Monthly Archives: August 2020

Confession in Tucumcari vet clinic fire that killed 70 animals – Albuquerque Journal

Posted: August 23, 2020 at 1:25 am

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The break in the long-standing probe came to light after the Quay County Sun made an open-records request to New Mexico State Police on the 71-page investigative report it submitted to Rose in June.

Tucumcari Fire Chief Mike Cherry, left center, speaks with state fire marshal investigator Sammy Anaya after a fire burned Tucumcari Animal Hospital and killed more than 70 animals in May 2012. (Eastern New Mexico News)

Implicated in the report was Kevin Ronnie Garcia, 28, of Tucumcari. When the Quay County Sun contacted Garcia on Friday to ask him about the report, he acknowledged setting the fire as a spur-of-the-moment thing, but he said his memories of that night were fuzzy because hed been drinking.

Garcia is awaiting adjudication on felony counts of false imprisonment and possession of a stolen vehicle, along with other charges, that were filed in December and April. He has been released on his own recognizance and is wearing a GPS ankle monitor. His next court date is in September.

According to online court records, Garcia has had run-ins with the law since 2009, mostly moving violations or misdemeanors.

The blaze at Tucumcari Animal Hospital on the citys north side was reported at 3:54 a.m. May 21, 2012.

Dr. Jean Corey, the longtime veterinarian at the clinic, arrived at the scene shortly after Tucumcari firefighters.

They didnt want me to go inside, Corey recalled Saturday during an interview in the Tucumcari Animal Hospitals new home in a rented office trailer next to the burned remnants of the old building. But I went in and tried the best I could to save some of them, get some of them out that we could.

One dog Corey rescued from a kennel in the burning building died a few days later.

Corey said that when she finally accounted for all the animal deaths from the fire, the total was more than 70. All died of smoke inhalation.

She said most of the pets that died were dogs and cats, but the fire also claimed two birds, a rabbit and a tankful of fish.

Corey said she had kept several abandoned animals as her own at the clinic, but the one she was fondest of was Blue, a blue-gray cat.

He was the clinic cat, she said. He was everybodys favorite.

Blue perished in the fire.

Investigators found a trail of blood leading from a broken window at the clinic where a burglar apparently gained entry and cut himself. State Police took several samples of the blood and submitted them to the state DNA database.

State fire marshal investigator Sammy Anaya said in his report that several windows were broken to hasten the fires spread. He stated someone poured an ignitable liquid on the office furniture and trash cans and set them afire in an office area.

The State Police report said officers checked into several possible suspects. It said one name stood out Garcias. Garcia refused a State Police request to submit a DNA sample, the report said, and he never was charged in connection with the fire.

In December, Garcia was arrested in Tucumcari after being accused of receiving stolen property and unlawful carrying of a deadly weapon. Because one of the charges was a felony, he was required to submit to a DNA swab that would be forwarded to the states DNA database.

State Police said they learned in March that Garcias DNA was a match for DNA found at the animal hospital fire in 2012.

In April, Garcia was taken to the State Police office in Tucumcari for questioning, and police executed a search warrant to obtain new DNA from him.

Garcia initially denied his role with the fire and insisted someone was trying to frame him.

When told Garcias DNA and no one elses was found at the scene, he confessed to starting the fire, records show.

Honestly, what happened was I was messed up on coke and drunk and broke in, Garcia said, according to the report.

Asked why he broke into the animal clinic, he said probably just money or whatever.

Honestly, I just broke in because I wanted some money for some more bud (marijuana) and beer, Garcia said.

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Arrested ISIS operative had planned terror attack in crowded areas on August 15: Delhi Police – DNA India

Posted: at 1:25 am

A suspected ISIS operative, who was arrested following a brief exchange of fire, had planned terror strikes in high footfall areas of the national capital, Delhi Police disclosed said on Saturday (August 22, 2020).

Addressing a press briefing, PS Kushwah, DCP (Special Cell), Delhi Police, said, Two pressure cooker IEDs were recovered from Mohammad Mustakeem Khan, alias Abu Yusuf, a resident of Balarampur in Uttar Pradesh.

Khan had planned a terror strike in the national capital on August 15 but could not do so due to heavy security arrangements, DCP Kushwah said.

Sharing more information, he said, The Special Cell has arrested the ISIS operative after a brief exchange of fire late night. The 36-year-old man is called Yusuf aka Abu Yusuf. He has various alias. Pressure cooker IEDs have been recovered from him. He was going to install them at heavy footfall area here.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, his movement was restricted. Around 15th August, he had an intention to make an attempt (of attack) in Delhi but due to security arrangements here he was not successful, the DCP Special Cell said.

He said Khan was in touch with ISIS handlers who instructed him to plan terror strikes in India.

Mustakeem Khan, alias Abu Yusuf, was in direct touch with his ISIS commanders. He had passports made in the name of his wife and 4 children. Earlier, he was being handled by Yusuf Alhindi who was killed in Syria. Later, Abu Huzafa, a Pakistani, was handling him. Huzafa was also later killed in a drone strike in Afghanistan, the DCP Special Cell told reporters.

The suspected ISIS operative was arrested by Delhi Police's Special Cell on Friday night from the section of the Ridge Road between Dhaula Kuan and Karol Bagh. The police recovered two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), weighing approximately 15 kilograms in two pressure cookers, from his possession. Besides, a pistol was also recovered from him post-firing.

Khan had been under watch for the last year, the DCP told reporters. Our operation had been on for the last one year, Kushwaha said.

He was remanded to seven-day police custody. According to reports, Special Cell officers are taking him to Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, for further investigation.

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Did Pakistan just admit that Dawood Ibrahim is alive in Karachi? – DNA India

Posted: at 1:25 am

In looking for a way out of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list, theImran Khan-led government in Pakistan ended up admitting that Dawood Ibrahim, India's most-wanted mobster since 1994 and prime accused in the 1993 Bombay bombings, lives in Karachi's White house. Pakistan had until now spent years denying that it shelters theD-Company chief, with a reward of $25 million over his head and wanted on charges of terrorism, murder, extortion, targeted killing, drug trafficking, and various other cases.

Pakistan's admission came in a list of severe financial sanctions that the country imposed on 88 banned terrorist outfits and their leaders, including Hafiz Saeed Ahmad of Jamaat-ud-Dawa, Mohammad Masood Azhar of the JeM, Dawood Ibrahim, and others.

The list, according to Pakistani authorities, mentions Dawood Ibrahim's address as "White House, Near Saudi Mosque, Clifton" in Karachi, Pakistan. It also lists several other properties for the mobster and drug dealer, including one"House Nu 37 - 30th Street - defence, Housing Authority, Karachi" and"Palatial bungalow in the hilly area of Noorabad in Karachi".

The Pakistan government has also ordered the seizure of all properties and freezing of all bank accounts of global terrorist Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, following new restrictions issued by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

Islamabad issued two notifications on August 18 announcing sanctions on key figures of terror outfits and the seizure of all movable and immovable properties of these outfits and individuals, and freezing of their bank accounts.

These terrorists have been barred from transferring money through financial institutions, purchasing of arms and travelling abroad, Pakistani media reported, adding that the notifications ratified a complete ban on all leaders and members of defunct Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) hiding in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas.

Some of the individuals who have been named in the list of sanctions are -- Saeed, Azhar, Mullah Fazlullah (alias Mullah Radio), Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, Muhammad Yahya Mujahid, Abdul Hakeem Murad (wanted by the Interpol), Noor Wali Mehsud, Fazal Raheem Shah of Uzbekistan Liberation Movement, Taliban leaders Jalaluddin Haqqani, Khalil Ahmad Haqqani, Yahya Haqqani, and Ibrahim and his associates.

Some of the terrorist organisations named in the list include -- the now defund TTP, the Lashkar-e-Taiba, JeM, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Tariq Geedar group of TTP, Harkatul Mujahideen, Al Rasheed Trust, Al Akhtar Trust, Tanzim Jaish-al Mohajireen Ansar, Jamaat-ul Ahrar, Tanzim Khutba Imam Bukhari, Rabita Trust Lahore, Revival of Islamic Heritage Society of Pakistan, Al-Haramain Foundation Islamabad, Harkat Jihad Al Islami, Islami Jihad Group, Uzbekistan Islami Tehreek, Daesh of Iraq, Emirates of Tanzim Qafqaz working against Russia, and Abdul Haq of Uyghurs of Islamic Freedom Movement of China.

Dawood Ibrahim has been designated as a global terrorist in 2003 by India and the United States with a reward of US $25 million on his head for his role in the 1993 Bombay bombings. In 2011, he was named number three on "The World's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives" by the FBI. His crime syndicate spreads across Asia, Europe and Africa, with over 40% of its earnings coming from India.

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Browser fingerprinting more prevalent on the web now than ever before research – The Daily Swig

Posted: August 20, 2020 at 6:11 pm

New tool allows users to prevent themselves from being tracked online

With major web browsers now including privacy protections against cookie-based tracking, theres been a rise in the use of fingerprinting and researchers now say theyve developed a way to spot and prevent these stealthy tracking techniques.

FP-Inspector, created by a team from the University of Iowa, Mozilla, and the University of California, uses a syntactic-semantic approach to detect fingerprinting (FP) scripts, using machine learning models based on static and dynamic JavaScript analysis.

Unlike techniques such as API changes and network request blocking, which require manual analysis, the open source tool automates the process of detection by extracting features such as syntax and execution from scripts and training a classifier to detect fingerprinting.

It does this through a complementary combination of static and dynamic analysis. Static analysis, says the team, helps FP-Inspector overcome the coverage issues of dynamic analysis, while dynamic analysis gets around the inability of static analysis to handle obfuscation.

And, says the team, FP-Inspector can identify fingerprinting scripts with 99.9% accuracy and half the amount of website breakage, compared with blanket API restrictions such as those enforced by Brave and Tor Browser.

Many of the fingerprinting scripts the team detected were missed by existing filter lists maintained by tracking protection organizations.

Disconnect, for example used by Firefox and Microsoft Edge didnt list , while DuckDuckGo, used by Safari, omitted the domain.

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EasyPrivacy, used by Brave and tracker blocking browser extensions such as AdblockPlus and uBlock origin, didnt have on its list.

We compared FP-Inspector to a prior approach on detecting fingerprinting scripts that uses manually crafted heuristics, and found that FP-Inspector, that uses machine learning, is 26% more accurate at detecting fingerprinting scripts, author Umar Iqbal of the University of Iowa tells The Daily Swig.

The team took a list of the top websites ranked by Alexa and ran them through FP-Inspectors detector. They found that browser fingerprinting was present on more than 10% of the top 100,000 websites, and on more than a quarter of those in the top 10,000.

These fingerprinting scripts, says Iqbal, are mostly served by ad tech companies that specialize in anti-ad fraud and cross-site tracking services.

The team found that nearly 14% of news websites used them, falling to just 1% of credit- and debt-related websites, probably because fingerprinting is more widespread on sites relying on advertising and paywalls for monetization.

Browser fingerprinting techniques allows sites to identify and track web users

Discussing the increase in fingerprinting activity, Iqbal said: All mainstream browsers Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge are building privacy protections against cookie-based tracking.

For example, Safari blocks third-party cookies and Chrome has announced plans to phase out third-party cookies in the next two years.

Considering these privacy protections around cookie-based tracking, fingerprinting provides an alternate approach to track users without relying on cookies; we suspect that it might be the reason for the rise of fingerprinting.

And, he says, with privacy protections against third-party cookie blocking on the rise, he expects the use of fingerprinting for cross-site tracking to grow.

Read more of the latest browser security news

The team has reported the domains they found serving fingerprinting scripts to Disconnect, DuckDuckGo, and Easylist/EasyPrivacy.

As a result of our reporting, EasyPrivacy has created a new category for fingerprinting in their filter list, says Iqbal.

We also reported previously unreported uses of web APIs by FP scripts to Firefox, and we expect that as a result of our reports, Firefox may decide to redesign these APIs to reduce their fingerprinting potential.

To encourage follow-up research, the team plans to release the fingerprinting countermeasures prototype extension, as well as their list of newly discovered fingerprinting vendors and the bug reports theyve submitted to tracking protection lists, browser vendors and standards bodies.

Iqbal and his colleagues offer a detailed analysis of their findings in a white paper, Fingerprinting the Fingerprinters (PDF).

More information on FP-Inspector can be found on GitHub.

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Tesla dating app created for owners are obsessed with Elon Musk – Business Insider – Business Insider

Posted: at 6:08 pm

Tesla stans, rejoice there may soon be a dating app where you can pursue like-minded car owners who are also obsessed with their electric vehicles and CEO Elon Musk.

An app called Tesla Dating is currently in the works, made exclusively for verified Tesla owners. The app's set-up is akin to that of Tinder or Bumble, except the only people that appear on the app are fellow Tesla cult followers.

The app is the work of Ajitpal Grewal, a self-described "ecommerce entrepreneur" and Tesla stan living in Canada. Grewal told Business Insider he decided to create the app after realizing Tesla owners only wanted to talk about one thing: how much they love their Teslas.

"It became a big part of their identity, and they shared a lot of the same values, like wanting to reduce their impact on the environment, stanning Elon Musk, or appreciating high tech," Grewal said in an email. "Suddenly it hit me, these people would be perfect for each other."

Tesla Dating is still in the "early stages" of development, but Grewal has launched a website where interested users can sign up for early access to "an exclusive community of like-minded Elon stans." Since the website went live Wednesday, more than 160 people have signed up for the waiting list, Grewal said.

Grewal's app idea capitalizes on the loyal following built up around Tesla and Musk, its CEO. Tesla owners are known for making sure everyone else knows they own and unequivocally love one of the electric vehicles, the cheapest model of which starts at $38,000. However, fans of Elon Musk are even more fervent: They worship the billionaire'sprolific and controversial Twitter presence, and slam journalists and critics who write anything online negative about him.

To make a profile on the Tesla Dating app, users will be required to verify they actually own a Tesla, Grewal said. Grewal told Business Insider he plans to do this by asking users to submit a picture of themselves inside their Tesla.

Users will be able to specify on their dating profiles their car's model and configuration, and will have potential matches sorted by those whose car characteristics most closely align with theirs.

"I believe your car tells a lot about you as a person," Grewal told Business Insider.

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Elon Musk to add internet icon and Spokane native Keyboard Cat to Tesla Music app – KREM.com

Posted: at 6:08 pm

The feature allows Tesla drivers to make music through an app on the car's interface. Users will be able to build off the Keyboard Cat theme to make their own tunes.

SPOKANE, Wash. A Spokane native and internet icon, Keyboard Cat, is getting a big feature in Tesla cars thanks to Elon Musk.

The keyboard cat theme, written by keyboard cat's owner Charles Schmidt in 1984, will be featured in the music app in Tesla cars. The app allows drivers to come up with their own simple tunes, and even replay their musical creations for their friends.

Tesla owners will be able to build off the keyboard cat theme to make their own unique musical compositions.

Schmidt, the genius behind keyboard cat and Spokane local, is thrilled that his creation will be featured in Musk's cars.

"It's too cool," Schmidt said.

Schmidt says someone from Tesla reached out to him about using the theme in Tesla's creative suite. Schmidt says his manager and the company hammered out a deal, and within three days of the initial email, he was sent a contract.

Schmidt, who's a fan of Elon Musk, says it was Musk himself who initially requested the theme be included in the app's library.

"I love pop culture, and I love freedom and creativity," Schmidt said. "It feels good to connect with [Elon] on any level. He's just an ordinary guy, he's goofy, he's like a ninth grader with ten billion dollars and a ton of brains."

Schmidt says even after Keyboard Cat's success, this kind of recognition still amazes him.

"It's always exciting," he said. "No matter how many times my cat gets famous, it's a big surprise to me that it's even possible."

It's always exciting because I'm just who I am and no matter how many times my cat gets famous it's a big surprise to me that it's even possible

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Who’s the richest tech boss? From Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk and Bill Gates – Evening Standard

Posted: at 6:08 pm

The wealth of many billionaires has risen dramatically since coronavirus lockdown, driven in part by stock market gains and corporate bailouts from the US government.

This took place while millions of people have lost jobs and income more than 50 million people in the US alone have filed for unemployment during the pandemic.

Some of the richest people in the world made their money from founding tech companies that we seemingly cannot do without, including Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Netflix.

This week, Elon Musk became the fourth richest man in the world, after gaining $8 billion in a day.

Hkere we look at some of the billionaires at the world's largest tech companies.

Jeff Bezos(Getty Images)

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is worth $193 billion (about 147 billion), according to the Forbes Billionaires list. He has consistently been the richest person in the world since 2018.

Mr Bezos, 56, is on course to be a trillionaire by 2026, if his wealth continues to grow at the same rate as in the past five years. Given the Amazon share price, a significant driver of his net worth has been on a very strong run for years that may not continue, some have argued that the projection may not come true.

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He launched the e-commerce company in 1994 as Cadabra, but soon changed the name. The company had revenues of $281 billion (214 billion) in 2019 by far the largest revenue for an internet company.

Amazon has been criticised for its allegedly harsh labour practices and tax policy. The company has consistently denied these claims.

Mr Bezos was also called "the world's worst boss" by an international trades union in 2014. Sharan Burrow, General Secretary of the International Union of Trade Confederations, said: "Jeff Bezos represents the inhumanity of employers who are promoting the American corporate model."

He has also owned the Washington Post newspaper since 2013, among a number of other investments. He has given several billion dollars to charity, including a promise of $10 billion (about 7.6 billion) to help fight climate change.

When he and his wife MacKenzie Scott divorced in 2018, she kept 25 per cent of their previously-joint shares in Amazon, as well as interests in other ventures becoming one of the richest women in the world with a fortune of $36 billion (about 27.8 billion).

Elon Musk (Getty Images)

Elon Musk is now worth $84.8 billion, after his stock jumped 11 percent on Monday - making him the fourth richest person in the world, surpassing Bernard Arnault, CEO of Louis Vuitton. Tesla's shares rose an additional 2.8 percent on Tuesday.

South Africa-born Musk is an engineer, industrial designer, and technological entrepreneur, who founded SpaceX, The Boring Company and X.com - which became PayPal. He is also CEO of Tesla.

He is a US, Canadian and South African citizen. He previously dated actors Amber Heard and Talulah Riley, whom he married. He is currently in a relationship with Canadian musician Grimes - with whom he had a baby, famously named X AE A-XII.

Musk is also a philanthropist, and has given money towards environmental projects and projects to combat coronavirus.

Bill Gates (Getty Images)

Bill Gates, who founded Microsoft in 1975 with Paul Allen, is worth about $113.4 billion (about 86.6 billion), according to Forbes. He was the richest person in the world for every year but four between 1995 and 2017, according to Forbes after which Mr Bezos surpassed him.

He no longer runs Microsoft, having stepped down as CEO in 2000 and chairman in 2014. Mr Gates now focuses on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, thought to be the largest private charity in the world.

Mr Gates came in for fierce criticism for some of Microsoft's business practices, which were seen as stifling competition. The US government took Microsoft to court in 2001, reaching a settlement that the company would share some of its software with third parties.

Mark Zuckerberg(REUTERS)

Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded Facebook with four college room-mates in 2004, is the next tech billionaire on the list with $97.5 billion (about 74.4 billion) although he is not currently as wealthy as owner of luxury goods firm LVMH Bernard Arnault, who along with his family is worth $107.4 billion (about 82 billion).

6 key takeaways from the tech CEOs antitrust hearing

Mr Zuckerberg, 36, has been criticised for the role Facebook has played in the 2016 US election. In 2018 it emerged that Cambridge Analytica had used Facebook user data without consent, largely for political advertising purposes, including for the campaigns of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.

Cambridge Analytica is also alleged to have been hired by pro-Brexit campaigners Leave.EU ahead of the 2016 referendum, although founder Arron Banks has denied this. Facebook was fined $5 billion for its role in the data breach.

Mr Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan have also given major charitable donations in recent years, including pledging 99 per cent of their Facebook shares worth tens of billions of dollars to their charitable initiative over the course of their lifetimes.

Larry Page (L) and Sergey Brin (R)(AP/Reuters)

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin are worth $67.2 billion (51.3 billion) and $65.4 billion (50 billion) respectively, having started the company in 1998. Google is owned by a parent company, Alphabet, of which Mr Page and Mr Brin are controlling shareholders, following a 2015 restructuring.

Mr Page was the initial CEO of Google, serving in the role until 2001. He then took over the job again in 2011, stepping down in 2015 to become CEO of Alphabet. He resigned as CEO in December 2019.

Mr Brin has been more involved with the company's experimental and developmental divisions, including Google's self-driving car programme and others.

Laurene Powell Jobs in 2019(Getty Images)

Laurene Powell Jobs is the widow and heir of Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder, who died in 2011. She founded her own firm, Terravera, a natural foods company, and previously worked at investment banks Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs.

She and her family are worth around $19 billion, or about 14.5 billion.

Apple CEO Tim Cookin 2019(Apple)

Tim Cook, her late husband's successor as Apple boss in 2011, saw his wealth top $1 billion in August with the company's share price continuing to soar, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Apple is one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, at more than 1.93 trillion (roughly 1.45 trillion) and its share price has been on a broad upward trajectory since March.

Netflix's CEO Reed Hastings (Adam Rose )

Reed Hastings, who co-founded Netflix with Marc Randolph in 1995, has a fortune of around $5.2 billion (about $4 billion). He remains the company's co-CEO and owns about one per cent of its shares.

The company went public in 2002 and has about 183 million subscribers. It was originally a video rental service, but began streaming in 2007. He has given more than $100 million to educational charities.

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An Introduction to Psychedelics in Marketing – Adweek

Posted: at 6:07 pm

In the midst of a global mental health crisis, hundreds of billions in funds are going into addiction therapy. The time is ripe for alternative forms of treatment. Psychedelics could be the answer to treating most patients.

But theyre nothing new.

Psychedelics are entheogens that are either naturally derived from plants (psilocybin, ayahuasca and ibogaine) or synthetically manufactured in the lab (LSD, ketamine and MDMA). Theyve been used to treat mental health issues ranging from anxiety to depression and ADHD. Once favored by the medical community, they took a serious hit with the backlash to 1960s counterculture.

In the U.S., psilocybin is still a Schedule 1 drug, meaning its been deemed to have zero medical value. In 2019, three cities voted to decriminalize psilocybin: Oakland and Santa Cruz in California, and Denver. New York and Iowa, meanwhile, have seen proposals either delayed or flatly rejected. The study of psychedelics and their applications in medicine and psychology are still in their infancy, hampered by Schedule 1 narcotics status and the United States decades-old War on Drugs. That said, shrooms have shown potential in treating depression, eating disorders and addiction, and theyve shown promise in combination with psychotherapy.

As marketers, in order to set this industry up for success, it is important to stay within any guidelines that come out for the industry.

Estimated to reach a whopping $6.85 billion worldwide by 2027, according to Data Bridge Market Research, the global market for legal psychedelics represents a genuine Shroom Boom. Key companies operating in this space are either still in startup mode or Series B funding rounds, with whispers that a number of them are set to open on international stock exchanges throughout 2020.

Similar to plant-based medicines that have been largely stigmatized, the cannabis and psychedelics industries have both required tremendous advocacy to change perceptions. While currently there are no CPG brands in the psychedelics space, one needs to look to cannabis brands for important lessons.

In terms of any marketing and communications for products, using a medical mindset is a must. Medical marijuana is now legal in 33 states, with a few states going as far legalizing recreational use of cannabis as wel. As a company in the space, it is imperative to have a solid foundation of research, awareness and education.

For marketing opportunities, such companies have creative needs like mass communication and branding. In order to set this industry up for success as marketers, it is important to stay within any guidelines that come out for the industry. It will be essential never to associate psychedelic medicines with the drug culture. That means staying clear of the notion of being under the influence, and certainly avoiding the impression that youre appealing to children at all costs.

Currently, it seems companies such as Champaignon have non-psychoactive mushroom subsidiaries, such as a mushroom tea brand. This is wise because they have CPG products and are creating a target audience base that could potentially converge once they are able to create a psychedelic product and already have an organically engaged audience.

Like the cannabis industry, we are going to have to climb over mountains to change public perception of psychedelic use for medicinal purposes because it has been so counterculture for so many years and brought into the underground market.

It will be very exciting to watch the progression that happens in this industry. Advancements in CPG products are a few years away, so being on the forefront will be exciting.

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Psychedelic drugs reduce depressive symptoms by helping individuals accept their emotions, study suggests – PsyPost

Posted: at 6:07 pm

New research provides preliminary evidence that psychedelic drugs can improve mental health by making individuals more accepting of distressing experiences. The study, published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, adds to a growing body of literature that indicates using substances like psilocybin can result in sustain improvements in depressive symptoms.

Psychedelic therapy has shown promise as a novel treatment for a range of mental health concerns, including major depressive disorder, distress associated with a life-threatening illness, and substance use disorders, said study author Richard Zeifman, a PhD student at Ryerson University and research intern at the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London.

In contrast with the traditional pharmacological interventions, the effects of psychedelic therapy appear to last months and even years after treatment has ended. Understanding how psychedelic therapy leads to long-lasting mental health improvements across a range of conditions is not yet fully understood but is important for enhancing and delivering psychedelic therapy to individuals that may benefit from it.

The researchers were particularly interested in the transdiagnostic construct known as experiential avoidance, meaning the tendency to avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings. People who score high on a measure of experiential avoidance agree with statements such as I would give up a lot not to feel bad and I go out of my way to avoid uncomfortable situations.

For their study, the researchers used online advertisements to recruit a sample of 104 individuals who planned to use a psychedelic substance and a second sample of 254 individuals who planned to attend psychedelic ceremonies. Both samples completed measures of depression severity, experiential avoidance, and suicidal ideation one week before and 4 weeks after using their psychedelic substance of choice.

Zeifman and his colleagues found that the use of psychedelics in both ceremonial and non-ceremonial settings was associated with decreases in experiential avoidance, which in turn was associated with decreases in depression severity and suicidal ideation 4-weeks after psychedelic use. Psilocybin/magic mushrooms, LSD, and ayahuasca were the most commonly used substances in the study.

Our findings suggest that one of the reasons that psychedelic therapy has positive therapeutic effects is that it helps individuals to be less avoidant and more accepting of their emotions, thoughts, and memories (even though such experiences may be distressing in the short-term), Zeifman told PsyPost.

More broadly, our results provide further support for the negative mental health effects associated with avoidance. This can be summed up with a saying that is often used in the context of psychedelic therapy, that The only way out is through.'

But the study like all research includes some caveats.

There were important limitations to our study, including that our study was not conducted in the context of a controlled clinical trial or within a clinical sample. Accordingly, we are currently conducting research where we are comparing the effects of psychedelic therapy versus a traditional antidepressant (called escitalopram) on experiential avoidance. This research will help to further examine the possibility that psychedelic therapy leads to change through different mechanisms than do traditional pharmacological interventions for depression, Zeifman said.

The study, Post-Psychedelic Reductions in Experiential Avoidance Are Associated With Decreases in Depression Severity and Suicidal Ideation, was authored by Richard J. Zeifman, Anne C. Wagner, Ros Watts, Hannes Kettner, Lea J. Mertens, and Robin L. Carhart-Harris.

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Tripping on Ayahuasca has always been fun, but now it might be good for you – GOOD Magazine

Posted: at 6:07 pm

There's a new neurological case for doing hard drugs. No, this isn't Doctor Oz standing on his pseudoscientific soapbox and preaching about how opium suppositories can cure your male pattern baldness, it's a brand new study from the University of California, San Francisco in the Journal of Psychopharmacology that links ayahuasca usage to positive changes in higher-function brain networks. Journal of Psychopharmacology that links ayahuasca usage to positive changes in higher-function brain networks.

As if you needed another reason to dose up on ayahuasca today, right?

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Ayahuasca is a "brew" prepared using bark from the Banisteriopsis vine and leaves from the Psychotria viridis shrub, both of which have hallucinogenic properties. It is known for pairing well with loose fabrics and the Beach Boys' album Pet Sounds. The Ayahuasca brew was used by ancient Amazonian tribes for religious purposes, and is still used in rituals by some religious communities today.

Studies researching the effects and potential psychotherapeutic use of psychedelics were halted for nearly 70 years due to the taboos surrounding it as a drug with a high potential for abuse. Now, fortunately, researchers are reviving clinical research into psychedelic drugs like ayahuasca as being potentially beneficial to people afflicted with mood disorders.

This study used functional magnetic resonance imaging, which analyzes brain activity by tracking changes in blood flow. The neural activity of their brain was analyzed one day before and one day after 50 study participants were given either a low dose of ayahuasca or a placebo substitute. The results were exciting for psychotherapeutic researchers looking into the benefits of psychedelic use and really exciting for Trent from my organic chemistry class, who skipped the final exam to do shrooms with his brother in Vermont.

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It turns out ayahuasca alters two major brain networks that affect sensational, affective, and motivational functions, while not affecting primary sensory networks or motor functions after the drug has left the system. This is a huge win for the movement to decriminalize recreational and medical psychedelic use in the United States, which has seen many victories in the past decade.

Ayahuasca is only available, legally, for religious or spiritual purposes. It is not one of the DEA's many Schedule 1 Controlled Substances, although its active ingredient, Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), is a controlled scheduled drug. This means you have to go through an ayahuasca "church" to access the brew, and only two religions, Unio do Vegetal (UDV) and Santo Daime, have legal protection for ayahuasca use in the United States, so a large portion of ayahuasca use in the United States is going on without legal protection.

Studies like the one done at UCSF are important because they bolster both the scientific and legal cases for ayahuasca use. The UDV were granted their permission to import and partake in ayahuasca, albeit under strict DEA regulation, from the Supreme Court in 2006. They must register any shipments with more than two weeks notice and any congregation trying to cultivate plants for the ayahuasca cultivation must register with the DEA as a manufacturer of controlled substances. The restrictions on Sainto Daime are even more severe, so recognizing the potential long-term benefits of the drug is a step towards cutting through the red tape keeping a potentially life-changing treatment from people in the United States.

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Tripping on Ayahuasca has always been fun, but now it might be good for you - GOOD Magazine

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