What a year! We've kicked off our 20-year anniversary celebration with some extra media attention, first from The New Yorker, as mentioned last month, and most recently from Forbes and Vice. See below for links to these articles.

Seasonal nudges: If you shop Amazon, buying through AmazonSmile will trigger a small percentage donation to Erowid, with no extra cost. Just use http://smile.amazon.com and select Erowid Center as the charitable organization you want to support. With 27 days and counting, consider Erowid in your end-of-year contributions. :)

https://erowid.org/donate

Have a fabulous Solstmas!

Fire and Earth were just settling in to their new rental cabin in Skylonda, California, a few miles through the mountainous redwood forests from the house where Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters first held their "acid tests" in the 1960s. After they removed several interior and exterior walls to improve their always-online home office, the wood-heated Skylonda cabin served as Erowid headquarters for the next seven years.

5th Global Ibogaine Conference
(Mar 14-16, 2016) in Tepoztlan, Mexico

http://IbogaineConference.org

Convening experts from around the world to discuss ibogaine therapy, the climate of global drug policy, and the sustainability and traditional uses of Tabernanthe iboga.

A Tale of an Erowid Sysadmin Out-of-control scraper spiders. Attempted security breaches. Simple routines and complex projects. Keeping Erowid's servers, backend machines, and virtual machines up and running is a huge job. Especially when none of the data gets handled by third parties...

Teatime: Common Sense There will be folks who have difficult experiences at events. Fewer of them will end up feeling traumatized if they have the support of a knowledgeable and empathetic trip sitter. The Teafaerie takes to task event producers who don't offer this kind of service.

Religious Roots of Santo Daime in the State of Maranhão, Brazil Little attention has been paid to certain early historical details relating to "Mestre Irineu", the founder of the Santo Daime ayahuasca religion. This newly translated text examines the influence of specific cultural sub-traditions from his birthplace.

This past month, as part of a collaborative project with NYU researchers to improve information about opioids (working title: "Enhancing Targeted Opioid Harm Reduction Efforts"), we ran an initial survey. Meanwhile, the experience report triagers focused on tagging addiction-themed opioid experience reports for publishing. A special thanks to Erowid volunteers Maelstrom, Pskoactv, Reflex and Toaster for their work on this effort.

EcstasyData is an Erowid project that conducts laboratory testing of ecstasy tablets, research chemicals, and other drugs. We publish our results online along with analyses from other testing programs.

• 
  Blue Heart 69 (Panama City, FL)
  Contains 2-ethylamino-1-phenylbutane, Acetaminophen & an Unidentified.
• 
  Tesla (Lincoln Park, NJ)
  Contains MDMA.

Erowid is often mentioned in articles and books. Mentions may include positive or critical reviews, as well as citations of Erowid content.

• How the Most Extreme Trips on Erowid Transformed Modern Drug Culture
  
  Vice Motherboard (Nov 2015)
  
  "[Erowid] has become the hallowed halls of a unique virtual research institution—influential and mainstream enough to warrant a New Yorker profile—where the self-exploration and narrative- sharing that fuel the internet are freely applied to psychedelic experiences."
• How a Drug Site Inspired Literary Genius
  
  Forbes / Lifestyle (Nov 2015)
  
  "[T]his nonprofit's site had over 17 million unique visitors last year. Its main purpose is to educate people about the drugs they're taking--whether or not the government approves..."

1. Acetylfentanyl Vault
   Basic index and law page for this short-acting synthetic opioid that has been sold as fentanyl.
2. Erowid Extracts #26
   The whole-issue PDF is available online and articles are linked.
3. 4/20 on Hippy Hill in Golden Gate Park
   San Francisco's oasis of greenery and family fun has long been a nexus for counterculture activities. As cannabis inches toward a less sordid legal status, related celebrations have evolved.

• It Is Because It Is (4-HO-MPT), by Kaleida
• A Taste of Enlightenment (Hawaiian Baby Woodrose Seeds), by dAneris

How Do They Measure Up? Examining Drug Use Surveys and Statistics What do we really know about the rates of drug use in the US and around the world? In the mid-aughts, four major survey types were used to estimate rates of unapproved psychoactive substance use. We looked at data sources and some of the problems involved with drawing specific conclusions from survey results.

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