As the executive director of the nonprofit Pearl Institute here in Waynesville, I wanted to express my gratitude to The Smoky Mountain News for the feature story written by Cory Vaillancourt about the recent decision by the FDA to request more research into using the drug MDMA in combination with therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Dear reader, yeah, I mean you. You who are reading this while holding the paper in your hands or scanning through on your computer, tablet or phone. Yeah, you. I am so deeply grateful to you for reading my articles. This marks the 52nd column that I have written for The Smoky Mountain News, with one running every couple of weeks for the last two years or so. That’s one for each week in the year. One for every card in a deck.  

Large animal veterinarians in North Carolina are eligible to apply for up to $25,000 in funds to help support their large animal practice.

I don’t deserve to be called a scientist, but maybe I’m at least a fringe scientist after spending 50 years doing engineering and then medicine.

I’ve never doubted I’m an old soul, so maybe my attachment to herbal remedies and plant-based eating is connected to another lifetime when nature and humans functioned more synergistically.

In a pair of actions taken during Tribal Council on Thursday, May 6, Tribal Council voted to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana and to stop testing Housing Improvement Program residents and applicants for the drug. 

Tribal Council voted unanimously April 1 to table an ordinance aiming to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. However, discussion preceding the vote indicates that some version of that ordinance will likely pass in the future. 

For years opioids were overprescribed by physicians and overused by patients, leading to skyrocketing rates of addiction, overdoses and drug-related crime. Now that the issue has risen to the level of a national public health and safety crisis, society is more aware of the dangers associated with opioid abuse and physicians are learning new ways to manage patients’ pain levels. 

It was 1983 when Avram Friedman first rolled into Sylva, driving the repurposed school bus that was home for him, his wife and their 18-month-old son during their cross-country trek from California. They were looking for a more permanent living situation, and while most would have passed over the 3-acre property that is still the Friedman family home, to Avram it was perfect — mainly because the land and the house combined cost only $12,000. 

“We didn’t have any money,” Avram laughed. “We were just poor hippies.”

Even as I parked my car at the bottom of a steep and weedy hill that Friday morning, I wasn’t quite sure what I’d signed up for by electing to participate in Kudzu Camp.