A recent study conducted by MAPS.org shows that there are more ER visits per year for cheerleading accidents than there are for Ecstasy use. To quote the study:

I focused on Emergency Room (ER) visit data, the most common indicator of cost to public health. For example, according to the Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), in 1994–nine years after MDMA was criminalized, but the first for which data is available from SAMHSA– there were 253 ER visits as a result of Ecstasy use in the US. Meanwhile, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (USCPSC), in 1994 there were 15,792 ER visits as a result of participation in organized cheerleading. By that measure, in 1994 cheerleading was 62 times more of a threat to our nation’s public health than Ecstasy use. Keep in mind that most users don’t know whether their Ecstasy is pure MDMA, so these statistics reflect the risks of using unregulated black-market Ecstasy, which often contains other substances and sometimes does not even contain MDMA.

To look at those numbers another way, in 2001, one out of every 152 organized cheerleading participants sought ER treatment, while only one of out of every 585 past-year Ecstasy users sought ER treatment.

There is also a graph comparing the two for each year from 1995 to 2004:

So I guess we all know what this means. It is time to start a prohibition on cheerleading. After all, the reason certain drugs are illegal is because the are ‘unsafe’ and this study clearly shows that cheerleading is far more dangerous to public health than MDMA. It seems that if the government is at all worried about the safety of its citizens then they should outlaw cheerleading. While they’re at it (since governments never seem to know when to stop), they might as well outlaw smoking and trans fat since these are also dangerous to public health.

Of course these are ludicrous claims. The government does not have the right to regulate what people can do with their bodies. They should not be allowed regulate cheerleading and they should not be allowed to regulate drug use. I just hope this study puts drug use into perspetive for those who think the government should have the right to regulate it. Just think about how you would feel if the government banned trans fats or cheerleading and you can see why the ‘war on drugs’ is the debacle that it is. People will get their fix (whether it be trans fat, cheerleading, or drugs) even if they have to go behind Big Brothers back to get it.

According to a preliminary study conducted by University of Arizona psychiatrist Dr. Francisco A. Moreno, psilocybin, the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’, may provide relief for patients suffering from severe OCD.

This small-scale test, the first of its kind since the drug was outlawed in 1970, was not enough to come up with any real scientific conclusions. More research has to be done to determine if there are any true benefits. Nonetheless, the results of the study are very interesting. According to MSNBC, all nine of the patients studied had some degree of relief, lasting up to 24 hours in some of the participants.

According to the article:

Currently, there is no treatment that eases symptoms of the disorder as fast as psilocybin appears to, Moreno said. Other drugs take several weeks to show an effect, but the psilocybin was almost immediate.

These results are simply amazing and I can not wait to see what further studies will show. If FDA-approval (and the staggering amount of bureaucracy and paperwork that comes with it) were not necessary for such studies, we may have a cure for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder by now. More people would want to learn about that effects of the drug if it were actually legal to use. I know that when people push for laws that make these substances illegal they think they are helping others, but there are always unintended consequences. When the effects of a drug can not be studied, possible benefits from those drugs will never be found. LSD, for example, has been shown to be a possible cure for alcoholism. In that study, alcoholics who took one hit of LSD have been sober for 40 years, never consuming either drug again. We may never know the true benefits of these substances unless they are made legal.