Mattha Busby

Psychedelic reduces depression symptoms after just one dose The psychedelic DMT has been linked to improved mental health outcomes before, but now, scientists have shown it reduces depression symptoms more than a placebo when given alongside therapeutic suppor...

A single dose of the psychedelic DMT had a rapid and sustained effect on depression in a small trial.

'The more someone felt a sense of unity; a change in how they experienced time and space, the more benefit they tended to report.'

For @newscientist.com

www.newscientist.com/article/2515...

‘Coca leaf is life itself’: Andean growers’ hopes fade as WHO upholds global ban Under US pressure as part of the ‘war on drugs’, the WHO still categorises the sacred Indigenous remedy as akin to heroin or fentanyl, despite its many therapeutic properties

“We have been using coca without any problems since the time of our ancestors. Now, producers are being pushed into the illegal cocaine market just to survive – unless we can sell our coca legally on international markets.”

Celibacy taught me I’m too clever to find love Before my sex hiatus, I prioritised physical chemistry over emotional intellect. Now, it feels impossible to meet someone with both

Six months without sex taught me about love. In the print copy of the @telegraph.co.uk today www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/01...

‘A long time coming’: table tennis world hails Marty Supreme-fueled boom An Oscar-tipped cult biopic, sold-out matches and fresh faces at clubs suggest table tennis may finally be breaking free of its basement reputation in the US

For decades in the US, table tennis has lived a double life: one of the most widely played sports in the country, yet still dismissed by many as a basement pursuit. Now, unexpectedly, it is having a cultural moment

For @us.theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/j...

Sex was making my life chaotic - so I gave it up for six months If Lenny Kravitz could manage almost a decade without it while being a generational sex symbol, surely I could do half a year

In an age that perversely sells sex as self-actualisation, choosing not to have it feels strangely radical — and, unexpectedly, clarifying. For @theipaper.com

inews.co.uk/inews-lifest...

Drugs Are a Useful Weapon in America’s War Games Fearmongering about “narco-terrorism” was deployed to oust Maduro. In reality, it was always about capturing Venezuela’s oil.

Trotting out rhetoric about drug trafficking was a helpful pretext to remove Maduro in Venezuela — when oil was the real goal.

Drugs Are a Useful Weapon in America’s War Games Fearmongering about “narco-terrorism” was deployed to oust Maduro. In reality, it was always about capturing Venezuela’s oil.

What if cocaine trafficking wasn’t the completely heinous crime it is often made out to be?

New for @theintercept

theintercept.com/2026/01/22/v...

A 'Demon,' a Stabbing, and an Ayahuasca Trip Gone Wrong Julio Rivera spent two decades helping people exorcise dark energy through psychedelic journeys — until one almost ended his life.

A ‘Demon,’ a Stabbing, and an Ayahuasca Trip Gone Wrong

Julio Rivera spent two decades helping people exorcise dark energy through psychedelic journeys — until one almost ended his life.

A 'Demon,' a Stabbing, and an Ayahuasca Trip Gone Wrong Julio Rivera spent two decades helping people exorcise dark energy through psychedelic journeys — until one almost ended his life.

Julio Rivera spent two decades helping people exorcise dark energy through ayahuasca journeys — until a participant almost stabbed him to death

New for @rollingstone.com

www.rollingstone.com/culture/cult...

I left the UK for Lisbon - expats like me have killed its soul With €5 coffees, soaring rents and understandably resentful locals, I felt like an active gentrifer in a foreign land - and left within a few months

Why on earth not move to Lisbon if you’re not shackled to grey Northern Europe? Well, because a million others have had the same idea already nationwide in less than a decade, rents have skyrocketed and the locals aren’t happy. For @theipaper.com (photos don’t fit mood)

inews.co.uk/inews-lifest...

Thanks Gillian!

Hahaha

I Gave Up Sex for 6 Months. Here’s What I Learned After a string of failed relationships, I took a vow of celibacy to figure out what was going wrong. As my haze of horniness cleared, I saw myself more clearly.

I quit sex and now I write essays about it. For @gqmagazine.bsky.social www.gq.com/story/i-gave...

New Science Revives Terence McKenna’s Stoned Ape Theory Advancements in neuroscience and epigenetics breathe new life into the once vilified hypothesis.

Did psilocbyin help make us human? Advances in neuroscience and epigenetics have led Dennis McKenna to revisit his brother's once-dismissed Stoned Ape Theory, arguing it now aligns more closely with how we understand brain change

For @doubleblindmag

newsletter.doubleblindmag.com/p/new-scienc...

Yup and I agree broadly with much of the critique but I just don’t really jibe with the overarching suggestion that it’s somehow inevitably bad for one to seek to heal oneself with out there methods before doing stuff like volunteering at a soup kitchen or helping with vaccine rollouts

Agree that modern wellness culture is incredibly naval gazing and individualistic, but I'm not sure that the alternative Adam proposes — making sure retreat guests in the Amazon are aware of the ecological damage the western-owned oil industry has wrought in the Amazon, would really impact that...

Mamdani's wife Rama Duwaji is visibly emotional as Mamdani shouts her out

On front of today’s Telegraph

On front of today’s Telegraph

Conservative and Christian? US right champions psychedelic drugs Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSD

Make America Hallucinate Again.

@matthabusby.bsky.social on the “counter-counter-cultural turn” in psychedelics that means it's now the US right championing legal access - via the rhetorical KO (in the US context) of military veteran PTSD treatment.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Lol I’m all for nuance but this is hilarious

Thanks - the link to this doesn’t seem to be working?

Sure, let’s spice up the sacrament! Then I might actually take it next time I’m at church on a Sunday

Conservative and Christian? US right champions psychedelic drugs Texas governor among those to call for expanded access to ibogaine, said to help with treating veterans with PTSD

Psychedelics once belonged to the cultural left: anti-war, anti-capitalist, suspicious of the church and state. Now, the drugs are being championed by evangelical Christians, Republican governors, military veterans and big tech billionaires.

For @theguardian.com
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The Pelvic Floor Is a Problem Everyone’s suddenly obsessed with the pelvic floor—physical therapists, MAHA influencers, me. Could this deeply misunderstood body part really be the seat of so much modern dysfunction?

I wrote this piece because I only learned about pelvic floors a few years ago, despite having had one all my life. And then it turned out to be where I store all my issues. And then that turned out to be true for a lot of people www.wired.com/story/the-pe...

‘It’s made things worse for everyone’: Philadelphia grapples with rise of new street drug Medetomidine has extreme and fast-acting withdrawal symptoms – and the detox centers that help patients are struggling with how best to cope

Dispatch from Philadelphia on the rise of hellish drug medetomodine — and why people want to ‘Make Dope Heroin Again’

‘I’m all for safe supply. You can have someone do pure heroin, where you know what it does, or you can have this other crazy stuff.’

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

I spoke to the people who continue to shape their lives around avoiding Covid and only breathing ‘clean’ air

‘Refusing to mask during an ongoing pandemic is absolutely violent and it’s undeniably participating in social murder.’

For @telegraph.co.uk

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/12...

People Are Paying to Get Their Chatbots High on ‘Drugs’ An online marketplace is selling code modules that simulate the effects of cannabis, ketamine, cocaine, ayahuasca, and alcohol when they are uploaded to ChatGPT.

An online marketplace is selling code modules that simulate the effects of cannabis, ketamine, cocaine, ayahuasca, and alcohol when they are uploaded to ChatGPT. www.wired.com/story/people...

People Are Paying to Get Their Chatbots High on ‘Drugs’ An online marketplace is selling code modules that simulate the effects of cannabis, ketamine, cocaine, ayahuasca, and alcohol when they are uploaded to ChatGPT.

People are paying up to $50 to get their chatbots high on "drugs" (code modules) that simulate the effects of cocaine, ayahuasca, cannabis, alcohol, and ketamine. Some tell @matthabusby.bsky.social it's made their chatbots more "human" and "free-thinking."

Thanks Dave!