecies of these changing times? A personal exposition from Razam on his own journey and collective journey in the culture...

The website Reddit, which is owned by Conde Nast, were told by their parent company that they were not to run ads in favor of prop 19 because Conde Nast "Does not want to profit from this situation". In response, Reddit has decided to run the ads for free.

The social news site Reddit staged a mini-rebellion Friday, deciding to run ads for a pro-marijuana legalization campaign for free after Conde Nast executives ruled against taking payment for the ads.

The ads from the Just Say Now group support passage of California’s Proposition 19, which would largely legalize the use of marijuana. After inquiries from the group, Conde Nast executives ruled against running the ads on the user-driven Reddit, a tiny unit of the Conde Nast publishing concern (which also owns Wired and Wired.com). Conde Nast is best known as the publisher of magazines such as the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and Vogue.

Facebook has famously banned pro-pot advertisements from its service.

[Thanks Seth!]