Drugs, power, culture & health @guardian @wired @rollingstone @vice @gq @menshealthmag @playboy @newscientist @atmos @esquire @latimes Signal: matthabusby.93
Joined August 2013
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In Medellín, Colombia, authorities are cracking down on ‘burundangeras,’ women who use a substance called scopolamine to drug, manipulate and rob foreigners.
‘I lost all my money, but I also lost the ability to think.’
Dispatch for @RollingStone
rollingstone.com/culture/cul…
Mattha Busby retweeted
“Is it time for London to legalise cannabis?”
Asks the Standard newspaper in the UK.
Switzerland (including Basel) has run a regulated recreational cannabis pilot for three years.
Early data suggest it may reduce overall use, shift buyers to legal sources, and lower tobacco co-use.
London has the UK’s highest cannabis use rate (nearly 1 in 10 adults); polling shows about two-thirds of Londoners support legalisation or decriminalisation, while police still spend heavily on an illegal market linked to organised crime, money laundering, and firearms.
Projected benefits of a regulated market include substantial tax revenue (potentially over £1 billion per year or billions over a decade), criminal justice savings (around £300 million), and job creation (over 15,000).
standard.co.uk/news/london/l…
Cannabis policing falls disproportionately on lower-income and Black communities, contributing to a 'pervasive sense of persecution [with] 'damaging, long-lasting consequences.'
Dispatch for @theLDNstandard
standard.co.uk/news/london/l…
Should the UK finally legalise cannabis?
I went to Switzerland to see how it is experimenting with legalisation in dispensaries, pharmacies and social clubs.
'We could generate £1bn in taxes, save £300m in criminal justice costs and create 15,000 jobs.'
For @theLDNstandard
I was on a bus yesterday when the earthy-sweet smell of cannabis suddenly hit me. Then came the driver’s angry shouts. She had come up to the top deck to harangue two young men she had apparently spotted rolling a joint on CCTV.
More on my Substack:
matthabusby.substack.com/p/w…
The allure of fight porn and the ultraviolent soup careening around social media is that anyone can get into a street fight.
'It’s like billions of cortisol spikes frying our brains every day.'
vice.com/en/article/is-fight…
I was jogging in central Basel last week when I spotted the word “SANDOZ” written in huge letters on a five-storey building. Could this, I wondered, be the very building where the world’s most famous psychedelic was born?
New on my Substack.
matthabusby.substack.com/p/i…
Four years ago, I visited the remote Mexican town where María Sabina helped introduce the Western world to psilocybin mushrooms. But how ancient really is the tradition?
New on my Substack:
matthabusby.substack.com/p/m…
Thanks to The Wolf of Wall Street, underground chemists and drug-taking connoisseurs, a small new generation is discovering Quaaludes. Could they even make a modest contribution to ending the sex-cession?
New for @Playboy
playboy.com/read/politics/qu…
I was back on the @voxdotcom Today, Explained podcast to explain the difference between kratom and 7-OH, whether the concern over the two arises from a moral panic or genuine issues, and if banning either of them would be wise.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcas…
A person very high on ketamine may still be able to walk, talk and respond to instructions — while having little idea what is happening.
For @guardian, I looked at what the Cornell case tells us about the dissociative, sexual assault and consent laws.
theguardian.com/society/2026…
The entropic brain hypothesis has been the leading explanation for how psychedelics work in the brain, but new research suggests it's not that simple.
New for @doubleblindmag
doubleblindmag.com/the-heate…
In 1976, the future leading light of psychedelic art, Alex Grey, worked at a Boston morgue. Years later, he described having sex with a corpse there as part of a piece he called Necrophilia. Then he recast what happened.
I've profiled him on my Substack:
matthabusby.substack.com/p/a…
At the World Ayahuasca Forum, 100 Indigenous leaders gathered to discuss what happens when an intense psychedelic potion becomes a global phenomenon. I attended too — and I had questions.
Latest on my Substack: Mattha Busby on Drugs.
matthabusby.substack.com/p/t…
Mattha Busby retweeted
Available to watch over on YouTube now.
youtube.com/watch?v=TjLDM3oF…
I'm speaking in London with @PsychedelicsUK on 4 Nov. Over more than a decade, I’ve been as much a participant in the psychedelic renaissance as a reporter — along the way I’ve met good shamans and bad shamans. This is the story of it all. (It'll be fun.)
dandelion.events/e/w2fqw
Mattha Busby retweeted
I wrote a long read for the Guardian about the evolution of the British trap house, focusing on the story of a friend of mine who was 'cuckooed' twice in London. The first time was grim, but the second cuckooing sparked a fascinating friendship.
theguardian.com/news/ng-inte…
He told them he was investing their millions, but the FBI hasn’t been able to recover any of the money, and none of the women who survived The Family have received a cent of the $14 million in restitution ordered by a court.
For the latest @VICE magazine
vice.com/en/article/welcome-…
Welcome to my new Substack: Mattha Busby on Drugs.
I’ve spent much of the past decade writing about drugs, taking some of them, talking to the people who make, sell, study, administer and consume them, and occasionally learning things the hard way.
matthabusby.substack.com/p/a…
Mattha Busby retweeted
really interesting conversation with @matthabusby about covering drug legalization, MAHA support for psychedelics, and more! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…