🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter with a voice so silky you’ll hear Kenny G in the background when you read it aloud. 🎷

Here’s what we got this week.

• Minnesota’s 1-2 psilocybin policy punch 🥊

• Speech analysis for psychedelic therapy 🙊

• Psilocybin relieves phantom limb pain 🦿

• Psychedelic art like you’ve never seen 🎨

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Spice it up: Psychedelics can enhance sexual experiences, intimacy, and attraction.
How to save a life: Esketamine rapidly improved symptoms of depression in suicidal adolescents.
Touché: Most participants value physical touch during psilocybin therapy.
Never assume: Veterans, often centered in policy reform efforts, have mixed feelings about psychedelics.
Volunteers wanted: Participate in Microdosing Collective’s research survey on psychedelics for chronic headaches.

🏛️ Policy

Study buddies: North Carolina lawmakers filed a bill to create a psychedelic medicine task force.
Why stop there? Iowa lawmakers advanced a bill that would enable 5,000 PTSD patients to access psilocybin therapy.
Let it slide: Maine lawmakers heard a proposal to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms.
Different strokes: The governor of Colorado signed a bill into law that proactively reschedules Compass Pathways’ psilocybin product upon FDA approval. A similar bill in Virginia was vetoed.
War and peace of mind: Ukraine has opened the door to legal psychedelic research.

📈 Business

The OG: Colorado licensed its first psilocybin healing center.
Trimming the fat: Relmada Therapeutics may be scrapping its plans to develop psilocybin as an obesity treatment.
Musical chairs: Lykos’s interim CEO is stepping down, and MindMed has a new Chief Commercial Officer.
Gang’s all here: Compass Pathways has completed recruitment for its Phase 3 trial of psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression.
Like MDMA, but gentler: Transcend Therapeutics released positive results from its Phase 2 trial of methylone (aka MDMC) for PTSD.

🫠 Just for fun

Pretty colors: Now you can livestream the Northern Lights.
Shameless: VICE exposes the reckless neoshaman who served ayahuasca to more than 30,000 people.
Head case: Ibogaine is coming out of obscurity for its effects on traumatic brain injury.
Meme of the week: When you’re having a rough trip but someone’s holding space…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

Doubling down on mushrooms

List of things where it’s better to have two than one:

Chopsticks (am I supposed to stab my sushi like some kind of barbarian?). Eyebrows (no offense, Bert and Frida). And of course, shots on goal for psychedelic policy reform.

Up in Minnesota, Rep. Andy Smith recently filed two separate psilocybin bills within days of each other—one for personal use and another for supervised therapeutic sessions.

Here's how the personal use bill (HF 2699) breaks down.

• ⛓️‍💥 Decriminalization: No more civil or criminal penalties for adults 21+ using or possessing psilocybin.

• 🧑‍🌾 Home cultivation: Growing mushrooms in private spaces up to 12x12 feet would be permitted.

• 🚗 Restrictions: No driving under the influence, possession near schools, or commercial distribution.

• 👀 Oversight: A new Psychedelic Medicine Board would establish possession limits and ensure "safe and appropriate use."

And here's what the therapeutic bill (HF 2906) would allow.

• 🏥 Medical use: Adults 21+ with qualifying conditions could access psilocybin through state-registered facilitators.

• 🌱 Cultivation: Patients could grow their own mushrooms or designate someone to grow for them.

• 🎁 Sharing: Patients could also gift mushrooms to other patients.

• 🏠 Flexible settings: Sessions could happen at private residences, not just clinics.

While the dual approach might seem like overkill, it’s a direct response to Minnesota's Psychedelic Medicine Task Force, which recommended creating a therapeutic program and removing criminal penalties for personal use—not to mention funding more research.

Beyond that, it’s pretty strategic, too. This way, legislators can avoid going all-in on a single proposal that might be too ambitious or too limited. (Smith himself acknowledges the therapeutic bill "requires a whole lot more" funding and infrastructure.)

Smart man. We’d never put all our spores in one basket. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Watch your tone

Trip reports and surveys are so passé. It’s 2025, people—the age of AI, data, and neurotic optimization. Which means Emory University researchers want to hear the psychedelic transformation in your voice. So they've created an app called "Fabla" that analyzes how your speech patterns change after a psilocybin journey, from word choice to vocal tone.

Starting this month, 141 depression sufferers will record daily voice diaries for the OPTIMIZE study, capturing their thoughts before and after receiving a hefty 25mg dose of psilocybin. What they're hunting for are subtle shifts—like using fewer "I" words and more "we" words—that signal folks are breaking free from the self-referential thinking that characterizes depression.

This tech-savvy approach marks a new frontier in psychedelic research. Imperial College London dabbled in voice analysis a few years back, but Emory's comprehensive setup takes things to another level. So next time you're struggling to explain that ineffable psychedelic experience, relax. The real tell might not be what you say, but how you say it.

Phantom pain vanishes

UCSD researchers just wrapped the first-ever randomized trial on psychedelics for phantom limb pain, and the results are better than any painkiller big pharma's cooked up. Patients who took a heroic dose of mushrooms reported pain reductions of 50-75%, with relief actually getting stronger as time went on. Meanwhile, the placebo group was back to square one after two weeks.

The study's roots trace back to UCSD researcher Albert Yu-Min Lin, who took shrooms in Joshua Tree after losing his leg. Wouldn’t ya know, his phantom pain disappeared. This inspired researchers to dig deeper, and now they're recruiting for a larger trial that could revolutionize treatment for the 60-80% of amputees who suffer from these lingering sensations.

Their theory is that psilocybin essentially hits the reset button on trauma, kinda like an Etch-a-Sketch for neural pathways. That’s based on brain scans showing that less activity in ego-related networks translated to more pain relief. Look, we’re not saying it’s all in your head. But if dissolving your sense of self is what it takes to get rid of pain, then identity, you can ghost us any time.

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.