🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that believes in equal opportunity for all the kingdoms. If we can have emotional support animals, why not emotional support plants or fungi, hmmm? 🤨

Here’s what we got this week.

• Why psychedelics heal some and destabilize others 🎲

• New TX bill would fund ibogaine clinical trials 🤠

• British billionaire chips in to buy Lykos 🐺

• Where to find a job in psychedelics 🧑‍💻 

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Extreme healing: The intensity of psychedelic experiences is reliably associated with therapeutic outcomes.
Listen up: Psilocin may treat hearing loss, based on preclinical studies.
Double duty: Psychedelics show promise not only for the cancer-related distress but also cancer pain.
No biggie: The most common side effects of microdosing LSD and psilocybin are mild and transient.
One year in: Compass Pathways released 52-week follow-up results from its trials of psilocybin for major depression.

🏛️ Policy

Enchanted: New Mexico’s bill to establish a psilocybin therapy program advanced through another committee.
Live free or die: New Hampshire lawmakers unanimously approved a psilocybin decriminalization bill.
Deep in the heart: A new Texas bill would require state health officials to study MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine for PTSD and depression.
Consult this: Vermont’s latest bill would decriminalize psilocybin mushrooms and create a “therapeutic consultation program” to promote safe use.
Breathe easy: Along with psychedelics, Missouri lawmakers are pushing for hyperbaric oxygen chambers as a treatment option for vets with PTSD.

📈 Business

Analysis paralysis: Brain Futures published a whitepaper on the barriers to adoption of psychedelic therapy in the US health system.
Cushion for the pushin’: After raising $250 million in 2024, MindMed reports having enough cash to fund operations into 2027.
Set and setting: Colorado’s first psychedelic healing centers may mix yoga, painting, or games with mushrooms.
Field trip: The University of Ottawa is sending students in its psychedelics master’s program to Jamaica for practicum experience.
Starstruck: MAPS announced the first 49 speakers for its upcoming Psychedelic Science 2025 conference.

🫠 Just for fun

Yes, chef: A restaurant in DC is recreating the mushroom journey with an 8-course meal.
Omega Mart East? Meow Wolf is opening its first location in NYC.
You get a trip! You get a trip! Oprah had Michael Pollan on her podcast to talk about psychedelics.
Roll with the punches: Did MDMA protect survivors of the Nova music festival from trauma?
Meme of the week: When psychedelics help you find your dream job…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

When healing goes sideways

Psychedelics have been hailed as as miracle cures for PTSD, depression, and practically every other existential crisis short of filing your taxes.

But what if they sometimes make things worse? That's the uncomfortable question posed by researchers in a new study published this week.

The paper introduces a concept called "Psychedelic Iatrogenic Structural Dissociation," which sounds like something you'd need to hire a plumber for, but is actually way more serious. It’s this idea that psychedelics can amplify existing trauma and dissociative tendencies in vulnerable people, potentially making a bad situation worse.

Here's the tl;dr.

• ✂️ Trauma divides the mind: In trauma survivors, the personality often splits between the "apparently normal" part that handles daily life and the "emotional" part that holds traumatic memories.

• 🔊 Psychedelics are amplifiers: These medicines can bring suppressed traumatic memories to the surface. That’s great for healing with proper support, but can be destabilizing without it.

• 🚩 Signs of destabilization: Red flags can include persistent emotional flashbacks, derealization (feeling like reality isn't real), and depersonalization (feeling detached from yourself).

• 🫣 Who’s at risk: In one study, 40% of people reporting extended difficulties after psychedelic use had a history of childhood trauma.

Look, discussing risks isn't sexy. It's about as fun as telling someone their retirement strategy shouldn't involve dumping their life savings into fartcoin (not financial advice). It’s important, though.

No one’s questioning the benefits of psychedelics—not us, at least. But context matters. Set and setting matter. Prep and integration matter. Because for trauma survivors especially, the line between breakthrough and breakdown may be thinner than some diehards want to admit.

Better to acknowledge the risks than pretend we're all just one heroic dose away from a problem-free existence, right? 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Don’t mess with Texas

Everything's bigger in Texas. Apparently, that includes Texans’ brisket-sized appetite for psychedelic healing. This week, Rep. Cody Harris introduced House Bill 3717 to fund FDA-approved clinical trials of ibogaine for opioid and other substance use disorders. The idea is to create a public-private partnership, so that once the drug is approved, it’s actually affordable, too.

The bill would create a system where participating private entities have to match public funds dollar-for-dollar. Texas would then keep a slice of any intellectual property created during the trials, so that it maintains some commercial interest in what could launch as a generic medication. The legislation even requires plans for securing insurance coverage and guaranteeing access for uninsured Texans post-FDA approval.

When it comes to psychedelic advocacy, this isn’t Texas’s first rodeo. In 2021, the Lone Star State became the first state to publicly fund research for psychedelic therapy. And just this January, former Governor Rick Perry went on Joe Rogan to evangelize this Texas Ibogaine Initiative. It seems like they’re taking this issue as seriously as Texans take their BBQ—which is to say, very seriously indeed. Mmm, smokey.

They’re looking for a man in finance

Is he 6’5” with blue eyes? No. But the man does have cash. Sir Christopher Hohn, the British hedge fund titan known as "Europe's most feared investor," has joined forces with Antonio Gracias, another billionaire investor and philanthropist, to take control of struggling MDMA developer Lykos Therapeutics.

Hohn isn't your average finance bro. He runs the UK’s second largest hedge fund with a cool $60 billion under management and has a reputation for corporate shake-ups so aggressive they make boardrooms sweat. Gracias, meanwhile, brings his own Elon Musk-adjacent street cred and track record of psychedelic activism to the table.

Now here's the altruistic twist you probably didn’t see coming. According to Rick Doblin's hints at SXSW last weekend, both billionaires plan to redirect any returns from their Lykos investment back to MAPS, the nonprofit that originally spun out Lykos. So maybe they are in it for more than just another zero in their bank accounts? Either way, for a company seemingly on life support after the FDA's rejection last year, Lykos may have found its perfect trip sitters.

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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.