🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that knows popularity isn’t everything. Fwiw, if this were high school (it’s not) and we were the cool kids (we weren’t), we’d invite you to sit at our lunch table. 🙇‍♂️

Here’s what we got this week.

• Mushrooms are America’s favorite psychedelic 🍄

• Psilocybin facilitators sue Oregon for discrimination ♿️

• Fluence and Enthea partner up on ketamine access 🤝

• We sprayed n’ sniffed liquid hapé 💦

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Life in plastic; it’s fantastic: Scientists made a leap forward in understanding how psilocybin induces neuroplasticity.
This too shall pass: Psychedelics may impair your cognitive performance before they improve it.
No rush, but: Reunion Neuroscience shared results from its Phase 1 trial of RE104, a psilocybin-like prodrug that lasts half as long.
Drip drip: Tryptamine Therapeutics dosed the first participant in a clinical trial of IV-infused psilocin.
Seize the day: Classic psychedelics may protect against seizures.

🏛️ Policy

All that glitters isn’t silver: In its 2024 World Drug Report, the UN warns that psychedelics are not a “silver bullet” for mental health.
Can’t catch a break: California lawmakers killed their latest (and most modest) psychedelic therapy bill.
Hongos y mas: Mexico may legalize psilocybin, and indigenous communities are divided.
Still unconvinced: ICER doubled down on its critique of Lykos’s MDMA-assisted therapy in its final evidence report.

📈 Business

The plot thickens: The FDA found 4-AcO-DMT and Kava plant compounds in the “microdosing” chocolates that have sent 20+ people to the hospital.
Cost conscious: Providers are finding ways to lower or cover the cost of psilocybin services in Oregon.
Machine (elf) learning: Psylo is using AI to discover new psychedelics.
Same same but different: Emyria received a $500k grant to develop its MDMA analog.
In the end: Death doulas are pushing ketamine into palliative care.

🫠 Just for fun

Activism is easy: Join the fight to approve MDMA-assisted therapy.
Surreal estate: Timothy Leary’s notorious Hitchcock Estate has been listed for a cool $65m.
Appreciate, don’t appropriate: What not to do as an ayahuasca tourist.
Meme of the week: When your psychedelic therapist tells you to practice self care…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

Psilocybin power to the people

Step aside, other drugs. The people have spoken.

When it comes to psychedelics, psilocybin mushrooms are America's favorite. (Source: trust me bro.)

Just kidding. Two major reports dropped this week to back that claim up. See? We don’t make sh💩t up… as much as those dung-lovin’ shrooms might like that.

These two data sets also shed quite a bit of light on how and why people are going full fungi. Let's dig in, shall we?

First, there’s the new report from the RAND Corporation, one of the nation’s oldest and most influential think thanks. Here’s what they’re saying.

• 🥇 We’re #1: Psilocybin mushrooms are now the most popular psychedelic in the U.S.

• 🙋 Roll call: ~12% of US adults have taken mushrooms in their lifetime. 3.1% (about 8 million people) have in the past year.

• 🤏 Easy does it: Nearly half of those who’ve used psychedelics are microdosing.

• 🗓️ A once-in-a-while thing: Most are infrequent users. Unlike cannabis, shrooms are usually not a daily habit.

Meanwhile, a study on Google searches published in JAMA tells us even more about the surging interest in microdosing.

• 📈 Up and to the right: Searches for microdosing have skyrocketed by 1,250% since 2015.

• 🌿 Guess it is a gateway drug: States with recreational cannabis saw a 40.9 per 10 million bump in microdosing searches.

• ⛰️ Leading the pack: Oregon and Colorado, with their state-regulated programs, are seeing 2.4x more interest than your average "Just Say No" state.

Now, the bigwigs at RAND are calling on the feds to decide how they’re going to respond to this—should we do it? ahh yeah we gotta do it—mushrooming trend.

Whether federal policymakers step in or let states keep experimenting, we know one thing for sure. The people will always find a way to enjoy their favorites. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Handicaps and stems

Ruh-roh. Looks like we’ve hit a legal speed bump on Oregon’s psychedelic trail. A lawsuit just landed in federal court, claiming the state's psilocybin program is leaving homebound patients in the lurch. Turns out, if you can't physically schlep to a licensed service center, you're out of luck. Seems pretty unfair, tbh.

Four care providers, including three licensed psilocybin facilitators, are suing the Oregon Health Authority (OHA). They argue that the current setup discriminates against those who need it most—the terminally ill and disabled. As of now, it’s true that the OHA offers no legal way to bring psilocybin therapy to clients' homes. That means vulnerable folks have two choices: turn to the underground market or miss out entirely.

Oregon deserves major props for being first; don’t get us wrong. But it kinda feels like they straight-up forgot about a whole chunk of their population. It’s not too late to course correct, though. All the plaintiffs ask is that they make accommodations for home services ASAP. After all, if you're gonna open minds, you should try to open doors, too, right?

Work perks just got perkier

Corporate America is in a weird place with psychedelics right now. At some companies, just whispering about microdosing at the water cooler is enough to get you slapped with an email from HR. Meanwhile, other businesses are actively helping their staff access psychedelic therapy. Go figure. Well, Fluence and Enthea just announced a partnership that's about to make ketamine-assisted therapy as common as dental insurance. Hopefully, a whole lot more reliable, too.

This collab is a win for pretty much everyone involved. Fluence (who trains and certifies people in psychedelic therapy) scores a direct pipeline to Enthea's provider network. Enthea (a third party health plan administrator) can boast about having the best-trained facilitators in the biz. Ketamine-assisted therapists get streamlined access to clients who can actually pay. And employers offering Enthea's benefits can rest easy knowing their employees are in good hands.

But the real winners? Employees. Because honestly, who would have imagined you could be reviewing your benefits package and find "ketamine sessions" listed right under "401k matching." Go get your perks, Cyclists! Just don't expect "brb astral projecting into the void" to fly as an excuse for skipping the scrum meeting.

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.