🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that would never seize a thing, except maybe a few minutes of your attention… and the day. Carpe diem, Cyclists. 🫵

Here’s what we got this week.

• Botanical psilocybin vs alcohol use disorder 🍄

• Judge orders return of church’s seized mushrooms 👮‍♂️

• Microdosed LSD no better than placebo? 🫤

• Chemist explains how to synthesize acid ⚗️

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Like blueberry soap: Psilocybin appears to have antimicrobial and antioxidant properties.
I see the light: Psilocybin activates the same pathways in the visual cortex as light, even in total darkness.
Elves ex machina: Different types of DMT entities appear with greater frequency in certain environments.
Guilty conscience: Psychedelic therapy may help with recovery from moral injury.
Cutting checks: The Canadian Cancer Society is granting $5 million in funding to investigate psychedelic-assisted cancer therapy.

🏛️ Policy

Almost there: New Mexico’s Medical Psilocybin Act has cleared the Senate and House and now heads to the governor.
Not for the culture: Florida lawmakers approved a bill that would outlaw the distribution of psychedelic mushroom spores.
Hook ‘em, horns: A new Texas bill would require two state universities to research psychedelics for PTSD and report back to the governor.
Half measures: Arizona’s House passed a bill that would fund ibogaine research, but only after cutting the $10 million budget in half.
First, do no harm: A physician group called Doctors for Drug Policy Reform is calling for the decriminalization of psychedelics.

📈 Business

Growing like a fungus: The psychedelic mushroom market is expected to surpass $3.3 billion by 2031.
It’s all happening: The Colorado psilocybin experiment has arrived.
Someone’s bullish: Christian Angermayer’s family office bought another 1.8 million shares of atai Life Sciences.
So you want to be a facilitator: Numinus’s psychedelic-assisted therapy training program is now approved in Colorado.
All One: A wrongful death lawsuit against Dr. Bronner’s has been resolved amicably.

🫠 Just for fun

Ayahuasquera, MD: One of Brazil’s first indigenous woman doctors is now training to be a shaman.
How to win friends and influence people: The ancient Wari civilization apparently brewed psychedelic beer for social cohesion.
Parenting hack: Parents are microdosing to see the world through their children’s eyes.
Goop troop: Gwyneth Paltrow says MDMA improved her relationship with her mom.
Meme of the week: When you ask the mushrooms how to integrate them…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

Cheers to good health

You ever think about how alcohol (legal) is physically addictive and destroys millions of lives, while mushrooms (illegal) are anti-addictive and *checks notes* one of the few things that can get people to stop drinking themselves to death?

Pretty weird, huh. Anyway, science thankfully doesn't care about our laws.

Filament Health just announced positive results from their Phase 2 clinical trial of PEX010, their botanical psilocybin drug, for treating alcohol use disorder (AUD). For those who've been losing the battle against the bottle, these numbers are exactly what you want to see.

Here's what the research team found after giving patients a single 25mg dose.

• 📉 Drinking days sloshed slashed: Participants cut their heavy drinking days by more than half, from 53.6% before treatment to just 16.1% at week 12.

• 🍷 Fewer daily drinks: They drank an average of 3.4 fewer drinks per day over the 12-week follow-up period.

• 🙅 Cravings curbed: Participants also reported sustained reductions in alcohol cravings and increases in self-efficacy.

• 🤝 No human left behind: Everyone completed the full therapy course with no serious adverse events.

Results aside, a couple things make this study interesting. First, they used just one dose, while most other trials have been testing two sessions.

But there's another key difference. Filament's PEX010 isn't your standard synthetic psilocybin. It's a full-spectrum extract of whole mushroom, which means it contains all sorts of complementary compounds in natural balance, too.

(Fun fact: their strain’s genetics are protected as a trade secret, kinda like the Coca-Cola recipe or KFC’s herbs and spices.)

With nearly 30 million Americans suffering from AUD, we’d say these results are certainly worth raising a glass to. A glass of water, that is. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

The courts giveth back what police taketh away

Put a point on the board for religious freedom. A federal judge has ordered Utah cops to return sacred mushrooms they seized from Singularism, a Provo City-based church that uses psilocybin to help members write their own scripture. Judge Parrish basically told the state that these rights are for everyone, not just folks who worship in ways the DEA likes.

The mushrooms were swiped during a raid last November, along with the group's holy texts. While founder Bridger Lee Jensen still faces criminal charges, the ruling sets an important precedent under Utah's Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which is meant to protect religious practices from government interference.

What's wild is how thoroughly the judge rejected every tired criticism leveled at entheogenic churches. Sure, members pay to attend ceremony, but Jensen ditched a cushy six-figure job to start a church that "barely puts him past the poverty line." So yeah, pretty sure it’s not about the money. She also stressed that new religions deserve the same protections as established ones. Love that, but who’s gonna tell her using mushrooms to connect to spirit is nothing new?

Placebo in the sky with diamonds

Say it ain’t so, microdosers. The first-ever randomized controlled trial of LSD for ADHD just landed with a thud in JAMA Psychiatry. Researchers dosed 53 adults with either a 20μg “microdose” of acid or placebo twice weekly, and found no statistical difference between the two groups. Will Silicon Valley ever recover from this?

After six weeks in the study, the LSD group saw symptoms decrease by about 7 points while the placebo group improved by nearly 9 points. (Awkward.) For what it’s worth, both groups did report feeling better though, which suggests the "expectancy effect" might be driving some of the benefits.

While this study doesn't support LSD for ADHD, it's hardly the final word. The researchers themselves acknowledge its limitations. Perhaps the dose was too high (some participants saw visuals), the schedule insufficient (most ADHD meds are taken daily), or the measurements imperfect (who wants to microdose in a lab anyway?). So before we declare microdosing dead, let's wait for trials that better reflect how people use these substances in the real world.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.