Mind Medicine - Does fear have an off switch?

“We’ve learned a fair amount of the circuitry that’s involved in generating the initial fear response. We really know relatively little about the circuitry that’s involved in turning it off”   (Richard Davidson, Neuroscientist). 

Is there a reason why this has been neglected? 

Protesters caught on newsprint at Occupy

"Using cannabinoids to overcome fear in the brain"
by Christie Wilcox
Scientific American

" ...in a study published this week in Molecular Psychiatry, researchers from Duke university have found that marijuana-like compounds and the enzyme that degrades them may be the key to understanding fear’s off switch."


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/science-sushi/2012/06/12/overcoming-fear-in-the-brain/



Why it's illegal to take drugs? Psychedelics might open the soul and motivate it against the greed machine? Marijuana might block out fear so that revolution becomes a possibility. We live in fear; of war, of hunger, of our own anxiety. Some drugs could propel us into a society of equality and compassion.


"You may say that I'm a dreamer..." 

not just a high

by Nathan Seppa
Science News Daily

Highlights: "Though the psychoactive effect of THC has slowed approval for cannabis-based drugs, the high might also have brought on a serendipitous discovery, says neurologist Ethan Russo, senior medical adviser for GW Pharmaceuticals, which is based in Porton Down, England. “How much longer would it have taken us to figure out the endocannabinoid system if cannabis didn’t happen to have these unusual effects on human physiology?”



http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/59872/title/Not_just_a_high