🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that’s leading in all the polls. Exercise your right to vote! (You can give us a 5 🍄 rating at the bottom of this email.)

Here’s what we got this week.

• Obsessed with psychedelics 🧼

• Campaigning on shrooms 🇺🇸

• COMPASS’s cash injection 🧭

• The brain in your gut 🦠

FROM OUR SPONSORS

Reality check: psilocybin is still illegal nearly everywhere in the US. 😩 The Netherlands on the other hand… 😏

In fact, the Dutch countryside might be the ideal spot for a psychedelic experience. It’s the peace, quiet, and nature for us.

Acsauhaya agrees. And they’re hosting a 3-day all-inclusive psilocybin retreat on their 4-acre reserve.

Acsauhaya’s retreats aren’t just 100% legal. They’re also safe, supportive, and intimate (max 10 people).

Learn more and reserve your spot.

RESEARCH

Relief from OCD is possible with psychedelics

In case you couldn’t tell, we’re a little obsessed with psychedelics. And we just added one more reason why to the list.

According to research published this week in Nature, psychedelics are the only psychoactive substances that actually work for managing OCD.

Now, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a term that gets thrown around willy-nilly. But it’s actually a debilitating psychiatric condition characterized by intrusive thoughts and repetitive behaviors. It’s chronic, persistent, and makes life much more difficult. 🙁

Since the approved treatments (psychotherapy and antidepressants) often don’t help, some people with OCD have turned to psychedelics. So a team of scientists looked at a sample of 174 such people and found striking results.

• ✅ They really work: Classic psychedelics (LSD and psilocybin) were the only substances associated with significant improvements in OCD symptoms.

• 🫠 But you gotta have a nice trip: The strength of their therapeutic effect was determined by the intensity and pleasantness of the subjective experience.

• 🔋 The effect lasts: 30% of participants reported therapeutic effects lasting more than three months.

• 🫳 They’re not addictive: There were no cases of substance abuse. The longer the therapeutic effect lasted, the less frequently people returned to psychedelics for symptom management.

Now that you know OCD ≠ neat or organized or particular, you may resume thoroughly washing your hands.

MICRODOSES

🏆 A new record: Adult psychedelic use is at an all-time high, according to a NIDA survey.

👏 Be aggressive, be-e aggressive: New research suggests that ketamine increases stress-induced aggression in early life.

🤏 Scratch that: Dermatologists have solved a 50-year-old woman’s chronic itch with ketamine.

😮‍💨 Painkillers: Classical psychedelics led to better pain relief than conventional medications in a survey study.

👻 The phantom menace: Researchers at UCSD are studying whether psilocybin could treat phantom limb pain.

🏡 Bring us home: MindBio Therapeutics has manufactured the first batch of its LSD microdosing product, to be used in a take-home clinical trial.

POLICY

The next POTUS could be tripping

Just imagine. What if we had a political leader who recognized the potential of psychedelics to heal our citizens and support society at large?

With the next US presidential election around the corner, more and more candidates are making their stances on drug policy clear. And the latest one to stick his neck out for psychedelics is GOP hopeful, Vivek Ramaswamy.

The Republican entrepreneur posted on Twitter X that he supports “decriminalizing ayahuasca & ketamine for veterans suffering from PTSD, to prevent the epidemic of fentanyl & suicide.”

Respect. 🤝 But c’mon, Vivek? What about psilocybin, MDMA, and all our other natural and synthetic friends?

Meanwhile, Ramaswami isn’t the first candidate to speak out on psychedelics. And surely, he won’t be the last.

• 🔵 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Democrat) has vowed to legalize cannabis and psychedelics if elected president.

• 🔵 Joe Biden (Democrat) is “very open minded” about psychedelic medicine, according to his brother.

• 🔴 Donald Trump (Republican), who leads the nomination polls, has so far been quiet. And his ambivalence on cannabis doesn’t provide much in the way of clues.

Maybe Donny just needs a little convincing. A tiny tab of paper on his tongue and he’ll be ready to end the War on Drugs with the rest of ‘em.

MICRODOSES

🍄 Secretary’s dose: Yes, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen did eat psychedelic mushrooms in China. No (sadly), she didn’t trip.

🏈 Competitive spirit: Texas Gov. Rick Perry claims federal psychedelic policy reform is more favored by Republicans than Democrats.

📏 Inch by inch: California’s psychedelic legalization bill has progressed one step closer to a full Assembly vote.

📜 Acting alone: Last month, Minneapolis became the first US city to decriminalize psychedelics through an executive order by the mayor.

BUSINESS

COMPASS Pathways raises a staggering $285 million

Fact: launching a new drug costs a ridiculous amount of money. Between R&D, regulatory approval, manufacturing, and post-approval monitoring—not to mention the sunk costs of failed projects—a company can easily spend billions of dollars to bring a new drug to market.

So that should put the next figure in perspective. COMPASS Pathways, the company pushing the FDA to approve psilocybin, just raised another $285 million.

No matter how you slice it, that’s still an eye-popping sum. In fact, it’s more than half of the total dollars invested into psychedelic companies in all of 2022.

Apart from their now-bulging balance sheet, there’s another reason all eyes are on COMPASS. They’re one of only two psychedelic companies to receive a “breakthrough designation” from the FDA. That means regulators are taking COMP360 (their proprietary form of psilocybin) seriously and believe it could be substantially more effective than standard antidepressants.

Oh yeah, and they’re also in the midst of running the largest psilocybin clinical trial in history.

The question is: can this capital injection get them over the finish line? 🤔

Speaking for the millions of people suffering from treatment-resistant depression and the execs at COMPASS…

MICRODOSES

🍄 Caps(ules) and stems: Cybin has been granted patent protection for its deuterated psilocybin drug. Now, capsules are being manufactured for the Phase 3 clinical trial.

🛫 Long runway: MindMed has secured $50 million in credit to fund operations into 2026.

⛪ Freedom of religion: Oakland’s Zide Door entheogenic church has dropped its lawsuit against the city and applied for a permit to keep operating.

✂️ Open for business: Incannex Healthcare will open the first location of Clarion Clinics, its psychedelic-assisted therapy subsidiary, this September in Melbourne.

Viome — Your gut has so many neurons that they call it a “second brain.” So wouldn’t anyone who takes their mental health seriously want to give their gut a closer look? Viome is the at-home gut microbiome test that reveals exactly what you should and shouldn’t be putting in your body for optimal physical and mental health. Get $100 OFF any test with code SWAP100.

Dua Lipa & Amanda Fielding — Can’t say we’re regular listeners of Dua Lipa’s “At Your Service” podcast. But when the BBC-backed popstar brought on Amanda Fielding, the octogenarian psychonaut anointed the “High Priestess of LSD,” we bumped the show to the top of our queue. Follow our lead to hear an OG’s take on the past, present, and future of psychedelics… and why she drilled a hole in her skull.

Ayahuasca: Where to Begin — Thinking about sitting with Grandmother Aya? Before you do, consider investing an hour of your time (and perhaps a small donation, though not required) to learn what it means to be in “right relationship” with these plants and their stewards. DoubleBlind will donate 100% of proceeds from this workshop to the Union of Indigenous Yagé Doctors of the Colombian Amazon.

That’s all for today. Before you head off, don’t forget to share, rate, and review Tricycle Day below. Catch ya next time, Cyclists! ✌️

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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.