🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that knows slow is smooth, and smooth is fast. We take our sweet time putting these emails together, so you get the goods in just a few minutes. 🤝

Here’s what we got this week.

• What happens when you infuse psilocin into your veins 🩸 

• SF kicks out its biggest psychedelic church 🥾

• The startup building on Shulgin’s legacy ⚗️

• Microdosing kanna for 30 days 🌼

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Learn more about guided journeys.

MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Head to head to head: Psilocybin therapy is as effective as IV ketamine and better than TBS for treating depression.
Better late than never: People with bipolar disorder have been excluded from most clinical trials, but this study shows psychedelics may be safe and effective for BD after all.
Ye of little faith: Studies show psilocybin outperforms the antidepressant, escitalopram. But a new analysis suggests low expectations for the pill play a role.
Show your work: Researchers are calling for better reporting in psychedelic trials, especially around the psychotherapy component.

🏛️ Policy

Prepare for blastoff: The DEA has increased the 2025 quota for the legal production of DMT.
Make America Psychedelic Again: Reason has some psychedelic policy recommendations for the Trump administration.
Shroom for improvement: Oregon advocates are working on a bill to fine-tune Oregon Psilocybin Services in 2025.
To set the tone: Denver city officials have proposed local rules for psilocybin businesses.
Waiting on a CURE: Illinois is (still) considering a bill that would create a state-regulated psilocybin program.

📈 Business

In the corner office: NY Times asks, can psychedelics help the C-suite?
Breakthrough, innit? MindMed received an Innovation Passport Designation from UK drug regulators for its LSD product.
Lost in transit: There’s been an increase in “diversion” of pharmaceutical ketamine.
Back in action: Naropa has spun off its psychedelic studies department, after an insurance challenge paused its psilocybin facilitator training.
Formula funding: PharmAla, a manufacturer of MDMA and its derivatives, is raising money.
Natural selection: Psyence inked a deal to source nature-derived psilocybin from Optimi Health for its drug development programs.

🫠 Just for fun

Continental drift: P. cubensis likely originated in Africa before spreading around the globe.
Pass the medicine: Aaron Rodgers got a Netflix doc, and you better believe psychedelics are prominently featured.
Holy trip: A historian met with the pope to discuss how psychedelics could restore faith to Western civilization.
Meme of the week: When you’ve decided to open a psychedelic healing center…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

The 10-minute mushroom trip

Remember when taking mushrooms meant clearing your schedule for 8 hours of existential confusion soul searching?

Ah, the good ol’ days…

Well, the biopharma company Beckley Psytech has been testing out a more, shall we say, “efficient” approach. And this one goes straight to the source—your veins, that is.

Beckley just put their novel intravenous (IV) formulation of psilocin through a Phase 2a clinical trial, and the results look pretty promising for folks battling depression.

Here's what happened when patients mainlined the magic for just 10 minutes.

• 📉 Instant relief: Depression scores dropped 25 points the very next day.

• 😅 Total reset: 4 out of 6 patients hit full remission within 24 hours.

• ⌚️ Quick recovery: Patients were ready to go home in ~2 hours.

• 💪 Lasting benefits: Effects stayed strong for 3 months.

• 🏥 Hospital friendly: Treatment time matched existing ketamine protocols.

Now before you get too worked up, this was a tiny trial with just 6 participants. And there was no placebo group, so we don't know how much was the drug vs. people's expectations.

But here's why it still matters. Psychedelic therapy is wildly impractical for many people who could benefit from it today. You need specially trained therapists, dedicated spaces, and basically a full day for each patient. Beckley's treatment could change all that by fitting into existing clinic workflows—just like ketamine and Spravato do now.

If the goal is integrating psychedelics into our mental healthcare system, then this approach makes a lot of sense.

On the other hand, if you’re trying to hikrodose your way out of modern civilization… hmm, probably not so much. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Divine intervention

Apparently, even a city as tolerant as San Francisco has its limits. After 20 months of operation, the Church of Ambrosia—the world's largest psychedelic church with 120,000 members—is being forced to close its SF location, aka Zide Door. The irony? They're not being shut down for their sacramental mushrooms (which SF has decriminalized), but for *checks notes* building code violations and missing permits.

Still, Pastor Dave Hodges believes his community is being unfairly harassed. And he may have a point. The planning department's chief of staff did mock the church in local media, saying they were "dealing with a bunch of people on mushrooms trying to convince us they weren't hosting bunches of people on mushrooms." (Sick burn.) Meanwhile, the church claims they've actually made the neighborhood safer by sharing security footage with police and responding to opioid overdoses with Narcan.

The congregation won’t be completely abandoned, at least. Members can still visit the Church of Ambrosia's original location in Oakland. Hodges says they'll consider returning to SF when the climate improves, but for now, “the signs of the universe” (read: city planners) are telling them to get the F out.

The godfather’s new groove

A new player has entered the psychedelic drug development chat. Negev Labs just emerged from stealth with quite the opening hand: exclusive access to Alexander "Sasha" Shulgin's legendary compound library, a research partnership with Jerusalem's Hadassah Brain Labs, and an ophthalmology program snagged from psychedelic heavyweight Beckley Psytech.

Sure, some say the trip is the therapy. But Negev is betting that for many conditions—like age-related vision loss or inflammatory disorders—you just need the brain-rewiring effects, not the mystical experience. They're calling these compounds that promote neural remodeling without sending you on a journey "neuroplastogens.” That means no specialized clinics, no facilitators or trip sitters, and potentially much broader access.

Negev Labs isn’t the first company to chase non-hallucinogenic psychedelics, but the Shulgin connection might be its secret weapon. The late chemist synthesized hundreds of psychedelic compounds, earning him the nickname "godfather of psychedelics.” We knew Sasha’s legacy would long outlive him. But shoot, it looks like these molecules have a longer half-life than even he predicted.

CYCLISTS’ PICKS

UNTIL NEXT TIME

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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.