🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. The FDA may play favorites, but this newsletter loves all psychedelics equally. (Hbu? What’s yours? Reply and let us know. ✍️)

Here’s what we got this week.

• The latest psychedelic breakthrough therapy 💥 

• Canada’s first licensed shroom dispensary 🛍️

• Ukrainian psychedelic therapists wanted 🙏

• Psychedelics for designers 🎨 

FROM OUR SPONSORS

Sick of your job and ready to pivot into a rewarding career in psychedelics?

The first step is to understand the playing field.

At Psycon this May, you’ll spend 3 days immersing yourself in the rapidly developing psychedelic industry. And that’s how you’ll know where you fit in and how you can make an impact.

Between the 100+ speakers and 75+ exhibitors, there’s no question you’ll be inspired. You may even meet your next business partner.

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Full spectrum: Whole-mushroom extract may be more effective than pure psilocybin in promoting neuroplasticity.
Can’t scare me: Psilocybin reduces the amygdala’s response to seeing angry faces.
Minty fresh: atai has improved the taste of its DMT oral film strip and kicked off a new Phase 1b trial.
Who are we to judge? 89% of Americans morally approve of psilocybin therapy.
Real world: Imperial College London is seeking psychedelic therapists willing to share their current treatment models and approaches.

🏛️ Policy

Marching ahead: A bill that would allow military vets to receive psilocybin therapy moved forward in Missouri.
Desert healing: Arizona’s bill to legalize psilocybin service centers also notched another approval.
They’re considering considering it: A bill in Alaska to create a psychedelic task force is advancing.
All fines and dandy: Connecticut lawmakers deliberated a proposal to decriminalize psilocybin.
Municipal harm reduction: The City of Denver is providing psychedelic crisis management training to its first responders, courtesy of MAPS.

📈 Business

Bad apple: A prominent psychedelic therapist and trainer has been suspended for a year after initiating a sexual relationship with a former patient.
Pulling out the receipts: The Church of Sacred Synthesis is suing Usona Institute for claiming that its sacrament doesn’t contain Psilomethoxin.
For bodhisattvas only: A small Buddhist university in Colorado is positioning itself to lead the nation in psychedelic therapy training.
Optimize me harder: Psychedelics are the latest tool touted by executive and life coaches.

🫠 Just for fun

Time for a reno: Borrow the design aesthetics of psychedelic retreats for your home decor.
Ego inflation: Why don’t psychedelics fix narcissists?
Meme of the week: When you eat a spicy mushroom chocolate…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

LSD’s breaking free through

Psychedelic stocks are soooarin’, flyyyyin’. How come? The FDA just designated yet another psychedelic a “breakthrough therapy.”

Essentially, that’s an acknowledgement from the regulators that an investigational drug could offer a substantial improvement over what’s currently available. So, it deserves special treatment in the review process.

This is the fourth time the FDA’s given this badge of honor to a psychedelic drug. It’s almost like psychedelics are paradigm-shifting class of mental health treatments or something. A quick timeline:

• 💊 MAPS earned it first with MDMA for PTSD (Aug 2017)

• 🍄 Then, Compass Pathways claimed psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression (Oct 2018)

• 🍄 Usona Institute got the blessing for psilocybin in major depressive disorder (Nov 2019)

• 🧪 And now, MindMed is coming through with LSD for generalized anxiety disorder (Mar 2024)

It’s no surprise the FDA feels some type of way about MindMed’s LSD product (codenamed MM120). In the latest clinical trial, 65% of participants had a meaningful response to a single 100µg dose of the drug. 48% achieved full remission from their anxiety.

Now here’s the kicker: Unlike most psychedelic drug developers, MindMed got these results without psychotherapy. Apparently, acid gets the job done on its own.

Looking ahead, that bodes well for accessibility. Without talk therapy, the treatment might cost less and require less time away from work and life. Sing it, Zac: There’s not an anxious human that we can’t reach. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

How Dana got his groove back

Perseverance pays off, Cyclists. Just ask Dana Larsen, owner of The Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary in British Columbia. This week, Vancouver city council voted to reissue Larsen’s business license after a police raid minor setback took him temporarily out of business last November. That means he’s now running Canada’s first licensed psychedelic dispensary.

The Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary isn’t the only shroom shop in Canada—not by a long shot. But until now, they’ve all been operating illegally. Psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline—all of which Larsen sells in broad daylight—are still federally controlled substances. But the City of Vancouver basically said they DGAF. (To their credit, they were ahead of the curve with cannabis, too.)

Not everyone agrees with the decision. The mayor of Vancouver, for one, was “extremely disappointed” to see city council using their power to “engage in activism” above their pay grade. Sounds like this rule follower needs to sample Larsen’s goods.

Free psychedelic training

To all our readers who’ve dreamt of becoming psychedelic therapists, listen up because opportunities like this don’t come around often. As of this week, it’s now possible to access Fluence’s complete library of psychedelic therapy training materials, free of charge. The only (tiny) catch? You’ve gotta be a Ukrainian doctor.

Yeah, you’re probably aware that Ukraine has been at war with Russia for the past 2 years. But did you know experts predict 3.5 million Ukrainians will be diagnosed with PTSD as a direct result of said war? That’s a lot of trauma. So, Fluence has partnered with two nonprofits to translate its curriculum into Ukrainian and provide it to local mental health professionals at no cost.

So far, 540 Ukrainian clinicians have signed up for the program. Check our math, but that works out to juuuuust about 6,481 patients per doc. Ehh, looks like net zero trauma may still be a few years off.

CYCLISTS’ PICKS

UNTIL NEXT TIME

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help you.

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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.