In this wide-ranging conversation, journalist Mattha Busby joins Joe Moore to reflect on the shifting tone of the psychedelic movement in the wake of Psychedelic Science 2025. Based in Vancouver, Mattha has written for The Guardian, VICE, Esquire, TIME, and Wired, bringing a uniquely embedded yet critical lens to the space.
They discuss the post-conference mood and the sense that the industry is sobering up—less hype, more introspection. Mattha reflects on the growing division between underground practitioners, activists, and biotech startups, and the importance of vision, ethics, and scrutiny in the midst of this cultural moment.
Other topics include:
Ketamine overuse and dependence, especially in social and parenting contexts
The future of psychedelic nightlife, harm reduction, and mocktail bars
Gender and sexual fluidity as uncovered through psychedelics
Questions of IP, underground wisdom, and psychedelic ownership
Psychedelics as tools for peacebuilding, especially in conflict zones
The shadow side of spiritual experiences and how to spot bad actors
The value of pleasure, intimacy, and human connection in the psychedelic journey
Joe and Mattha also reflect on the resurgence of psychedelic use in Texas, the legacy of the Stark Club, and how Christian libertarianism and military trauma might influence unexpected policy changes.
This conversation is bold, honest, funny, and thoughtful—exactly the kind of cultural critique the movement needs right now.
In this episode, Joe interviews renowned chemist, filmmaker, and journalist, Hamilton Morris.
After originally backing down from its first attempt in 2022, the DEA is once again looking to apply schedule I status to two lesser-known compounds: DOI (2,5-dimethoxy-4-iodoamphetamine) and DOC (2,5-dimethoxy-4-chloroamphetamine). For decades, DOI and DOC have been incredible tools for researchers studying serotonin receptors, showing promise for chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and more.
Originally recorded as a livestream in November, we felt this discussion deserved more attention, as Morris was present during the hearing and saw first-hand the damage that can come from the combination of immense overreach and outdated beliefs.
He talks about:
The bureaucratic mess behind so much of what the DEA does
The safety profile and research capacity of DOI and DOC and complete lack of data showing recreational use
The DEA’s claim that advocates weren’t experts
The fight to protect the Sonoran Desert toad
and more!
While we wait for the conclusion of the hearing, head to Hamilton’s Patreon to hear his daily breakdowns.
Diagnosed with the neurological disorder, Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT), Roullier tells the story of how cannabis replaced all her medications, which led to a personal journey and career centered on cannabis education. She talks about the challenges patients face in today’s rapidly evolving cannabis markets, misconceptions surrounding cannabis, the ignorance of many budtenders, and how not knowing enough can lead to an underwhelming high. She discusses how she educated people in shops and how her book was written to teach people how to ask the right questions to not only ensure a safe and effective experience, but to also give them the experience they’re looking for.
She talks about:
The early days of Michigan’s medical program and the state’s current attempt to essentially combine medical and recreational markets
Cannabis culture and an emerging “I can take more milligrams than you” bravado
Why understanding terpenes and the entourage effect can be game-changing toward finding a preferred strain
The rise of hemp-derived THC products, the regulatory loopholes they exploit, and their potential risks
Why home growers and caregivers are essential to the cannabis ecosystem
He talks about how much the psychedelic space focuses on healing and mental health, but doesn’t talk enough about the overall wellness that can come from a consistent practice: that the more you become aware of your body, emotions, and breath, the more robust your neural pathways will become – and that you can actually change your neurochemistry and build a more energetically powerful system. With these pathways being opened, fewer psychedelic experiences are necessary, and with practice, these mind states can be achieved simply through meditation or breathwork. The idea of surrender and entering a state of receivership is scary, but he believes the most important skill to begin that transformation is to learn how to truly let go.
He also talks about:
What the psychedelic scene is like in Nashville and the south
His work with the Kentucky Opioid Abatement Advisory Commission and what happened with the bill to grant 42 million for ibogaine research
His most powerful 5-MeO-DMT experience and how it reconnected him with the divine
The science and practice of gratitude: how reframing painful experiences can actually rewire the brain
How cold exposure (notably ice baths) can prepare your system for a psychedelic experience
and more!
Happy New Year from all of us at Psychedelics Today. Let’s hope for big psychedelic wins in 2025!
Psychedelics are going mainstream, but society’s views on addiction and recovery models are still behind. Is the recovery community ready for psychedelics?
In this episode, Joe interviews Dan Ronken: licensed professional counselor and addiction counselor with a private practice in Boulder, CO, called Inclusion Recovery, and lead trainer and facilitator for the Integrative Psychiatry Institute (IPI).
He tells his story of going from a sponsored BMX racer to three stints in rehab before the age of 14, and what he’s learned from his experiences in recovery over the years: that there is a wide range of what ‘in recovery’ actually means, that abstinence-only and 12-step models don’t work for many, that connection and community – and consistency in both – are enormous parts of what actually leads to overcoming an addiction, and more. As recovery communities cautiously begin to talk about psychedelics, he highlights the importance of nuance in understanding addiction, the need for open-mindedness toward new therapeutic approaches, and the need for diverse support networks that welcome discussions around psychedelics.
He talks about:
Inducing alcohol cravings before an intramuscular ketamine shot as a way of using neuroplasticity to rewire the brain’s relationship with alcohol
How Bill Wilson, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, benefitted greatly from LSD in the 50s, and how Ronken originally scoffed at such a concept
The growing visibility of psychedelics in popular media, as seen in shows like “Loudermilk” and “Ted Lasso”
The benefits of sober communities coming together for active and healthy activities
What can we learn from the mystical roots of psychedelics? And what can we learn from dreams?
In this episode, Joe interviews Shauheen Etminan, Ph.D.: co-founder of VCENNA, a drug discovery and development company, and Magi Ancestral Supplements, which sells nootropics inspired by ancient Eastern traditions.
He discusses his journey into the world of plant extraction, how he first discovered compounds like Haoma and Harmaline, and why he decided to bring Iranian tradition to the psychedelic renaissance. He explores the similarities between psychedelics and experiences found in mystical traditions, and how that historical context can inform modern psychedelic practice. He sees this exemplified most with dream recollection, attending to the emotions found within dreams, and the concept of wakeful dreaming, where one can access unconscious insights consciously, through the liminal (or hypnagogic) state between dreaming and wakefulness.
He discusses:
Zoroastrianism and how the teachings of Zarathustra on understanding morality have inspired him
Syrian Rue in Iranian culture, and how it compares to the Banisteriopsis Caapi vine: Is it actually stronger than ayahuasca?
Henry Corbin’s practice of embodied imagination and Jung’s concept of active imagination
Other less-discussed compounds he’s interested in, like Ephedra and Saffron
Whether you’re a drug user or not, society as a whole has been hurt tremendously by the War on Drugs. Can we win the battle with education and sensible policy?
In this episode, Joe interviews Kat Murti: executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), the largest nationwide network of students fighting to replace the War on Drugs with policies rooted in evidence, compassion, and human rights.
She talks about how she became interested in drug policy, which not surprisingly aligns with the many problems of The War on Drugs: how it’s a war on people, personal liberty, and our communities; how laws are not effective in enforcing morality; and how getting in trouble with the law often incentivizes more illegal activity. We all know that our current system doesn’t work and that the drug war no longer appeals to most reasonable people, but how can we move towards sensible policy? She discusses previous successes (both at SSDP and before), and some of their current projects, from the work they’re doing with fentanyl strip training and distribution, to education work at festivals and their program, “Just Say Know.”
She talks about:
How drug policy isn’t going to look the same everywhere and shouldn’t: How do we effectively use different models in different places together for the benefit of everyone?
The dangers of forcing drug users through drug courts and treatment centers
The repealing of Oregon’s Measure 110 and how it’s unfair to blame its failure on problems that already existed in the state
Their new focus on how the War on Drugs specifically affects women and reproductive rights, inspired by Louisiana recently scheduling Mifepristone and Misoprostol
In this episode, Joe interviews Howard Kornfeld, MD: renowned pain medicine expert, addiction specialist, early pioneer in psychedelic medicine, and currently the director of recovery medicine at Recovery Without Walls.
As a leader in the utilization of buprenorphine, he talks about how it came about as a treatment for addiction and chronic pain, its similarities to MDMA, and how its fast-tracked FDA approval could give us clues on how to get MDMA approved. He also dives into the history of ketamine, its unique effects compared to other substances, its potential for abuse, and what can happen with overuse. And he talks a lot about the connection he sees between psychedelics and the prevention of nuclear war, inspired by Sasha Shulgin’s opinion that nothing changes minds faster than psychedelics. He points out that when there is darkness, there is light: Albert Hofmann’s famed bicycle trip on acid happened 3 months after the nuclear chain reaction was invented. Can the growing use of psychedelics inspire the kind of change we need to save the world?
He also discusses:
The need for new study designs as we come to terms with the fact that double-blind studies don’t really work with psychedelics
Criticisms of the FDA’s denial of MDMA: Was the process unfair?
His predictions that advocates will begin pushing to decriminalize MDMA at the state level
The books, Tripping on Utopia and Drugged
How he played a part in prisons ending the practice of killing prisoners with cyanide gas
In this episode, Joe interviews Veronica Lightning Horse Perez: therapist, speaker, author, activist, and co-chief proponent for the Natural Medicine Health Act of 2022 (Prop 122); and Sean McAllister: attorney specializing in the regulatory, health care, business, and religious freedom aspects of psychedelic medicines, and one of the drafters of Prop 122.
They dive into the details of Prop 122 and discuss why it’s the most freeing legislation we’ve seen, but also very complicated in the clash between an expensive regulated side and a risky and ambiguous decrim side. While the implementation process continues, they’ve learned that there is still a huge need for public education, and that one of the most important tasks now is to be hyper aware of how legislators will try to change what people already agreed on.
They discuss:
The Federal vs. state legality issues we still see even after such sweeping legislation
The huge gap in understanding why Indigenous communities are upset and why they need to be included in all discussions
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the complications of religion when many of us simply feel spiritual
The natural vs. synthetic fallacy and the future of churches offering a synthetic sacrament
The ontological shock many have after a big experience and why churches and community are needed to help guide people
Most cannabis enthusiasts have experienced the wide range of possible effects, from a subtle happy high to one that floors you. The question must be asked: Is cannabis a psychedelic? And how can we make it more so?
In this episode, Victoria interviews Max Montrose: Founder of the Trichome Institute, a company offering online courses and certifications on cannabis.
Montrose explores the scientific and sensory aspects of cannabis, diving into the role of the aromatic compound, indole, and how the fresher and more aromatic (usually pungent) the flower is, the higher chance for having a more psychedelic experience. He dives into ways to maximize the psychedelic nature of cannabis, largely through “interprening,” which is his method for learning about a plant’s effects from smelling buds, measuring your sense of sensation and where you feel the smell is hitting you. And he talks a lot about intention and how the power of a cannabis experience can be determined by the reverence you have for the plant and the intention you put behind each inhale: It is a “total reflection of how much you care.”
He also discusses:
The range of cannabis effects: how it can be just weed – something mindlessly smoked all day with a slight numbing effect – or an incredibly powerful, life-changing experience
The importance of skillset being added to the concept of set and setting: the skills you have (and can practice) for helping you create your own setting to get through a tough time
Issues with the legal cannabis industry about accuracy of strains, shelf life, and the ability to smell the product
The lack of money in cannabis research: Why is no one funding research into indole chemistry?
Why indica and sativa are not accurate terms, and how aroma is more of a factor than we realize
While the psychedelic industry is facing intense growing pains, the ketamine industry has been allowed to grow, largely unchecked. How did we get here, and how does the ketamine space rebuild trust?
In this episode, Kyle interviews Juan Pablo Cappello: co-founder and former CEO of Nue Life Health, whose assets were subsequently acquired by Beckley Waves.
Cappello discusses the current challenges and controversies facing a ketamine industry that has moved much faster than anyone anticipated, and stresses the need to create industry-wide standards – especially for at-home ketamine – before the government imposes its own standards on us. Citing the Matthew Perry case and other bad behavior from providers, he talks about the risks of overpromising and underdelivering, the lack of integration in the majority of ketamine frameworks, and how profit-driven, subscription model motives have overshadowed patient care and ethical practices.
He also discusses:
The complications from personal perspectives and passions shifting after a psychedelic experience, and how that can change over time
The FDA’s recent rejection of MDMA: What would have happened to MDMA if it had been approved?
Hope for more Native American churches, and what they can learn from the DEA’s denial of Soul Quest
The story of a bump of cocaine ruining the hope for cannabis to be decriminalized under the Carter administration
Our current Wild West of gas station CBD, Delta-8, and barely-regulated vapes
It becomes more apparent every day how much isolation and focusing so much on the individual is hurting us. Can psychedelics – and specifically, group therapy – be the answer to our crisis of individualism?
In this episode, Kyle interviews Geoff Bathje, Ph.D.: licensed psychologist, researcher, former Full Professor, and co-founder of Sana Healing Collective, a Chicago-based non-profit focusing on ketamine-assisted therapy and psychedelic integration.
He talks about what he feels is one of the largest factors in our mental health crisis: the individualistic and neoliberal lens Western culture has placed on mental health and how it neglects the massive systemic and relational factors that are affecting us all. He digs into how we got so alienated and how psychedelics and non-ordinary states of consciousness can not only help us think critically and solve problems, but also move us out of this individualistic framework of healing and more into a collective one. How do we use psychedelics to fix our relationships and find our community?
He discusses:
The challenge of knowing when to work for relationships and when to just end them, especially in the afterglow of a big experience
Group ketamine experience vs. individual, how groups can help facilitators find patterns, and how ketamine works with somatic therapy
His paper, “Psychedelic integration: An analysis of the concept and its practice” and his visual model of integration showing the different domains of our personal experience
What he thinks will happen next in drug development: Will therapy be left out after Lykos’ failure with MDMA?
The importance of moving beyond aggressive criticism and moving into world building
There is a delicate balance between risk and efficacy with any psychedelic intervention, but especially with ibogaine. Just how safe is ibogaine therapy?
In this episode, Joe interviews Thomas Feegel: co-founder of Beond Ibogaine, an ibogaine treatment and research facility in Cancún, Mexico.
When Feegel first heard of ibogaine 16 years ago, he found that people were having great success, but nobody could recommend where to go for treatment. So he worked to create what was needed: a combination of a hospital, mental health treatment facility, retreat center, and resort, with the proper infrastructure in place, employees with ICU experience, exhaustive HIPAA-compliant admission criteria, regular data collection, and a major focus on safety.
Addressing the recent Rolling Stone article about the tragic death of a patient at Beond in 2022 (interestingly, 2 days after his initial dose), he discusses what he feels was inaccurate, largely related to what could be perceived as a suggestion that there wasn’t enough screening or that corners were cut. With no official reason given for the patient’s death, it brings into question just how safe one can be, especially with people whose bodies and hearts have been through so much. How much hidden harm is created by the stress of PTSD and addiction?
He discusses:
The complexity of journalism and drawing conclusions from limited information
The limitations of conventional addiction treatments and the sad numbers around how many people stick with rehab
The importance of collecting as much data as possible about each patient, at regular intervals, prior to, during, and after the experience
The need for a regulating group to create standards around admission and administration procedures for ibogaine
As the mainstreaming of psychedelics continues, ketamine-assisted therapy at work (well, through one’s employer) is no longer a pipe dream. What does the future of employee benefits look like?
In this episode, Joe interviews Jessica Tracy: head of sales & partnerships at Enthea, a company that works with employers, unions, and employee assistance programs to be able to offer ketamine-assisted therapy (and psilocybin where it’s legal) to employees.
She talks about her path to psychedelics and how the shifts in her life led her to want to help others, finding Enthea and using her 15 years of experience in healthcare to make an immediate difference. She explains how the process works for an employee of a company Enthea works with, and the importance of evidence-based medical policy and rigorous screening to make sure people are getting the best intervention possible. One of Enthea’s largest clients is Dr. Bronner’s, who reported incredible improvements after employees used the benefit, with a 65% improvement in depression scores and an 86% improvement in PTSD.
She also discusses:
How psychedelics bring awareness to what we need to work on
Less-discussed treatment modalities, like electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), and stellate ganglion block (SGB)
The inefficiency of traditional talk therapy: 50% of people only see really good benefits after 20 sessions
The importance of viewing mental health as individualized care: What else can we offer to people who haven’t been helped by traditional methods?
The research that she wants to see, like measures in how present or productive people are before and after experiences
Cannabis is not typically regarded as a psychedelic, but scientific evidence tells us it should be.
Abundant anecdotal evidence of cannabis’ therapeutic applications, explored in Part One of this series, makes it hard to deny its potential as a powerful plant medicine, used similarly to psilocybin and MDMA in clinical and ceremonial settings.
But new science around the flavorant indole found in cannabis (and many other entheogens) may have significant implications for reclassifying the plant as, indeed, psychedelic.
It’s not just indole; there’s more psychedelic chemistry at play within cannabis regarding what defines a psychedelic substance. Is indole a missing key to classify cannabis as a psychedelic? Which drug class does cannabis belong to now? Do people hallucinate from cannabis, and are hallucinogens the same as psychedelics? What defines a psychedelic, and how would cannabis scientifically fit into that category?
Cannabis is not traditionally regarded as a psychedelic, although it can be a potent psychedelic when certain variables align. Factors like the individual’s set and setting, tolerance, and cannabis type can determine whether the experience is typical, or, indeed, psychedelic.
There are books, online courses, ceremonial practices, and legitimate research all dedicated to the psychedelic cannabis experience. I’ve had many psychedelic experiences with cannabis that range from subtle effects, to experiences comparable with DMT trips. I’ve also witnessed people experiencing cannabis as if it were ayahuasca. However, these psychedelic-like effects arising from cannabis use are rare, because cannabis in all its varieties (and the people who consume it) are wildly diverse.
However, extreme psychedelic experiences are not necessary to deem cannabis psychedelic. In fact, cannabis has more multifaceted psychedelic chemistry than one might think. Before diving into the chemistry, let’s evaluate how cannabis is classified right now.
The Current Classification of Cannabis
Cannabis is one of the most complex, widely consumed drugs due to its differentiated psychoactive chemistry, and classifying it is complicated. Although a drug class typically defines the type of drug it is, both NIDA and the WHO recently removed their authoritative online resources regarding the drug class cannabis falls within. Others, such as The Discovery Institute and IACP classify cannabis in its own drug class, which makes sense given its diversity.
All at once, cannabis bears depressant and sedative properties, along with stimulating attributes, and psychedelic or hallucinatory potential. Depending on the strain (of which there are thousands) and the tolerance and the unique biochemistry of the individual consuming it, the effects of the plant can vary wildly.
Understanding Psychedelics vs. Hallucinogens. Where Does Cannabis Fit?
To determine if cannabis is a psychedelic, it is essential to understand what a psychedelic is and how it may differ from a purely hallucinogenic experience.
Psychedelics are a class of psychoactive substances that primarily influence the brain by altering perception, mood, and cognitive processes. While they are known for inducing hallucinations, not all hallucinogens are classified as psychedelics. The specific characteristics that define a psychedelic drug include:
Mechanism of Action: Psychedelics primarily exert their effects by acting on serotonin receptors, especially the 5-HT2A receptor. This interaction is crucial for the psychedelic experience. Classic psychedelics such as LSD, psilocybin, and DMT fall into this category.
Subjective Effects or Altered Perceptions: Psychedelics can profoundly alter sensory perception, leading to vivid visual and auditory hallucinations, synesthesia (blending of senses), and intensified colors and patterns.
Cognitive and Emotional Effects: Users often report altered thought processes, enhanced introspection, and a sense of connectedness. There can be profound emotional changes, ranging from euphoria to introspective insight.
Mystical Experiences: Many users describe experiences of unity, transcendence, and a sense of encountering a greater reality or consciousness.
Non-Toxic and Low Addiction Potential: Classic psychedelics are generally non-toxic and do not lead to physical dependence or addiction. While they can cause psychological distress or trigger latent mental health issues in susceptible individuals, their physical safety margin is considered high compared to many other psychoactive substances.
Distinct Pharmacological and Neurobiological Effects: Ego dissolution, where the user’s sense of self is temporarily diminished or dissolved, is a defining characteristic of psychedelics. This is less common with other hallucinogens.
Other natural plant-based hallucinogens that are not psychedelic include dissociatives and deliriants. Substances like Salvia Divinorum, Datura, Brugmansia, and Mandrake produce hallucinations, but primarily, cause a sense of detachment from reality and one’s body rather than the profound sensory and emotional alterations typical of psychedelics. Experiences from these plants are often characterized by confusion, a lack of insight, and a greater risk of dangerous behaviors. They can also be so toxic that they can become lethal, unlike plant-based psychedelics, which are generally non-toxic.
Is Cannabis a Psychedelic or a Hallucinogen?
Simply, cannabis can be both (though it is typically neither). I’ve experienced both minor and major hallucinations from cannabis that were not inherently psychedelic, including hearing and feeling my phone ringing when it’s silent, seeing plants come alive, and movement from inanimate objects. Sounds and colors may be enhanced, and some visual distortions may occur, all of which are forms of hallucinations, but not necessarily psychedelic experiences.
As a researcher, educator, expert witness, and daily cannabis consumer for over 25 years, I’ve concluded that cannabis is also a psychedelic, not just a hallucinogen.
Factors Influencing the Psychedelic Experience of Cannabis
Achieving a true psychedelic state with cannabis depends on both experiential and scientific factors. Key elements include tolerance, the user’s intention, the specific strain of cannabis, its chemical composition, and how we categorize what makes a substance psychedelic. Each of these factors works together to shape the depth and nature of the experience, highlighting the complex interplay between personal mindset, biological response, and the characteristics of the cannabis used.
Tolerance: Cannabis tends to be more intense and psychedelic when you have a low tolerance to it. Many people report experiencing stronger, more hallucinatory effects when they first used cannabis. Taking a tolerance break can help recreate these experiences.
Intention: Structured intention plays a key role in enhancing cannabis’ psychedelic effects. Even with high tolerance, combining cannabis with meditation and ceremony can lead to intense experiences similar to other psychedelics. Mindfulness and a proper set and setting are crucial.
Introducing Indole: The Missing Psychedelic Cannabis Link
Indole is the core structural group of psychedelic tryptamines such as DMT, LSD, and psilocybin-bearing mushrooms, and surprise: it’s commonly found in cannabis, too.
Since indole is found in many cannabis strains, some might speculate whether it contributes to cannabis being psychedelic. Indole itself doesn’t cause psychedelic effects. It’s a foundational structure that forms part of many important compounds. It serves as a core structure for many biologically active compounds, including neurotransmitters like serotonin and several psychedelics.
However, indole serves as a scaffold that, when modified with specific functional groups, can interact with brain receptors to produce psychedelic effects. This is important because these receptors are linked to mood, perception, and classic psychedelic experiences.
This is where the complex chemistry of cannabis plays a role in defining what, indeed, constitutes a substance as psychedelic.
Indole is found in many naturally occurring psychedelics, such as 5-MeO-DMT and 5-HO-DMT, present in various plants and toad venoms. Ibogaine, which contains indole, is found in the root bark of the African plant Tabernanthe iboga. The psychedelic compounds harmine and harmaline, also containing indole, are found in the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, known as ayahuasca. With four psychedelic compounds containing indole within the brew of ayahuasca, it is evident that ayahuasca deserves to be listed among psychedelic indole-containing substances. Humans (including you) produce N,N-DMT, cannabinoids, and indole simultaneously.
Previous research has focused on indole, primarily, as an aromatic compound. However, further research is needed to fully understand the importance of indole beyond the aroma of cannabis alone.
“Indole is interesting for reasons far beyond the aroma. The indole structure is the core structure of many biologically important compounds within plants, humans, and animals alike. It is the key component of both tryptophan and melatonin, two important compounds found in the human body. It is also the main structural group of psychedelic tryptamines such as psilocybin, DMT, and LSD,” reports Abstrax Tech.
Research suggests the psychotropic potential of indoles is significant. Although phenethylamines primarily exert their effects through the activation of 5-HT2A receptors, indoleamines can have a significant behavioral component mediated by activation of similar 5-HT1A receptors.
While indole itself is not responsible for directly inducing psychedelic effects, its presence as a core chemical structure in both cannabis and traditional psychedelics hints at the deeper biochemical connections between these substances. The indole structure serves as a foundation for compounds that can influence serotonin receptors and other pathways linked to altered states of consciousness. As we continue to unravel the complex chemistry of cannabis, it’s possible that the full psychedelic potential of indole-containing compounds within the plant may reveal itself, bridging the gap between cannabis and classical psychedelics in ways we are only beginning to understand.
Where Does THC Fit In?
Recent studies suggest that THC, a non-selective cannabinoid receptor agonist, can upregulate 5-HT2A receptors, similar to classic psychedelics. High doses of THC, like those in concentrates like shatter or diamonds, can produce LSD-like effects, including hallucinations. Dr. Ethan Russo supports the idea that THC is hallucinogenic, while CBD counters these effects.
Where Does CBD Fit In?
CBD, unlike THC, binds to the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, which mediates psychedelic experiences like those from LSD or mescaline. Though THC does not bind directly to 5-HT2A, it activates CB1 receptors, which form complexes with 5-HT2A. This interplay may contribute to cannabis’s psychedelic effects.
Changing the Narrative Through Scientific Evidence
Cannabis is not currently regarded as a psychedelic in the mainstream or scientific sense – at least not yet. With substantial scientific and anecdotal evidence already present and more emerging, it wouldn’t be surprising to see cannabis officially classified as a psychedelic.
Barbra Bauer from Psychedelic Science Review states, “Although the psychedelic experience can be highly variable, cannabis and psychedelics, in general, have many effects in common. It’s important to remember that both cannabis and naturally occurring psychedelics like psilocybin mushrooms contain a cocktail of compounds, many of which have not been characterized.”
Natural psychedelics like ayahuasca, mescaline cacti, ibogaine, and magic mushrooms contain multiple compounds working together to produce dynamic effects. Similarly, cannabinoids and terpenes in cannabis interact with serotonin receptors, suggesting it has the potential to be classified as a psychedelic. With the right strain selection and a focused intention, cannabis can create profound sensory, cognitive, and emotional changes, making it potentially indistinguishable from a classic psychedelic experience.
Though Western science may not fully recognize humans as inherently psychedelic, practices like meditation and yoga often result in vivid, altered states without substances. Whether you agree or not, cannabis’s chemical profile and the psychedelic experiences it can induce hint that it may be more psychedelic than previously thought – and perhaps, so are we.
Researching the true history of substances deemed illegal can lead to surprising results. In the case of LSD, does its history include a connection between Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the roots of MKUltra?
In this episode, Joe interviews award-winning novelist and screenwriter, Norman Ohler.
Following in the footsteps of Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich, his newest book, Tripped: Nazi Germany, the CIA, and the Dawn of the Psychedelic Age, tells the story of how the Nazi’s passion for methamphetamine turned into a curiosity about LSD, and how their experiments with trying to harness LSD as a truth drug eventually led to the CIA continuing their research under their MKUltra program. The book came about from trying to understand why LSD never became medicine – a question posed by his father, when discussing how LSD could help with his wife’s progressing Alzheimer’s symptoms.
He discusses:
His path to becoming a “gonzo historian” and how his early psychedelic research was inspired by a friend’s discovery of methamphetamine tablets from the 40s
Henry Beecher’s LSD experiments with students at Harvard, and how researchers often didn’t know they were contributing to MKUltra
His recent appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience and Jesse Watters Primetime
His mother’s experience with microdosing LSD and why police showed up at his father’s door with a warrant
Why he believes psychedelics will be legalized in the U.S. in the next 10 years
In the communities of the Shipibo people in the Peruvian Amazon, there are healers known as onayas and witches known as yubés. During ayahuasca ceremonies, onayas will attempt to alleviate the suffering of participants who have been cursed by yubés, through cleansing rituals and songs. In doing so, the onayas risk their lives, according to Alonso del Rio, the founder of retreat center Ayahuasca Ayllu.
An energetic battle between the onaya and the yubé soon ensues, he says. The onaya may not sleep for an entire week, under constant attack from the yubé in another plane of consciousness.
“There have been many high-level healers who have died from confrontations with these so-called witches,” del Rio claims, saying that such skirmishes take place in the metaphysical realms between most Amazonian communities. This possibility was previously noted in the 1998 book, The Cosmic Serpent, among other texts.
Del Rio – who was born in the Peruvian capital Lima and studied for 13 years in the Shipibo tradition to become a psychedelic facilitator – accepts that this is a controversial topic, which is unlikely to be taken seriously by many educated people. But he says that a serious, lengthy illness and the destruction of his house some years ago is evidence of this sinister reality. Only when del Rio began to understand the nature of a curse placed upon him in 2005 by a disgruntled sorcerer, was he able to learn how to cure himself and prevent his likely demise.
The Risk and Responsibility of Preserving Ancestral Psychedelic Knowledge
As part of this ongoing quest, del Rio – a self-described “consciousness activist” who holds ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru and across the world, where it is permitted – has collaborated with Psychedelics Today to develop a course titled “Ancestral Teachings for the Psychedelic Renaissance” to help psychonauts and practitioners deepen their understanding of the nebulous nature of shamanism. He refers to ayahuasca, peyote, huachuma and other plant-based psychedelics as “power plants.”
“Because power is something neutral,” del Rio says. “It depends on who uses it and what for.” The consumption of plants like ayahuasca, or lab-based psychedelics like LSD, he adds, does not automatically improve people. Contrary to the belief held by many who work in the field, he believes they should not be called “medicine,” because psychedelics are not inherently medicinal.
The course illustrates how complex and testing a life dedicated to sharing psychedelic plants ceremonially is.
“I believe that the deeper one goes into this path, the more you realize how infinite it is, and the care and responsibility you have to take to preserve your life and the lives of the people attending a ceremony,” he says.
Beyond Science: How Ancestral Psychedelic Knowledge Offers a Deeper Understanding of Healing
Del Rio – who studied under a Shipibo onaya named Benito Arevalo who encouraged him to share the teachings more widely – feels the best path to responsible administration of power plants is achieved by undergoing a comprehensive apprenticeship with an elder.
“I believe that there are many people who put many people at risk because of their poor training,” he says. “This is not something you really learn, not even in ten years, [but] it is a lifelong path in which we are being formed and each time we understand more how to serve better.”
Stripping psychedelic medicine of its 10,000-year-old Indigenous history and framework of use in order to make it fit within a Western allopathic healthcare system is short-sighted, he contends. It seems that being dispensed psilocybin in a medical setting in the U.S. could be safer than risking being cursed by a yubé in Peru during an ayahuasca ceremony, but del Rio says that the psychedelics cannot only be understood within a scientific paradigm.
“The same amount of substance will work differently for different people,” he maintains. “The substances are not actually what heals, within our tradition, the energy of the healer contributes as much as the substance itself.”
Integration of Ancestral Psychedelic Knowledge into Modern Psychedelic Practices
Little by little, there is an increasing appreciation that Western medicine can learn from the ancient history of psychedelics. In September, an article published by the BBC reported on how it is essential for Western society to develop an understanding of how Indigenous communities have “very different belief systems for interacting with and interpreting the world around them.”
The bulk of clinical psychedelic research thus far has been focused on the individual, as opposed to the group. Any possible interaction with the natural or spirit worlds is completely overlooked. Del Rio urges modern-day researchers to integrate traditional knowledge, “so we don’t repeat mistake after mistake, which, above all, would put many people at risk.”
The Role of Nature and Community in Preserving the Ancestral
Indigenous peoples in the Americas “have maps, guides, a deep familiarity with altered states of consciousness,” Jules Evans, a psychedelics researcher at Queen Mary University of London, who directs the non-profit Challenging Psychedelic Experiences, told the BBC. “Secular people, on the whole, do not. As a result, people can be bewildered by the experience and confused as to how to integrate it into a materialistic worldview. This existential confusion can last months or years, and the person who comes out on the other side may be very different to the person before.”
Central to the process of integration of ancestral psychedelic knowledge is a sense of community, but participants in psychedelic retreats can be left wanting when they return to the urban silos and experience isolation even after transcendent, healing experiences. Even more important is a connection with nature, according to Francisco Rivarola, who worked with del Rio to produce the course.
“The daughter of a Shipibo chief told me that she believes … that what is really sickening society is the disconnection that they have from nature and the source of the divine,” he says.
“The psychedelic [experience] is a portal through which maybe, if you’re lucky and you do this the right way, you can touch upon that connection.”
A failure to make secure that enduring connection – in tandem with the sense of community experienced within ceremony – explains why many people persist in regularly taking high doses of psychedelics in group rituals without reporting long-term improvements in their health, Rivarola adds.
“Working with sacred plants within a ceremonial space allows you to understand something that the West does not understand,” says del Rio, “which is the intelligence of plants and how they can act selectively.”
The folly of Western science – and the psychedelics researchers who do not investigate plants and drugs outside of a “reductionist scientific paradigm that only sees matter without its interaction with other energy levels” – will soon become clear, he claims. “In ten or twenty years we will laugh at this model.”
Are you eager to increase your ancestral knowledge? In Ancestral Teachings for the Psychedelic Renaissance, you’ll experience an introduction to the depth of training that a traditional Peruvian curandero goes through and a roadmap for the life-long practices that anyone relating to psychedelic medicine and practices can benefit from. Over 20 hours of recorded classes, three live group calls,and two complimentary e-books are included. Secure your space today – seats are limited!
With so much attention being placed on the psychedelic experience itself, too many people are getting stuck in patterns of chasing the experience without making space for integration.
She talks about her early days of rave culture and MDMA, to exploring other substances, to where she is today: finding joy in the simple things in life, embracing recreational psychedelics, and continuously working on herself while understanding that psychedelic experiences are not the be-all, end-all medicine, and that taking space to integrate learned lessons is where the true potential lies. She recognizes that many of us set out to heal trauma or work on something specific, but often get caught in a “healing trap,” where a victim energy ends up holding us back – and keeps us coming back. When is the healing done? When do these experiences become a habit or escape? What are we not integrating?
She discusses:
The “7 levels of energy” framework she uses with clients
How she works with clients who return to unhealthy patterns after a big experience
The judgment of the psychedelic space, both for people who stop using psychedelics and for people who return to the well perhaps too often
Her relationship with her mother and how her mother’s cancer treatment inspired her to create Kanna Wellness
How much of a factor acceptance is in finding joy in the mundane
and more!
Serving Canada (for now), Kannawellness.com just launched, and features kanna extract eight times more potent than what is on the market today. If you’re curious, use code PT10 at checkout for 10% off your order!
Despite the dose, the substance, or a carefully tuned set and setting, seemingly, psychedelics don’t always work for everyone. This frustrating phenomenon known as the “nada effect” sometimes shows up, and leaves individuals without the psychedelic trip they expected.
But why does this happen? Could the ego be the key to understanding this no-high zone, or are biological factors, medications, or deeper psychological and spiritual reasons to blame?
When Psychedelics Don’t Always Work: A Historical Account
When Richard Alpert, the former Harvard psychologist who later took the name Ram Dass, met his spiritual guru Maharajji in 1967 he was asked if he had “any of that yogi medicine.” Meaning, of course, LSD.
Alpert duly handed over a 300-milligram capsule of LSD, already a considerable dose, but Maharajji asked for two more pills.
“I was thinking this is going to be pretty interesting, and nothing happens at all,” Ram Dass later recounted. “I was impressed.”
Three years later in India, Maharajji requested an even larger dose of 1,200 milligrams.
“At one point he went under his blanket and then he came back down looking absolutely mad, and I thought ‘What have I done to this poor old man?’ He doesn’t understand the power of our medicine, and he probably did throw it over his shoulder last time.”
Once Ram Dass was “totally paranoid” and regretting giving such a potent dose of LSD to a man who had no experience with psychedelics, Maharajji “laughed in glee” and demonstrated that he had, in fact, not been tripping. The ultimate purpose of the exercise, it seemed, was to show Ram Dass the relative impermeability of the spiritually enlightened – so long as the mind is firmly fixed on God – to psychedelic substances.
‘The Psychedelic Space is Filled With Some of the Biggest Egos’
Today, scientists give the notion that psychedelics don’t work for the “enlightened” little regard, even despite contemporary tales of master meditators experiencing little effect from large doses.
“For a field that is all about ego dissolution, the psychedelic space is filled with some of the biggest egos that say the most outlandish stuff,” says Zeus Tipado, a neuroscientist and PhD candidate at the University of Maastricht. “A person claiming they can’t trip because they’re ‘more spiritually evolved’ is the highest of ego trips. They’re fabricating a level of superiority that is unnecessary and unscientific.”
Naturally, as the use of psychedelics increases and mainstream culture adopts some trippy elements, some may claim to be more spiritually evolved and psychedelically experienced than others.
“This creates a division – ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ thinking – and that thinking doesn’t really do much for humanity except create separation,” Tipado adds.
(Unsurprisingly) Studies Show People Have Stronger Experiences at Higher Doses
Although Maharajji took a huge dose of LSD, explanations for some who claim to have no discernible visionary or felt experience – the so-called “nada effect” could be related to the amount of substance taken.
Manoj Doss, PhD, a cognitive neuropsychopharmacologist at the University of Texas in Austin, largely rejects the idea that those who may have spiritually transcended are less likely to experience intense trips, but he acknowledges that people – monks, for instance – who are not caught up with the “chaos” of the mind and worrying about what they have to do the next day may find the psychedelic experience more tolerable.
“Some people definitely don’t get effects,” he says. “Some people don’t get visuals, but they get the weird mind space. Some people get visuals and less of the weird mind space. I do imagine if they cranked up the dose, then they would probably start to go into some weird places in their head.”
Why Psychedelics Don’t Work for Everyone: Prior Beliefs, Aphantasia, or Medication History
According to psychopharmacologist Robin Carhart-Harris’ relaxed beliefs under psychedelics (REBUS) theory, the relaxation of top-down expectations encoded within the default mode network of the brain is crucial.
Whether one’s top-down expectations relax or not “may be the defining characteristic of psychedelic brain dynamics and subjective experience,” reports neuroscientist Marco Aqil.
This process allows an increased flow of bottom-up information which is “unsuppressed” by existing beliefs.
Others are more prone to “absorption” than their peers.
“Maybe the only personality trait that is reliably known to be related to the intensity of the experience is absorption,” says Dr. Leor Roseman, a psychedelic researcher at Exeter University.
Some people get more absorbed easily in their external or internal worlds, he explains. For instance, some are more absorbed in the experience of watching a sunset than their peers.
“People who are higher on the absorption scale are also more sensitive to psychedelics,” adds Roseman. “People who are low on absorption need higher doses.”
Tipado, meanwhile, offers an alternative possible explanation that the condition aphantasia, which makes it impossible for people to visually imagine things, may impinge on the ability of people to have psychedelic visions.
“We don’t necessarily know why aphantasia happens and some people with this condition also have an inability to imagine hearing something – so it may be a wider sensory condition,” Tipado says. “Varying spectrums of aphantasia could explain why some people don’t have a perceptual trip when they do psychedelics.”
Those who do not experience intense effects may effectively have less serotonin 2-A receptors available for the psychedelic to upregulate, Doss adds. This could be down to having recently taken antipsychotic medication, though one paper proposes that genetics could be the reason. Early research and anecdotal reports also suggest that people who have taken antidepressants for some time are more likely to report reduced effects, because the drug is effectively using some of the serotonin receptors for its own purposes.
“I’ve heard of retreats in Jamaica and Mexico where they won’t wean people off SSRIs but start them at a regular dose but then double the dose if it doesn’t do anything,” Doss says. Other facilitators might then offer a cannabis joint to activate the effects of psilocybin, for instance.
‘For Some People, it’s Just So Hard to Trust’
But Dr. Rosalind Watts, the former clinical lead for Imperial College London’s psilocybin for depression trial, says that it would be wiser to guide people who have experienced serious traumas and exhibit signs of interpersonal distancing – characteristics, she says, of people who do not “break through” during psychedelic trials – through breathwork sessions and smaller doses over weeks prior to a bigger dose to build trust and safety.
“For some people, it is just so, so hard to trust,” Watts told the Adventures Through the Mind podcast. “There is this holding on, because it just doesn’t feel safe… [and they] would probably need a lot more support in order to let go.”
When somebody’s system is overwhelmed with a feeling of unsafety, there can be “a shutting down,” she adds. “On a neurobiological level I’m sure there are processes that kick in that might put the brakes on, if something feels so dangerous to the organism, then the organism shuts down.”
During the podcast, Watts responded to how psychiatrist Stan Grof spoke of how some hyper-vigilant patients exhibit a compulsive holding in the psyche that only a dose of 1,500 milligrams of LSD could penetrate, after which a regular dose of the psychedelic would have a felt an effect.
Those more interested in shamanistic explanations than clinical definitions may simply say, the person receives what they are ready for when it is the right time.
“There is a homeostatic balancing system and if your system doesn’t need a big jolt then you’re not going to get a big jolt,” says Watts. “My sense would be that dose would certainly come into it. And that for these people, if we’d have given them a much larger dose, then maybe there would have been this breakthrough and they wouldn’t have been able to hold on.”
It is not uncommon for at least one person in a group of people taking ayahuasca in a ceremony to report having experienced very little, or nothing, she adds.
“It would be very interesting to interview all those people and try and work out if there was some – maybe unconscious – sense of unsafety, in the environment because of how they were feeling that day, or just not feeling safe enough to let go.”
Roseman says that participants in certain ayahuasca ceremonies may justifiably not feel safe enough to have a transcendent experience
“There’s a lot of research about how trust predicts spiritual experiences, breakthroughs and positive therapeutic experiences,” he says. “Some people do not trust easily, but it can be that the facilitators are genuinely untrustworthy. Not all resistance is a bad thing.”
So, why did Maharajji not breakthrough with 1,200 milligrams of LSD?
“I don’t know, I don’t believe that so much,” says Roseman. “I don’t buy it.”
While the concept is often unfairly reduced to replacing one drug with another, many people struggling with addictions are proving that there’s a positive link between the use of psychedelics and addiction recovery. Can microdosing be a factor?
As a recovering addict, Nova discusses how working with psychedelics helped her find her way to recovery, and how she’s spreading that knowledge to others through her Psychedelic Recovery program, which focuses more on ‘targeted abstinence,’ instead of the total abstinence model of Psychedelics In Recovery (which works alongside AA’s 12-step program). She believes that it’s extremely important to reframe addiction as a life process or temporary state of consciousness (rather than a life sentence you can’t escape), and that beating addiction is not about constantly being afraid of a relapse, but about evolving to a state of empowerment: that you can overcome it, and that actually, a horrific addiction may have saved you and brought you to where you’re supposed to be.
She discusses:
The complications of Western medicine and the impact of conflicting medications that are nearly impossible to stop taking
How self-regulation of tough emotions with outside stimuli (be it drugs, pornography, or even video games) trains people to rely on external forces rather than themselves
How addicts end up programing themselves with ‘addict consciousness,’ and the power of changing one’s mind state to view suffering as the fuel for a new purpose
How, over time, we will likely start viewing microdosing as a regular dose, and the large doses we’re used to will be seen as overdosing
and more!
She has co-created Microdosing Facilitator Training with Adam Bramlage of Flow State Micro: a first-of-its-kind 4-month program teaching clinicians, facilitators, and coaches about microdosing and how to safely guide others through the practice. The next cohort launches in January 2025.
As many mushroom enthusiasts will attest: the more you learn about the fungal kingdom, the more you see how important mushrooms are to every ecosystem they’re a part of – and how life-changing a relationship with them can be.
In this episode, Joe interviews Jasper Degenaars: mycologist, educator, and the Hyphae Headmaster at Fungi Academy, offering retreats, communal living, and online courses to teach people how to grow mushrooms and form a deeper connection with them.
Degenaars tells of his path to Guatemala and the Fungi Academy, from foraging to cultivation, to the impact psychedelic experiences have had on his life. He believes that mushrooms show up where people like to live; that they are integral to ecosystems, and that they are the masters of death and life – and of ego death and rebirth. The Fungi Academy has several several in-person events for which they just opened up registration, self-paced courses you can enroll in now, and their next Sacred Mycology Summit takes place Feb. 23 – 25, 2025.
He discusses:
The importance in studying the entire organism rather than just specific compounds
The stoned ape theory and possible new evidence
Why he prefers the term ‘magic mushrooms’ to the reductionist way of only talking about psilocybin
The clash between clinical Western approaches and Indigenous tradition
The Iron law of prohibition and how MDMA has gotten stronger and stronger
His desire to move more into permaculture, including courses teaching it alongside the fundamentals of psychedelics: How can they work in tandem?
MAPS/Lykos’ MDMA trials for PTSD delivered overwhelmingly positive results. I thought that mattered until I sat through a nine-hour deliberation among the FDA’s Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee on June 4, including two hours of public comments that skewed anti-Lykos.
After a long day of groupthink, the panel advised the FDA that MDMA therapy was neither safe nor effective for patients with PTSD. And while their vote is nonbinding, their opinion significantly impacts the FDA’s final decision on Lykos’ new drug application.
So, how did the committee come to be? Were they up to the task of reviewing this historical application? And were their votes intellectually honest, given the failing mental healthcare system in the United States?
Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee: Who Are They?
The Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) consists of experts who provide independent advice to the FDA on the safety and efficacy of investigational drug products for psychiatric disorders. It consists of nine core voting members, including psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists, consumer representatives, patient representatives, and one non-voting member, typically an industry representative.
Anyone can nominate themselves or others to PDAC. However, the FDA ultimately identifies and appoints candidates based on what they perceive as relevant expertise. Members serve one to four-year terms and attend several drug review hearings throughout the year.
The FDA also invites temporary voting members to certain meetings, bringing specialized expertise to address knowledge gaps in the core group. For the MDMA review, the FDA appointed six temporary members. But curiously, not one of them had specialized knowledge of psychedelic research or medicine.
Only one permanent PDAC voting member, Dr. Walter Dunn, holds a relevant background in psychedelic research. Dr. Dunn was also the only person to dissent from popular opinion, voting yes on both final questions:
Do the available data show that the drug is effective in patients with posttraumatic stress disorder?
Do the benefits of midomafetamine (MDMA) with FDA’s proposed risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) outweigh its risks for the treatment of patients with PTSD?
I don’t think the FDA purposely stacked the group against Lykos. But the committee’s lack of psychedelic expertise was grossly negligent, given the FDA’s goal of selecting experienced field experts. This novice lineup set the stage for a lopsided debate dominated by well-meaning status quo advocates who weren’t ready to unleash a transformative medicine they didn’t understand.
Kim O. Witczak, PDAC consumer representative, put it this way:
“Once you let the genie out of the bottle, you can’t put it back in.”
The Unprecedented Nature of the MDMA Review
To be fair, the committee faced an incredibly challenging task of reviewing the FDA’s first-ever new drug application (NDA) for a psychedelic compound.
Members received a data packet with MAPS clinical trials findings and the FDA’s concerns prior to the meeting. They may have also reviewed the critical ICER report and citizen petition that prompted the hearing. Together, these documents feasibly served as their first foray into psychedelic medicine before casting incredibly consequential votes affecting 13 million Americans with PTSD.
Additionally, it was the first NDA that merged a medicine, MDMA, with psychotherapy. The FDA does not regulate psychotherapy, so the committee had never seen such a proposal before. Until the MAPS MDMA trials for PTSD, they had only ever reviewed standalone prescription drugs.
This dual application caused distress and confusion as panelists struggled to reconcile their mandate with their desire to oversee the therapeutic aspect outside their jurisdiction. Admittedly, they were out of their wheelhouse, operating under a framework that didn’t adequately address the task at hand.
“Maybe it’s time to say we have to look at the current way that we’ve always approved and reviewed drugs differently,” Witczak said.
Resistance to the Therapeutic Component
With confusion looming, Lykos’ patient-directed therapy model was central to the panel’s skepticism throughout the hearing. They consistently questioned its validity and whether psychotherapy was even necessary alongside MDMA to alleviate PTSD.
In my discussion with Witczak, she reiterated the concerns that Lykos’ protocol wasn’t tested against “recognized therapies” or no therapy at all, leading to doubts about its credibility.
She’s right that Lykos didn’t compare its MDMA-AT model to status quo approaches, like Prolonged Exposure. They also didn’t study an MDMA-only group.
In hindsight, they should have, given the panel’s doubt about alternative therapies amplified by public accusations that Lykos is a therapy cult imposing spirituality onto patients. But hindsight won’t help now. At the time of the trial, the FDA had approved the inner healer method. Also, though Lykos didn’t explicitly test mainstream therapies, scientific data give us a clear picture of their effectiveness, according to Dr. Scott Shannon, Principal Investigator in MAPS Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials. Spoiler alert: mainstream therapies are not performing great.
According to Dr. Shannon, about 50% of people in PTSD psychotherapy trials drop out immediately, and of the 50% that pursue it, only half get better.
“Our medications are even worse,” he said, adding that PTSD medicine hasn’t had a significant innovation in the last 23 years, and up to 17 veterans are taking their lives daily as a result.
Still, PDAC insisted that Lykos’ therapy was a significant X factor that might not be effective or safe.
Therapeutic Safety
A confirmed case of therapist misconduct within MAPS clinical trials exacerbated the panelists’ pushback. The case involved Meaghan Buisson, a participant in the phase-two trial, who filed a lawsuit against two MAPS therapists, Richard Yensen and Donna Dryer, alleging sexual assault and professional negligence. Buisson’s claims included video evidence showing the therapists physically restraining and spooning her during a session. Buisson moved near the therapists after the trial, where she alleges the abuse continued.
I’m not here to defend the therapists’ actions. I watched the MDMA session clip and was not ok with what I saw. I’m also uninterested in conjecture about what occurred between Buisson and Yensen after the clinical trial ended. No matter the details, this situation is a stain on the program, and the public needs to know about it so we can hold people accountable and prevent future harm.
At the same time, this inexcusable case does not erase MDMA-AT’s profound impact. For instance, Lykos’ second Phase III trial found that 71.2% of the MDMA cohort no longer held a diagnosis, compared to 47.6% in the placebo group. Additionally, its MDMA trials for PTSD had some of the lowest dropout rates in history.
We need to be able to hold two truths at once.
1. Psychotherapist misconduct is unacceptable. We must continue raising ethical standards, recording therapy sessions, and holding offenders accountable for their actions.
2. At the same time, about 7% of conventional male therapists admit to having sex with at least one patient, and no one is suggesting we ban talk therapy as a result. Lykos’ misconduct case represents a lower risk profile than the status quo, and people with PTSD deserve a treatment that works.
And not to beat a dead horse, but Dr. Shannon reminded me that the FDA has no mandate or interest in regulating psychotherapy. State licensing boards, professional associations, and the legal system assume that role.
Ultimately, the panel and public debated an issue that the FDA likely won’t factor into their final decision.
Broader Issues of Mistrust in the MAPS Clinical Trial
The FDA cares about drug safety and efficacy data. But the panel’s broad dialogue extended well beyond the numbers into downright mistrust.
“I was surprised because usually [a drug] is approved more quickly, or [the panel] doesn’t raise many concerns. But this meeting had much more discussion,“ said Witczak, who added that it was “good conversation.”
Another committee member said, “It felt strange to vote no when the p-value started with three zeros.”
A low p-value, typically below 0.05, suggests that the results did not occur by random chance. So, a P < 0.0001 value – which was present in the MAPS clinical trial – is extraordinarily statistically significant.
Members cited functional unblinding (inadvertent awareness of group assignments) and expectation bias (preconceived notions about MDMA) as reasons why they didn’t believe the results. Additionally, they floated rumors from the citizen petition that the trial’s principal investigators and therapists engaged in data manipulation.
I’ll be honest. I wondered whether their points held weight, given the fact that most people in the MDMA group knew they were on MDMA.
Dr. Shannon explained that despite functional unblinding, the trial exhibited a significant effect size of 0.9. Effect size quantifies the magnitude of the treatment’s impact compared to placebo. Moderate effect sizes range from 0.4 to 0.6, according to Dr. Shannon, who explained that the best we for current SSRIs is a dismal 0.23.
“Even if our (MDMA-AT) effect size only turned out to be half of what we measured, it’s still much better than [the current treatments],” said Dr. Shannon.
But what about the potential fraud in MDMA trials for PTSD?
“I know several sites, and I know they did nothing untoward, nothing malicious, nothing underhanded. We knew we had to perform at the highest level of ethical and scientific investigation, and that’s what we did.”
Dr. Shannon added that FDA investigators were at his site for a week and had visited most sites throughout the clinical trial.
“We have been scrutinized to a high degree and stand by our data.”
Dr. Shannon could be wrong about the integrity of other actors in the trial. Some shenanigans may have occurred, and if they did, we need to question every single outcome.
However, such accusations are grave and rely on the FDA to investigate and determine their validity. The advisory panel meeting was not the format to litigate, yet the panel members clearly factored these stories into their votes.
Trying to Keep the Genie in the Bottle
MDMA-assisted therapy will revolutionize mental health treatment and society as we know it. I see that as broadly beneficial and necessary. But what do I know? I’m just one anecdote.
The data matter more than my opinion or that of any naysayer. But almost no committee member could speak to it with authority or provide any context on decades of historical MDMA therapy use. Without such a person, I witnessed the panel circle the drain in unison until they concluded they weren’t ready to let the genie out of the bottle.
I believe most members voted no out of genuine concern, like Watzeck, who said she entered the meeting with hope and optimism before the pervasive criticism impacted her vote. But others may have arrived with a pre-packaged vote.
“I would say some probably had biases. They may never agree to [MDMA therapy],” said Watzeck.
And that right there encapsulates why a committee hearing stacked with psychedelic novices could not come to an intellectually honest decision despite what may have been an utterly genuine effort.
Why the Political and Social Reality Might Supercede the Rejection
Fortunately, the FDA’s decision is not made in a vacuum.
Witczak thinks the FDA may still approve MDMA-AT despite the panel’s concerns because of pressure from veterans groups and Congress to deliver effective PTSD therapies.
Dr. Shannon also thinks that the FDA will consider MDMA because of the dire need for innovation in mental health treatment. He believes the FDA will likely impose safety restrictions, like a limited rollout, enhanced data collection, and a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) program. Still, he thinks the organization will ultimately say yes.
The FDA decision whether to approve or deny MDMA therapy is expected to be announced by Aug. 11.
“We’re in a paradigm shift from either a psychotherapy or a pharmacology model, which have grave limitations, into a new model that combines them both,” Dr. Shannon said.
I’d like to agree, but I suspect the FDA is filled with well-meaning experts who fear unleashing the unknown.
In this episode of Vital Psychedelic Conversations, Johanna interviews Monica Nieto: Vital graduate, psychedelic facilitator and integration coach, and founder of Holistic TherapeutiX, a retreat center offering cannabis and breathwork retreats; and Jordana Ma: past Vital instructor and psychological counselor who runs retreats in Peru following the Asháninkan tradition of traditional Amazonian medicine.
They discuss their similar paths to psychedelics and healing, the power of plant dietas and fully immersing yourself into nature, and learning to hear your true teacher: the inner healer. They highlight how we’ve lost the connection to the ecological consciousness within our bodies, and how the plants – perhaps in a self-serving way – have become allies, trying to teach us to heal the web we’re a part of and reconnect to nature and ourselves.
They discuss:
The importance of combining traditional perspectives and Western psychotherapy into a spiritual practice
The similarities between yoga and traditional Amazonian medicine
Singing as a somatic (and breathwork) practice
How things are meant to work in synergy, and the problem with science trying to extract compounds rather than respecting the power of the whole plant
Their role models who have inspired them and informed their work
In this episode, Joe interviews Jon Reiss: critically acclaimed filmmaker, author, and host of the Plantscendence podcast, which tells people’s psychedelic stories and is beginning its second season soon.
He talks about his early days of directing Nine Inch Nails and Type O Negative videos, and how Plantscendence was born after he realized that the conversations he was having with people about their most transformative experiences were perfect for a podcast. He discusses his first psychedelic experience with ayahuasca, how microdosing is helping him today, and his realization that people can get to these big experiences in many different ways.
He discusses:
The two episodes of Plantscendence that stand out the most to him
Using the term, ‘plant medicine’
His 30 years of meditation practice and how it likely helped him to integrate his first psychedelic experiences
The concept of plant intelligence and how plants can stop you from being a “consciousness tourist”
Kabbalah, Kashmir Shaivism, non-duality, and his Shaktipat experience
In this episode, Kyle interviews Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.: developer of Somatic Experiencing®, educator, and author of several best-selling books on trauma.
His most recent book, An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey, is exactly that: a change from more scholarly writing into an extremely vulnerable telling of his early childhood trauma and how he has healed over the years. He talks about how his unconscious convinced him to write the book, how trauma can move into the body, and how he needed a student to identify how his trauma was affecting him. He believes that we all have wounding, but it’s how we carry these wounds and tell our truth that matters.
He discusses:
The need to allow space for both Indigenous traditions and evidence-based Western frameworks
The power of having even just one distinct moment of feeling cared for and loved
How Colin Turnbull saw healing differently after living with an African tribe for three years
Why he suggests 15-20 sober experiences with non-ordinary states for each drug experience
Why not having a community or empathetic other makes us more vulnerable to trauma
Microdosing. By now the practice has fully emerged from the underground and into the mainstream. No longer the domain of self-healing psychonauts and efficiency-chasing CEOs, the benefits of microdosing can be found in major magazines and clinical trials with Ivy-league universities.
The concept is relatively simple: taking very small, sub-perceptual doses of psychedelics (generally one-tenth to one-twentieth of a recreational or therapeutic dose). This practice has been reported to provide some of the benefits of psychedelic substances without strong sensory effects and, sometimes, help with the difficult work involved in full psychedelic-assisted therapy sessions.
As we move towards possible approval of psychedelic medicines by the FDA, and with decriminalization measures making progress in jurisdictions across the globe, how will microdosing fit into this future of psychedelic-assisted therapy? What benefits does it provide to therapists, practitioners, and the clients they serve?
Microdosing as a Tool For Practitioners and Clients
Despite an overwhelming number of positive personal stories and self-reported research, the hard science is still out as to the level of tangible benefits patients might gain from microdosing psychedelics. However, this combination of enthusiastic anecdotal reports and (slowly) mounting clinical research makes microdosing an intriguing tool for people looking to better their mental health and the practitioners who help them do it.
We spoke with Kayse Gehret, microdosing expert and founder of Microdosing for Healing, for her perspective on how microdosing can improve therapeutic results for both patients and practitioners.
Microdosing is the ideal way to introduce most individuals to psychedelic practice and therapy.
“Its relative subtlety is an advantage as it provides people a gentler introductory experience and begins to allow some challenging or unfamiliar emotions to surface incrementally versus all at once,” Gehret said. “My colleagues and I are seeing an increasing number of clients coming to us after returning from a high dose ceremonial retreat feeling destabilized. While psychedelics can bring us big truths, we must also recognize that much of the public is not appropriately prepared, resourced, or ready to receive these truths in a single weekend.”
Psychedelics primarily work by modulating the brain’s serotonin system, which plays a key role in mood regulation, cognition, and perception. They can also enhance neural plasticity and connectivity. These types of effects create states of mind that are fertile ground for mental health therapies. Openness, creativity, dissolution of the ego, the breaking of bad habits of mind — all are typical benefits of psychedelic therapy that may also be accessible through microdosing regimens.
According to Gehret, microdosing has a lighter touch, and is less of a jarring and intimidating experience. This allows patients to take part in psychedelic therapies with a gentler, more accessible introduction.
“By starting with microdosing, individuals can begin to heal and discover threads and shadow material leading up to and in preparation for their high dose journey,” Gehret explained. “In our microdosing community, I’ve witnessed repeatedly that when people begin with microdosing and work to deepen their relationship with the medicine over time, when they ultimately journey they tend to have much less fear, resistance and ‘challenging trip’ experience.”
“Professionally, I also believe microdosing is wonderfully supportive of the therapeutic bond between the client and their facilitator. By beginning with a microdosing protocol, a psychedelic guide can establish, deepen, and develop their bond with a client well in advance of the journey, which I believe can lead to much better outcomes and experiences for both client and guide.”
Therapeutic Benefits of Microdosing Psychedelics
While the efficacy of psychedelic medicine is becoming increasingly known to mental health professionals, it’s useful to look at some of the potential benefits of microdosing protocols and how practitioners may be able to incorporate them into their practices.
Depression and Anxiety: One of the most promising areas for microdosing psychedelics is in the treatment of depression and anxiety. Anecdotal reports and preliminary studies suggest that microdosing can lead to improvements in mood, reduced anxiety, and increased emotional resilience. For clients who have not responded well to traditional talk therapy or antidepressants, microdosing may offer an alternative or adjunctive treatment option. For recent clinical results, see the Phase 2 results from MindBio Therapeutics’ microdosing trial using LSD for depression.
Enhanced Creativity and Problem-Solving: Microdosing has been reported to enhance creativity, focus, and problem-solving abilities. These cognitive benefits can be particularly useful in therapeutic settings, where patients are often encouraged to engage in introspective and creative processes as part of their treatment. Enhanced cognitive flexibility may also help patients break out of rigid thought patterns that contribute to unhealthy states of mind.
Increased Mindfulness and Presence: Personal reports and self-reported research has shown increased mindfulness and a greater sense of presence in their daily lives. This heightened awareness can enhance the effectiveness of therapeutic practices such as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) and other mindfulness-based interventions.
Gehret has been guiding therapies and teaching Vital’s microdosing courses for several years, sharing her first-hand experience with burgeoning student practitioners. In addition to the therapeutic possibilities, microdosing protocols can help solve issues around access, as traditional psychedelic-assisted therapy can be a costly and lengthy endeavor, she says.
“Microdosing is a subtle and gentle way to explore a therapeutic relationship with psychedelics and test how your body, mind, and spirit respond. It’s also far more accessible and affordable than clinical psychedelic therapy treatments, which can run into multiple thousands of dollars for a single experience, is not covered by most insurers, and will leave out most of the under-insured population,” she told Psychedelics Today. “On the other hand, cultivating your own medicines and becoming part of a microdosing community will cost far less, plus provide you with the ongoing benefits of community, education and support.”
As psychedelic therapy continues to enter the mainstream, it seems that microdosing will become an important introductory tool for those looking for help but are perhaps not yet fully comfortable with the idea of psychedelics. From a logistical perspective, the shorter session time and lack of hallucinatory journey means that microdosing can provide a tool for practitioners that offers some of the benefits of psychedelic therapies but with fewer demands on resources (time and costs), which can create a more accessible experience for clients.
Microdosing group work and peer-to-peer models are also advantageous over traditional one-to-one therapy, as more people can be served, while eliminating the potential for practitioner burnout
“These models also empower people to step into their own healing, self-trust, and intuition, and support each other in the process. In our microdosing community, we have people who have been attending our gatherings since our inception – and many of them have gone on to become microdosing coaches, guides and community builders. They serve as models, mentors and inspiration for the participants just starting out.”
This psychedelic resurgence is in an exciting moment, one that offers the possibility to create new modes and models for mental health treatments. Yet as with any new frontier, it’s crucial to build solid foundations based on education and responsibility. Ensuring that tomorrow’s practitioners are receiving the proper training is vital to the health of the growing landscape. Mentors like Gehret are lending their expertise to help build these paradigms.
In the future, Gehret envisions practitioners offering a range of microdosing support: integration circles, one to one support, group programs, and weaving the practice into their existing healing modalities like bodywork, psychotherapy, end-of-life care, human design, hypnotherapy, and more.
“This new way of incorporating and blending complementary modalities is incredibly effective and also a breath of fresh air from the silos and gate-keeping we see within medical models of care where you need to get a referral for everything and the system is rigged for profit over the best interest of the patient,” she said. “It really is an exciting time to be in the healing professions and microdosing is an ideal practice and bridge for people to begin to think differently about their health and healing.”
Interested in learning more about how to become a professional specializing in microdosing? Enrollment for the September cohort of Vital is open, with limited seats available.
Following the multi-decade regulatory pursuit, legal MDMA-assisted therapy (MDMA-AT) seemed imminent to many people. In February 2024, the FDA accepted Lykos Therapeutics’ New Drug Application (NDA), and all markers indicated a likely approval.
However, on June 4, the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee (PDAC) shattered optimism when nearly all members advised the FDA to reject Lykos’ application.
In a 9-2 and 10-1 vote, the committee asserted its belief that MDMA therapy, as it stands, is neither effective nor safe for Americans with PTSD.
So, what is MDMA’s FDA approval status following the hearing?
The outlook seems grim, given that the FDA aligns with the advisory panel 88% of the time. Still, Lykos (formerly MAPS Public Benefit Corporation) remains hopeful.
“We believe there is a path forward and are focused on collaborating with the FDA as they continue to review our NDA over the months,” said Lykos in an email interview.
A final decision on MDMA for PTSD is expected on or around August 11th.
The Backstory
Starry-eyed psychedelic proponents didn’t see the dissent coming. The FDA had just granted Lykos’ NDA priority review, and everything seemed to be going smoothly.
However, the contention became clear on March 26, when the Institute of Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) published draft evidence on MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD. In the report, ICER acknowledged MDMA’s potential to help people heal from trauma. However, it raised significant concerns about weaving this novel treatment into traditional medicine.
The TLDR of the report’s criticism was that Lykos’ clinical evidence did not sufficiently support MDMA therapy for PTSD. The report cited alleged data validity issues, potential biases from therapists and participants, and a reported incident of sexual misconduct. It also highlighted MDMA’s cardiovascular risks, unexamined adverse events, and lack of long-term data proving the therapy’s enduring effects.
A month later, five people submitted a citizen petition to the FDA commissioner requesting the organization convene an advisory committee meeting on MDMA-AT to discuss the application’s “shortcomings and risks.” The letter also called for an extended public comment period prioritizing concerned speakers, and a live webcast.
The letter’s primary claim against the NDA was that MAPS/Lykos allegedly “manipulated clinical trial data to hide adverse events from regulatory agencies, motivated in part by a belief that these agencies would not understand that these adverse events are a necessary part of their MDMA-AT.”
The FDA responded to the petition by granting the advisory committee meeting with an extended comment period. However, it denied the request to prioritize input from concerned stakeholders.
The Meeting
June 4th’s meeting was a nine-hour saga, inviting FDA members, public participants, Lykos representatives, and eleven PDAC panelists to debate the risks and benefits of MDMA-assisted therapy.
PDAC boasted various roles in the psychopharmacologic field, including consumer representatives, pharmacists, patient representatives, scholars, and physicians. It did not include experts from the field of psychedelic research. Nevertheless, by 5:30 p.m., the board confidently dismissed MDMA-AT’s ability to do more good than harm for PTSD.
Lykos told Psychedelics Today that they didn’t see the rejection coming.
“Going into the meeting, we knew this was a unique assignment for the panel to review a drug-plus therapy combination. We did, however, believe that the fact that studies showed MDMA-assisted therapy offers statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in PTSD symptoms and functional impairment compared to placebo across two phase 3 trials with evidence of durability over time would compel the panel to support approval.”
86.5% of patients in the MMDA-AT group clinically benefited from the treatment compared to 69% in the placebo group.
71.2% of the MDMA cohort no longer held a PTSD diagnosis, compared to 47.6% in the placebo group.
46.2% of MDMA patients achieved remission compared to 21.4% in the placebo cohort.
Despite the clinically impressive results, PDAC emphasized significant doubts about the data’s validity and MDMA-AT’s overall safety.
Functional Unblinding and Expectation Bias
Functional unblinding occurs when participants or researchers accurately predict the treatment they receive or administer. Expectation bias occurs when someone anticipates a particular result. Prior experience, previously held beliefs, and functional unblinding can cause such biases, potentially impacting patient experiences and reporting.
Dr. Paul Holtzheimer from the National Center for PTSD said, “Expectation bias can work in two ways. It can exaggerate the effect of the active treatment and blunt the effect of the placebo treatment.”
It’s true that 40% of the trial participants used MDMA in the past and may have assumed the drug worked based on prior positive experiences.
However, as Lykos points out in a recent statement, “The data indicates that prior illicit MDMA use had no impact on the results, as there was no meaningful difference in primary outcome measure or adverse events reported between the subgroup of Phase 3 participants who reported prior illicit MDMA use and the subgroup of participants who did not.”
Functional unblinding impacts, however, are far more debatable.
Renowned psychedelic drug researcher Matthew Johnson, PhD, explained Lykos’ unblinding problem in a recent X post.
Johnson said, “For those [in the study] thinking they got MDMA, the therapeutic effect was nearly identical between MDMA and placebo [groups]. Yikes.”
In other words, people who guessed they were on MDMA achieved similar therapeutic responses, whether or not they really took the drug.
Still, Johnson points out in The Illusion of Consensus podcast that functional unblinding is not a new issue for psychedelics, nor is it unique.
“There are a whole host of drugs that have been [FDA] approved. All of the sleep drugs… all of the anti-anxiety benzodiazepines, all the ADHD drugs… all of the opioid pain relievers. The practice of psychiatry is filled with psychoactive drugs that have very clear signatures… I want to know to what degree in FDA advisory panels this [functional unblinding issue] has come up… Because cutting through the blind is an issue for all these [compounds]… I don’t think psychedelics should be held to a higher standard than the normal process.”
Misconduct and Data Integrity
Potential misconduct during the MAPS / Lykos trials added to PDAC’s concerns about the integrity of the results.
Allegations included reports that principal investigators:
Discouraged patients with negative experiences, like suicidality, from participating in follow-up studies.
Influenced patients to report favorable outcomes.
Inconsistently recorded adverse events.
Purposely recruited patients who would respond well to MDMA therapy for PTSD.
PDAC also lamented the trials’ insufficient data on patients with severe trauma as well as an overall lack of diversity, citing low Black and Asian representation.
Dr. Melissa Barone, a psychologist from the Maryland Healthcare System, said, “There are so many problems with the data that each one alone might [be okay]… But when you pile them up on top of each other… I think there are still a lot of questions about how effective the treatment is and how durable it is.”
At least some of the mistrust centered on the perception that Lykos and MAPS founder Rick Doblin, PhD, are determined to push MDMA approval at any cost.
Lykos says, “Like all research sponsors, Lykos and its clinical sites are subject to regular FDA inspections. We have full confidence that the FDA will continue to assess the integrity of Lykos’ research through its inspection process.”
Durability of Effect
Lykos’ clinical trials show that MDMA-assisted therapy exhibited durable therapeutic effects for at least six months. However, PDAC questioned the claim for several reasons.
One was that patients utilized other integrative treatments in between MDMA therapy and the follow-up analysis, including:
Psychodynamic therapy
Eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR)
Other cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
Group psychotherapy
Prolonged exposure
Cognitive processing therapy
Holotropic breathwork
Interpersonal therapy
The committee expressed that these therapies introduced “confounding factors,” which made it challenging to isolate MDMA-AT’s specific impact.
Meeting chair, Dr. Rajesh Narendran, added more skepticism. He said, “I’m not convinced that this drug is effective in the short term… PTSD is a disorder where symptoms can fluctuate quite a bit. We all know that. And I feel like there should have been more repeated assessments over time to gauge where these people are heading.”
Psychological Intervention
Lykos’ unique psychotherapeutic approach was another confounding factor impacting the data, according to PDAC.
The FDA does not regulate psychotherapy, so this sticking point was beyond the meeting’s scope. However, several participants expressed distrust over what they perceived as an unstandardized and unproven modality.
It employs standard protocols like Exposure Therapy, Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), EMDR, and psychodynamic therapy. It also invites less conventional techniques, like Internal Family systems (IFS), Voice Dialogue, Hakomi, virtual reality, and Buddhist psychology.
Dr. Holtzheimer said, “I think the challenge here is that the psychotherapy in this case is not evidence-based yet.”
Dr. Barone added, “MDMA is not administered without the psychotherapy. And the psychotherapy is really vague. It is not well-determined. It seems like it was not standardized. And that makes it really hard to determine how effective it is…”
PDAC argued that the lack of standardization raises questions about the trials’ reproducibility and reliability. They also questioned the necessity of the therapy itself, wondering whether MDMA alone could elicit similar benefits.
Dr. Amanda Holley, a pharmacologist who previously worked at the FDA, explained this challenge in a recent Psychedelics Today Podcast.
“[The FDA] is having a hard time disentangling the contribution of therapy vs just MDMA. With this trial, they would’ve liked to see a factorial design that [tested] the therapy with the drug, an arm with the drug alone, and an arm with therapy alone. That would’ve given them a more holistic view of the data.”
Safety Concerns
Another data gap involved cardiovascular health risks, which panelists said were not fully assessed throughout the studies. They raised concerns that MDMA could cause heart attacks and strokes.
In The Illusion of Consensus podcast, Dr. Johnson explained that this argument was somewhat “absurd” due to MDMA’s known effects. Sure, it raises blood pressure and heart rate. But it’s a reasonable risk-benefit ratio. Johnson compared MDMA’s cardiovascular impact to Adderall, which doctors give to children every day.
“Even with a minor abnormality at the end of a session, it doesn’t mean it will lead to a clinical event like a stroke, which is extremely rare,” said Dr. Johnson.
The FDA said it should have required Lykos to take EKGs and blood samples after MDMA sessions. However, the agency admittedly approved Lykos’ study design without these measures.
The FDA’s admission did not shift the panelists’ perspective.
Sexual misconduct was another significant concern sparked by an incident in 2015.
A harrowing public comment on the matter came from Speaker 26, Sarah Grosh, who spoke as a proxy for Phase 2 participant Meaghan Buisson. In Buisson’s words, Grosh described the abuse that took place. Buisson’s descriptions of the assaults she suffered in session were recorded and are now publicly available.
Buisson also reported becoming suicidal during the trial and said that Lykos did not document this adverse event. She claimed MDMA therapy left her overwhelmingly vulnerable and led to further exploitation by her therapist, who she said trafficked her while still in the trial.
Grosh asserted that Lykos’ leadership did nothing to intervene after she filed the ethics complaint in 2018 and that they continue to deny any ethical violations.
Lykos responded in its statement, saying, “This was a terrible and harmful instance of malpractice that caused profound suffering to a participant. Lykos reported this violation to Health Canada, the FDA, and the relevant Institutional Review Board and banned the therapist pair associated with this case from all future work. Since then, we carefully developed and implemented new policies and practices aimed to prevent, detect, investigate, encourage reporting of, and thoroughly respond to potential instances of misconduct or unethical behavior.”
Prospects of FDA Approval
Amid the shadow of alleged misconduct, data misalignment, and safety concerns, PDAC voted an overwhelming no to MDMA treatment for PTSD. The FDA is not required to follow PDAC’s guidance. However, the overwhelming pushback casts serious doubt over whether 2024 will be Lykos’ year.
“It doesn’t look good at all. I imagine at some point MDMA will be approved for PTSD, but I wouldn’t put bets on it to be approved in August,” said Dr. Johnson.
Many people have read the statistic that the FDA aligns with advisory committees 88% of the time. However, a lesser-known fact is that in cases when the committee did not recommend approval, the FDA only agreed 67% of the time. This disparity leaves the door open for hope.
Another hopeful sign, according to Dr. Holley, is that the FDA prioritizes public health when making NDA decisions. The fact that current PTSD therapies are highly deficient and no new drugs have been approved in decades represents a significant healthcare failure.
Lykos maintains that MDMA-assisted therapy can meet the nation’s critical mental health needs, and it has not given up on approval.
“While we understand that the FDA considers advisory committee recommendations, most of the conversation at the meeting centered on known issues that have already been discussed and investigated. In addition, the panel was focused on the regulation of therapy outside the FDA’s purview.”
Lykos added that the organization is discussing a potential post-approval REMS (Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy) program with the FDA. REMS would seek to ensure patient safety and regulatory compliance through measures to monitor and manage risks.
“If FDA-approved, prescription MDMA-assisted therapy will be launched with careful consideration of its potential benefits and risks, following established medical guidelines, protocols, and quality standards,” said Lykos.
What’s Next if the FDA Approves MDMA-Assisted Therapy?
If the FDA approves Lykos’ application in August, the decision will spark a timeline that requires several bureaucratic steps before patients can access MDMA treatment for PTSD.
First, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) must reschedule MDMA from Schedule I within three months of approval.
After the federal rescheduling, states must also reschedule the drug. Most have processes for automatic alignment, while others have state-specific scheduling procedures.
“Our plan is to make MDMA-assisted therapy available, if approved, in 2025,” said Lykos, who clarified that they would initially roll out the program to a limited number of sites.
What’s Next if Lykos’ Application Fails?
Lykos declined to speculate on what they might do if the new drug application for MDMA-AT fails.
However, in similar circumstances, trial sponsors must thoroughly rectify the issues through additional studies, further data collection, or modifications to the drug’s formulation, labeling, or manufacturing process. Once finished, sponsors must resubmit a package with all the information proving the issuers were resolved. The FDA then re-evaluates the application to determine if it meets the safety and regulatory requirements.
The process can delay FDA approval by a median of 435 days, requiring companies to spend significantly more time and money to get to the finish line.
The Bottom Line
PDAC does not think the current data proves MDMA therapy is effective for PTSD, nor does it believe the potential harms outweigh the risks. Lykos asserts that the clinical trial results speak for themselves and that treatment could significantly improve countless lives. Now, 13 million Americans with PTSD await MDMA’s FDA approval status in August.
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Amanda Holley: pharmacologist and regulatory consultant in nonclinical drug development, and previously a nonclinical pharmacology/toxicology reviewer at the FDA.
With Lykos Therapeutics working towards FDA approval of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, ICER (Institute for Clinical and Economic Review) recently published its draft evidence report, concluding that they couldn’t endorse this modality. While disappointing to the psychedelic space, this report doesn’t determine the FDA’s official stance, and also really highlights a lot about how the FDA works, the knowledge gap between consumers and regulators, and how clinical studies should be designed in the future. Holley talks about the FDA’s dedication to safety and data, and how, essentially, drug development comes down to a risk/benefit analysis.
She discusses:
Misconceptions about the FDA, especially related to psychedelics
The path of a substance in early drug development and how breakthrough designation works
The complications with blinding psychedelics, the placebo effect, and how much therapy is a factor
The contrast between productization and harm reduction: Should we be concerned with creating products, or understanding these substances better?
How changing one molecule really does create a different drug
Have you been considering taking a psychedelic journey, but want to avoid a bad trip? Do yourself a favor: don’t make the most common psychedelic mistakes.
Understanding the most common pitfalls before you engage with a psychedelic substance can have a colossal impact on the outcome of your experience. Whether you’ve just learned about psychedelics, you’ve recently begun a journey of re-discovery, you’re working to include psychedelics in your career, or you’re a seasoned psychonaut, knowing the most often-made psychedelic mistakes could mean the difference of having a positive or negative – or even dangerous – outcome.
Ignoring Set and Setting
Psychedelics are powerful tools that can amplify your inner world. Imagine a mirror reflecting back everything you’re feeling – that’s what a psychedelic experience can be like. So, if you’re anxious going in, that anxiety can intensify and make it difficult to avoid a bad trip.
Similarly, a chaotic or unfamiliar environment can create a sense of unease and disrupt the flow of your experience.
Set (Mindset): Your emotional and psychological state profoundly affects your psychedelic journey. If you’re stressed, worried, or harbor unresolved conflicts, these can manifest and become overwhelming during the experience.
Setting (Environment): The physical and social space you choose can significantly impact your trip. Some settings are inherently riskier than others.
To avoid making this mistake, consider your internal state of being, and if it’s the best time to introduce psychedelics into your life. While some may argue that a period of difficulty is the best time to use psychedelics, take the time to evaluate whether dealing with what may arise will be a wise or productive choice right now – only you can answer this question, but don’t be afraid to share with someone you trust to help you evaluate it.
Think hard about how the setting could impact your overall experience, both positively and negatively. While fun, a noisy party can be disorienting. Unfamiliar surroundings and people could become frightening during the trip, too. Whereas a safe, comfortable space with trusted companions can foster a sense of security and allow you to surrender to the experience. Thoroughly assess what level of comfort and control feels right for you, and choose your setting wisely.
Lack of Planning and Research
Ingesting a substance without stopping to understand the substance and its effects is like taking a bad trip to a foreign land without a map. You might end up lost, confused, and potentially in danger.
While psychedelics are increasingly being mentioned or portrayed casually in movies and on social media, they’re powerful substances whose effects vary wildly depending on the individual, the substance, the dosing, and what they’re combined with. Without proper research, you could have a drastically different experience than you signed up for.
Treat your psychedelic journey (and yourself) with an appropriate level of respect. Research the substance you plan to use, including its typical effects, duration, and potential risks and contraindications. Get familiar with typical experiences by reading trip reports and articles, listening to podcasts (we have many to choose from), psychedelic books, and studies.
Begin forming a plan. Decide who you want and who is able to be present, or act as a “sitter.” Make sure this person has some psychedelic experience and can provide emotional support. If you also choose your setting mindfully and have a good understanding of what to expect (while being aware that the unexpected may still arise), you can enter the experience with confidence.
Neglecting Drug Testing
One of the most common mistakes in the modern era of psychedelic use is failure to test your substance. These days, it’s increasingly risky to assume that a substance is safe, pure, or that the substance is even what you believe it to be. Because a great deal of psychedelic use still occurs outside legal frameworks, where substances are tested and verified, there could be adulterants or molecules you are unfamiliar with on board. This potential comes with a high risk of unpredictable and dangerous side effects, ranging from discomfort to death.
Fortunately, there has never been greater access to substance testing for people who are concerned about the safety of their psychedelics and avoiding a bad trip.
At-home testing kits are widely available for a wide variety of substances, with the most common testing for accuracy and adulterants. Services like GetYourDrugsTested.com offer free mail-in drug analysis for free, groups like Dancesafe, Bunk Police, and Test Kit Plus offer kits for home use. Be sure to follow the instructions, and opt for a kit that checks for a wide variety of substances.
While purchasing a test kit is an added expense, strongly consider the cost of your health and well-being: if you can afford to ingest, you can afford to test.
Misjudging Your Dose
One of the most common mistakes we see: taking an arbitrary or high dose without realizing it or understanding its potency.
Dosing is highly variable from substance to substance, and highly individualized. The dose that works best for one person may be far too much, or too little for another. Taking too much without realizing it or anticipating the level of intensity can quickly result in an overwhelming and potentially harmful situation.
To avoid this potential for a bad trip, start with a low dose and increase gradually if necessary, tailoring it to your desired experience.
If it’s your first time taking a substance – or even a new batch of a familiar substance – the safest route is to begin with a low dose. It’s far easier to increase the dose if necessary than it is to deal with an overwhelming experience when it’s too late.
Consider your intention: do you want to have a more subtle, amplifying experience, or a mystical experience? How well do you know your body, and how do you typically react to mind-altering substances? What’s been said on message boards and within your local community about the substance recently? Exercising caution, asking yourself important questions, and doing some external research can help you avoid a bad trip.
Remember: you can always take more, but you can’t take less.
Learn the Rest of the Most Common Psychedelic Mistakes
Are you feeling prepared for your journey? Maybe don’t take off just yet. While this article includes crucial information to help you stop a bad trip before it starts, there’s more to learn.
We’ve packaged an extensive list of psychedelic pitfalls (and, most importantly, what to do instead) in a FREE course designed for wherever you’re at in your journey: 8 Common Psychedelic Mistakes.
In this self-guided digital class, you’ll learn:
Why you shouldn’t overlook set and setting.
How to plan and research thoroughly.
Why substance testing is crucial.
The value of knowing your dosing.
How to begin vetting your shaman or facilitator.
How to stay present during your trip.
The importance of choosing a support team.
How to be set up for success before and after your trip.
Join thousands of other psychedelic explorers and supporters in this FREE course so you can prepare for every psychedelic journey with knowledge and confidence. Students receive a complimentary printable guide and trip checklist, and free, unrestricted access to course materials for life.
What if there was a potentially life-saving drug that could relieve depression and PTSD but also, potentially, force frequent users to rush to the toilet every 15 minutes?
Well, it does exist. It’s ketamine, the most rapid-acting antidepressant in use today.
The drug has morphed in popular consciousness in just half a century from legal anesthetic, to dissociative dancefloor sniffing powder, to FDA-approved depression treatment, to addictive bladder-buster. Like heroin and cocaine, ketamine has much-needed medical uses – but it can be dangerous if abused. Rising problematic recreational use and calls from industry for greater professional accountability in therapeutic settings is showing that ketamine can be fun, restorative, and even addictive. In some cases, all at the same time.
The Ascension of Ketamine in Medicine and Culture
The commonly used anesthetic, in clinical use since 1970, was never placed under the strictest of legal controls like other drugs – partly since recreational ketamine use did not emerge until the 1990s and was rarely demonized. This enabled ketamine-assisted mental health treatment to become the first psychedelic available in therapy form, while in 2019 the FDA approved a ketamine nasal spray named Spravato for depression.
While its therapeutic usage has taken off, recreational consumption has seemingly followed suit.
“Recreational ketamine use has almost tripled over the last decade,” says Dr. Rayyan Zafar, a neuropsychopharmacologist at Imperial College’s Centre for Psychedelic Research.
In some cases, ketamine appears to be replacing alcohol, and that may broadly be positive for public health, Zafar adds. It’s not the only benefit: Ketamine-assisted therapy, “is a game changer for treatment resistant depression.”
To service the emerging therapeutic demand, ketamine clinics have opened all over the Western world over the last decade (there are a dozen in Manhattan alone).
And the party drug du jour – which along with other psychedelics is today replacing cocaine on dancefloors and at dinner parties – is making its way into pop culture: in ‘Ketflix and Chill’ memes, usage in films such as 2023’s Rotting in the Sun, and the so-called “ketamine chic” look. A song with a perhaps era-defining lyric, “Gimme ket, gimme ket,” recently made the top 20 in the German pop charts.
Naturally, plenty attest to its benefits.
“A ketamine meditation last year was one of the most profound and freeing experiences of my life,” says Bryan. “I only had awareness of peace.”
Others speak of ketamine use precluding suicidal ideations, spawning life changing realizations and facilitating mind-body connection.
For Sophie, ketamine has helped her “to zone in on what my soul purpose is” and spawned a long-overdue, radical career change. “It quietens the noise in the mind.”
Away from the dancehalls and art studios, there are reports of relief from depression, suicidality, PTSD and anxiety. (The author had a transformative, intentional experience with ketamine which helped him process the memories of a number of traumatic events). Many others, from model Amber Rose to average Canadians, tell of how ketamine saved their lives – wrenching them away from suicidality. “That’s the only thing that saved my life,” Rose said recently.
The Hidden Dangers of Ketamine Misuse
But the story of ketamine in 2024 isn’t all healing and happily ever afters for everyone who uses it. The scale of the harm from misuse has become so serious that hundreds on both sides of the Atlantic are undergoing therapy for addiction as ketamine support groups emerge for those who cannot afford rehab.
At a recent meeting in Oakland, California, attendees shared stories about the consequences of daily ketamine use: gastrointestinal pain, neuropathy, tingling in limbs and extremities, and leaky bladders. Tolerance to ketamine develops swiftly. In a short-sighted attempt to get around that, some people are “boofing” – rectally ingesting – several grams a day to get the hit that has become elusive nasally for them.
“Very little is known about how to recognize ketamine addiction,” says Brad Burge, founder of Integration Communications, a public relations agency serving the psychedelic industry, who was present at the well-attended meeting. He went because a friend of his recently died by suicide after more than two years struggling with pain likely caused by ketamine addiction.
Others are still living with the damage from misuse previously in their lives. Ryan was sniffing several grams a day at the height of his addiction.
“Robotripping and dissociation; it’s the ultimate escape. It was only when I moved back to my family home that I was saved.” Ketamine, at mid-to-high doses, he adds, brings about a more lucid and less warm experience than psilocybin or LSD. “It’s like getting lost in an emotional but placid sea of neuronal misfire.”
Ryan has lasting damage to his bladder as a result of ketamine overuse. So does Adam. “I did it every day for a few months years ago,” he says. “To this day I have ‘ket bladder’. I’ll go for a wee four times for every wee my mates have.”
The mental and spiritual strain of ketamine can range from hallucination persisting perception disorder, to being thrust unwillingly into “k-holes,” a dissociative ego-death realm.
“I felt like I was going to die,” Marie recalls. “I had seizure-like symptoms for about half an hour.” She and others did not know that many take ketamine purposefully to enter the k-hole for pleasure and enlightenment.
Growing Scrutiny On Take-Home Ketamine
Even lesser-known, in the enduring world of “just say no” public drug messaging, is the addictive potential of ketamine, “especially at-home ketamine use,” adds Burge.
The concerns over at-home ketamine use – for which a telehealth industry has sprung up to cater for, with slow release ketamine lozenges and prerecorded trip mixes – were blown wide open in late February when the former CEO of an at-home ketamine provider withdrew his support for at-home ketamine therapy after a female patient had a reported massive overdose and went into hypoxemic respiratory failure. It came after the death of Friends actor Matthew Perry, from “the acute effects of ketamine,” a few months earlier.
“After being at the forefront of at-home ketamine treatment, recent findings, like the case study of unintentional overdose via telehealth have led me to reevaluate,” Juan Pablo Cappello, the former CEO of Nue Life Health, tweeted. “I can no longer endorse ketamine’s prescription without stricter controls. Safety must come first.”
The Ethical Divide: Confronting Challenges in Therapeutic Practice
Some advocates of drug policy reform argue that reducing controls to accessing drugs like ketamine is the whole point – and that greater education and support from the companies purveying the lozenges should come before any knee-jerk legislative responses.
But with recreational and therapeutic use rising swiftly – bolstered by ads on social media and digital platforms from which at-home lozenges can easily be accessed – it seems like the emerging issues may only worsen, even if far more people experience ketamine’s benefits.
“There’s all sorts of ethical companies and practitioners who are doing the good work every day on the front lines, and we have to recognize that,” Cappello told Psychedelics Today in March. “We also have to be honest that it’s harder and harder for those ethical practitioners to make a living because of what unethical practitioners are doing every day in the trenches, which is slinging ketamine.”
In a letter advocating for standards that prioritize patient safety over profits – profits that seem to be fuelling the trajectory of the ketamine craze (both in the clinics and in the clubs) – Cappello proposed that those at the helm of industry have the power to safeguard the therapeutic potential of ketamine therapy for those in need.
“Do I think that it’s probably a good trade to take ketamine six times a year as opposed to taking an antidepressant every day? Yeah, that’s probably a good trade. But there’s a better trade, which is: let’s address the root cause of your depression, anxiety, or trauma once and for all.”
In 2024, the discourse around the effects of microdosing psychedelics is deeply polarized.
Positioned at opposite ends of the conversation are microdosing evangelists who swear by its benefits and skeptical scientists demanding more empirical evidence.
Ask whether it ‘works,’ and you’ll receive an emphatic ‘yes’ from believers or an all-but-certain ‘no’ from doubters, highlighting a divide that hinges largely on perspective.
Despite plenty of anecdotal reports attesting to the positive effect of microdosing – the practice of taking sub-perceptual or slightly sensory enhancing doses of psilocybin or LSD on a regular basis for wellbeing, to improve focus or diminish depression – the lack of faith is traditionally rooted in an absence of robust science proving its efficacy. But that could all soon change.
MindBio’s Latest Trial Results: Breakthrough or Overreach?
“We are delighted to share that MB22001 showed rapid and statistically significant improvements with 60% reduction in depressive symptoms and 53% of patients experiencing complete remission from depression,” said Justin Hanka, Chief Executive Officer of MindBio Therapeutics. “These Phase 2 trial results are transformative for the company as it takes its next steps into late-stage pharma.”
This should all be taken with a grain of salt. The sensationalist manner Mindbio announced the latest microdosing results – which have not yet been released in a scientific paper – provoked the ire of some commentators.
Exploring Microdosing’s Effect on Mental Health
But for the many who have benefitted from the effects of microdosing, it’s only a matter of time before the data corroborates their experiences. I decided to ask my Instagram friends about their experiences.
“I was going through a really hard period at home,” one microdoser said. “I felt almost like the mushrooms held me: Everything softened and I felt safe and held. And, after a while, I felt fine without microdosing and didn’t need it anymore.”
“I was coming off antidepressants and had a horrendous time,” she said. “The mushrooms were my savior. They took away feelings of negativity and made me feel lighter and more at peace.”
Scientific Scrutiny: Measuring the ‘Real’ Effects of Microdosing
Such reports, however, will do little to convince the doubters. This skepticism is compounded by the trend of bots marauding social media conversations about psychedelics, relentlessly regurgitating pro-microdosing talking points and incessantly hawking magic mushroom capsules. The volume of posts, especially on X, has contributed to claims from psychedelics researchers that microdosing is “ridiculously overhyped and predatory.”
Other research – and numerous press reports, which began in 2015 when microdosing first entered cultural consciousness – presents the microdose as a versatile tool for increasing contentment effect and improving cognition.
“As of right now, there are still no published clinical trials investigating microdosing on people diagnosed with mental health issues, so their efficacy as a clinical treatment is unknown,” said Manesh Grin, a postdoctoral psychedelic neuroscientist, University of California, San Francisco.
The survey-based papers “generally don’t measure placebo or expectation effects and aren’t the most reliable,” he added, while “in laboratory studies, where they compare against a control group, people do often experience improvements in mood, anxiety, and other measures but so do the people who get an inert placebo and thought they got a microdose.”
The main challenge of the clinical microdosing studies undertaken so far is that most did not observe patients for any significant period – in which time a microdosing protocol might take effect. Perhaps the most robust microdosing study to date, conducted with LSD in New Zealand by University of Auckland associate professor Dr. Suresh Muthukumaraswamy on 14 patients over six weeks, suggests some benefits that are greater than placebo.
“My sense is that, if there are real effects, they are likely particularly for people who are struggling,” added Girn. “Whether they help people who are already healthy and high functioning is more of an open question, but the data so far suggests the effects might only be modest and largely placebo in most cases.”
Some are less enthusiastic about microdosing’s possible efficacy as they believe larger macrodoses, taken less often, are more effective and that there are emerging business interests behind the dubious bots – and others – who seem to want to sell folks a lifetime of pills.
“High-dose psychotherapy (is) about having this transformative experience that one learns from, whereas microdosing psychedelics would be … a traditional psychiatric medicine model,” psychedelic scientist Dr Matthew Johnson tweeted.
“Common for microdosing fans to say: any skeptic hasn’t tried it. Not true,” he said in another tweet last year. “I’ve know [sic] many people (including a number of scientists) who have taken plenty of psychedelics & are believers in high dose therapeutics, who have tried microdosing a bunch and say, meh, not convinced.”
But microdose advocates still maintain that smaller, more regular doses will be more practical, and cheaper, for most people than the hair-raising visionary trips scientists propel themselves into.
Hanka says his company’s data – from a new study led by Muthukumaraswamy – is promising, but that ultimately the jury is still out.
“I’d really like to know for sure that these drugs work better than antidepressants with lower side effects and that is exactly what we are trying to find out,” he said. “I am open minded and will be completely led by the data as we step through clinical trials.”
Studying the effects of a sub-perceptual medicine while calculating the impact of brain power may always be tricky, and the success of any microdose, self-help regime comes down to the intentions and discipline of the microdoser. But I don’t think my Instagram friends are tripping. They didn’t take large doses after all.
Interested in doing your own self-exploration? Consider our Microdosing Masterclass, your complete guide to understanding and integrating the best practices for effective microdosing.
In this episode, Alexa interviews April Pride: creative entrepreneur, veteran of the cannabis space, and now, founder of SetSet, an educational platform and podcast (picking up where The High Guide left off) for women curious about psychedelics.
With Alexa about to embark on the journey of motherhood, she asks many of the questions parents working with psychedelics have to consider: How do you overcome the stigmas of being a psychedelic parent? How do you talk to your children about drugs? How do you know if a substance is ok to use during pregnancy?
Pride discusses:
Being dubbed “the weed mom” and why she embraced the nickname
Parenting children around drug use and how parents lose credibility when they lie (the kids are going to know)
The need for more research into how substances interact with women’s cycles and changing hormones
Knowing when to trust your doctor and how more conversations lead to more knowledgeable doctors
Microdosing psilocybin and the developing SetSet protocol
He is now the co-founder, Chief Science Officer, and Director of Analytical Science at the Alexander Shulgin Research Institute (ASRI), focusing on the discovery and development of novel psychedelic compounds. While Sasha was passionate about self-experimentation, the Institute is aiming for the next step for these drugs: FDA approval.
He discusses:
Meeting Sasha at the 2nd international conference on hallucinogenic mushrooms in Washington D.C.
Bonding with Sasha while reviewing the autopsy of researcher Robert van den Bosch for possible foul play
The two compounds ASRI is closest to being able to test in clinical trials
The 5-HT2B receptor, risk of valvular disease, and why we will likely be hearing more about this going forward
How AI and new technology can lead to better safety science
In this episode, Joe interviews Juan Pablo Cappello: co-founder and former CEO of Nue Life Health, whose assets were subsequently acquired by Beckley Waves.
Cappello digs into his recent article which has been making waves across the psychedelic community: “Profit Over Patients? A Critical Look at At-Home Ketamine Therapy.” He created Nue Life with the goal of helping a million people address the root cause of their anxiety, and while the company was successful, he began to see a problematic trend: that using ketamine while providing services of a mental health company is very expensive and resource-consuming, and as companies saw a large percentage of clients requiring maintenance doses, the most profitable business model became essentially slinging ketamine to patients without providing any real integration or aftercare. Are these companies promising healing but really only guaranteeing recurring revenue?
He talks about:
How this emerging model makes it harder for ethical practitioners to be able to provide their services
The tools they built at Nue Life for long-term benefit, and why these should be the main focus – not repeated ketamine
Matthew Perry’s death and how the media was quick to place the blame on ketamine
The need for companies and communities to come to gather and create ethical industry standards for the at-home ketamine model
How cannabis was almost decriminalized under the Carter administration
and more!
Notable Quotes
“There’s all sorts of ethical companies and practitioners who are doing the good work every day on the front lines, and we have to recognize that. We also have to be honest that it’s harder and harder for those ethical practitioners to make a living because of what unethical practitioners are doing every day in the trenches, which is slinging ketamine.”
“Do I think that it’s probably a good trade to take ketamine six times a year as opposed to taking an antidepressant every day? Yeah, that’s probably a good trade. But there’s a better trade. which is: Let’s address the root cause of your depression, anxiety, or trauma once and for all. Let’s do the hard work. Let’s use ketamine as a beautiful tool to help you reset and reboot, and let’s get you well. And let’s support you in your wellness journey going forward, rather than putting you on the cycle of feeling better, feeling worse, feeling better, feeling worse.”
“I absolutely believe the pharmaceutical companies are way too close to the regulators, absolutely. But what do we expect when getting a drug approved by the FDA is a billion dollar proposition? I mean, look at what MAPS has gone through. They’re still raising money, notwithstanding the amazing clinical results that they’ve had with MDMA. …[They’re] continuing to raise money for clinical trials of a drug that wasn’t made illegal until 1982. So it’s not as if, in terms of the safety profile of MDMA, we don’t have oodles and oodles of real life data prior to 1982. Nothing’s a better sign of how broken the system is than what MAPS has gone through.”
In this episode, David interviews Itzhak Beery: author, shamanic teacher, speaker, trip leader, and founder of ShamanPortal.org, an online community and resource for people who want to learn, practice, and teach shamanic traditions.
Beery shares his transformational journey, starting from his upbringing on a kibbutz in Israel, to his disillusioned advertising days in Manhattan, to the life-altering sweat lodge experience in Hawaii that eventually led him to write the book, Shamanic Transformations: True Stories of the Moment of Awakening, and realize his true purpose. He discusses the two major sides of trust: how to know when a healing path has truly become your life purpose, and how to know who to trust as a good healer in a world of self-initiated shamans.
He and David dig into:
How we all have the innate ability to be a shaman
How Westerners are often seeking healing too young, before they have the capacity to truly understand lessons they may receive
His upcoming book which attempts to teach practitioners how to create narratives out of symbols, The Language of Spirit
The importance in not denying the experiencer’s truth
His insights on palm reading and the concept of predetermined paths
and more!
Notable Quotes
“We are all shamans. Every human being is built– Their DNA is built in to be able to see, to vision, to dream, to dance, to sing, to hug, to drink, to hug, to make people feel comfortable. The ability to do the shamanic work is built in with every one of us, to take care of other people, for the well-being of the community.”
“The main problem that I see is that people from the West come to ayahuasca like a magic drink, but they don’t speak the language of spirit. They don’t speak the language of plants of the Amazon. Now, when you start drinking it from the age of six or eight, you are already understanding the intricate visions that [are] connected to your body and are connected to the whole world of spirit. So they have a context where they can hold what your body physically experienced and what they visually experienced. When we come from [a] digital world [with] zero connection to nature, and we just dumped ourselves into a world that is steeped in magic, we don’t know how to accept it. We don’t speak that language.”
“In our culture, we go to the Himalayas, we go to the Amazon, we go to the mountains, we go to who knows where, to the rivers, to wait for the moment that God will just hit us over the head and we’ll be enlightened. And the truth is that every moment of our life is a moment of awe, of enlightenment, and we have to really sit with it for a minute. We are always looking from the enlightenment outside of [ourselves], that somebody will give it to us. …How many people are going to all kinds of places around the world? But that moment that you are already looking for; it’s already happened. You just have to recognize it. …Every moment that we are alive is a moment of miracle. It’s a moment of enlightenment. And we have to live like that, in that awe, in that place; that every moment is a moment that you can transform your life. You don’t have to wait to take ayahuasca, yagé, nátem, all the other stuff, to experience the transformation.”
In this episode, Johanna interviews Laura Reeves: Glastonbury-based facilitator and medicine woman trained in craniosacral therapy, somatic experiencing, breathwork, and more, who holds retreats at sacred sites in the U.K. and Peruvian Amazon.
She tells of her journey from serendipitously booking a trip to Ecuador just as she first heard about ayahuasca, to the early ayahuasca experiences that showed her our true interconnectedness, to a heroic dose of psilocybin and a trip to the hospital, to being accepted into training with an Indigenous shaman in the Amazon. With a lifelong love of nature, paganism, and ancient traditions, she stresses the importance of connecting to the natural rhythms of the Earth and harnessing its energy.
She talks about:
Self-initiated shamans and the dangers that can come from bad actors operating out of integrity and respect for the lineage
Ayahuasca as a purgative and the power of energetic clearings
Her experience with shamans using Icaros to channel the sounds of plants
Shadow work and its role in personal growth and healing
The energy of Glastonbury, feeling deep connections to sacred places, and how ley lines inspire places of pilgrimage
and more!
Notable Quotes
“I just walked off on my own, and I remember just standing there. And I started hearing the entire symphony of the rainforest and it was like no sound was a mistake. It was like I could see and feel the interconnectedness of every single sound and every feeling of every sound, and I just was there in this orchestra of nature. I guess that was [my first]] experience of this interconnectedness, the energy that kind of weaves between everything.”
“It’s great that these plants are awakening to awaken us now. But what’s unfortunate is a lot of people are then using it as an opportunity to make money, to be the shaman at the front of the ceremony, and they’re not prepared to do the work to actually be in integrity with these sacred lineages.”
“The way in which this other tradition works with the medicine is to drink ayahuasca without the DMT active substance (you still have visions, but it’s different), and then you drink warm water, and you’re literally just purging for about two hours. …And the way that I felt after this: It was like the medicine went down into the deepest parts of my body, into my cells, and just pulled out any toxins, any negative thoughts even, anything at all. And I felt completely clear and energized. My nervous system felt really reset at this point. …I was like: How can we create experiences just with the body where we can feel this depth of liberation and openness?”
In this episode, Christopher Koddermann interviews Dr. Sam Banister: co-founder and chief scientific officer of Psylo, an Australian biotech company developing next-generation psychedelics.
Banister discusses how he got involved in drug development, how Psylo came about, and the hallucinogenic and non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists Psylo is working on. He talks about the compromise between immediate need and ambition, and the ethical considerations and possibilities behind developing non-hallucinogenic compounds: What can we take from the psychedelic experience for people who aren’t ideal candidates for one? Is the psychedelic experience truly necessary? And for what indications will these new Gen 3 compounds be most useful?
He discusses:
What we can infer about the volatility of biotech and the state of the psychedelic industry based on recent mergers and acquisitions
The long-term challenges of drug development and the scalability of treatment options
How the initial success of Spravato has played a role in allaying fears around new compounds
Head twitch response and concerns it’s not as accurate of a metric as we’ve believed
Australia’s decision to down-schedule psilocybin and MDMA, and the speed of implementation and licensing: How long will it be before people have easy access?
What he sees for the future and why we need to be careful with language around expectations
and more!
Notable Quotes
“I think the reality is, beyond any ethical consideration, there are just people who won’t want to have a psychedelic experience or are contraindicated because of other comorbidities, family history of psychoses, or other things. These are pretty challenging experiences for a lot of people, if you speak to participants in some of these trials. They’re not without risk. There are adverse events reported from these trials as well. So if we can see good efficacy for any given indication for some of these non-hallucinogenic agents, I absolutely think they will have value beyond whatever else is happening with psychedelic-assisted therapy.”
“Given the waiting times we have in the U.S., in parts of Europe, in Australia, and New Zealand as well, for psychiatrists, for psychotherapists; generally, I don’t see this as being something that will be resolved along the timelines that are needed for this to be a broadly accessible treatment for the numbers of patients who are going to need it. So I think that is probably the largest barrier, in my mind, to the broad deployment of these therapeutics.”
“I think this sort of unbridled enthusiasm needs a bit of a sense check, and I think people should be cautious in the language they use. …I think the communication to patients in this space needs to be done very carefully. These are not substances that are without risk. There are plenty of patients who can have very serious adverse events from psychedelics, and some of these can be persistent and quite problematic – more problematic than whatever disease they’re seeking to treat.”
So, you’ve had a psychedelic experience. And somewhere within the sensory avalanche, the perplexing interior narrative, and avoiding looking at your own face in the bathroom mirror, you (gasp!) may have actually learned something. But what comes next? How can you ensure to take the insights you gathered and apply them to your life? Enter psychedelic integration.
What is Psychedelic Integration?
The word ‘integration’ comes from the Latin word ‘integrare,’ which means to make whole or begin again. It also has French roots, from the word ‘intégration,’ which speaks to ‘bringing together parts of a whole.’
While the psychedelic community has yet to uniformly align on a single definition for integration, we can begin to understand it by acknowledging that psychedelics can help disrupt and loosen our rigid personality structures and long-held beliefs. Integration is about finding a middle ground, fixing the tears in our narratives, and becoming whole again.
Sounds simple, right? Simple, yes. Easy, maybe not. Psychedelic integration is both passive and active. It takes time, willingness, and effort to work through and re-live a psychedelic experience within the natural mind. It can involve taking a thorough inventory of the mind, body, and spirit, and challenging oneself to dig deep, get uncomfortable, and sometimes, make big changes.
But don’t panic. Integration is an extremely personal process and doesn’t look the same for everyone. Before getting started, get grounded, give yourself permission to take your time, and treat yourself with love, compassion, and patience.
Document Everything
Someone I used to work with is fond of saying “it doesn’t exist if it isn’t written down.” And while, for our purposes, he uses it in terms of project management, the same is true for psychedelic integration.
As soon as you’ve had a little breathing room from the most intense part of the trip – either before the psychedelic substance has worn off, or a few days after – begin journaling. Writing or recording the parts of the experience that stood out to you is a great place to start while the memory is fresh in your mind.
Whether in a blank notebook, or an intentionally designed psychedelic Integration Workbook, capturing those fleeting thoughts and feelings is often considered a foundational step in psychedelic integration. If a blank page feels a little daunting, check out our comprehensive guide to integrating psychedelic experiences, including meditation prompts, structured journaling exercises, and goal planning.
Find Someone to Listen
After a profound psychedelic experience, it’s often helpful to share your story with someone. Whether a therapist experienced in psychedelic integration, a trusted friend, or a member of a psychedelic community, finding a non-judgmental person to hold space for you is important.
The act of verbalizing your experience can help in processing and understanding it on a deeper level. Your experience may have included some anxiety, depression, and discomfort. It’s crucial to find a person who is open-minded (and did we mention, non-judgmental?), allowing you the space to explore your thoughts and feelings without steering them in any particular direction.
If your resources are limited, or there just isn’t anyone in your circle who fits the bill, consider contacting Fireside Project, a free helpline for peer support before, during, and after a psychedelic experience.
“(The volunteers) come to the experiences having had their own experiences, and desiring to hold space for others as they navigate their experiences and navigate their processing afterwards. They’re not doing therapy. They’re not diagnosing. They’re really with the person (the caller, the texter) as somebody who gets it,” Fireside Project founder Hanifa Washington told Psychedelics Today.
Depending on the intensity of your experience and the state of your well-being in the aftermath, finding a trained professional or a doctor may be necessary – especially if you’re in distress.
Do Your Homework
Psychedelic integration also involves educating yourself about the psychedelic experience. Dive into books, scientific research, and personal accounts that discuss psychedelics and their effects on the mind and body. Understanding the psychological, neurological, and spiritual aspects of psychedelics can provide a richer context to your experience.
To really dig into your integration, consider taking an online course. Navigating Psychedelics: Lessons on Self-Care and Integration was designed so you can learn at your own pace, with lessons on how to get the most out of your experience and integrate psychedelic experiences into your daily life.
These days, there is more psychedelic information available to curious people than ever before. While there can be a lot to wade through, it’s best to find a format that’s easy and compelling to digest. This knowledge can help in recognizing common themes and lessons that emerge in psychedelic experiences. Knowledge is power, and there’s a lot of it out there for you to discover.
Take Care of Yourself
Physical health plays a significant role in psychological and spiritual well-being, especially after a psychedelic experience. And if you’ve just had one, your body might have gone through the ringer.
Ensure you’re taking care of your body through proper nutrition, adequate sleep, and regular exercise. Activities you enjoy, like yoga, art, meditation, and nature walks can also be beneficial, helping to ground your experiences in the physical world. Remember, a healthy body is crucial for a healthy mind. Though you may often hear about mental and physical health discussed separately, they are one in the same.
Find the Others
Outside of a therapist or coach, connecting with others who have had similar experiences can be incredibly beneficial for psychedelic integration. Look for community groups, workshops, or online forums where people discuss their psychedelic experiences and integration processes. Sharing with and learning from others can provide different perspectives and insights, and also remind you that you are not alone in this journey.
And even if, for example, you’ve taken psilocybin, don’t discount the experiences of those who have used other substances, from 5-MeO-DMT to ketamine (and all substances in between). While the substances and effects on the body and mind may differ, many of the feelings that can arise and the outcomes can be eerily similar. Finding commonality with many others who use psychedelics for healing and betterment can offer support, understanding, and camaraderie as you navigate your own integration journey.
Don’t Overthink It
The morning after my first ayahuasca experience, I woke up to a text from a friend that read:
Try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now.
I didn’t fully embrace the sentiment of this quote, originally written by Austrian author Rainer Maria Rilke, until much later. My friend was gently urging me to avoid trying to decode the ayahuasca experience too quickly. I didn’t take this advice, and by the time I landed back in Canada, I decided the medicine was, without question, urging me to live with more gratitude. Maybe so, but maybe that wasn’t quite everything I could have learned, or even the most profound. Because I stopped asking questions, I closed the door to new insights.
“How beautiful that we have this access to deep knowledge of the universe through us, but we have to be quiet. We have to be quiet to hear the whispers of the heart. And when you become quiet, the whispers of the heart become louder and they start filling you in. Then you have to start believing it,” Dr. Michael Sapiro told Psychedelics Today.
Sometimes, psychedelic experiences can be colossal, endless, and enlightening.
And sometimes, they can also be underwhelming, unremarkable, and even boring. Resist the urge to define the ‘why’ too quickly after the substance has worn off. Take a beat, unpack it, and let it marinate in your mind for a bit before concluding its significance – there may be more (or less) there than you think.
One Step at a Time
Choosing to take psychedelics can be transformative, opening doors to new perspectives and deeper understanding of oneself. But remember, the true journey begins with integration — weaving these profound experiences into the tapestry of your daily life.
As you navigate this path, cherish the insights, embrace the challenges, and remember that psychedelic integration is meant to be a journey, not a destination.
With ayahuasca being cast into the spotlight, curious minds from all over the world are heading to Central and South America to experience it for themselves.
And while tales of profound healing are common, there exists a shadowy underbelly within the realm of such experiences – from the onset of psychotic episodes to acts of sexual exploitation.
So it begs the question: is ayahuasca the real deal? Can it profoundly change your life as the evangelists say, or is it just another fad that will fade if psychedelics fall out of the Western spotlight?
Over the last several years, my interest in exploring shamanic traditions led me to work closely with ayahuasca in Peru, Mexico, and Ecuador. I’ve sat in 20 ceremonies, and during a six-month period at a shamanic retreat center, I supported hundreds of individuals through their processes, witnessing various kinds of transformations.
Our left brain driven approach to understanding this medicine tends to fall short, as research and studies struggle to capture the subtleties and complexities of this undoubtedly strange but powerful teacher plant. Rather, we turn to tradition, ceremony, and wisdom passed down over countless generations to explore the consciousness-expanding properties of this plant medicine.
While ayahuasca shows promise in many cases, I want to emphasize that it’s not a miracle cure for anything. Not everyone benefits from it, and there are many instances where people are harmed by it. As with any psychedelic substance, many factors, most notably an individual’s physiology, intentions, circumstances, and location, influence the result.
So before we dive into some of the ways ayahuasca can change individuals, it’s important to preface: though I’ve witnessed and experienced positive change from ayahuasca, I’ve encountered individuals who suffered after consuming it.
For example, one woman reported frequent panic attacks following a ceremony. In another instance, I met a man struggling with bipolar disorder, who developed psychosis and required constant support post-experience. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon to hear stories of sexual exploitation by shady shamans and cases of retraumatization.
Fortunately, I’ve mostly witnessed the positive side of this medicine, observing deeply transformational experiences that individuals have had on all levels of well-being.
Drawing from collective experiences and those of many people I worked with, here are some of the ways in which ayahuasca may bring about positive changes in individuals’ lives.
How Ayahuasca Affects the Physical Body
Ayahuasca has profound effects on consciousness, but it may also serve as a potent remedy for physical health. Whether it’s cleansing the body or restoring the brain to optimal function, there are many lesser-known physical health benefits this medicine carries.
Look at it this way: the body is a vessel, and the spirit prefers to live in a beautiful temple rather than a dilapidated mansion. This medicine cleanses this vessel to create space for the full expression of your soul.
Potential for Physical Cleansing
Ayahuasca is believed to remove impurities from the body, such as harmful toxins ingested from particular substances and products. While clinical research that validates this idea is lacking, some people have reported that ayahuasca detoxed their bodies from harmful medications and substances. The cleansing process involves purging, which can include vomiting, crying, sweating, and spontaneous rushes to the bathroom.
One man, who had previously worked with harmful chemicals, believed that ayahuasca flushed them out. Having suffered the long-standing consequences of radiation poisoning, he reported smelling those chemicals in his bucket after purging.
Purging serves as cleansing on a physical level, and it doubles up as an energetic release. After purging, many people report feeling much lighter on both a physical and emotional level.
Potential for Resetting Brain Chemistry
According to some individuals I worked with, ayahuasca helped restore their brain function to a more neutral state. This phenomenon was particularly evident in people with a history of substance abuse, where frequent use of specific substances resulted in physical and psychological imbalances.
These imbalances could manifest as hyperactivity, a lack of focus, mood swings, and depression. Some individuals displaying such behaviors reported feeling healthier following a ceremony, discovering a newfound sense of calmness and composure.
In the Be Conscious Podcast: Drug Addiction and the Power of Ayahuasca, Curandero Michael Thornhill, trained in the Noya Rao lineage, suggests that addiction often stems from deep-rooted trauma. Ayahuasca can aid in healing this trauma, eliminating the urge to escape reality via substance abuse. By considering substance abuse as a coping mechanism, ayahuasca has the potential to help individuals address the root cause, rendering the coping mechanism obsolete. However, an individual I encountered relapsed in the months following an ayahuasca retreat. This illuminates the necessity of ongoing support post-ceremony to solidify new habits and prevent reverting to old ones.
While ayahuasca holds promise, it’s a powerful medicine that can impact individuals differently, yielding unexpected results. Responsible exploration and informed decision-making are crucial when considering its use for addiction recovery, with a strong support network following the experience being necessary.
Potential for Clearing Bodily Dysfunctions
Ayahuasca’s physical effects may go beyond potentially cleansing the body; it may assist individuals dealing with persistent bodily dysfunctions. These issues can span the digestive system, sexual organs, respiratory system, and even nervous system dysregulation.
Several women I spoke to reported experiencing regulation of their menstrual cycle following a ceremony. This suggests that ayahuasca may contribute to restoring our bodies to a more optimal function.
It’s noteworthy that many individuals who believed these dysfunctions to be lifelong conditions have experienced a contrary outcome with ayahuasca. While an ayahuasca ceremony isn’t a substitute for seeking medical advice or treatment, I have witnessed instances where ayahuasca has contributed to the healing of stubborn dysfunctions that individuals have accepted as a part of themselves.
How Ayahuasca Affects the Mental Body
The mental body encompasses the realm of the mind, a powerful tool for organizing your reality. However, the mind is susceptible to wear and tear.
Thoughts, mentalities, and beliefs about the world and oneself originate from the mind. Limiting belief systems can hinder reaching your full potential, as the quality of your thoughts lays the foundation for your life experience.
Needless to say, the mind has a huge influence on well-being. When it’s not functioning optimally, it can contaminate your reality. Ayahuasca, in this context, accesses the roots of perception, resulting in a healthier outlook on life.
Deconstructing Outdated Programming
A potential benefit of ayahuasca lies in its potential to deprogram harmful beliefs and perceptions. During youth, we often absorb information without discernment, forming the foundations of our reality. This can result in a warped or disadvantageous perception of reality, and of ourselves.
For instance, an individual might have developed an aversion to strangers due to parental advice. They may have formed the belief that money is a scarce resource or that humanity is a lost cause, ultimately leading to a reduced quality of life. While these beliefs may have served a purpose at some point, they often become burdensome if not discarded.
Ayahuasca has the potential to bring awareness to our deeply held beliefs, providing an opportunity to replace them with healthier perspectives that enhance one’s life. This may include embracing the belief that change is exciting or recognizing everyone’s potential to experience abundance regardless of their circumstances.
Following a transformative ceremony, an individual chose to reconnect with his estranged father after a decade of avoiding contact. He revealed that during the ceremony, he gained a fresh perspective on the situation, leading to the dissolution of long-standing resentment.
Illuminating Limiting Belief Systems
One’s belief systems play a crucial role in navigating life experiences. Those with spiritual beliefs will likely have a different perspective than those who identify as atheists. These differing belief systems contribute to distinct understandings of mortality, morality, and principles for leading a happy life.
Some people who experienced ayahuasca reported a shift in specific belief systems, most notably the fear of change. They expressed being more at peace with life changes and that they no longer felt the associated anxiety.
Additionally, a common experience reported among individuals was a deepening of curiosity about life after death. Many described significant realizations and insights into their personal lives. It became evident to me through hearing these stories, that ayahuasca can help many individuals connect the dots and perceive certain events in their lives from a different perspective.
Changes to Your Self-Perception
During challenging times, it’s common to criticize oneself. Small mistakes can be magnified into perceived failures, leading to a diminished sense of self worth. This negative self-view can set life on a downward spiral, as our life experiences often mirror our internal landscape.
Feelings of self-worthlessness were common issues faced by individuals I supported during ceremonies. Many of them reported that ayahuasca illuminated the origins of this distorted self-perception. This awareness allowed them to begin empowering themselves and working on their self image.
The Emotional Body
Emotions serve as a powerful medium through which we experience life. The ups and downs, joy and despair, love and heartache are essential to prevent life from becoming mundane. However, life can also be brutal.
The emotional body represents your connection with feelings. A healthy emotional body means being in touch with feelings, allowing you to be in harmony with your emotions and experience the world in its full colors.
Many people have turned to ayahuasca when grappling with emotional issues like repressed anger and resentment. In many of these cases, ayahuasca illuminates healthier ways for people to experience and express their emotions.
Some individuals may realize the repercussions of bottling up their anger, prompting them to seek healthier outlets for expression. Others might correlate their lack of assertion with childhood experiences of walking on eggshells, leading to an understanding of the importance of speaking up and asserting oneself.
Ayahuasca, as a sacred medicine, is renowned for healing the emotional body, enabling individuals to feel the amazing spectrum of life. With that said, here are a few ways ayahuasca works on the emotional body.
Removing Emotional Baggage
In my experience, a common reason why people seek out ayahuasca is to release painful emotions linked to past experiences. I’ve seen individuals struggle to move on from past circumstances, then continue to suffer as a result.
Significant unaddressed past trauma can potentially lead to adverse physical and emotional effects. If the trauma remains unhealed, its manifestations often accumulate as emotional baggage, described by many as a weight or burden.
As highlighted in a HealthCentral article by Lisa M. Basile and Jessica Rodriguez, trauma can have lasting effects on both physical and mental health, leading to conditions like chronic autoimmune illness, heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer.
Within conventional medicine, symptoms are often addressed, but the root cause is not, prompting individuals to seek out traditional alternatives for a holistic approach to healing. Ayahuasca is renowned for helping people identify the root cause of their issues rather than alleviating symptoms, which can lead to genuine healing and growth.
Notably, I’ve worked with individuals who harbored long-standing resentment from childhood abuse, shame from childhood abandonment, and grief from past relationships. Some expressed feeling lighter after addressing the root cause of their pain during ayahuasca journeys, such as the fear of being alone. I witnessed significant transformations in individuals who claimed to have let go of the past by addressing the trauma associated with specific memories.
Clearing Deep-Rooted Trauma
The notion that one sitting with ayahuasca is equivalent to years of therapy attracts many seeking healing from trauma. In my time working with ayahuasca, I supported people who endured extremely traumatic events such as rape, physical abuse, and the loss of children. Some also grappled with war-related PTSD. Despite years of therapy and medication, many became disillusioned by these approaches, prompting them to explore every healing modality under the sun. For some, ayahuasca became a last resort.
Several individuals who suffered severe trauma reported turning a new leaf in their lives after engaging with the medicine. While ayahuasca cannot rid the pain associated with losing a loved one, those experiencing grief expressed feeling more at peace following a ceremony. A few even believed they had connected with their loved ones in spirit, providing closure.
If ayahuasca has a reputation for anything, it’s helping find light amid life’s tragedies. Needless to say, this isn’t always the case, and a single session may not be enough to facilitate deep healing on this scale. I have also witnessed cases where people became more disillusioned after taking ayahuasca, underscoring the importance of integration and support.
Removing Emotional Blockages
Many issues we face are manifestations of emotional blockages, which come in various forms and result in different emotional challenges. Essentially, a blockage prevents you from fully experiencing life.
Common blockages include struggles with love arising from issues with the heart, avoidance of intimacy and sexual expression due to sexual blockages, challenges in holding authority, and difficulties with self-expression, often leading to an inability to open up.
Past experiences can cause people to build an “emotional dam” as a protective mechanism. For instance, if you had an abusive partner, you might lose the spark for romance. If your parents scolded you for expressing certain needs or desires, you might find it challenging to express yourself later on in life.
In this sense, ayahuasca can act like a drain cleaner, restoring the flow. During ceremonies, individuals often experience the opening up of different parts of themselves and the resurrection of specific feelings that were long buried.
The Spiritual Body
Reality is like an onion, where what we perceive is but a tiny figment of an incomprehensibly grand system. Energetically, we’re always tethered to other dimensions of experience, and our consciousness is thoroughly rooted in them.
Like a tree growing from its roots, your life experience manifests from your soul nature. This is what your spiritual body signifies – your consciousness in its entirety. Your entire reality is a manifestation of your consciousness.
Ayahuasca affects the deepest layers of who you are because, in shamanic traditions, it’s not a drug, it’s not even a psychedelic. “Mother ayahuasca” is a spirit – a conscious, highly intelligent entity that exists within these higher dimensions.
With that said, we’re going to look into the spiritual component of ayahuasca and explore how this medicine can help people tap into their core nature to recreate their reality.
Seeding New Philosophies and Ways of Being
Ayahuasca can be a humbling experience that can allow an individual to step outside their body, mind, and emotions, exploring the deepest layers of self. This opens the door to a whole new world of possibilities, unseen through the clutter. While you will return to reality, what you experienced can never be forgotten.
Ayahuasca can plant new seeds, which if tended to, can flourish in many ways. It can guide individuals to cultivate new ways of understanding our place on this planet, fostering a deeper sense of meaning. Whether it imparts lessons on not taking life so seriously, unveils death as another chapter, or empowers us to become the creator of our life experiences, the insights gained have the potential to drastically improve the quality of our lives.
Cultivating a Deeper Connection with Spirit
Many turn to ayahuasca to help them find meaning in life, seeking answers to questions about who they truly are and why they’re here. The majority of people I’ve encountered sought spiritual exploration through ayahuasca, while others were drawn to it by a deep interest in the afterlife.
For many people who drink this medicine, it steers them toward a journey of discovery. They seek to understand the mysteries of their experiences, to comprehend why they’re here, and to distinguish truth from illusion.
This quest for understanding propels people further down the rabbit hole of self-discovery, nurturing a deeper connection with spirit. As a result, people who take ayahuasca typically open up to different modalities, bodies of information, and practices that they may not have been interested in before.
Although some believe that ayahuasca is solely a drug-induced experience, I found the majority of people who sit with the medicine are convinced that it’s a bridge to hidden realms of consciousness. Many people reported that ayahuasca reinforced their spiritual beliefs, while others stated the experience created spiritual beliefs.
This newfound path often creates a sense of peace in individuals’ lives, allowing them to ultimately recognize their true nature, as souls having a human experience – conjuring feelings of relief and inspiration.
Raising Your Vibration
Ayahuasca’s beauty lies in its capacity to help evolve us into our best selves while showing us the abundance of happiness accessible to all. After all, that’s what the journey is about – discovering the master within, who has an unlimited plethora of wisdom that can be tapped into.
With wisdom, one realizes that happiness is synonymous with love and that destructive behavior grows from suffering. Ayahuasca has the potential to help in recognizing these fundamental truths, significantly impacting well-being and happiness by steering individuals away from attitudes, beliefs, and feelings associated with suffering.
People commonly report increased gratitude after participating in an ayahuasca ceremony. In my own experience, ayahuasca helped shape a “glass half full” perspective, and many others reported feeling more optimistic afterwards. The medicine is often mentioned for its ability to alleviate the fear of death and the unknown, a common motivation for seeking it out.
However, ayahuasca can also cause unwanted effects, including retraumatization. One individual I supported felt existential dread following a retreat, and another reported frequent panic attacks in the months that followed. Feelings of disorientation or confusion after a ceremony underline the necessity of integration work.
These newfound outlooks must be actively maintained or the potential of reverting to old patterns is likely. Without the right support or motivation to follow through with newly developed attitudes, many individuals regress.
This illuminates the importance of seeking out proper support following an ayahuasca experience, especially during the delicate stages post-ceremony, before new outlooks and behaviors have settled.
Remember: Your Mileage May Vary
Ayahuasca is a powerful plant medicine, but it’s certainly not everyone’s cup of tea. While it can be blissful, it can also be vivid, intrusive, erratic, and extremely weird. I have had experiences where I felt deeply disconnected from my mind and body, thrust into an incomprehensibly complex and bizarre alien world. Without a thorough understanding of your mental ecosystem, it’s easy to see how the experience can overwhelm people, potentially causing more harm than good.
Given the multitude of factors involved, it’s important not to view ayahuasca as a miracle cure. I’ve met many who believed ayahuasca would do the work for them, only to be disappointed. Ayahuasca serves as an aid; the individual does the work. It may reveal what needs attention, but the effort to address those aspects is up to the individual. It might illuminate a better path, but you must then walk it.
The experience is not a walk in the park or an observation of pretty patterns. The healing process can be extremely difficult requiring a certain level of mental preparedness. It often involves vomiting, reliving trauma, and confronting one’s demons that some may be ill-prepared for.
Given the vulnerability during these experiences, finding a safe and reputable location to take the medicine is paramount. Sitting with shamans who don’t have your best intentions in mind is a potentially dangerous recipe that should be avoided at all costs.
Furthermore, it’s important to acknowledge that the experience is unique to every individual. Approach the medicine with an open mind, understanding that the experience is different from typical portrayals, and each experience is unique. While it may cause significant shifts in healing, it can also leave you confused or underwhelmed.
While there is a degree of consistency with many psychedelics, ayahuasca is a powerful medicine of its own, with results varying drastically. My best advice: don’t expect the medicine to automatically heal you. However, if you approach it with the best intentions, well-prepared to enter the darker chasms of your subconscious, it may change your life in ways you might never predict.
In this episode, Joe interviews Steve Rio: psychedelic guide, performance and transformation coach, musician, and co-founder of Enfold, a retreat center in BC, Canada.
While Enfold caters each experience to each client, they largely work with 5-MeO-DMT (which is unregulated in Canada); partly because of its power, and partly because Rio realized how much was missing in terms of safety and process when using the substance. They are trying to fill in the gaps, working with the University Health Network Centre for Mental Health to analyze measurements of mindfulness, DAS tests, the Brief Inventory of Thriving survey, and language used when describing experiences to collect as much qualitative data as possible. He discusses their screening process, why they work with synthetic 5-MeO-DMT, why they encourage everyone to go to a group session, and how 5-MeO seems to bypass psychological processes and largely be related to somatic release.
He talks about:
The power of 5-MeO and being humble and honest with yourself: Are you stable enough to handle the dysregulation?
5-MeO bad actors and ‘Drive-by 5’ people who show up, do the drug, and leave
The plight of Sonoran Dessert toads and the need for more data around their declining populations
How 5-MeO seems to connect people with a higher power, and the need for the experiencer to find their own context for it
The importance of creating a clean and open container for spirituality and meeting the client where they are
and more!
Notable Quotes
“I think inserting any type of dogma is not really helpful in taking people through a psychedelic experience. I think there are some core basic principles around love, around compassion, around forgiveness, that I think everyone can agree with, but I think beyond that, it’s important for everybody to be able to contextualize their experience in the framing that feels right to them. …We try and create the clearest and simplest container for spirituality that allows for the depth of spirituality, but doesn’t necessarily try and say spirituality is one thing or another, because frankly, that’s a very personal choice.”
“These toads have quickly become close to extinct. And the whole region is in turmoil because of people coming to harvest toads. There’s cartel activities. I think there’s human safety risks, I think there’s animal safety risks. And once you work with synthetic, you realize that there’s so little difference between Bufo Alvarius and synthetic that it makes no sense to be working on healing, transformation, and consciousness expansion at the expense of this beautiful animal.”
“The more people can open up in a group setting, I think that’s an incredibly healing practice – to be able to be vulnerable, to be able to be heard, to hear other people’s stories and realize you’re not alone. To hear yourself in others is really powerful. I think, ultimately, the deepest healing does happen in community.”
He tells his story of growing up in a house where academics like John Mack and Carl Sagan regularly smoked cannabis, and being inspired by the groundbreaking books of his father, Lester Grinspoon. An outspoken advocate for drug policy reform and embracing different, non-AA paths to recovery, he talks about how he got there: his opiate addiction, fall from medicine, subsequent return, and learning just how deep the stigma against drugs goes, and how much the medical establishment is another arm of the Drug War. Seeing Through the Smoke aims to tell the truth about cannabis, especially on benefits and real and debunked harms. How can we get more physicians and lawmakers on our side if all they know is propaganda?
He discusses:
-The challenge in speaking honestly with physicians about drug use
-Why physicians are in support of researching psychedelics but not cannabis
-Stigmatized language and Drug War vibes in medical software
-The truth about cannabis, schizophrenia, and the risk of drug-induced psychosis
-Portugal and the ‘Rat Park’ model
-The importance of listening to what patients are saying – especially when we don’t have enough good data
and more!
Notable Quotes
“My dad got John Mack and Carl Sagan together so that Carl can convince John that UFOs aren’t actually real. And apparently, it got very heated, and John Mack yelled at Carl Sagan: ‘You’re being too cartesian!’ So I had a very weird childhood. I mean, all these people were smoking pot frequently in my house when I was growing up, and I grew to associate cannabis with intellectual discussion and very motivated people. I had a very different experience with it than I think it’s fair to say most people did.”
“Back then, the psychiatrists were all completely against psychedelics and people were not at all in favor of medical cannabis. I did my senior presentation as a resident on medical cannabis in the year 2000 (23 years ago), and everybody thought I was so eccentric. And they thought that this was the latest fad, like beta carotene or Omega-3 whatever. And now it’s fun because the same doctors who thought I was eccentric are referring patients to me.”
“94% of Americans support legal access to medical cannabis at this point. …Who’s against medical marijuana? I mean, come on, someone’s dying of cancer; give them some medical marijuana. And again, the AMA still puts it in derogatory quotation marks. So does the American Psychiatric Association. They put ‘medical marijuana’ in these derogatory quotation marks, like, ‘This is just something that only an ignorant patient would believe.’ …I wish they’d just have a little bit more humility and a little bit of interest in rethinking their positions.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Ryan Latreille: Founder of Hearthstone Collective, which sells functional mushrooms and low-dose kanna designed for microdosing; and Kanna Extract Co., which is focused on offering high-potency kanna extracts more for ceremonial and recreational use.
He talks about how he found his way to kanna; his first psychedelic experience (kanna mixed with MDMA); how he worked with a Koi tribal leader to find high-alkaloid kanna; how they created the strain they use; and why so many people are interested in kanna and more people should try it, as he believes it’s not only a natural alternative to other substances and alcohol, but also a great entry point for people looking to experiment with microdosing.
If you want to learn a lot about kanna, this is the episode for you, as it is all discussed: How dosing should be done depending on what you’re looking for; whether or not it’s fair to say kanna is ‘MDMA-lite’; Indigenous history of usage; drug interactions and safety; the journey from seed to harvest; a breakdown of different grades of kanna; how the ratio of different alkaloids creates different experiences; and what could be possible by combining different alkaloids, different strains, and by pairing with different substances.
Notable Quotes
“When you take it, it is stimulating the release of more dopamine, more norepinephrine, more serotonin. And that on its own is going to at least contribute in part to this euphoric, empathogenic feeling that people have when they take it. So I don’t know if it’s fair to say that it’s like MDMA-lite. It definitely is an empathogen, you definitely feel a heart-opening, but it is, I would say, distinctly different.”
“A lot of people are really liking this as an alternative to alcohol; something that’s healthier when you are in a social, festive environment, and you want to feel more open, more connected, more happy and free. This is, I think, a really great alternative for people than other compounds that tend to not leave you feeling so good the next day.”
“Kanna is a very special plant. I mean, there’s 28 known alkaloids at this point, each that have distinct effects on the central nervous system. And with the right chemist, you can make really, really cool extracts with it.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Erik Vaughan: Co-Founder and Manager of Epiphany Mushroom, a mushroom and mental health company based in Akron, Ohio.
Epiphany mushrooms will initially be selling Lion’s Mane, Reishi, and Cordyceps, and they plan to expand into more functional mushrooms while also pursuing a license to operate healing centers in Colorado. Vaughan was involved in changing Colorado’s psilocybin legislation after lobbying to add a section that allows product testing labs to register and charge for their services – while voluntary and complementary to required testing, it allows growers to have an unlimited amount of product for testing purposes; adds an extra step in keeping the grower and lab in compliance with state law; and, as more states work on their own legislation, highlights the need for potency testing to let customers know exactly what they’re ingesting.
He discusses changing attitudes and how Michigan can lead the way for the midwest; why he’s excited about Colorado and what they got right; the enthusiasm of the mycology crowd; Rick Perry’s speech at Psychedelic Science 2023; the iron law of prohibition and mushroom products sold in Ohio; and the incredible inefficiency of the drug war (when viewed like it was not designed to do exactly what it’s doing).
Notable Quotes
“This is how we get to maximum access. There’s a lot of the population that wants a regulated, licensed program. But also, that is going to price out a lot of the population. And so, having access to all of these different delivery methods, all of these different programs, [all of the ways] you can do it, all of the different ranges of costs: I think this is how you allow responsible access to the most amount of people with the least amount of damage.”
“It’s just such an incredible inefficiency. We’re losing that war on every metric, and how is that good for anyone? …You don’t even have to care about the good that it does for the individual, you can just look at it purely from an economic standpoint: it creates this untaxed black market that has dangerous products. And how’s it going? That, again, is what excites me to see; that in 50 years, we’re going to look back and say, ‘Ok. Hey, we made it through that.’”
Do women respond differently to psychedelics than men? And, if so, how are their needs different when approaching these powerful substances?
While crucial research is still limited to help us understand how and why the psychedelic experience might vary vastly among genders, the rise of female-only retreats, clinical settings, and thoughtfully designed psychedelic products and services, are helping provide women safer, more inclusive, and empowering psychedelic experiences.
The Need to Focus on the Female Experience
In an article in MIT Technology Review focusing on women and psychedelics, Juan Pablo Cappello, co-founder and CEO of the ketamine therapy platform Nue Life said, “We started our company knowing that women over 40 are prescribed antidepressants at more than three to four times the rate of men, which has led to one in every five women taking an antidepressant to get through the day.”
Gender differences in the effects of psychedelics remain a topic of mixed evidence, necessitating further investigation. Nevertheless, gender-specific challenges persist. Safety concerns, childcare responsibilities, and the stigma linked to drug use are among women’s hurdles within the psychedelic landscape.
The redesign of healthcare services should prioritize women’s needs. Women frequently experience misdiagnosis and dismissive treatment from healthcare providers, emphasizing the urgency for a more attentive and responsive approach.
One aspect that merits attention is the potential impact of hormonal fluctuations on women’s psychedelic experiences. The menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause can influence the subjective effects and therapeutic outcomes of psychedelics, underscoring the need for tailored research that considers these hormonal factors. Moreover, societal expectations and gender norms place pressure on women, shaping their experiences and interpretations of psychedelic encounters. The struggle to balance femininity, career, and family life can affect a woman’s sense of self and her ability to fully engage in the transformative potential of psychedelics. With psychedelics being non-specific amplifiers, the external setting, the internal set — the mindset and psychological preparedness of the individual — plays a pivotal role. Women may face self-doubt, fear of losing control, or concern about exposure to vulnerable emotions during psychedelic experiences. Carhart-Harris et al. have emphasized the importance of context, including internal barriers that could potentially hinder the therapeutic benefits of the journey.
Underrepresentation and Male Dominance
Historically, women have been underrepresented in clinical trials across various therapeutic areas, and psychedelics are no exception. For example, the term “inclusion of women” refers to the legal mandate outlined in the National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993, which requires the involvement of women as subjects in clinical research. This mandate applies to all clinical research funded by NIH unless it is deemed “inappropriate with respect to the health of the subjects,” “inappropriate with respect to the purpose of the research,” or “inappropriate under such other circumstances as the Director of NIH may designate.”
This gender bias limits our understanding of the specific effects, safety profiles, and therapeutic outcomes of psychedelics for women. The limited diversity among research participants has considerable implications for the generalizability and dissemination of treatments. Research suggests that women may exhibit different responses to psychedelics compared to men.
For example, a recent article examined the adverse effects of drugs targeting serotonin GPCRs in the CNS and PNS. These drugs interact with serotonin GPCRs in the brain and various peripheral areas, potentially causing side effects. Estrogen, which is more prevalent in women, influences serotonin synthesis and receptor densities, and drugs targeting serotonin GPCRs disrupt this process. The periodic increase in estrogen levels and the interference with the serotonin system mediated by estrogen could explain why women experience more adverse effects. Women also have lower serotonin concentrations and faster serotonin metabolism than men, which may contribute to the observed differences.
Biological factors, such as hormonal fluctuations, make research on women more complex and, therefore, more expensive. This highlights the necessity of considering gender as a factor in understanding the impact of psychedelics on mental health and well-being. Menstrual cycles, pregnancy, and menopause can influence the subjective effects and therapeutic outcomes of psychedelics. It is also worth consideration that many women experience disruptions in their menstrual cycles. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2022, “most females ages 18-64 (90%) have used contraceptives at some point in their reproductive years, and most have used more than one contraceptive method throughout their lifetime (76%).”
Gender disparity extends beyond research and permeates psychedelic communities, retreat centers, and therapeutic settings. Women may experience subtle or overt forms of discrimination, objectification, or microaggressions, negatively impacting their sense of safety, trust, and overall well-being. Addressing these systemic issues requires a concerted effort to challenge and dismantle patriarchal structures, promote inclusivity, and amplify women’s voices within the psychedelic landscape.
The pharmaceutical industry’s growing interest in psychedelic therapy necessitates a deliberate focus on gender equality and inclusion. As psychedelics become more accepted by the mainstream, it’s essential to ensure that the creation, promotion, and delivery of psychedelic therapies take into account the specific needs of different genders. This entails promoting gender-balanced research teams, conducting gender-sensitive clinical trials, and tailoring interventions to address the diversity of the human species.
While exploring women’s experiences in the psychedelic space, it is also essential to recognize and acknowledge the intersectionality of gender. The experiences of non-binary individuals, as well as those who do not conform to traditional gender norms, deserve attention and inclusion in research and discourse. Non-binary individuals may face unique challenges in navigating psychedelic experiences as they navigate intersecting identities and societal expectations. Let’s foster an inclusive and respectful psychedelic community.
Research into Women’s Bodies
Today, there is limited psychedelic research on factors like drug metabolism, hormonal contraceptives, and womens’ unique physiological traits, hindering the development of tailored psychedelic guidelines and creating unique safety concerns for women who take psychedelics.
Variations in drug metabolism, potential interactions with hormonal contraceptives or reproductive health conditions, and other physiological factors may influence the safety and efficacy of psychedelic experiences for women. Though complex and expensive, funding research focused on women’s bodies and tailoring medicine accordingly will be a game changer.
Certain psychedelics have been associated with increased blood pressure and heart rate, potentially posing distinct implications for women compared to men due to physiological differences. The absence of adequate data raises obstacles in providing accurate information, guidelines, and risk assessments to support women in making informed decisions about psychedelic use.
Studies highlight the relationship between estrogen and serotonin 5-HT2A receptors. Classic psychedelics work by activating serotonin, and research indicates that estrogen enhances receptor density in brain areas governing mood, emotion, cognition, and behavior. This connection may offer insights into gender-based variations in conditions like schizophrenia and depression, more prevalent in women. Additionally, disruptions in estrogen during menopause could affect the 5-HT2A and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) signalling pathway, potentially predisposing the brain to depression.
The scarcity of research on women’s experiences using psychedelics to support the process of motherhood and postpartum care poses additional challenges. The limited research perpetuates the perception that psychedelics may pose additional risks to pregnant women or those breastfeeding. Without concrete evidence, caution is often prioritized, leading to a blanket discouragement of psychedelic use during these periods. While caution is essential, the absence of research leaves the potential benefits or risks associated with psychedelic use during pregnancy or breastfeeding unclear, further perpetuating uncertainty and fear.
To address these concerns, there is a need for studies that examine the physiological, psychological, and experiential aspects of psychedelic use in women. Such studies should take into consideration menstrual cycles (including those influenced by birth control), hormonal fluctuations, and reproductive health.
Societal Expectations of Femininity and Motherhood: Safety Concerns
The societal expectations tied to femininity and motherhood can significantly influence women engaging with psychedelics, similar to how men navigate their own situations and societal pressures. These norms shape our human experiences, create additional burdens, and contribute to safety concerns and stigma surrounding psychedelic use. Women may sense societal pressure to conform to traditional gender roles, limiting their willingness to explore psychedelic experiences. Fear of judgment and stigmatization, along with challenges reconciling maternal responsibilities, can constrain their ability to fully embrace the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.
Moreover, internalized notions of femininity can lead to self-doubt, fear of losing control, or concerns about expressing vulnerable emotions during psychedelic experiences. Women may grapple with the balance between societal expectations and personal growth, inhibiting their ability to surrender to the psychedelic experience.
Sexual Assault in Psychedelic Spaces
The issue of sexual assault in psychedelic spaces has garnered significant attention in recent years, with instances of misconduct and exploitation reported within the community. Such incidents harm individuals and contribute to the stigmatization and fear surrounding psychedelic compounds. These concerns further emphasize the importance of providing safe and supportive settings, prioritizing consent and boundaries, and promoting gender equality.
While psychedelics hold tremendous therapeutic potential, the occurrence of sexual assault within psychedelic spaces remains a disturbing reality. Addressing conscious consent, creating safe environments, and implementing policies to prevent and respond to assault are crucial steps in fostering a culture of safety and respect.
After movements like #MeToo, female-only spaces have become safe havens for women to explore psychedelic experiences without fearing male dominance and sexual assault. These spaces provide a supportive and empowering environment, allowing women to navigate their journeys free from the constraints of societal expectations and potential gender-based harm. Such spaces recognize the importance of reclaiming agency, voice, and autonomy for women within the psychedelic realm.
The Rise of Women-Only Retreats
Women-only retreats create a unique and transformative space for women to explore their inner worlds, cultivate deep connections with one another, and embark on journeys of self-discovery and healing. Such retreats provide a safe space where participants can fully embrace vulnerability. The absence of men often fosters an environment where women feel more comfortable sharing their deepest fears, hopes, and emotions. This sense of safety encourages authentic exploration and expression during psychedelic experiences, helping women ‘take up space’.
Women-only retreats tend to nurture a profound sense of sisterhood and community. The shared experiences, both during and between psychedelic sessions, can forge lasting bonds and connections. These connections often lead to a deep sense of belonging and support, facilitating sustained relationships beyond the retreat experience.
Women-only retreats also provide participants with the opportunity to explore and reclaim their narratives and identities. Many women join these retreats with experiences of societal and cultural expectations, traumas, and limitations. Psychedelic experiences within this supportive environment can pave the way for self-liberation, empowering women to redefine themselves and their place in the world on their own terms.
Many of these retreats often focus on the exploration and celebration of feminine energy and aspects of the self. This journey can be deeply healing, helping women reestablish a connection with their inner wisdom, intuition, and creativity. Additionally, it can foster a deeper appreciation for the unique strengths and qualities that women bring to the world.
Held frequently in natural settings, many women-only retreats incorporate rituals and ceremonies. Reconnecting with nature and participating in rituals can deepen the psychedelic experience, helping participants feel more in tune with the cycles of life and the natural world. This reconnection can be both spiritually and emotionally enriching, assisting many women in reconnecting with the cycles of their bodies.
In her role as a psychedelic facilitator, Jessika has witnessed women emerging from these retreats with a newfound sense of purpose, self-love, and empowerment. This unique quality of women-only retreats lies in their ability to provide a nurturing and transformative space where women can explore the depths of their psyche, connect profoundly with others, and emerge as stronger, more authentic versions of themselves.
Designing Just for Women
Innovating with women-centered design in mind calls for products and services to be designed for, with, and by women, based on their specific needs. It also requires clearly conveying and enforcing guidelines for respectful communication, boundaries, and consent throughout the process.
The world we live in has been shaped by designers, and it is noteworthy that the creative industry, responsible for much of this design, tends to be male-dominated.
The seatbelt serves as the most cited example of a product designed for men but commonly used by women for safety. Using crash test dummies based on average male sizes and weights has resulted in significant safety disparities for women, making them 73% more likely to be injured in a car accident. Beyond physical safety concerns, women face ongoing challenges related to everyday comfort and practicality. Consider the dilemma faced by pregnant women when deciding whether to position the seatbelt above or below their bellies. Another everyday example is the smartphone, tailored for the average male hand, and transforming into a cumbersome object in the grasp of the average woman.
Taking into account the significant impact of these design hurdles on women’s lives, it warrants a thoughtful approach to designing specifically for women in the context of mind-altering substances. Jemma Campbell, head of U.S. creative of Moving Brands, notes “It is very easy to think that design is aesthetics and aesthetics alone. Design is about much more than aesthetics – it’s about solving real-world problems and improving lives. When done right, it gives brands the ability to build connections with people much like human relationships.”
Focusing solely on aesthetics and neglecting research, strategy, and the overall product experience means you might project your own perspective, adopt codes rooted in learned behaviors and societal norms, and follow cues that may not lead to the best solutions.
“So, when it comes to creating women-only spaces for psychedelic treatment, when patients may feel vulnerable and exposed, we need to fully understand and reflect their unique needs and experiences. And that means women designers must not only be involved – they must be leading the vision,” Campbell says.
Key Considerations in Psychedelic Design for Women
Include More Female Designers, Scientists, Researchers, and Engineers
Women buy or influence 85% of all consumer purchases, control 73% of household spending, and make 69% of household health decisions. However, research consistently demonstrates that women are not satisfied with the product and service innovations offered to them. One possible reason: 85% of product designers and engineers are men. In areas like healthcare, where setting and environment are critical, designing with empathy is vital. It’s what makes having diverse design teams so important. Therefore, actively seek the involvement of more female designers, scientists, researchers, and engineers. Diverse teams bring a broader range of perspectives and insights, essential for understanding and meeting the unique needs and preferences of women consumers.
Listen and Learn
Cultivate a culture of inclusivity and diversity within design teams, fostering an environment where women from diverse backgrounds feel comfortable sharing their perspectives and experiences. Actively listen to their feedback, concerns, and ideas, and use this input to drive innovation and product development. Establish a safe and confidential space where women can share without judgment or fear of repercussions. Start small and build it organically.
Increase the representation of women in leadership positions and decision-making roles within design and engineering teams. When women have a seat at the table, they can advocate for designs and innovations that better resonate with female consumers.
User-Centered Design
Prioritize user-centered design principles, ensuring that products and experiences are designed with women in mind. Conduct thorough research to understand their needs, preferences, and pain points, involving women from diverse backgrounds and age groups. The experience doesn’t commence solely upon entering a clinic, retreat space, or product use; it begins with communication. For instance, inviting individuals to observe a retreat to ease them in or incorporating controlled microdosing to facilitate their entry could be part of designing the overall experience.
Collaboration
Collaborate with women’s organizations, advocacy groups, and female-focused communities to gain insights and build strong connections with potential users. These collaborations can lead to valuable co-creation opportunities.
In an ideal healthcare scenario, we envision truly bespoke care tailored to individual needs, irrespective of gender, becoming the norm. While acknowledging the historical challenges and potential future obstacles, we, as professionals, understand the complexities. Yet, as women, we recognize the oversight of subtle but crucial distinctions in female bodies and systems. The lingering patriarchal influence in Western research, product, and system development is a fact. We are now on the journey toward equal opportunities. Undertaking specialized research, embracing user-centered design, and holding space to heal past trauma, we hope to see a more inclusive and supportive psychedelic landscape, where everyone’s distinct needs and perspectives receive the recognition and respect they deserve.
In this episode, Kyle interviews Kayse Gehret, the Founder of Microdosing for Healing, an international virtual community and coaching program supporting microdosing practice.
She tells the story of embracing microdosing and her grand mal seizure disorder going away, and how the inability to touch people during the pandemic led to the creation of Microdosing for Healing. She breaks down the details of the program, challenges she’s seen, and the importance of using every effective modality possible to align with each person’s individual experience. The next 6-Week Immersion Group course begins January 26.
She talks about how accessing the body is usually the best entry point to healing; how effective journaling and other personal development practices are to recognize change (especially with how subtle microdosing can be); the efficacy of group process; how physicians are beginning to see the power in community and connection; concerns over the “jump in the deep end” attitude of many people leading to destabilizing experiences; how regular check-ins are important to keep people connected to their original intention; and the idea that people are striving for an unattainable state of perfection – that our goal should be a constant state of improvement and aligning ourselves to who we are meant to be – and microdosing until we don’t need to microdose anymore.
Notable Quotes
“I grew up with a grand mal seizure disorder, so I had always, growing up, shied away from anything that would destabilize my brain more than it already was doing on its own. So doing high dose or experimenting with drugs was never appealing to me and kind of a bit scary to me. But when I was introduced to the concept of microdosing, there was something that just was like ding! And the idea that I could do something that felt more like a natural supplementation, a spiritual vitamin if you will, over time, as kind of an expansiveness [tool] and a healing modality – not anticipating at all it would have the effect that it it did end up happening for me – but that sounded more appealing than high dose work at the time. So I started microdosing and among other things, my seizure disorder disappeared completely, immediately upon practicing.”
“Somatics and body work is fundamental, I think, to our healing, especially where we are in society right now. I think accessing the body is, for many people, the best first access point to their own healing.”
“I really feel like the majority of the public, especially now that it’s mainstream, most people (and again, this is just my opinion) are not resourced and resilient and in a place where going straight to a high dose experience is going to best serve them. And what we have witnessed loud and clear over the last three years is when people take the time to lay the foundation and really apprentice themselves to their practice – incorporate breathwork, body work, other healing modalities first – and they lay a foundation of trust with themselves and the medicine; then they move into higher dose work with a guide and facilitator, it is a completely different experience.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Mike Finoia: standup comedian, Producer for the hit show, “Impractical Jokers,” and co-host of the Comes a Time Podcast with Dead & Company bassist, Oteil Burbridge. His new Special, “Don’t Let Me Down,” is out now.
He talks about his early days of recreational drug use at jam band shows; a powerful psilocybin experience; passing out before his first ketamine experience and how his commitment has made subsequent experiences much smoother; and how his continued work has allowed him to focus on what’s truly important. He’s seen positive results from talking about his ketamine-assisted psychotherapy experiences on stage, and he’s working on new material that will be much more focused on not just psychedelics, but the therapy, self-work, and growth he’s gone through in his journey.
He also discusses the influence of other comedians; the bioavailability in different ketamine methods; how psychedelics are like a performance-enhancing drug; the importance of having a working, attainable idea of success and not getting caught up in other people’s lives; the benefit of asking people in the audience to raise their hands if they’ve done psychedelics; and the importance of recognizing that psychedelics are absolutely not for everyone – at least if they’re not ready.
Notable Quotes
“It’s interesting because I’m trying to work out the material and figure out what’s funny, but also, some of the stuff I’m saying that’s from my gut is getting laughter and applause, and also, people are coming up afterwards and they’re like, ‘That’s really awesome that you’re talking about this.’ …I have to pay attention to that.”
“A comic, just like anything else really – you know, a podcaster, an entrepreneur, a businessman, whatever – you’re 10 different things. You’re the Director of social media, you’re the Director of advertising and marketing and promotions. You have your art and you have the thing you like to do, but then there’s a hundred other gigs that come with it, and you have to kind of stay on top of all those things. And that can get extremely overwhelming. And if you already have that imposter voice or that critic that’s beating the hell out of you all the time, it’s more ammo or more fuel for their fire. So to me, psychedelics have been– It’s almost like a vacation. It’s like a way to shut that crap off and get to what really matters.”
“When you have the anxieties and the depressions and the imposter syndrome, things like that; sometimes the most psychedelic part of a psychedelic experience is the absence of the bullshit, where it’s just: you get down to being a living being and you’re out of your own way. And that, to me, is the most valuable part.”
In this episode, David interviews Shauheen Etminan, Ph.D. and Jonathan Lu: Co-Founders of Magi Ancestral Supplements.
Through studying ancient Zoroastrian writings and 2,000 year-old Chinese texts in search of compounds and formulations forgotten by history, Etminan and Lu co-founded drug discovery company VCENNA in 2019 to use extraction technology to isolate these compounds. This led to an understanding of the health properties behind beta-carbolines, which led to their nootropic company, Magi Ancestral Supplements. They talk about the early days and experimenting on themselves, how beta-carbolines create dream-like states, and how their research sent each of them further into their own heritage, and asking themselves: How do we remember what our ancestors knew?
They discuss espand, haoma, Syrian rue, and how common Syrian rue is in both Iranian culture and psychedelic history; what is a drug vs. what is a supplement; common threads they’ve seen across different cultures and how we may be repeating some of their mistakes; Etminan’s recent ayahuasca experience with the Santo Daime church; and of course, some of Magi Ancestral Supplements’ products and their expected effects – from deep meditation to lucid dreaming to even mild hallucinations. You can get 10% off any product using code PT10 here.
Notable Quotes
“The journey started with basically experimenting with different alkaloid’s extracts. So we were able to extract these compounds from different plants. Specifically, the journey started with just doing some experimentation with psilocybin, looking into what are those alkaloids inside the psilocybin mushroom. And then basically, this story took us into our own heritage and trying to see what other plants are psychoactives but they’re less studied in the West.” -Shauheen
“This terminology you put between what is a supplement, what is a drug, what is food; even going back to what Andrew Weil talks about here, like, is caffeine a drug? Is nicotine a drug? …These words that we apply to what is a drug vs. what is a supplement are fairly arbitrary. We give the label of something as being a drug just because it’s gone through the medical establishment of a thousand people have tested it and based upon the evaluation of a guy wearing a white lab coat with a diploma on the wall, he said that more than 65% of them (or vs. those who were given a placebo) had a positive response, and therefore I can call it a drug now instead of a supplement and you can make a medical claim. But you know, the plants, the compounds: They don’t really care what we call them.” -Jon
“I am not very fascinated about psychedelics in general; I’m fascinated about the effect of psychedelics on human consciousness, because we are really behind our capacity, and I would love to see that we come together with good intention in a way that we can pave that way for fostering something that is serving everybody rather than just a group of people.” -Shauheen
In this episode, Joe interviews internationally renowned musician, comedian, writer, and actor, Reggie Watts. Watts starred on “Comedy Bang! Bang!,” most recently was the bandleader on CBS’s “The Late Late Show with James Corden” for the last 8 seasons, and just released his memoir, Great Falls, MT.
Watts discusses his early days of LSD use and how he felt psychedelics and cannabis were useful (in contrast to alcohol); how movies and TV rarely get the psychedelic experience right (and is that because writers haven’t experienced it?); and how the Situationist Movement inspired his concept of being a “disinformationist,” which he uses to bring an instability and psychedelic nature to his shows. And he discusses ketamine: why he loves it (especially with other people), a party he recently attended where everyone was open to trying it together, and why the group collectively agreeing to go deeper is so important to the experience.
He shares his thoughts on treating certain drugs as bases and others as modifiers, and how the wrong drugs are being treated as bases; the negative feedback loops some drugs (cocaine, nitrous oxide) send us into; psychedelic exceptionalism and the low quality, synthesized drugs created solely out of capitalistic greed; microdosing and the question of whether or not it’s become popular out of a fear of going deeper; what he wants to bring to to the psychedelic conversation; and why sometimes (in the right context), “going off the rails” can be a great thing.
Notable Quotes
“When I took LSD, just the whole universe opened up as one of the most absurdly humorous, funny things I’d ever experienced. …I wanted more. I wanted to explore more. It just was definitely one of those times when I thought, ‘I need to find out what else lies beyond what I’d already experienced.’”
“An unstable audience is my ideal state for an audience, because then they’re no longer in an expectational mindset. They’re more freed and open to whatever’s coming down the pike and happening in real time.”
“What I love about psychedelics, especially when you’re mindful about it, is: It’s an adventure. It’s an adventure into self-discovery, and from that, into worldview-understanding and your relationship to reality, and I think that that’s incredibly powerful and helpful and can help resolve a lot of conflicting issues that we have. It might not solve, but it’ll definitely soften and put you on a road to having a different relationship to trauma and a different relationship to ruts and cycles that you find not efficient for your lifestyle, and just create a greater connection to the whole of existence. And so I promote that at all costs. My message is: Reduce the fear of it, if you want to try – if you’re truly curious.” “When you’re in the right context, going off the rails is awesome, because you need to break all of those patterns. You need to reassociate to the reasons why you want to keep living. And I think taking a psychedelic trip and allowing yourself to go wherever it is that you want to go and just keeping that thought in your mind that it’s a trip and it’s going to end at some point, and when it does end, you will be back on the rails, so here’s your opportunity to just go for it: I think that that’s just important for people to experience.”
In this episode, Kyle interviews Ted Riskin, LCSW: psychotherapist running group KAP sessions and certified in Core Energetics, Internal Family Systems, and Holotropic Breathwork, which he has taught in various forms for 26 years.
He discusses group ketamine-assisted psychotherapy: how he runs sessions, why being welcomed and loved in a group seems to be a bigger factor than the psychedelic, how he came to combine IFS with ketamine or breathwork, and why exploring the parts work of IFS seems to work so well with non-ordinary states of consciousness. And he talks about two complications we often don’t think about with Group KAP: the challenge of getting our different parts to all truly consent to an experience (and how do you get them to?), and how very safe spaces can inspire oversharing, and sadly, subsequent shame.
He discusses knowing when to use a non-directive approach vs. intervening; how people often learn more about themselves as a sitter; using core energetics before experiences to move energy we’re often afraid to work with; the importance of embracing anger (when necessary); memory reconsolidation and bringing exiles from the past into the present; the concept of double bookkeeping; and finding the magic in realizing that sometimes, just being there (“being a useless person” as he says) is all that’s needed.
Notable Quotes
“I think people underestimate the power of breathwork. These days, a lot more, people are coming to do breathwork for the first time and they have done psychedelics. In the past, that was more the minority, now it’s probably the majority. And I’ll tell them, ‘The difference is, you’re used to riding a motorcycle, and now this is a bicycle. You’ve got to pedal this one.’ And yet they’re shocked sometimes how deep just the breathing takes them.”
“We’re realizing that there’s so many things happening that it’s impossible to tease it apart. We don’t know how much the ketamine increases self-leadership, we don’t know if it’s the IFS work that people are doing, but I suspect it’s a combination – that the ketamine seems to really lubricate the IFS work and invites protectors to relax so that people can do deeper, and the rearrangement of the techniques of IFS happens much more deeply.”
“We also think the group experience is as powerful as anything else that’s happening, especially when people are anxious or depressed. Often, they have assumptions about how they will be welcomed by other people, and to be in a loving group where people are vulnerable and find out, ‘I can say anything. I can talk about my shame and fears and people are just with me and accepting’: I sometimes wonder if that’s doing more than the medicine, even.”
In this episode, Alexa interviews Dom Farnan: Founder of DotConnect; author of the best seller, “Now Here: A Journey from Toxic Boss to Conscious Connector”; and Founder and Chief Consciousness Connector of DoseConnect™, a first-of-its-kind company blending organizational strategy, systems thinking, and talent acquisition in the psychedelic space.
Farnan shares her personal journey with psychedelics, discussing her experiences with psilocybin, ayahuasca, and 5-MeO-DMT, and how the last few years of her life have been focused on slowing down and integrating those experiences. She discusses the current state of the psychedelic industry, including downsizing and company closures, but also opportunities from networking, community engagement, and volunteering. She believes that while options may not be clear now, they will be there in the future, and may be jobs we never anticipated. So get to know companies now, and pay close attention with good discernment – not everything is as it appears.
She discusses her experiences with mentors and coaches; how psychedelic journeys and integration build onto each other; the importance of journaling; the need for patience as the industry grows; her book and the concept of conscious leadership over toxic leadership; and the beauty of embracing the openness we experience after a psychedelic experience: Can we use what we’ve learned to reprogram what we’re taught about life, invest in ourselves, let go of dissenting and limiting voices, and truly redefine what success (and happiness) means to us?
Notable Quotes
“It’s not always about the substance or the plant medicine. It is underlying about the healing and being more conscious as a leader and as a human being and as a contributor to the community that we live in. And so, for me, that’s what all of this is really grounded in. As much as I’m an advocate, I’m also very much aware that not everyone can leverage these medicines, and a lot of people are still scared and don’t quite know and maybe they can’t handle it and all of that. And that’s totally fine. …I just look at life as being psychedelic, and there’s so many things that you can do in your daily life that create this beautiful experience that don’t require any other things to contribute to that.”
“When you do this exercise, the invitation is to give yourself full permission to let go of everything that you’ve ever heard from anybody else. So, like, get out of the shoulds or your parents say this or your partner thinks that, or your best friends think this or your boss says that. Let all that shit go and just drop into truly your own heart space. Like, what does success look and feel like to me? If money were not an option, what would I be doing? How would I be spending my days? And the energy that I want to feel and be in – less so even, like, the tasks and the doing stuff, but it’s like, how do you want to feel? Because that helps you to then think through opportunities that will be in alignment of you achieving that feeling every day.”
“Understand the energetics, because if you’re going to be leading from a place of fear in your life, it’s only going to attract more of that stuff. If you’re really leading from a place of faith and looking at this as an opening for something new in your life, then that is when something new will show up. You have to be in that energetic vibe.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Deborah C. Mash, Ph.D.: neuroscientist; Professor Emerita of Neurology and Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine; and leading researcher in addiction and brain disorders for over 30 years.
She is also the CEO and Founder of DemeRx Inc., a clinical stage drug development company working to advance ibogaine and its active metabolite, noribogaine, for the treatment of opioid use disorder. She talks about the Federal and state complications behind ibogaine research, the need for partnerships between clinics and researchers, what needs to be done to collect much needed Phase II and III ibogaine data, and why this all has to be in partnership with the FDA.
And she discusses much more: her story of how studying Cocaethylene led to her finding out about ibogaine; ibogaine and QTc-prolongation; deaths related to iboga and the amount of variables that aren’t considered; how the French were essentially using noribogaine in the 1930s; and, as this was recorded at Psychedelic Science 2023, her thoughts on the event and Rick Doblin’s opening statement.
Notable Quotes
“We can now study all of the neurons in the brain for the first time and genetically phenotype them. So now we know there are subclasses of GABA neurons, there are subclasses of glutamate neurons. I mean, this is profound. And so here we are. We’re at, again, another next wave of learning about the human brain. There’s more neurons and neural connections in the human brain than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy. So it’s a complicated story.”
“If anything, ibogaine is the hardest psychedelic to work with. But I’m here for the challenge.”
In this episode, Kyle interviews Rachel Harris, Ph.D.: Psychologist in private practice for over 40 years, researcher who has published more than 40 peer-reviewed studies, and author of the new book, Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground.
She talks about graduating college and going straight to Esalen, where she had little concern over therapy or integration, and how, after 20 years of ayahuasca experiences, she learned to see psychedelic-assisted therapy and ceremonial, transformational experiences as very different things. She discusses her ayahuasca journeys; a surprising MDMA experience; what having an ongoing relationship with the spirit of ayahuasca means; Ann Shulgin’s concerns over going through death’s door while in a journey; what true integration is; how psychedelics can help prepare for death, and more.
And she talks about her new book, Swimming in the Sacred, which collects the stories, unique perspectives, and wisdom of 15 female elders who have been working in the underground for at least 15 years each, and how their experience has led to a somatic-based intuition and ‘know it in their bones’ feeling that so many new practitioners and facilitators need – and can only come with time.
Notable Quotes
“I kind of want to say to the newly-hatched psychedelic therapists: ‘Well, get this experience,’ but it’s very hard. And they’re not going to wait six years before practicing, so there’s such a need for them, and I can’t, in every podcast, (I mean, you’ll laugh at this), I can’t say, ‘Go do a lot of drugs,’ right? I’m trying to be more elegant about this, but that’s part of the elder women’s experience, is they really know the territory.”
“I know you’ve done a real apprenticeship, and I really respect that. And, yes, it’s very hard to find them, but that is the way people learn. So, what’s the best way to become a psychedelic therapist? It’s to be a patient with someone who’s a very experienced psychedelic therapist.”
“My priority was to work on myself and to grow and evolve. And so I always think of integration as part of a whole life: it’s not something that happens in a couple of sessions. But after these experiences, then what do we do with our lives and how do we live a more integrated life? And how do our lives unfold?”
In this episode, Alexa interviews Chase Hudson: Founder of HempLucid, a premium CBD wellness brand.
Hudson discusses his journey from being a firefighter to becoming involved in the cannabis and hemp industry, the origins of HempLucid, the restrictions they faced, and their current genetics and flagship water soluble tincture. He talks about the benefits of CBD and cannabis used in conjunction with psychedelic therapy – especially ketamine-assisted therapy, which he gives to his employees as a benefit. And he talks about Lamar Odom and the documentary he executive produced, “Lamar Odom Reborn,” which chronicles how Odom came back from rock bottom through high dose CBD, iboga, and ketamine therapy.
He also discusses the idea of cannabis as a gateway drug to healing; the need for insurance to cover psychedelic therapy; the changing landscape of Utah from religious ideology to psychedelics; ketamine as the bridge between old and new models of healthcare, and more. And they talk about their own journeys a lot, with Hudson telling the story of his powerful and life-changing ibogaine treatment, and Alexa sharing stories from her tragic car accident and recovery, as well as the ketamine sessions she recently began. The conversation ultimately becomes one about the need for education and conversation to help us all climb out from decades of drug war propaganda.
Notable Quotes
“We do a lot with kids with seizures. I also do a lot of work with children with autism, and we’ve seen great results over the years. We’ve been in business seven years, so we’ve been fortunate to just see the impact and the change that happens within people personally, but then also within their family. And it’s been the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.”
“There’s this whole frontier that is going to open up here. I mean, it’s opening now, but it’s going to be accelerated as this old guard starts to collapse. We’re living in a time where Babylon is really falling. These pillars of what reality has been structured on are failing because it’s been built on a bed of lies. Our government, our financial system, our healthcare system, our media: these structures of the matrix, essentially, are failing. And as it fails, there has to be something to kind of transition people into the new world, and that new world is everything that we’ve discussed and are doing. And it’s exciting to see, but as Terence McKenna says: we’re in the birth canal for sure, and there’s going to be blood, it’s going to be hard. But we’ll make it out, and humanity will turn into something beautiful on the other side of this.”
In this episode, recorded in-person at Psychedelic Science 2023, Kyle interviews Senator for the Mexican Green Party, Alejandra Lagunes.
Lagunes is the first Senator in Mexico to promote the use of psychedelics, and has been organizing open parliaments to foster collaboration between researchers, scientists, politicians, and Indigenous people, culminating in a groundbreaking decriminalization initiative to decriminalize psilocybin and psilocin from list 1 to list 3 (meaning they could be prescribed), create a new chapter for entheogens (and move mushrooms there), build an economically beneficial framework for Indigenous people, protect ancestor knowledge by law, and make big bioconservation moves with changes to environmental laws.
She discusses her personal journey with depression, anxiety, and a life-saving ayahuasca journey; how Covid uncovered a crisis in meaning and an openness to talk about mental health; the need for accessibility and safety in psychedelics against challenges in politics and policy implementation; our mental health crisis and the need for innovation, education, and overcoming stigma; the influence of US drug control policies on international regulations; the power of storytelling; and why we need to go back to our origins.
Notable Quotes
“The world means to go back to the beginning, to the point of beginning. And I like to think that this psychedelic revolution or renaissance is actually going back to the beginning, to the essence. And that space: you have to talk about environment, you have to talk about the planet, you have to talk about ancestors and their relationship with the planet and with the community. …The revolution is going back to that space, outside and inside. It’s like going back to the origin.”
“The medicine is as important as the places they grow in. The medicine is in the ecosystem. You have heard about the mycelium. You can grow a mushroom in your house. That’s great. But the mycelium in those places: it’s for them, the medicine. The rain, the thunder, and the earth, the soil where the mushrooms are grown: it’s the medicine. So we have to protect those areas.”
“You know what I think all the countries should do? The World Health Organization (the WHO) has these lists of substances, and as countries, we can ask our governments to ask for a revision of those lists. So we have to start. Like, there are many ways we have to work the decriminalization. I mean, the psychedelics shouldn’t be in that list, and they are in an international list. So my question is why governments aren’t moving that list?”
In this episode, Joe interviews Stéphane Lasme, a former professional basketball player from Gabon who is now a partner at SteddeCapital, a private markets investment platform investing long-term capital into U.S.- and Africa-based opportunities across sports ownership, infrastructure, technology and plant medicine.
Lasme speaks of his childhood, growing up in Gabon with more traditional Catholic values while journeying deep into the jungle to visit his Grandmother every summer. It was there that he embraced the cultural aspect of Gabon and community, and first learned of iboga, which he had a profound experience with at age 12, and would later revisit in his basketball days. He discusses the drive and passion that led him to become the first person from Gabon to play in the NBA, and the subsequent pressure, stress, cultural differences, and “ok, what now?” moments that came at the end. He talks about Gabonese traditions; how iboga improved his stress relief and mental focus; how embracing yoga and Buddhist methods of self-discovery improved his life; scientific reductionism vs. the magic of mystery and trying to define an experience; and more.
While Gabon allows for the export of iboga, Lasme’s goal is to build a lab and treatment center in Gabon and share the power of Gabonese culture with people – so they can experience the medicine in its own country, with its traditional rituals and music. He has begun the fundraising process, and through his investment and facilitation work, is working to get African athletes to invest back into Africa and make Gabon a major destination for iboga.
Notable Quotes
“Deep inside, I wanted to be the first basketball player from Gabon to get drafted in the NBA. I never advertised this as a kid. I never advertised it to anyone. Even while I was at UMass, I never talked about it. But I know there is a relation between me going through that culture, that traditional experience, and me deciding to be that person. That’s why I say ‘me deciding who I want to be’; I think there is a big connection. And I can’t tell you or explain to you where the connection started, what triggered me thinking that way, but I just know it’s connected.”
“We have to believe in ourselves. Our stuff here, whatever we have in Gabon, is actually the shit. It’s actually the stuff that’s going to help everyone. Everyone is going to run towards us to look for solutions, so we should be prepared. We should be working on a better environment for people to come and just witness what kind of a great thing that we have going on in Gabon. This is the motivation I have today: really building this company, building this network, this ecosystem, this network of people in the states and in Gabon around this plant. That’s the main thing that motivates me.”
He talks about how an early interest in lucid dreaming sent him down a psychedelic path, and how, as his interest in mushrooms has grown, he’s watched the culture shift from a narrative of mycophobia to one of appreciation and interest. With FreshCap Mushrooms and The Mushroom Show, he aims to provide much needed education around this vast and mysterious world of fungi.
He talks about the thriving psilocybin scene in Jamaica, and how, through filming a documentary there, he learned how much communities still don’t know about mushrooms, how much tourism supports the country, and how much of a special vibe Jamaica has for psilocybin retreats.
And he discusses much more: why lion’s mane should help with concussions and TBIs; indications mushrooms could heal, from long Covid to paralysis; concerns over over-medicalization; why Terence McKennas’ ideas weren’t as crazy as many thought; visiting mushroom shops in Canada; the secret language of mushrooms; where psychedelic people can start to learn about functional mushrooms; and why, if he could embody any mushroom, it’d be cordyceps.
Notable Quotes
“We draw these arbitrary lines as human beings between: psychedelic mushrooms are over here, functional mushrooms are over here, and poisonous mushrooms are over here. But the mushrooms don’t do that. It’s just a spectrum where they’re creating all these crazy compounds for all these different reasons and they just happen to interact with our bodies in different ways.”
“It’s not just that they change your consciousness or make you see colors or make you laugh or whatever; they do seem to have this ability to dig out very specific things or show you things in a different way that can have really profound impacts on your life afterwards. And that’s something I think we still haven’t figured out, is like: how the hell did mushrooms do that? How do they know how to find exactly what you might need to be dealing with? Not always, but they have this ability to be like, ‘Hey, here’s something you haven’t thought about in 20 years. This is important. You should look at this.’ I still can’t get over how amazing that is and how that works.”
“I thought, ‘Okay, the reason why people are going down here is just because they forgot to make it illegal and it just provided this weird niche opportunity in the world for people to go and experience mushrooms.’ But it’s way more than that. Jamaica is a very special, magical place. …The fact that they grow there, it’s just a vibe. It’s a whole thing, and I can see why. I can see why people would want to go there for psilocybin therapy or the psilocybin retreat experience, just because number one: it takes you away from your normal kind of day-to-day life, but there is something special about sitting in front of the ocean as the sun is going down in a beautiful location and feeling that profound impact of mushrooms at the same time. It’s a very special place.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Oliver Carlin, Founder of Curative Mushrooms, a grow kit solution company designed to produce mushrooms of one’s choosing within 30 days with little effort and no growing experience.
Carlin tells his personal story of 20 years in the Navy to a 7g psilocybin journey and the work of perfecting these grow bags; how a grow bag works; how easy it can be to grow your own mushrooms; the advantages of growing your own mushrooms vs. buying them; the legalities of grow kits and how he has been able to do this; steps growers can take to reduce their legal risks; the variety of people benefitting from mushrooms (especially in the veteran community); and how growing your own mushrooms seems to make the experience more curated and special.
Curative Mushrooms recently hired someone to create new strains for them every month, they do bimonthly live Q&As for people interested in growing, and they ship a bonus mycology book with each kit that shows how to study spores. They offer growing kits for Lion’s Mane, Turkey Tail, and Shiitake mushrooms, but his most popular option is the “All-in-One Happy Mushrooms for Sad People” kit.
Notable Quotes
“I do believe there’s always going to be a market for growers, because it’s just fun. And you can create your own strains of mushrooms if you really get into it. I mean, you can even name strains after yourself. And plus, isn’t it cool to grow your own, because now you have super fresh mushrooms, you know exactly what it is, how fresh, it’s going to be the most potent because you just grew it, and I’ll be honest, when you grow your own, it feels like the mushrooms were, like, grown specifically for you. I don’t know, there’s something special about them.”
“I didn’t take mushrooms because I was specifically doing it to overcome depression or anything like that. The reason I took mushrooms was: it was like answering questions about the world that I’ve always wanted to know. I’ve always had a problem with everything I’ve been told, and this was my opportunity to finally get some type of an answer for things that I didn’t understand. And that was my reason. And it completely changed my life.”
In this episode, Alexa interviews Rachel Clark: Education Manager for DanceSafe, a public health nonprofit specializing in serving people who use drugs and their communities.
As we move into the prime festival season, more people are going to be doing drugs, and the importance of harm reduction and drug testing becomes even more central to the experience. She discusses the complications of drug testing and how it’s more of an act of ruling substances out rather than determining purity; the fentanyl problem and its surrounding myths; how to identify and treat an overdose (and what not to do); Philadelphia’s struggles with Xylazine highlighting the problem with regional cross contamination; and DanceSafe’s “We Love Consent” and “Healing is Power” campaigns, which aim to open up the dialogue of true harm reduction and safe spaces outside of the substance alone.
Check out DanceSafe.org for more info, and use this link when you’re ready to make a purchase!
Notable Quotes
“You’re looking for red flags and not green lights. You’re not looking for confirmation that something is in your substance, you’re looking for a red flag about whether something is obviously or potentially not what you expected.” “The three major symptoms of opioid overdose are very, very slow, shallow, and or stopped breathing, reduced or absent consciousness, and pinpoint/constricted pupils. And I want everyone to understand that the cause of opioid overdose is when your respiration, your breathing slows to the point that your tissues are not being oxygenated and perfused and your heart stops. That is the sequence. …If people understood that this is about a lack of oxygen because your breathing is too slow, I think that the public understanding of fentanyl overdose and opioid overdose would change a lot, because that, in and of itself, gives you a lot of information when you’re looking at someone and evaluating if an opioid could be involved.”
“Always communicate the limitations of what you know. Assume that you are missing information, because you are. And when you are reporting on something that you witnessed, share only what you saw and what you did, including timelines. This is a major, major note for anybody, especially people who work in EMS, because there have been a lot of very well-intentioned folks who have ended up spreading misinformation like wildfire by saying things as certainties instead of sharing observations.”
Planning on hitting a festival this summer? You’re not alone. With COVID restrictions and cancellations now a thing of the past, many music lovers are heading back into the wild and hitting summer concerts and festivals all around the world with renewed energy, making up for lost time with their psychedelic communities and their favorite artists.
But with the freedom and joy that comes along with dancing, hugging, and partying with thousands of strangers until the sun comes up, also comes the potential for mishaps, and at worst, serious harm to you and your friends.
Gathered from our team at Psychedelics Today – who have decades of festival experience between them – here are some tips to help you stay safe and get the most out of your party time during this psychedelic summer.
Pre-Purchase Your Substances and Test Them
In 2023, there is no excuse for having to resort to taking whatever substances you can get your hands on at a festival. While it’s possible (and likely!) you’ll be offered psychedelics at festivals, never take anything from someone you don’t know. Should you choose to take psychedelics (or any other substances), acquire them ahead of time from sources you trust and test them before consuming any. Groups like DanceSafe, Qtests, Bunk Police, and Test Kit Plus offer a wide variety of regent testing kits to give you a better understanding of what is (and isn’t) in your substances, including fentanyl. And if you’re in Canada, you can send a sample of your substance to getyourdrugstested.com for a free analysis. You can also browse their results catalog to get a sense of what’s going around in your area, and what the lab results reveal. Many festivals partner with harm reduction groups to provide substance testing on-site, so if you can’t test ahead of time, check to see if your festival offers on-site testing – and use it.
Plan Your Transportation Ahead
Figuring out how you’re getting to – and perhaps, more importantly – from the festival grounds ahead of time is crucial. This may include public transportation, shuttle services, or carpooling, so determine which option suits your needs and budget. Assign a designated driver, don’t get in a vehicle with someone who might be intoxicated, don’t drive if you’ve been consuming, and avoid walking or biking on poorly lit roads or paths. And when in doubt, call your parents – even if you’re 35, chances are they’ll be happy to give you a safe ride home (and they might even make you breakfast).
Get Familiar With the Festival Grounds
Upon arriving at the festival, get a map of the grounds and familiarize yourself with its layout. Locate important areas such as the first aid tent, water stations, restrooms, camping area, and stages. Knowing where these facilities are will save you time and effort when you need them most. Pay attention to emergency exit points as well, ensuring you have a plan in case of an emergency.
Pack Smart: Essentials for a Comfortable Experience
Preparing a well-thought-out festival survival kit will make your experience much more enjoyable. Some essential items to consider packing include:
Energy bars or nutrient-dense snacks: these will provide quick bursts of energy to keep you going during long sets.
Toiletries: pack travel-sized toiletries to keep your body clean. Wet wipes, hand sanitizer, mouthwash, and tissues are particularly useful in festival environments where you can get real grimy, real fast.
Changes of clothes and socks: staying fresh and dry is crucial in preventing discomfort, blisters, and skin irritation.
SPF protection: apply sunscreen liberally to protect your skin from harmful UV rays.
Pain relievers: bring some over-the-counter pain relievers like Advil or Tylenol in case of headaches or injuries.
Upset stomach relief: bring TUMS or Pepto in case of heartburn or indigestion.
Phone charger or battery pack: keep your phone charged at all times to stay connected with friends and have access to emergency services if needed.
Sunglasses: shield your eyes from the sun and prevent eye strain caused by bright lights or lasers during performances.
Set Your Intention
Just like you might with a ceremony, or guided psychedelic journey, ask yourself what you’re hoping to achieve before you dose. Is it a greater connection with your friends and community? Is it a deeper exploration of your inner mind and heart? Is it appreciation for the musicians, artists, or to experience the music more intensely? Or is it simply celebration, unwinding, and feeling good? Whatever it is, big or small, it’s ok! Just try to define it, and go into your experience knowing what you hope to achieve. It also helps to tell your friends what your plan is for the evening or weekend (both the substances you plan to consume and your goals). Added transparency can help you with your psychedelic integration, but can also help mitigate any potential harms, if your friends are watching your back and know your consumption plans.
Stay with Your Friends: Safety in Numbers
Attending a festival with good friends is not only more fun, but helps keep you safe. Try to make sure you always have a sightline to your friends in the crowd, but develop a plan to find each other in case you get separated (which can happen easily). Pre-designate a central meeting point to wait for your friends if you get separated, just in case there’s no cell service or one of your devices dies. If you’re attending alone, consider joining or creating a meet-up group to connect with other people, so you’ll have at least a few festival friends. Whatever you do, don’t leave the event with strangers – even if they seem nice, or you’re hoping to hook up – you really don’t know who you’re going home with. Grab that number, and hit up the person in a few days instead.
Hydrate: The Key to Beat the Heat
Summer festivals often take place under the scorching sun, and staying hydrated is paramount to keep the good times flowing. Dehydration can occur a lot more easily than you might think, and can lead to fatigue, dizziness, and even heatstroke – a potentially life-threatening condition. Make it a priority to drink plenty of water throughout the day. Carry a refillable water bottle and take advantage of water stations if available at the festival grounds, and consider bringing electrolyte-rich drinks, or drink powders to replenish essential minerals lost through sweat. Pro tip: Bring an extra bottle cap with you. Refillable water stations aren’t always available and venues usually sell water bottles without caps. Being able to seal your water can make all the difference in the world.
Take Breaks From the Dance Floor
When you’re really feeling the vibe, it’s tempting to dance non-stop. However, it’s crucial to give your body regular breaks. Even though you might feel like you have the stamina to go all day or night, dancing for hours on end can exhaust you physically and mentally – and you might not realize it until it’s too late. Take short breaks between sets in shaded areas to rest and recharge. Find a spot where you can sit down and relax while enjoying the music from a distance. Taking regular breaks will pay off – it ensures that you can last throughout the festival without feeling completely drained by the end of the first day.
Pace Your Consumption
And speaking of completely wrecking yourself the first day – you don’t want to be that guy. You the one we mean – the guy who’s rolling around naked in the mud a couple of hours after the gates open. Not only is it not a great look, but if you go too hard, too fast, you could spend the rest of the weekend feeling like shit in your tent and miss out on all the great acts you wanted to see. Finally getting to that big event you’ve been waiting for feels incredible, and the urge to go completely off the rails is real (we’ve all been there!) but the best festivals are a marathon – never a sprint.
Remember to Eat
Amidst all the sets and activities, it can be easy to forget about eating, especially when substances are involved that suppress appetite. And sometimes, eating is inconvenient – vendors might run out of food before the event ends, or pricing for simple snacks or bottled water can cost a lot. However, proper nutrition is essential for maintaining your energy levels. Try to pack a variety of portable snacks like granola bars, nuts, dried fruit, or energy bars. Incorporate water-rich foods into your diet, like watermelon, oranges, or berries to help you stay hydrated while providing essential vitamins and minerals. And if you eat from the food carts, look for options that offer a balance of proteins, carbohydrates, and vegetables to keep your energy levels stable.
Are you looking for more insight into your trips? Check out this self-paced course, Navigating Psychedelics, your complete guide to understanding and integrating the psychedelic experience.
Remember: This Too Shall Pass
Sometimes, the combination of psychedelics and an intense festival environment can be extremely overwhelming. Should you find yourself in an uncomfortable headspace, surround yourself with people you trust, breathe through the emotions, and just remember – it won’t last forever. If a friend is going through a tough time, sit with them, let them know you’re there for them, and remain calm, and hold space. However, there is a difference between a challenging psychedelic experience, and a serious medical issue, so ALWAYS keep a watchful eye out for signs of drug toxicity in yourself and others (nausea, difficulty breathing, chest pain, dizziness, etc.) and seek out medical attention if necessary. When in doubt, a trip to the medical tent is never a bad idea.
Stretch It Out
Dancing and standing for long periods of time can strain your muscles and lead to discomfort. Take breaks to stretch and release tension. Stretching exercises can improve circulation, prevent muscle cramps, and help you stay flexible. Consider incorporating gentle yoga poses or basic stretching routines into your festival experience to keep you limber and feeling good on the dance floor.
Find Quiet Places: Retreat From the Chaos
Finding moments of tranquility from all the festival stimuli can be crucial for recharging and regaining focus. Seek out quiet places within the festival grounds:
Chill-out areas: many festivals have designated chill-out zones where you can relax and escape the noise. These areas may feature comfortable seating, hammocks, or shaded spaces. Take advantage of these spaces to unwind, socialize with other festival-goers, or simply enjoy a moment of solitude.
Natural surroundings: if the festival grounds allow, explore nearby natural areas. Find a serene spot under a tree, by a lake, or on a hilltop to enjoy some peace and connect with nature. Nature has a calming effect on the mind and can provide a much-needed break from the intensity of the festival atmosphere.
Silent disco or acoustic sets: some festivals offer silent discos or acoustic sets, where you can enjoy music with headphones or experience stripped-down performances. These intimate settings provide a break from the overwhelming sound levels of main stages while still allowing you to enjoy live music.
And for the Love of God – Sleep
Unpopular opinion: acting on the phrase ‘I can sleep when I’m dead’ is, while kind of true, a really great way to ruin your festival experience. Adequate sleep is crucial for recharging your body and mind, so try to establish a sleep routine if you’re on a multi-day trip. Find a quiet and comfortable place to rest, whether it’s in your tent or a designated camping area. Invest in earplugs, an eye mask, some CBD (visit our friends at HempLucid for 10% off all products with code PSYCHEDELICS10) or noise-canceling headphones to create a peaceful sleeping environment, and get some shuteye – even just for a few hours.
What are some of your top tips for staying safe and having a great time at festivals? Join in the conversation on our socials, and tell us how you make the most out of your trips.
In this episode, David interviews Professor Celia Morgan, Ph.D., who holds the Chair of Psychopharmacology and co-leads the Transdisciplinary Psychedelics Group at The University of Exeter.
This was recorded on the dawn of UK’s Breaking Convention conference, where Morgan was speaking about the therapeutic potential of ketamine as well as the danger of people developing a dependence on it. She touches on that topic, but largely discusses her current Phase III Trial for ketamine-assisted therapy for the treatment of severe alcohol use disorder (also called the KARE model (Ketamine for reduction of Alcohol Relapse)), a collaboration with Awakn Life Sciences.
She discusses her other research: studies on mindfulness intervention before and after ketamine, epigenetic changes after ayahuasca use, the antidepressant qualities of ayahuasca, and CBD for cannabis dependence. And she talks about the necessary balance for making treatments amazing but affordable; how connecting with nature during integration is key; how the drug is just a tool, yet we focus on it too much; and how we need studies on how different therapies work with different substances.
Notable Quotes
“People always focus on the drugs, but it’s more about the people, and as you say, their relationship – what you’re getting from that experience. The drugs themselves are just tools. You can hit someone over the head with a spade, but you can dig an amazing garden. I see the drugs as the spade, basically, but obviously a really unusual spade.”
“Taking a step back from your thoughts and not being over-engaged with everything you’re doing; the ketamine really helps to facilitate that, because they can see how that works. Mindfulness can be really tricky. Mindfulness practice is hard work. So I see this as a big step that makes it work better in that first bit, especially when people are struggling. …Ketamine, to my mind, gives this kind of boost and insight that can help engage them with the therapy going forward.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle are once again able to take advantage of Kyle’s temporary Colorado residency and record together in Joe’s office.
While last week focused on the numerous challenges facing a rapidly growing industry of psychedelic therapists, facilitators, and guides, the topic of therapy itself is put under the microscope this week, as they dissect a New York Times article titled, “Does Therapy Really Work? Let’s Unpack That.” They discuss whether or not therapy is right for everyone, the efficacy of different types of therapy, the role of the therapeutic alliance in treatment outcomes, and how (if it’s even possible) to measure all of these factors.
They also discuss:
-a study showing that ketamine was more effective than ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) for patients with treatment-resistant depression;
-the potential benefits of the LSD analog, Br-LSD, in treating people with major depressive disorders, cluster headaches, and more;
-Ireland’s Health Service Executive launching the Safer Nightlife program, which will partner with music festivals this summer to establish on-site drug testing;
-the U.S. slowly beginning to legalize fentanyl test strips, which, for some reason, are illegal in many parts of the country;
and much more!
See you next week, and if you’re in the NYC area, make sure to check out “Tales of Transformation,” an in-person event Thursday, June 8 at the Athenæum, moderated by David, and featuring Ifetayo Harvey, Juliana Mulligan, and Raad Seraj.
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle are both on the road, so David and Alexa take the helm.
They cover news stories about:
-a man in Colorado facing a Class 3 drug felony for giving people psilocybin mushrooms in exchange for monetary donations – pointing out the bold (or stupid?) stances some are taking to highlight the absurdity of legislation that allows possession and donation as long as no money changes hands;
-a study showing what many of us have felt ourselves: that the day after psilocybin-assisted therapy, depressed patients had a stronger brain response to music and saw improvements in the ability to find pleasure in previously empty activities;
-a trip report from a psychedelically-naive 50-year old, showing the power and beauty of MDMA-assisted therapy;
-the New Hampshire state Senate continuing to be behind the times and voting down House Bill 639, which would have created a legal recreational cannabis framework for the state;
-a video where people on the street in Oregon were asked how much they thought psilocybin therapy would cost, showing a drastic misalignment between public perception and reality;
and a local TV news feature touring Rose City Laboratories, the first licensed psilocybin testing lab in Oregon.
And in conversation, they talk about some of the lesser-discussed (and often dismissed) tools like CBD, THC patches, and very low-dose edibles; the problem with drug dealers and harm reduction; the power of music in guiding a psychedelic experience (and in living a pleasurable life); and the importance of dosing and listening to your body to know what’s right for you.
In this episode, Joe interviews Nick Kadysh: Founder and CEO of PharmAla Biotech and member of the board of directors for The Canadian Psychedelic Businesses Association.
PharmAla Biotech is a Toronto-based Life Sciences company with two focuses: contracting with manufacturers to provide researchers with GMP MDMA (created under Good Manufacturing Practice regulations), and creating and researching novel analogs of MDMA. And just today, they announced that Health Canada has authorized them (and their distribution partner, Shaman Pharma) to supply their LaNeo™ MDMA for the treatment of a patient under Canada’s Special Access Program – the first time this has happened in Canada.
He discusses the creation of PharmAla and why their model changed from primarily researching analogs to manufacturing; why they’re operating out of Canada and using manufacturers instead of running the lab themselves; the excitement around Australia’s recent about-face on MDMA and psilocybin-assisted therapy; the bureaucracy of U.S. drug policy and how much a broken supply chain affects the whole industry; bad IP and companies filing rapid fire patents; why creating new analogs of MDMA is so important; and why the psychedelic space needs to bring culture along with us.
He also talks about Spravato, cannabis and risks of cancer, THC nasal sprays, and research he’s most excited about: that MDMA seems to alleviate dyskinesia caused from Parkinson’s disease, and that MDMA could improve social anxiety in people with autism. He’s aiming to run a clinical trial and believes they have developed a safe MDMA analog that the autistic community will respond to very well.
Notable Quotes
“I don’t want to give the impression that we think that MDMA is unsafe. In the case of PTSD-assisted psychotherapy the way that it’s being presented by MAPS, I think it’s remarkably safe. But, you know, better is still possible.”
“If you told me that you have a brand new drug that was developed in a lab that nobody has ever seen or tried or tested before, and let’s call it drug A. And then you have drug B, which is derived from a mushroom, that people have been consuming regularly for the past 5,000 years and no one’s died. And you’re asking me which one is safer? It’s the mushroom, man. It’s not even a question.”
“We owe it to ourselves in this industry to take the population along for the ride. This is why I think safety is so important, because if you’re working on safety, people like that. People trust that. That’s what happened last time: there was the counterculture and the culture, and the culture won, and we’re still paying for it today. So let’s bring the culture along.”
Psychedelics are a fascinating class of compounds that have potent effects on our consciousness. After a multi-decade hiatus, scientific research on psychedelics has now resumed with full force. One field that has rapidly developed in recent years is psychedelic neuroscience, which applies the cutting-edge frameworks and tools of modern neuroscience to understand how psychedelics affect the brain and nervous system to elicit their profound effects. The latest findings from this breakthrough field have increasingly spilled into popular culture and are often profiled in the media – it’s now commonplace to hear terms like ‘default mode network’ and ‘neuroplasticity’ casually thrown around when discussing psychedelics and their effects.
However, much of the research is quite technical, and typical media treatments are often either highly simplistic and watered-down, or plainly inaccurate and sensationalistic. Most people just don’t have the necessary background to properly understand and communicate findings beyond repeatable buzzwords and trickle-down narratives.
It’s easy to wonder: what’s the practical relevance of psychedelic neuroscience for psychotherapy or for individuals navigating their own psychedelic experiences?
Don’t Worry – It’s Only Temporary
Understanding the science of psychedelics can be really helpful for therapists and clinicians preparing their clients for psychedelic experiences, and helping clients conceptualize and understand their experiences afterward. Psychedelic experiences can sometimes be quite overwhelming and hard to make sense of. It can be challenging to experience the profound alterations of consciousness they can elicit, which span from complex dream-like images and vivid memory recall, to ego-dissolving mystical-type effects, to perceptual distortions and synesthesia.
By reminding and reassuring clients that the intense effects they are experiencing are directly related to temporary changes in brain activity, clients may be less concerned that they are “gone without return” or that there is something inherently “wrong” or “bad” about their experience. It can also provide a useful model or framework to ground and interpret what emerges during their journey. They can rest assured that no matter how radical and reality-shattering their psychedelic experience is, it’s being underpinned by temporary changes in how brain regions are communicating and interacting over time.
Predicting the Unpredictable
Research has found that an individual’s psychological traits and brain characteristics can help predict the nature of their psychedelic experience, as well as the likelihood that they might experience long-lasting therapeutic benefits. The principles of ‘set and setting’ are deeply ingrained in psychedelic therapies, and signify the integral role that context plays in determining therapeutic outcomes. ‘Set’ concerns one’s mental and emotional state immediately before the psychedelic experience, encompassing such facets as personality and mood. Meanwhile, ‘setting’ pertains to the physical, social, and cultural milieu in which the psychedelic is taken. Given that traits and moods have been shown to correspond with differences in brain function, it is likely that brain structure and function may prove effective in predicting subjective effects and treatment response. This ‘precision medicine’ approach – using brain markers to forecast how individuals will respond to a given drug – has been applied to antidepressants and ADHD medications, providing a precedent for such a strategy in the realm of psychedelic therapy.
Their findings also appear to suggest that priming subjects to reduce theta power before taking a serotonergic psychedelic may help increase the depth of their mystical experience. For example, an individual could reduce theta with neurofeedback training, in which feedback from an EEG headset would allow them to modulate their brain activity to achieve a desired brain and psychological state. Although further research is required before any definitive conclusions can be drawn, emerging research like this suggests that capturing information about brain states – beyond what can be subjectively reported – may prove to be a valuable tool in predicting an individual’s psychological readiness for a psychedelic experience.
The Nuances of Psychedelically Boosted Neuroplasticity
The proliferation of interest in serotonergic psychedelics, MDMA, and ketamine is in no small part due to their remarkable ability to act as ‘psychoplastogens’ – compounds that enhance neuroplasticity in the brain. Neuroplasticity refers to the ways in which neurons in the brain change their connections with each other or create new ones, which is critical for the brain’s ability to learn, adapt to new experiences, and recover from injury. Psychedelics’ ability to enhance neuroplasticity has frequently been highlighted as central in eliciting therapeutic effects across a range of mood disorders and stress-related conditions such as depression, anxiety, and PTSD, which makes sense because impaired neuroplasticity has been reported for all of these disorders.
Research in rodents has suggested that, generally, for most psychedelics, the period between six and 72 hours post-psychedelic experience is when neuroplasticity is at its highest.
However, changes may last for much longer. For instance, LSD has been shown to promote the expression of neuroplasticity-related genes in rodents even one month after treatment had ceased. More and more research is being conducted on these effects, but there is clear practical relevance for clinicians, therapists, and everyday people. Understanding the nuances of psychedelically boosted neuroplasticity – including how long the effects last and where in the brain they occur for a given substance – is critical for designing optimal integration practices.
An in-depth understanding of psychedelic neuroscience can serve as a valuable tool for therapists and individuals seeking to navigate the intricate and potentially transformative realm of psychedelics. Familiarity with scientific research can empower practitioners to tailor their approach to preparation, the acute experience itself, and integration, thus optimizing therapeutic outcomes.
What’s more, the field of psychedelic neuroscience is profoundly intriguing and sometimes referred to as the “quantum mechanics” of neuroscience – neuroscientists are exploring the frontiers of consciousness with a cutting-edge discipline, and unearthing fascinating gems along the way. For example, did you know that psychedelics can enhance the firing rate of excitatory neurons in rodents’ prefrontal cortex by an astounding 481% over baseline, significantly altering communication throughout brain networks? Did you know that research is uncovering that the brain effects of psychedelics might also be tightly linked to our immune system and microbiome, with relevance to mental health? Or that both MDMA and LSD increase oxytocin levels, which plays a role in social bonding?
These and other fascinating discoveries will be covered in our upcoming eight-week course, “Psychedelic Neuroscience Demystified: How Psychedelics Alter Consciousness and Produce Therapeutic Effects.” This course was designed to be accessible to clinicians, therapists, and curious everyday people, making students well-versed in this emerging field, giving them the ability to understand new findings, put them into practice, and be informed participants in ongoing discussions.
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle once again record in person, diving into novel compounds, changing opinions, Bicycle Day, and more.
They start by dissecting a very recent controversy around The Church of Psilomethoxin and whether the sacrament they label as psilomethoxin – supposedly created by adding 5-MeO-DMT to the substrate of cultivated Psilocybe mushrooms – actually contains any psilomethoxin in it. Usona Institute published a paper last week reporting on their analysis of a sample they allegedly collected from the Church, which only showed what we’d see in a sample of a typical psilocybin-containing mushroom. While the Church has issues with Usona’s data collection, analytical methods, and motives, they also reiterate a main component of the church: that their “claims to the existence of Psilomethoxin, at this time, are solely based on faith,” and bolstered by their “own direct experiences with the Sacrament.” It’s a very interesting story that touches on faith, consent, personal safety, and the harms of the drug war, which Joe covered extensively in a Twitter Space last night with Andrew Gallimore and the writer of a very critical article, Mario de la Fuente.
They also discuss:
-a Time magazine article about the mystery of Long COVID, and how many believe the anti-inflammatory and neuroplastic benefits of psychedelics could be the answer;
-how Bicycle Day may soon become more popular than 4/20, likely due to society’s warmer reception to the life-changing effects of psychedelics (as opposed to their propagandized and unmoving beliefs about cannabis);
-how some analysts believe that seven in 10 ketamine companies will likely face financial challenges as the industry grows too quickly;
and why Snoop Dogg apparently microwaves blunts before smoking them (and does that actually do anything?).
In this episode, on the eve of Bicycle Day, Victoria and Kyle interview two long-standing icons of visionary psychedelic art: Alex and Allyson Grey.
They talk about the LSD trip that saved Alex’s life, connected him to Allyson, inspired his art, and even made him change his name; his decades-in-the-making “Sacred Mirrors” project of 21 7-foot tall pieces depicting the complex layers of human existence; the interconnectedness of life; the history of psychedelic art; how imagination and non-ordinary states help us connect with the divine; and the value of art in conveying the mystical experience.
Alex and Allyson are the Co-Founders of the Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, an interspiritual church/retreat center in upstate New York that, after years of work, is debuting Entheon: an art sanctuary and psychedelic reliquary featuring much of their art and work from favorite artists, a shrine to Tool (who Alex has worked with for most of their career), and a collection of relics from psychedelic legends that includes Albert Hofmann’s glasses, art signed by Stan Grof and the Shulgins, and even Timothy Leary’s ashes. Entheon opens on June 3, on the anniversary of the first acid trip the Greys took together, which gave them a framework for understanding life and an inspiration for art they still follow to this day.
And in honor of Bicycle Day, Alex talks about two pieces dedicated to Albert Hofmann, and continues his Bicycle Day tradition of reading a statement Hofmann made a year before he passed about psychedelics being the “absolute highest importance to consciousness change.” In celebration of Albert Hofmann and the gift he gave us, and with inspiration from the incredibly complex and beautiful art Alex and Allyson create, have a happy, safe, and creative Bicycle Day!
“St. Albert and the LSD Revelation Revolution” by Alex Grey
Notable Quotes
“I hadn’t had any insight that would prove to me any kind of spiritual reality was really there, even though I was making art. And I think from my perspective now: hey, if you’re being creative, you’re evidence. The creative spirit is what birthed the universe, and you’re an expression here and now of it. You’re evolving on that wavefront of reality that is binding time together and our beings together.” -Alex “We could see the vast vista of fountains and drains of everyone, and every being and thing in the universe was interconnected and made of light, and in that, I think we felt connected rather than disconnected. We felt like we were individual and independent, but also interconnected with all beings and things. [It] makes you feel like there’s some importance to yourself, that you really are necessary in the web of the eternal.” -Allyson “You’re making love with the divine in the mystical experience, in the divine imagination. That’s where the small self meets the larger self and becomes no self. So I think that the mystical experience is the cornerstone of the sacred traditions, and the artistic sacred traditions as well.” -Alex
“It took me right outside of my miserable psychodrama self and immediately, I got a psychic swirlie to show me the way. So that was a confirmation, and all my prayers basically were answered in that, and I got to meet the love of my life, really, because of it. So we’re very thankful, and it’s one of the reasons why we’ve always loved celebrating Bicycle Day.” -Alex
In this episode, Joe lets Court Wing take lead in interviewing two of the leaders behind Clusterbusters: Founder and Executive Director, Bob Wold; and President, Eileen Brewer.
A long-time friend of the show, Court Wing has become our resident expert on chronic pain, writing articles about how psilocybin relieved his chronic pain, and hosting Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD in their episode about phantom limb pain. Now he speaks with Clusterbusters, a non-profit dedicated to educating people about the horrors of cluster headaches, funding ongoing research into new treatments, and normalizing the miracle that psilocybin has been to so many sufferers in alleviating their headaches.
Wold and Brewer discuss their past struggles (Wold is a cluster sufferer and Brewer has migraine disease) and discovering the amazing intervention of psychedelics; the battles they’ve gone through in spreading this knowledge; how using psychedelics is also helping people work through PTSD; the barriers that legal psilocybin is creating; the concept of schools having a drug education program; the research looking at cluster headaches and other headache diseases; their creation of the Pain And Psychedelics Association, and more. While cluster headache sufferers have a lot to be frustrated about; as psilocybin becomes more mainstream and more and more research is funded, they now have a lot of hope.
Notable Quotes
“A couple of people started growing their own mushrooms and self-treating themselves just to try it to see if it might actually help, and the results were incredible. It was better than anything that any of them had tried in the past. It wasn’t really an abortive (it wasn’t treating one headache) and it wasn’t really a preventive, where you would take it and you would prevent some of your cluster attacks. It was something that was actually doing both of those things, and people were getting long-lasting results by one or two doses of magic mushrooms.” -Bob
“It makes sense that that would happen within a disease community, it happens outside of disease communities too. Some people just use psychedelics occasionally just to get that perspective back and to work within themselves (and without themselves) to sort it all out, [and] get themselves back together. And I think there’s a real division there between people who do that and people who don’t.” -Eileen
“The two or three years before my first dose of psilocybin, my medical bills were like $20,000 a year trying to treat my clusters. That included hospital stays and specialists and travel. …The first time I grew my own mushrooms, it cost me a hundred dollars to grow a year’s supply and I didn’t have to go to Walgreens to pick up my medicine. So my medical treatment for the following year for my cluster headaches was $100 versus $20,000 and I was able to take as much as I needed when I needed it. And at this point, that’s what most people with headache disorders are doing; they’re growing their own because the system is going to take years and years to be built into something that’s actually accessible to everybody – and affordable.” -Bob
“People are dying while we’re waiting for these policies to happen, and I’m really struggling with the fact that we are setting up more barriers. I know that all the intentions are good, but we are hurting people.” -Eileen
In this episode, David interviews neuroscientist, artist, and educator, Melanie Pincus, Ph.D.; and Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience, lead or co-author on over a dozen scientific publications, and regular contributor to PT, Manesh Girn.
They tell their stories of how they became interested in neuroscience, and stress the importance of staying radically open-minded (or “epistemically naive”) when it comes to how much we can claim we understand about the brain, the mind-body connection, and consciousness itself – that while fMRI and other advances have brought us a long way, there are still a ton of “unknown unknowns,” especially around creativity, decision making, and imagination. They discuss the misconception that we only use 10% of our brains; comparisons between the brain and the universe; society’s misunderstanding of “happy hormones” (dopamine, serotonin, etc.); how chronic stress takes a toll on all parts of the body; how MDMA works with memory processing; and how stacking modalities with the psychedelic experience (like play or activities focused on emotion regulation) can really help with personal goals and growth.
They have taken their understanding and fascination with neuroscience and applied it to a new course in our Psychedelic Education Center: “Psychedelic Neuroscience Demystified: How Psychedelics Alter Consciousness and Produce Therapeutic Effects“: an 8-week live course with 10 hours of prerecorded material and a built-in community. It was designed with practitioners and clinicians in mind, but with the goal of still being as accessible as possible for anyone who is curious about the neuroscience of psychedelics, and how that knowledge can help with preparation, the journey, integration, and working with a heightened window of neuroplasticity.
Class begins on May 17, and if you sign up before April 12, you can get $100 off!
Notable Quotes
“There’s so much good science now, and good neuroscience that can inform how people work with their clients in terms of helping them set up for and make sense of their psychedelic experience and ways to optimize the preparation before going into a psychedelic journey, the actual psychedelic journey in terms of thinking about dosing and type of substance to work with, and then also in the integration period, where there’s this heightened window of neuroplasticity and how one could really work with a client to best take advantage of that window of opportunity to lead to lasting change.” -Melanie
“It’s just this blob, this squishy blob of matter. And you think: for that person, their entire life, experiences, memories, [and] hopes were all happening in this little blob that’s in my hand. And just seeing all the layers of blood vessels and how everything’s connected to each other, it’s just fascinating and it’s downright bizarre that somehow, this thing can give rise to experience and consciousness. It’s like, how the hell is that even possible?” -Manesh
“For people who are interested in stacking modalities, there’s other modalities that are really potent at promoting neuroplasticity. So if you want to synergize with the window of plasticity during the integration period, you could for sure partake in regular exercise, because that’s one of the most well-known plasticity promoters.” -Melanie
“How do we respond adaptively to times of change? How do we adjust ourselves? How do we create homeostasis in a changing environment, and how do we adapt to new circumstances? And this is also a whole brain/nervous system/body affair as well, on how to regulate your entire organism to deal with change and to be resilient and to be adaptable. It’s not just in the brain. It’s not just in the brain at all.” -Manesh
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe calls in from Los Angeles to cover the week’s news with David.
They review:
-Dr. Julie Holland’s recent appearance on the The Cannabis Investing Podcast, where she discussed the concept of cannabis being a psychedelic;
-Vancouver Island University in British Columbia, Canada, planning to establish a Psychedelic Research Centre, with a focus on the historical and ethical context of psychedelic substances, using a “two eyed seeing” approach that combines Western-style science with Indigenous perspectives;
-A group of investors creating a Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) to purchase real estate for the purposes of psychedelic therapy, which, if used as the collaborative model we imagine it could be, could solve a lot of problems;
-Diplo completing the Los Angeles Marathon in 3 hours and 35 minutes while under a reported 4-5 drops of LSD, and the dismissive spin mainstream media added to the story;
and a Rolling Stone article focusing on (and somewhat oversimplifying) the conflicts between the medicalization and decriminalization/legalization camps (can we just do both?).
The articles of course lead to much larger discussions: how cannabis has helped David overcome OCD; the need for more transparency and a review system based on abusive behavior in the psychedelic space; the idea of collectivization in therapy models; the need to agree on ethical foundations; and our general misunderstanding of IP and IP law: was all the criticism of Compass Pathways unwarranted?
In this episode, David interviews Sunny Strasburg, LMFT: Clinical Director at TRIPP PsyAssist; psychedelic trainer, consultant, therapist, and writer, specializing in EMDR and Internal Family Systems, and offering ketamine-assisted therapy as well as ketamine therapy retreats (often co-led by Dr. Richard Schwartz).
She talks about her family history with magic, and how the act of calling energy in and out pairs with psychedelic work; how the human experience is made up of contrasts; why we need to embrace the recreational part of psychedelics; how art can be used more in therapy; and how post-experience group integration is the act of creating mythology, recreating the small-community-sitting-by-the-fire archetype – that community we so desperately need. And she discusses ketamine: different ways she uses it; how it pairs perfectly with Internal Family Systems; and how it’s autobiographical medicine, making us an observer and allowing us to separate ourselves from our story.
While passionate about the mystical, magic, and reconnecting to nature, she is also very involved with virtual reality, and she discusses how VR and meditation apps are easing people into non-ordinary states and familiarizing people with breathwork. With the help of pioneering psychedelic DJ, David Starfire, she created PsyAssist, an app with music playlists and voice integration for people to enhance ketamine experiences that don’t otherwise include therapy or integration work. PsyAssist was acquired by VR company, TRIPP, and they’re running a study on people using VR before a psychedelic experience to see if data proves that VR really does reduce the anxiety so many of us feel before taking that big journey. But she reminds us: as we become more connected to technology, VR, and AI, being connected to other human beings will become more and more important.
Notable Quotes
“I call ketamine the open source code of psychedelics because it doesn’t have a very strong signature or agenda in and of itself. Psychedelics like ayahuasca and psilocybin definitely have a presence. DMT has a presence of beings that live in that space, and it seems like you go to this place that’s informed by the beings that run that space. Ketamine is more open-ended. It feels like it takes autobiographical content and feeds it back to you in interesting ways. …It has this interesting signature of pulling us out of the experience and into ‘observer mind,’ and it also has a signature of traveling. That combination is super interesting for therapy.”
“I do not see VR as a replacement for therapists at all. In fact, I think the more we get into technology and AI, the more in-person experiences with another human being are going to become increasingly valuable to us. We have evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to be prosocial animals that connect with other beings like us, and that’s not going away anytime soon. …I actually think that as AI and technology takes a lot of jobs, I think there are certain sectors of human connection that are going to become more important than ever.”
“I love [how] in holotropic breathwork, they have the mandalas with art materials and they encourage you to create a drawing or painting of what you experienced before you speak to anyone as part of that experience. And I really like that, because as soon as you start giving words to ineffable experience, it collapses it down to something that’s simplified beyond what it was. But you can keep it in that open-ended space when you make art …or you make music or dance around what you experienced. It holds that openness and that sublime energy of the ineffable.”
Thank You Life is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization on a mission to revolutionize mental healthcare and help the world heal by eliminating the financial barriers to psychedelic therapy. Click the link to donate!
In this episode, Joe interviews Graham Hancock: legendary bestselling author and writer and presenter of the new Netflix docuseries, “Ancient Apocalypse,” where he travels the world looking for evidence of lost civilizations likely much more advanced than historians previously believed.
Hancock talks about his early books and how ayahuasca influenced his writing; the similarities in cave art and the common link of altered states of consciousness; how integral these states likely were toward the creation of early religion (especially Christianity); how much the annihilation of religious traditions has hidden history; why his and Rupert Sheldrake’s Tedx talks were originally taken offline; new understandings of Neanderthals’ intelligence and creativity; the Quetzalcóatl; and the concept of the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis: could there have been an advanced civilization 12,800 years ago that we’re just starting to comprehend? Could it have been Atlantis?
He discusses the conflict with mystery and archaeology’s obsession with scientism and materialist reductionism – that we keep trying to force everything into little boxes of approved science and have lost our imaginations and openness to possibility, especially when you realize how often narratives are built based on interpretations of data rather than facts (since the farther back we go, evidence becomes harder to come by). He believes science needs humility, a willingness to listen to Indigenous history, and a much more open mind when it comes to altered states of consciousness: “I’m convinced we’re missing something important from our past, and if we don’t look for it, we won’t find it.
Hancock has just announced that he will be a speaker at UK’s Breaking Convention, April 20 – 22 at the University of Exeter, and some of the PT team will be there too! To save 10% off tickets, use code PSYCHTODAYBC10 at checkout.
Notable Quotes
“I think there’s a huge amount of genuine mystery in the past, and there’s an attempt by archaeologists to explain away that mystery, …to just drain the past of mystery and to leave nothing there except dry facts (supposed facts) as archaeologists claim, but which, when you dig deep enough, you find are actually interpretations of limited data sets. I don’t know why archaeologists just want the past to be so boring. …Of course there’s a need for rigor and discipline, but there’s also a need for imagination and openness of mind when it comes to interpreting our collective past.”
“Those paintings included the same geometric patterns and the same therianthropic entities construed in slightly different ways, but clearly the same kind of encounter is being documented in the cave art from 30 or 40 thousand years ago and is being documented by shamans in the Amazon rainforest today. And what’s the common factor? The common factor is altered states of consciousness.”
“With extended release DMT, volunteers are going into the DMT state for an hour and they’re making remarkably homogeneous reports about entity encounters and about the space in which they encounter those entities. One reasonable supposition has to be: there are many possibilities for this, but when people from all over the world see the same things [and] have the same encounters in the same sort of space, you have to consider the possibility that that space is real in some way that our science doesn’t recognize.”
“Psychedelics and experiences in altered states of consciousness have actually been foundational and fundamental to human culture, and by pretending that they’re not, as we’ve been doing for the last 50 years, we’re making a huge mistake. We have to change that outlook and welcome and embrace what these gifts of the universe have to give us.”
In this episode, in celebration of International Women’s Day, Victoria interviews Tracey Tee: co-founder and CEO of Band of Mothers Media, co-producer and co-host of the Band of Mothers podcast, and founder of Moms on Mushrooms, an online educational community for psychedelic-curious moms outside the prying eyes of social media.
With similar histories of womb trauma, self discovery, and body reconnection, Victoria and Tracey discuss the complications of motherhood, substance use and embracing psychedelics in a broken culture, in which engaging with small, approved coping mechanisms is fine – where the “wine mom” archetype and numbing yourself with medications is celebrated, but where we don’t often talk about how challenging motherhood can really be, and the lasting mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of birth, loss, and grief. Tracey’s goal with Moms on Mushrooms is to bring mothers together for personal growth, healing, and most of all, for the safe, supportive container that so many women considering plant medicine need.
She tells her story of creating and performing “The Pump and Dump Show” and the psychedelic journeys that led her to creating M.O.M., and discusses much more: how those large dose journeys reconnected her with her body; how microdosing has helped her feel more vulnerable, honest, and in tune with her daughter; how psychedelics can help parents realize where problematic core beliefs came from; how teaching children the ways of the world forces parents to confront and reaffirm what they truly believe; and the challenges mothers face in even talking about wanting to try psychedelics.
“Had I not had this divine intervention, I think I would have been pretty stubborn, which I can tend to be. I would have not wanted to be vulnerable with my daughter because I think I was raised to say that that wasn’t something that is good or that I should show – I’m a parent: ‘My way is the highway.’ Instead, I’m much softer. I ask for forgiveness, I tell her when I screw up, I admit my mistakes, [and] I ask her what she thinks. I always talk about Old Tracey and New Tracey (Old Tracey and ‘Shroom Tracey’): Old Tracey would have never been like that, and I think that’s a real gift, because in asking forgiveness [and] in admitting my mistakes, I’m changing.”
“What is the most upsetting to me is the fear, like this push/pull of hearing either my story or your story or reading How to Change Your Mind or watching a Netflix thing and saying: ‘My soul is telling me this makes sense, my soul is telling me to give this a shot. I might have a way out of this,’ and then my head is like: ‘You cannot do this. You’re a bad person, this is shameful, you might die (which is ridiculous) and at the very least, your children will be taken away from you.’ And that is why I’m talking to you, because that has to stop. It has to stop.”
“I don’t love rehashing the past. I don’t love carrying victimhood, but I am sad for what I lost. And when I work with the medicine (again, intentionally, safely; all the things that we’ve been talking about), I am shown, piece by piece, [that] I’m calling all those parts back. And it’s not easy, but it’s like I’m rebuilding. I’m like a Lego project right now, and I would never be able to do that without the shrooms.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Greg Lake, Esq.: Co-Founder of the Church of Psilomethoxin, author, and trial and appellate attorney specializing in working with entheogen-based religious practitioners in establishing their right to consume their sacraments under existing religious freedom laws.
Psilomethoxin (4-Hydroxy-5-methoxydimethyltryptamine or 4-Hydroxy-5-MeO-DMT) was first synthesized in 2021 by mixing 5-MeO-DMT with psilocybin substrate, and after initial tests and months of user reports, it was deemed safe to use.* Lake co-founded the Church of Psilomethoxin in 2022 with the goal of shifting the paradigm of religion to primary direct experiences and individual beliefs rather than a dogma everyone must follow, with a big focus on community and discussing the ultimate questions of life together – with Psilomethoxin as the sacrament of choice. While he prefers member-to-member referrals, there is an application on the site, and he hopes to grow the church through linking people up regionally, (eventually) training people to facilitate, and partnering with a data collection company to gather real-world data on both Psilomethoxin and on why people are seeking out psychedelic churches in the first place.
He discusses several cases that brought us here and inspired his work; why he believes Psilomethoxin won’t be a target of the Federal Analogue Act; the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the need for states to establish similar state legislation; the importance of new churches establishing evidence in the public record; how much courts take sincerity into consideration; and the concept that, while we’re quick to think of the law as the enemy, courts often don’t want to go after churches – religion is a sacred and intimate thing, so who is the victim if a court brings a church to court that hasn’t harmed anyone?
*Update, April 17, 2023:Results from analytical testing released on April 12, 2023, reveal that there is no evidence to suggest the compound psilomethoxin is present in the samples of sacrament material the Church of Psilomethoxin is offering to their members online. The report, prepared by Samuel Williamson and Alexander Sherwood of the Usona Institute, states, “Psilocybin, baeocystin, and psilocin, were, however, unambiguously identified in the sample, suggesting that the claims regarding the biosynthesis of psilomethoxin may be misguided. The implications of these findings should be critically considered within the context of public health and safety.”
We are following this story at Psychedelics Today and are working to update our community with commentary from the researchers. Stay tuned to our social media channels for more on this topic.
Notable Quotes
“I think eventually the courts will come around to realize that where medical and scientific and religious and spiritual begin or end within this space is not crystal clear, because as we’re all aware, in the research, people, even in clinical settings, are having mystical, religious experiences. And then they see that that really, at many times, translates to positive outcomes. If people, even in a medical setting, can have a religious experience, well then where does ‘This is a religious exercise, this is not’ come into play?”
“One of our core beliefs is that in the peak entheogenic experience like 5-MeO, where you experience unitive cosmic consciousness, that’s basically our moral code – that once you experience unity with all, that tells you pretty much everything that you’ll ever need to know about how you should be treating other people, how you should be treating other beings, and how you should be treating the environment.”
“One thing I’ve learned (and I learned real quick working with these churches) is that, especially post-Covid, the community, for a lot of people, is just as, if not more healing and spiritual than the actual ceremonies.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Devon Christie: Senior Lead of Psychedelic Programs at Numinus, educator at CIIS and Vital, and MAPS-certified MDMA therapist; and Dr. Pamela Kryskow, MD: founding board member of the Psychedelic Association of Canada and Medical Lead of the nonprofit, Roots To Thrive.
Christie and Kryskow recently co-authored one of the first papers looking at MDMA for chronic pain, “MDMA-assisted therapy is associated with a reduction in chronic pain among people with post-traumatic stress disorder,” which came about after they received access to MAPS’ Phase 2 data from a lead-in PTSD study and noticed significant improvements in pain measurements – something the study was not looking for at all. They’re looking into where chronic pain fits within the frameworks of Western medicine and psychedelic-assisted therapy, and discuss the many reasons why MDMA should be tremendously helpful for chronic pain and other conditions that fall under the large umbrella of central sensitivity syndromes and nociplastic pain. They are currently working on a new study following the MAPS protocol that will research MDMA-assisted psychotherapy specifically for people with fibromyalgia, which some believe might be physicalized PTSD. If you’d like to contribute a tax-deductible donation, visit giving.viu.ca, select “other” from the dropdown, and type in “MDMA for Fibromyalgia.”
They talk about how research trials focus too much on the molecule while ignoring what the patient is saying; how a large percentage of physicians and patients don’t at all like the psychometrics used in measuring data; how physicians regularly use expectancy bias but research trials don’t (and how that affects results); why everyone needs to place higher importance on the biopsychosocial model; the idea of being more humble with science and using “theoretical” more often; the problems with microdosing trials; and the issues with evidence: If there isn’t sufficient evidence, why isn’t there? And what exactly would be sufficient?
Notable Quotes
“It’s kind of an irony because it’s really a single molecule pharmaceutical model to go: ‘Is it working?’ whereas every day, every clinician out there is using expectancy and placebo effect to their patients’ benefit. So, I would like us to have that conversation in a much more intelligent way, saying it’s going to be there, it’s not a bad thing, and in fact, if you don’t have that, you’re probably a bad clinician. So, let’s harness it, and then say, ‘and is the treatment [going] above and beyond that?’” -Pam
“Where’s the scientific curiosity? That’s what we need to be. When our patient says: ‘This is helping me,’ we should never be saying, ‘No, that’s not possible because there’s no evidence.’ We should be leaning in and being curious: ‘Tell me more.’” -Pam “Homogenizing through trying to do the randomized control trials, you end up sort of sterilizing to isolate one specific variable in trying to make your study population as similar as possible. And in the real world, that’s just not the case. In the real world, people are on 10 different medications. So what’s really even the applicability when we sterilize and homogenize so much [for] what we believe is giving us the best evidence?” -Devon
“If we really look and open our eyes, in many, many circumstances, the pathology is not individual whatsoever. The pathology is in our culture and in our society and how disconnected we are and the intergenerational trauma that’s passed along, and then parents without support and no hope of not passing that along because our society isn’t providing the optimal environment on a societal level for us to be thriving. So I think a cure on an individual level needs to be couched within thinking about a cure on a collective level.” -Devon
“The reason I got involved even in the research is because so many of my patients were coming to me and saying, ‘I am microdosing. It is helping.’ So it goes back to: Do you believe people? And I personally believe my patients when they say that. …When I have people coming in and saying ‘I’m out of bed now. I used to lay in bed for 18 hours a day and now I’m out, I bought a dog, I’m exercising’; if it’s a placebo or expectancy, awesome. I’m going to celebrate that.” -Pam
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Kyle is joined by another new voice from the PT team: one of the main instructors and facilitators from our Vital program, Diego Pinzon.
Originally from Colombia, Diego has been living in Australia since 2008 and has been involved in the Australian psychedelic scene, playing roles in the charity sector, research with Psychae Institute, and is one of the researchers in the St. Vincent’s Melbourne trial, Australia’s first trial using psilocybin for end-of-life depression and anxiety. Diego gives his insight into the recent TGA re-scheduling of psilocybin and MDMA for treatment-resistant depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, respectively.
They cover the details, unknowns, and concerns: Is there enough time to train enough people? Do they have the infrastructure for this? What are the substances actually going to be? What percentage of people who apply will be granted access? What will it cost? And while psychiatrists will be able to prescribe, how much will the program really focus on therapy?
And they discuss Vancouver’s Filament Health creating the world’s first ayahuasca pill, which is close to FDA authorization to begin a Phase 1 trial. Of course this news begs some questions as well, mainly: with psychedelic use being such an active experience, how much does something like this change our relationship to ayahuasca? And with a consistent, more predictable experience, does that kill the magic?
In this episode, Joe interviews artist and photographer, Rupert Alexander Scriven.
Under his brand, Vintage Disco Biscuit, Scriven recently released The Art of Ecstasy: a coffee table book that pairs high definition images of ecstasy tablets he collected over the course of 25 years with interviews and compositions written by himself and a host of other notable names from the 90’s British club scene, documenting the culture and rise of MDMA, while also promoting harm reduction and the work of UK drug charity, The Loop. The book has received some notable high praise, with Dr. Ben Sessa calling it “absolutely fucking awesome.”
Scriven discusses why he started collecting ecstasy tablets and how the book came to be, as well as details behind the photography and writings, which he likes to think of as conversations at an afterparty. And he talks about his days in the club scene and how it was like his church; how MDMA changed culture; UK drug policy; talks with his parents about drugs; differences in the club experience when people are on different substances; and whether or not dancing on MDMA can be the therapy people need. And he asks a question many of us wonder regularly: Why are we, as a culture, so far behind with drug testing?
Notable Quotes
“It really did change the culture and society as a whole, because at the time, there was ‘Thatcherism’ ([from] Margaret Thatcher, our Prime Minister), and there was a lot of disdain, there was a lot of discomfort. And this was just an outlet for everybody to enjoy themselves, whoever they were. So you could be a street cleaner, you could be an MP, you could be anybody. Everybody came together on a Saturday or Friday night and you just partied.”
“Each of these pills, even though they’re only eight millimeters across, that stamp; it didn’t signify just quality, it signified somebody’s memory of meeting a friend, a loved one, an experience, a time. You can go on any forum and people will go, ‘Oh, can you remember the dove?’ …You can ask them, and they’ll be able to recap a full story or an experience they had just from that one on element.” “A few years ago before the lockdown, [there were] only three festivals that didn’t have The Loop or some form of drug awareness testing charity at them in the UK, and those were the three festivals that there were fatalities. Now that just speaks volumes. It really does.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, David is joined by Kathryn L. Tucker, JD: Director of Advocacy at the National Psychedelics Association and a founding member of the Psychedelic Bar Association with over 35 years in advocacy in protecting the rights of dying patients.
Tucker is currently working with Dr. Sunil Agarwal of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science (AIMS) Institute in a battle against the DEA: Agarwal works with end-of-life cancer patients and approached the DEA to see how they’d accommodate state and federal Right to Try laws to grant his patients access to psilocybin, which the DEA denied. This led to the federal case, AIMS vs. the DEA (AIMS I), then AIMS II (which petitions their denial of Right to Try access), and now, AIMS III, which appeals their denial of the petition to reschedule psilocybin.
As with all things government-related, the story shows how little these people actually care about any of us, but Tucker gracefully walks us through the whole convoluted mess; explaining each step, what should happen next, where the DEA blatantly disregarded rules, what you can do to help, and ultimately, the importance of this case in how situations like these could be handled in the future (from both sides). She discusses the problems with state legalization under federal jurisdiction; what we can learn from what we saw with safe injection sites being canceled in Philadelphia; Cory Booker and Rand Paul’s Breakthrough Therapy Act; the idea of having state-legal programs actually run by the government to create a federal safe harbor; and more.
And in the news, they cover recently submitted legalization bills, Australia legalizing the medical use of psilocybin and MDMA (for specific conditions by approved practitioners), and the concern over what will happen with ketamine telehealth when the Covid-19 Emergency is finally put to an end in May.
Notable Quotes
“As you may have seen just last week in Australia, MDMA and psilocybin were rescheduled. And you might have noticed in the press release a reference to the fact that the Australian agency took in a considerable amount of medical and scientific data when it was considering that rescheduling. That’s proper. That’s necessary. That did not happen here. So what happened in Australia exemplifies and throws into sharp light that the DEA failed as a matter of process here.”
“The problem with state legalization as mentioned earlier is that it can do no more than offer state safe harbor. It cannot alter federal law. …Under the Oregon statute, all psilocybin must be consumed at a psilocybin service center, which must be licensed by the state, and it must be purchased and consumed at that center in the presence of a licensed facilitator. That is what is legal under Oregon state law. However, the operation of those psilocybin service centers is still a federal crime. And I think there has been a hope and possibly even an expectation that the federal government is going to look the other way. We have no indication that that is going to happen.”
“Within the Controlled Substances Act, there’s a provision that if the action is taken by a government official, then there is a federal safe harbor. So one of the ways that one might be looking at creatively revising these state legalizations is to have the program be run by the government. Now could you make an argument that when, for example, the Oregon Health Authority issues licenses to Oregon service centers, that that means it’s a government-run facility? Maybe. I mean, I think that’s an argument worth fully vetting, because it could bring you within federal safe harbor.”
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, the rest of the team is out or at Cannadelic, so a new voice steps up to the plate: Julian Bost, who works with the Vital team and handles the majority of our email, records his first podcast with Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience, friend of the show, and speaker at Convergence: Manesh Girn.
You may remember the team covering some articles at the end of December and early January that were quite confusing and immediately met with a response of: “yea, we should have someone on to explain this to us.” This is that episode, with Manesh breaking down three very scientific articles into much simpler terms (at least we hope).
And a paper he co-wrote with Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris and many others, “Canalization and plasticity in psychopathology,” which aims to reframe neuroplasticity, disorders, and psychedelic interventions, and leads to a discussion on how adaptive thought patterns develop, the ability to relearn as “Temperature or Entropy Mediated Plasticity (TEMP),” Daniel Kahneman’s idea of fast and slow thinking, early trauma intervention, and the concept of viewing mental illness as a process rather than an identity.
As confusing (at least to the layperson) research seems to pop up daily, we may have Manesh on from time to time to help us understand some of these studies. How did he do? Did he clear up any of these articles for you? And should Julian be on the podcast more?
In this episode, Joe interviews Dr. Andrew R. Gallimore: computational neurobiologist, chemical pharmacologist, researcher, and writer of Alien Information Theory: Psychedelic Drug Technologies and the Cosmic Game.
Gallimore feels that DMT is the most efficient and effective reality switching molecule we’ve seen, and that there is no other psychedelic experience that is so in your face: If we really could communicate with entities not of our known universe (who may have created our universe), how can so many dismiss that as a hallucination? Why would we not want to pursue something so mind-bending and revolutionary? His hope for his newest book, Reality Switch Technologies: Psychedelics as Tools for the Discovery and Exploration of New Worlds, is that it will be the quintessential guide for how psychedelics work in the brain from all levels of organization, what happens when you perturb the brain, and the future: how we might be able to fine-tune our brains to access different realities at will.
He discusses the element of design used in his books; why understanding something as complex as DMT is a multidisciplinary practice; the genius of Terence McKenna; what Alien Information Theory was about; his work with Rick Strassman in researching intravenous infusion DMT pumps to keep someone in the DMT verse; Conway’s Game of Life and the unpredictable levels of complexity that can arise from simple rules; lucid dreaming; John Mack, alien abductees, and trusting a patient’s experiences as real; psilocybin yeast; and much more.
This one will definitely make you think!
Notable Quotes
“It’s always felt a little bit sci-fi in a way, in that you’re planning basically a program of inter-dimensional citizenship. It feels like that. I mean, Terence McKenna used to [say] ‘galactic citizenship,’ and it’s almost like we’ve leapfrogged over galactic citizenship and we’re now going straight to inter-dimensional, trans-dimensional citizenship (whatever you want to call it) where we’re interfacing and communicating with an intelligence not of this universe. I mean, that’s a wild idea. And we have the technology now. To me, this infusion technology; this is the way to do it.”
“We’re just at the beginning now. You take virtual reality technology and the way that that is progressing, then you add artificial intelligence into the mix, and then you add pharmacology and neuropharmacology, chemical pharmacology and other neural manipulation systems, and you begin to realize that our brain is this tool – this world-building machine that we can learn to tune to access other worlds.”
“There’s also deja vu of course, the sense of having been there before – this very profound, deep sense of deja vu; not like we’ve all had, that occasionally you get that sense of deja vu that something has happened before. This is like, ‘I really, really have been here before. This is the most bizarre place I couldn’t possibly have imagined or conceived of; an impossible place of impossible geometry, and yet at the same time, it seems bizarrely familiar. ‘Why? Why would some place that should be the most unfamiliar place possible– There isn’t a more unfamiliar realm that you could imagine than the DMT world, and yet people think, ‘Oh my God, I’ve come home.’ And the entities, the elves will sing and cheer and bells will ring and lights will flash and [they’ll] say, ‘He has returned! The one has returned home! Welcome back! We’re so pleased to see you!’ This great uproar, this great celebration as you burst into this space. Why would that happen?”
In this episode, Joe interviews New York Times best-selling author, pioneer in the field of integrative medicine, and overall legend in the health and wellness space: Andrew Weil, M.D.
As the author of 15 books on health and wellbeing and a regular in the media, you’re probably familiar with Weil and some of his work, but you may not know of his more psychedelic connections: a long history of experimentation, leading Paul Stamets in the direction of functional mushrooms, co-writing one of the first papers about the Sonoran Desert toad and 5-MeO-DMT with Wade Davis, and being a strong advocate for psychedelics being the spark that could spur a global change in consciousness.
He talks about the connection between true osteopathy and integrative medicine; why the traditional Chinese medicine approach to mushrooms made so much sense to him; academia’s lost interest in pharmacognosy; how psychedelics may help people with autoimmune diseases; turmeric (he largely popularized it as an anti-inflammatory supplement); matcha; why we should be studying the placebo effect much more than we are; humanity’s innate drive to experience altered states of consciousness; and why a big part of the psychedelic revolution is so many people starting to believe in panpsychism.
We’re pumped to finally have him on the podcast, and we’re even more excited that he’s spreading the gospel of psychedelics to a health and wellness crowd who may still be a bit apprehensive about something they were taught to fear.
Notable Quotes
“I’m tremendously interested in [psychedelics’] potential at the moment for therapeutic use and ceremonial use, and actually, if I think about it, I would say I’m really interested in the possibility that they can save the world. I don’t see many other things out there that can do that.”
“I don’t know anything else that is so readily available and that, with at least some attention to how you do them, has such a potential to change how people interpret their perceptions and interpret their experience of the world around them. I’ve seen just such dramatic changes in people and in myself as a result of psychedelic experience. …My first book, The Natural Mind, that was published in 1972, said that only a global change in consciousness could really transform our world, and I think that the psychedelic revolution has the potential to do that.”
“I think the placebo response is the meat of medicine. That’s what you want to try to make happen. It’s pure healing response from within, mediated by the mind and unmixed up with the direct effects of treatment. …The commonest way I hear that word used is things like, ‘How do you know that’s not just the placebo response?’ or ‘We have to rule out the placebo response.’ I mean, we should be ruling it in. You want to make it happen more of the time.”
“Human beings have an innate drive to experience altered states of consciousness, not necessarily through the use of drugs (although drugs are a very convenient way to do it). One of the examples I gave was of kids learning to spin until they get dizzy and fall over and the world changed, and that’s universal as far as I can tell, in all cultures. So I got a lot of crap from people for saying that there was an innate drive toward altered states of consciousness, but I absolutely believe that, and I think that a part of the drug problem in our culture has been our failure to acknowledge that and teach people safe and better ways of satisfying it.”
In this episode, David interviews Sherry Rais: Executive Director of the Boston Psychedelic Research Group, Grants Manager for CIIS, and CEO/Co-Founder of Enthea.
Enthea is a benefit plan administrator that provides health plan benefit riders and single case agreement services for psychedelic healthcare with a provider network including certified and credentialed Ketamine-Assisted Therapy (KAT) and Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy (PAT) practitioners. In other words, if a company wants to offer psychedelic-assisted therapy as a benefit for their employees, Enthea makes this possible (and affordable). Their first client was the very psychedelically-minded Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, and they’ve just announced the signings of three new clients that you may not expect to provide KAP to their employees: Daybreaker, Tushy, and Guinn Partners. Their goal is to have 100,000 covered lives in 40 cities by the end of 2023, and, alongside the guidance of MAPS, hopefully roll out MDMA-assisted therapy in Q2 of 2024.
Rais talks about Enthea’s process, costs, and goals; her Ismaili religion; her nomadic, marathon-running life; her experience sleeping on the streets of Toronto at 16 and her need to help the less-fortunate; how her most powerful psychedelic experience was watching someone else transform; and why companies are suddenly interested in these emerging therapies.
Notable Quotes
“For me, the most powerful psychedelic experience I had was actually in a situation where I was sitting with someone else and saw this person transform in front of me. That was two years ago and that person; I still see the effects of that experience on that person’s life and how much he’s changed from this one experience, and I’ve never seen anything like it. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“I think you and I know that these medicines work, and we also know that they cost way more than $500, and immediately, that tells me there’s an equity crisis in the ecosystem; that we’ve finally found medicines that may be able to help millions of people that are suffering from a variety of issues, and there’s this huge barrier and its cost. So the goal of Enthea is to solve that problem by making these medicines affordable.”
“The fact that you have a plan that doesn’t cover mental health is very telling of the landscape and the culture in America today and why you’ve made the case for me on why Enthea is needed. Because if this doesn’t happen, when will people get access? They’ll continue waiting and waiting and waiting that their primary insurance provider covers this.”
In this week’s episode, Joe and Alexa talk about the excitement brewing around our first conference-meets-festival, Convergence (March 30 – April 2 at the Wisdome in LA), and some of the sponsorships starting to come in (interested? email Alexa@psychedelicstoday.com).
Then, they dive into what intrigued them the most this week: a study looking into potentiality and possible causes of 5-MeO-DMT reactivation (and what reactivation actually is); New York cannabis farms sitting on $750 million worth of cannabis as the government drags its feet on licenses; and the story of a woman who used cannabis and psilocybin as an adjunct to standard therapy in the treatment of advanced metastatic breast cancer.
I had years of experience in cold water training from my Aikido career, but as my depression had increasingly grown worse, I developed a severe cold intolerance. It had become painful to stand under the shower, with my scalp almost spasming in contraction, when I used to be able to stand in late winter melt-water waterfalls and rivers with ease. But post-dosing, my cold tolerance came roaring back; allowing me to stand under a cold shower for minutes at a time with no numbness and no pain – it was almost like it was happening to someone else or there was a micro-force field on the surface of my skin. I found myself having to leave the shower because I just had other things to do. Cold water tolerance is a gold-standard for measuring pain response in clinical trials, and in fact, later that year, the Department of Psychopharmacology at Maastricht University, sponsored by the Beckley Foundation, conducted the first LSD and pain study in nearly 50 years, showing that low-dose LSD significantly increased cold water tolerance without interfering with day-to-day activities.
I had been known for my mobility and flexibility throughout my career and my ability to train others to achieve the same results, but mine had been compromised for a good while at this point. But the day after my session, I was able to resume positions that I hadn’t been able to comfortably acquire in months, if not years. Movement now felt smooth and effortless once again, and I swear there was even improvement in the tissue quality in areas that had become “crunchy.”
There was also a significant change in my inflammatory baseline. Depression is seen as a disorder that also includes fairly significant neurological inflammation and is often bi-directional with chronic pain, but many of the same receptors that psilocybin operates on are also contained within the gastrointestinal tract, and mine had altered sensation for a month afterward. I believe my systemic inflammation significantly improved during that period because within three months of my dosing, I reacquired personal training records that had become elusive, and by summer, I passed those PRs and set new ones. I also felt incredibly less “puffy.” Accidentally banging into something didn’t hurt anymore and persistent joint aches and lack of motor activation disappeared. There were additional improvements in neurological issues that will be described in a future case study, but that was just as immediate and impactful.
Lockdown Leads to the Lowdown on the First Psychedelic Pain Studies
Within the training and recovery world, patients and trainees can loosely be categorized as super, normal, non, and negative responders. I had stopped being responsive to both training and rehabilitation efforts at the peak of my depression, and was entering negative-responder territory, which was severely distressing. Fascinatingly, I now seem to be trending somewhere between a normal and high responder. I began proclaiming to the researchers at NYU that psychedelics were going to completely change chronic pain treatment within five years. And I also had a secret; the day after my dosing session, I had what’s referred to as a huge download: I realized that if you could consider things like depression, PTSD, and severe anxiety to be nociplastic outputs of the Central Nervous System (CNS) that causes iterative rumination (a.k.a. looping maladaptive outputs), that was no different from the looping maladaptive outputs that characterize chronic pain – the neurology of which I had been studying for years at that point. Due to the extreme visual qualities of the psychedelic experience and the rapidity of my own remission, I saw, in a flash, that since psilocybin was an impact booster for neuroplasticity, it would enhance the impact of mirror box therapy for phantom limb pain or likely any other neuromodulation.
“Remapping” is the term describing the tactic of using visual or other sensory receptor inputs to modify and change nociplastic or noxious/painful outputs of the brain. As this is part of the Z-Health process, I had been introduced to the concept of mirror box therapy years earlier as part of my certifications, but I thought I had come up with a whole new approach and kept it to myself, barely hinting at what I believed I had uncovered. But, since NYC was locked down and I was unable to work, I had nothing to do but go online and research what had happened to me.
Within two weeks or so, I found an old photocopied English abstract from a 1962 study in Japan, by Kuromaru, et al., using low-dose LSD to treat phantom-limb pain with 50% of its participants going into instant remission by the end of their session, and the authors pointedly declaring that stacking the LSD with movement had a far stronger impact on resolving both phantom limb pain and phantom limb syndrome. Stacking inputs is a common practice within the neuromodulation world for pain treatment, often coupling a weaker input with a stronger one, and I realized that this was what had clearly happened to me while I was in my post-dosing neuroplastic window. It finally felt like I was getting traction again; that drills and exercises were once again effective, and crucially, maintaining their own momentum. I didn’t have to be hypervigilant anymore in my daily routine for these drills to become “sticky.” I also realized that the Kuromaru study had, in fact, been released earlier than the Kast study from 1964 investigating the analgesic properties of LSD for terminal cancer and other painful conditions, which is frequently and incorrectly cited as the first psychedelic pain study. I became aware of other previous psychedelic pain studies, as well as recent ones like Dr. Charles Nichols’ work on the anti-inflammatory properties of psychedelics, and studies involving Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris’ REBUS model and cortical reorganization, which is what happens when a stimulus results in the creation of a new cortical map (essentially a vertical column in the brain cortex consisting of neurons performing specific processes).
Both of these discoveries are crucial because cortical reorganization (or remapping) and inflammation are key drivers of chronic pain. Conditions like depression and anxiety are characterized by rigid, fixed beliefs or frameworks where the same negative thought loop keeps reoccurring repeatedly, with no amount of incoming contrary information able to alter that belief. It becomes what’s known as a “strong prior” in neurology, becoming a top-down driven process in the CNS, actively suppressing any bottom-up sensory input error correction. The same mechanisms of action occur with chronic pain, where, despite the healing or resolution of an injury; a rigid, fixed pain signal is continually being sent out by the brain as a maladaptive response of the CNS’ protective suite. These are referred to as nociplastic or noxious neurological conditions. The same is true for multiple chronic pain conditions where inflammation causes maladaptive signaling and perceptions, leading to negative structural or nociplastic changes in the peripheral and central nervous system. In psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, a non-rigid, chaotic state is induced, which allows the cortical landscape to reorganize into a more efficient and positive state.
Landmark Study in Pain and Psychedelics Confirms Insights
I sat speechless for at least five minutes, shaking my head in a feeling of wonder and disbelief, as if the universe itself had just delivered this paper to me. Other than my remission and the pandemic, I had thought of nothing else but the application of how these two approaches could be combined. Of course someone else had invented it well before me; of course they had. I knew that resourceful, capable people had been working on this for a while, and chronic pain is a singular motivator, but it was still astonishing to see my vision so vividly applied and executed.
Check out this podcast with Court and Joe interviewing Dr. Castellanos and Dr. Timothy Furnish of PHRI!
I had learned in 2015 that cluster headaches had been effectively treated with psilocybin for 25 years, and of mirror box therapy a few years before that. I had even blogged about it because people in the rehab and training communities thought that my using visual inputs to treat pain was so weird they called it “voodoo.” But there is a neural hierarchy, and many pain and performance conditions in the body actually have higher-order components within the visual and vestibular systems. That’s often why, no matter how much manual/physio therapy one does, it is often a downstream compensation within the body in order to reconcile perceptual discrepancies between the visual and vestibular system. The visual system lets you assess the surrounding environment and predict any threats that exist within it, and the vestibular system helps you orient within that space, keeping your body in balance so that you might be able to execute any motor actions in response to any perceived threats. If your eyes are telling you the horizon is 5° tilted to the left, but your vestibular system, a.k.a. your inner ear, is telling you that it’s 5° to the right, your body will compensate so that those discrepancies are reconciled and you maintain a stable, level “sight picture” – your viewscreen of the world. Having an unstable sight picture makes for poor predictions; in other words, in an evolutionary survival context, having a “shaky cam” is not so great for avoiding saber-tooth tigers.
So, those downstream bodily compensations that keep your viewscreen steady are creating distortions and possible maladaptations in the structure of your body, and are now being cemented due to repeated compensatory use. The nervous system will protectively reduce motor output and increase pain perception as a response, to slow you down in order to avoid potential injury and survive another day. Ultimately, the body has evolved towards survival, not performance. And pain is an alarm/action signal designed to keep you alive.
This self-guided class investigates the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing; hosted by Adam Bramlage, founder of Flow State Micro, Dr. James Fadiman, the “father of modern microdosing,” and a dozen expert guest faculty. Enroll today!
Mirror Box Therapy and Pain as An Output of Perception From the Brain
When we look at phantom limb pain, what we’re seeing is the phenomenon known as deafferentation: the loss of afferent or ascending inputs from the peripheral nervous system up to the brain. No limb equals no signal, and the loss of signal is very dangerous within an evolutionary context because limb loss due to injury or infection will mean, at the least, loss of sensation and loss of coordination for motor outputs/muscle contraction/movement, meaning a lost ability to gather food or to avoid threats. Or worse, it could mean signaling that you’re going to bleed to death in a matter of minutes.
Multiple pain conditions could be considered sub-clinical deafferentation: peripheral neuropathy from conditions like diabetes or shingles, or different types of phantom limb pain where the limb is still present but the nerves are so injured that they no longer transmit afferent signals – such as we see in cancer, stroke, or crush injuries. That loss of signal gets hardwired into the cortical representations of that limb, and never gets a counterbalancing signal, so the CNS registers it as an ongoing sense of threat. That creates a huge alarm signal in the form of pain perception.
What mirror box therapy does is replace that loss of signal with the image of an intact limb, generating input that dampens down that pain signal. And when you touch the remaining limb (which is generating normal signals) while seeing it reflected in the mirror in place of the missing or injured limb, it can immediately cause the pain signals to cease; so powerful are visual representations within the somatosensory cortex of the brain. Essentially, through seeing a limb appear where it wasn’t before, one tricks their own brain into thinking it’s still there, and the pain signals from the CNS for that lost limb stop being sent.
Mirror box therapy is often not enduring though; only being effective for as long as you do it, and that was the case with Albert Lin. It often takes a lot of repetition for it to become “sticky.” Neuroplasticity requires novelty and intensity, usually in the volume of work. But that can be hard to achieve, thus the issue in pain treatment that I had experienced directly as a practitioner and as a patient; everything works, nothing lasts. When it was suggested to Lin that psilocybin had strong neuroplastic properties that could impact cortical reorganization for chronic pain, he tried it a few times, taking a high dose of psilocybin mushrooms, which gave him approximately 3-12 pain-free hours, depending on the dose. But then the pain came back with a vengeance. Within the cluster headache communities, this is known as a “slapback effect” and can actually be a sign that the nervous system is adjusting and more permanent relief could be imminent.
Then, Lin’s wife suggested combining (stacking) mirror box therapy with psilocybin. He went out to the desert with a closet door mirror, and while under high-dose psilocybin, he would stare at the reflected image of his remaining leg and then at the space where his amputated limb had been, while repeating the phrase “You are safe. You are totally safe,” for approximately 45 minutes. This met all the conditions for driving neuroplasticity: novelty, intensity, and volume of work with deep assurance of emotional and physical security. Amazingly, it worked, immediately putting him into remission for the next 20+ hours, with 50% reduced pain for nearly two weeks. He shared his success with the lab, and experiments with different types of visual neuromodulation while under high-dose psilocybin quickly began.
Lin was dealing with a persistent pain in his phantom foot that felt as if a railroad spike was being driven through, suspected to be a sensory remnant from when the bones in his foot were surgically pinned together as they attempted to save it before ultimately deciding to amputate. An artificial foot and a pen with a telescoping pointer was introduced, and they covered the space between his stump and the plastic foot with a blanket, then “pulled” the telescoping pen out of his foot at the site of pain, mimicking the action of removing pins (or really, removing the pain). He felt instant relief.
Another experiment involved a novelty Halloween-store “flame” (bright light with orange and yellow fabric and a fan underneath that makes it flutter). Lin chuckled when he saw it, but when they brought it near his representational foot, he actually felt heat from the “flame,” which was intensely relieving.
Through these experiments and continued work, Lin went into full remission after five weeks, and has been free of chronic pain ever since. It’s worth noting that he had a top research team working with him that was extremely creative in creating novel inputs, and he is known for being an almost Michelangelo-type character, with a high degree of inventiveness and novelty-seeking, allowing him to discover unique, lateral approaches to solve problems. And, it bears repeating: chronic pain is a singular motivational force.
Additionally, post-dosing, cortical reorganization was happening during a psychedelically-induced “critical period reopening”; when the brain has a metaplastic quality that allows it to reset to an almost-new condition. As described in the work by Dr. Gül Dölen, critical period reopening happens during crucial phases of nervous system development in childhood, such as when toddlers can learn multiple languages without an accent or when adolescents are uniquely sensitive to social cues from peer pressure (and/or support), allowing them to quickly adopt different social customs and frameworks. This reopening is also seen post-stroke, when there is a limited window for rehabilitating from brain injury, so this likely applies very well here with chronic pain. We know that veteran groups like the Heroic Hearts Project, VETS (Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions), and The Mission Within, who are employing psychedelics for treatment, are having striking results both in recovery from combat-induced PTSD as well as traumatic brain injury – typically seen as treatment-resistant conditions.
If there’s anything I would like you to understand after reading this article, it’s that:
We don’t have to prove that psychedelics are effective for treating chronic pain; we have to establish that this has already been proven.
Psychedelics are not an instant cure for chronic pain, but they are strong impact boosters for neuroplasticity and can make physiotherapy/neuromodulation become “sticky,” creating enduring relief.
We know that many mechanisms that create psychiatric conditions that are responsive to psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy are extremely similar in nature to the same mechanisms that generate chronic pain; it’s just that psychiatric conditions have gotten far more focus in psychedelics, perhaps because the non-ordinary states of consciousness they are known for producing seem more applicable to conditions more traditionally thought to be related to the mind.
But both arise out of the central nervous system and are rigid, fixed states of cognition and perception. With depression, you have negative outlooks and self-perceptions: “Nothing I do makes a difference,” “People are just saying that to make me feel better,” etc. At one point, these thoughts may have helped you to cope with a traumatic incident, environment, or upbringing, but now they’re maladaptive, weigh you down, are out of step with reality, and have actually caused (or are the result of) structural deficits in the neurology of your brain. It’s the same with chronic pain: when there is an acute injury or even the possibility of one, pain is part of the protective suite of responses from our nervous systems to prevent further injury and allow healing to occur – an alarm bell/action signal to change a behavior. But it can be so overprotective that it gets embedded and cemented with movement, emotions, and surrounding environments long after all tissue healing is done – getting triggered by seemingly innocuous events, maladaptively hardwired into your neurology in a negative loop of conditioned responses.
This is exactly what happened to me when I went through NYU’s psilocybin trial; an adverse financial and work environment, repeated (and under-recovered) musculoskeletal stress/injuries, and (likely) sub-clinical post-concussion syndrome and PTSD, all topped off by the sudden death of a close friend releasing long-suppressed grief and leading to a significant nociplastic output in the form of increasingly treatment-resistant depression and moderate chronic pain. Many recovery efforts were attempted using every modality I knew, but there was too much of a deficit to overcome – until psilocybin was introduced to the mix. That life-changing experience allowed for metaplasticity, cortical reorganization, descending inhibition, and anti-inflammatory properties to take root, giving all post-dosing interventions the opportunity to gain traction and for me to flourish once again.
Future articles in this “Pain and Psychedelics” series will focus on old assumptions vs. new science, additional case studies, the suspected mechanisms of action behind the interaction between psychedelics and pain, and best practices and safety concerns for working with psychedelics to alleviate chronic pain.
This week’s episode features David Drapkin and Jon Dennis, who you know from Eyes on Oregon and all of the work he’s done in an effort to protect religious freedom under Oregon’s Measure 109.
They discuss opposition and concerns around Colorado Proposition 122 (which officially passed last week with 53% of the vote!) and recent cannabis legalization in three states, then move on to Oregon: what it’s been like being so involved in Measure 109’s rulemaking progress, what people were saying during this week’s final public comment period, whether María Sabina would be able to work under the proposed guidelines, and even the idea of microdosing under this new framework.
An NYU psilocybin depression study participant discovers an unforeseen application for psychedelics: the treatment of chronic pain. Part 1 of the series: Psychedelics and Chronic Pain.
Everything Worked, but Nothing Lasted
In the fall of 2020, I was living a pretty successful and happy life – on paper. I had co-founded a very popular, leading-edge CrossFit gym in NYC; one of the first in the world. I held multiple advanced certifications in applied neurophysiology through Z-Health, helping clients with challenging pain and performance issues. As an early adopter of kettlebell training, I became a nationally top-reviewed instructor and trained Team 6 Navy SEALs, astronauts, pro athletes, wounded veterans, and members of the FBI, NYPD, NYFD, and ROTC. I was featured in Men’s Fitness, the NY Times Sunday Routine, and USA Today. I had 30 years in the pain & performance field, training and teaching at a high level, and was becoming widely known for helping people with difficult mobility problems or chronic pain, using unique methods from the leading edge of neurological rehabilitation. On top of all of that, I was 17 years sober.
However, not all that glitters is gold. A now ex-business partner was committing a Ponzi scheme to the tune of millions, and his case followed him like a shadow, turning my life’s passion into an emotionally and financially toxic nightmare that economically devastated my family. My best friend, Kirk MacLeod, who I had completely rehabbed from chemo & cancer surgery, died six months after being declared in remission. My first son had developed undiagnosed GERD and couldn’t sleep more than an hour and half at a time, which meant my wife and I slept even less.
Unsurprisingly, my episodic depression returned after more than a decade and a half, and I was now increasingly treatment-resistant; unresponsive to psychiatric drugs that had previously worked. All my pain neuromodulation interventions that worked on my clients no longer worked for me, and I had developed chronic pain myself.
I share all my background here to demonstrate that I was not under-resourced in either knowledge, networks, or diversity of approaches, practice, or experiences. I poured over all my certification materials looking for anything I had missed, but had fallen into an increasingly deeper recovery hole; everything worked, but nothing lasted. I was hitting a new bottom in my life, deeply sinking into the midst of an increasingly treatment-resistant depression episode that had likely been ongoing for five years.
But then I became aware of ongoing studies on psilocybin for depression happening locally in NYC. I had experienced a few high-dose psychedelic sessions nearly a quarter century ago and had been an avid Terence McKenna fan (even speaking with him directly after a lecture in Seattle), but I had never taken psychedelics therapeutically, and my recreational interest had effectively vanished once I became sober from alcohol. Intrigued, I connected with the local clinical research coordinator, Leila Ghazhal, at the NYU for the clinical trial of Psilocybin for Major Depressive Disorder study (sponsored by the Usona Institute), and took all the online and over-the-phone assessments, passing them easily. The primary investigator (PI) on my study was Dr. Stephen Ross, who had been leading psychedelic research at NYU for more than a decade. Amazingly, I made it into the trial within a month and a half, learning that I’d actually beat out 8500 other applicants for just 100 spots nationwide.
Trying Not to Hope
When I first entered the trial, I was in a state of denial about how severe my depression was, but once I took the MADRS assessment, there was no avoiding that I had moderate to severe depression with suicidal ideation.
I remember a specific moment very well during this process, when I was finally cleared to enter the study and the study coordinator was speaking with me about the results of my assessment and my upcoming participation. I asked what would happen if I didn’t receive psilocybin during my session, and he reassured me that they would not just drop me off in the middle of the ocean to dog paddle – that there were other interventions and studies available and they would be sure to find me something, but there was a good chance I would receive psilocybin and hopefully get some good results. At this point, my mask cracked a little bit and some protective cynicism came out, and I quipped with a bit of a shrug: “Well, we’ll see.” I hadn’t meant it to be dismissive or sarcastic but it came out that way, and the conversational atmosphere rapidly shifted. He looked right at me and suddenly he wasn’t the primary investigator anymore, lost in the myriad details and logistics of a very involved study. Now he was the deeply experienced clinician and therapist, and, having heard something within the tone of my voice, dropped all the way in and asked softly: “What’s going on behind that, Court?” Suddenly, all the masking dropped and there was no more place to hide because I was so, so tired at this point, and had been waiting for this moment. In and out of therapy for years, dozens if not 100 self-help books, so many modalities, so many somatic systems, and here I was with a chance for something new to help me. When I realized why there was cynicism behind my statement, my voice cracked, I started crying, and I answered him: “Trying not to hope.”
The one glimmer of hope I did have was reading a 2018 paper by lead author Calvin Ly describing psychedelics’ neuroplastic activity in the prefrontal cortex. As someone who had studied the neurology of pain for years, this was revelatory. Many pain conditions are, in fact, nociplastic or noxious conditions arising out of the central nervous system (CNS); there’s no more injury or damage if there ever was, but your CNS is still continuing to put out a maladaptive alarm signal that is perceived as pain. So learning that psilocybin was creating actual structural change within my cortex – not “just” psychological change – was completely astonishing.
Applications close on March 26 for this year’s edition of Vital.
My dosing date was on March 5, 2020, and I remember looking down at the capsule sitting in the cup, saying to it: “I really hope that’s you.” I was terrified inwardly that I would receive the placebo, that I wouldn’t respond to the psilocybin, or that it would only work just a little bit, only for its effects to slowly fade. But within half an hour, there was no denying that I had received psilocybin, and I earnestly pursued all the procedures everyone on my care team at NYU had worked with me on for weeks in preparation for this day.
I was genuinely shocked at the sheer volume of psychological material from my childhood and early adulthood that came up. I had profound transpersonal experiences and healing, revisiting instances that were pivotal in my childhood. I had an encounter with the first woman I had ever loved, who had committed suicide three years after we had broken up. Her death had caused a profound grief in me that drove my drinking for a decade after. I thought I had released the majority of my grief around her once I got sober, but clearly, there was so much more to heal that had been deeply suppressed as I tried to move forward with my life.
Reset, Renewed, and Reborn
The biggest shock of all, though, was waiting for me at the end of the day when one of my facilitators casually pitched a seemingly routine question while closely watching me out of the corner of his eye: “So, how do you feel?” Without thinking, I reflexively replied, “Good,” but then, just as reflexively, scanned more deeply inward, and in a sudden rush, realized my depression was completely gone – not just better, but vanquished, exclaiming: “Good! That fast? Are you fucking kidding me, that fast? Is it gone already?”
It felt as if a huge mass had been surgically removed from me or as if an entire continent within my interior was now suddenly revealed. No matter how many times you read the word “remission” and the percentages behind it in scientific studies, very little will prepare you for the shocking reality of it. The contrast between before and after was profound. All of the iterative rumination was gone, and it took no effort for that to happen. And it only seemed to strengthen as the days passed. Miraculously, all suicidal thoughts ceased on that day and never returned.
Shockingly, only ten days after my dosing session, NYC went into a complete pandemic lockdown, my entire industry closed, and my two young boys were now at home with me 24/7, tele-learning. I cannot imagine what 2020 would have been like for me if I had received the placebo. It’s almost unimaginable.
For more on this topic, make sure to check out episode 369, where Court and Joe interview Timothy Furnish, MD & Joel Castellanos, MD of UC San Diego’s Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative (PHRI).
But here is where the story takes an even more profound and impactful turn. During the session, my leg started intensely tremoring/spasming. I had been evaluated for musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction that I had acquired through a host of injuries over the years of my performance career, and in fact, had just been in the doctor’s office a few months earlier trying to determine if I had arthritis or something worse. But right there in the session room, I started having a neurological revision, with my muscles and nerves in my right inner thigh firing in an effort to recalibrate the sensory and motor inputs and outputs in that part of my kinetic chain. It was almost like a self-generated TENS unit (Transdermal Electromagnetic Nerve Stimulation, used to generate muscle contractions and neuromodulate pain signals with micro-electric pulses) getting my leg back online by creating intense motor activity in the muscles of my thigh.
I’ve since spoken with spinal injury survivor Jim Harris and read a case series from UC San Diego’s Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative (PHRI) published in PAIN Journal where the exact same thing occurred to them under the effect of psilocybin with the same positive results, but at the time, the facilitators were concerned enough to ask the primary investigator to come and evaluate me during the session. I had to explain to him, somewhat hilariously as I was going into my peak, that, in fact, the tremors felt intensely good. I’m grateful that he let them continue because it has made all the difference.
While I partially understood what had happened, I was understandably beyond eager to learn more, and to see where else this realization could take me: Why did this work so well? Has our understanding of chronic pain been wrong? And if psychedelics are the answer, what does treating chronic pain with psychedelics actually look like?
This is part 1 of a 2-part piece and part of a larger series on chronic pain and psychedelics. In part 2, I will dive into the research around remapping and mirror box therapy, and why my psychedelic experience seemed to be so effective.
Future articles will focus on:What is pain and what causes chronic pain, old assumptions vs. new science, the suspected mechanisms of action behind the interaction between psychedelics and pain, and best practices and safety concerns for working with psychedelics to alleviate chronic pain.
In this episode, David interviews Dr. Ben Medrano: Co-Medical Director with Nue Life, board-certified psychiatrist specializing in integrative psychiatry, and former Senior Vice President and US Medical Director of Field Trip Health.
He discusses his path to Nue Life; from growing up around mental illness, to the rave scene, to Buddhism, to his years working for the underserved in an East Harlem Assertive Community Treatment, and his biggest takeaway from that time: that the healthcare system he knew was not truly helping people. He talks about stigmatization (of some modalities like electro-shock treatment, of psychedelics, and of ketamine – which seems to be stigmatized even within the psychedelic space); his concerns that the at-home ketamine model is at risk as we make our way out of the pandemic; and how at-home ketamine can drastically reduce the cost of treatment.
Medrano tells a great story of a patient who saw incredible improvements through ketamine, and discusses some Nue Life highlights: their just-released 664 participant-study in Frontiers Psychiatry showing the safety of at-home ketamine (and that at-home is just as effective as other routes of administration); Nue Care, their model for aftercare using digital phenotyping, goals, and a scoring system (which he believes could be the new model for integrative psychiatry); and their Nue Network, which could be a solution for better education on ketamine and for granting access for patients through prescribers who typically don’t understand much about its efficacy.
Notable Quotes
“All the different interests, personalities, visions, [and] goals that are in this sort of circus of psychedelic commercialism is very necessary to understand. And for me, I think the biggest takeaway is that there is one thing that binds everybody who’s involved, and that is hope, really. I think there’s a lot of hope in this sphere.”
“The hazards of a benzodiazepine are well known, and to some extent, one might even argue that with some of these DEA-regulated substances that we do ship at home; that if we’re going to say that we need to subject ketamine to a higher standard, then we need to do it for the rest of these DEA-regulated substances, because they have very hazardous risk profiles. …I can’t help but think that there’s a little bit of …stigma [around] what it is that we’re doing.” [On an at-home ketamine patient’s success]: “He is able to get out of the house every day and enjoy the sunshine, and the way he views his trauma is at a level that I think all of us would aspire to: really, as something that has sort of made him into the man that he is today, with something really unique and powerful to offer as a human to others – rather than as a wound.”
In this episode, Joe interviews Dana Larsen: one of Canada’s most well-known advocates for cannabis reform and long-time anti-drug-war activist.
Larsen discusses his path from a high school kid sending letters to Canadian Parliament about cannabis drug policy, to his recent Overgrow Canada stunt (where he gave away 10 million cannabis seeds in order to encourage people to grow plants everywhere), to opening his mushroom dispensary where he sells psilocybin and LSD, to last year; opening The Coca Leaf Cafe: a Vancouver, BC-based store that sells peyote and coca leaf tea (and they’re apparently the only store in the world doing this). As a long-time fighter of the drug war who has clearly made great strides, he talks a lot about prohibition and its many problems; and how, in all of his work, it’s been civil disobedience that has been the most successful.
He discusses what it’s going to take to establish a recreational mushroom market; differences between US and Canadian reform; his feelings on peyote; his thoughts on new designer drugs; his concerns with current rehab and safe supply systems; and he gives and an oddly fitting analogy between the stereotypical picture of an opiate user and the masturbation panic that spread through Europe for hundreds of years.
Notable Quotes
“I’ve been doing this for over 30 years, and looking back at this time, the one tactic that was the most effective was the civil disobedience. I’ve done a lot of political work, I’ve done lobbying and other things, and there’s a role and a place for that. But for me, I think the most success has come from myself and others openly breaking the law.”
“Large doses of mushrooms can be great, but for a lot of people, they don’t want to be super high. They just want a little bit. And I think that there’s a tendency, if it’s legal, for most people to move towards milder forms of use. When there’s prohibition, a lot of folks stop using, but those that continue to use are pushed towards the most extreme forms of use, which is most harmful for them and for society in general.”
“We talk about harm reduction, and I think that’s important, but the other side of harm reduction is benefit maximization. These substances aren’t just harmful; like with anything, you want to reduce the harms, but there’s positive things about cannabis use and mushroom use and cocaine use and heroin use. …There are a lot of positives about these substances as well as the negatives. Prohibition just makes the positives very hard to manifest and it accentuates the negatives to an absurd degree.”
In this episode, Joe invites Court Wing to co-host, interviewing two members of UC San Diego’s Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative (PHRI): Joel Castellanos, MD (Associate Medical Director of PHRI and board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation and pain medicine physician), and Timothy Furnish, MD (Medical Director of PHRI and Associate Clinical Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine).
As one of the early participants of a psilocybin-for-depression trial in NYC, Court Wing (of REMAP Therapeutics) discovered that immediately after the session, his chronic pain had miraculously gone away. He began researching how psychedelics could be used (with or without other therapies) to continue the alleviation of pain psychedelics had brought him. Through the Psychedelics and Health Research Initiative, Drs. Castellanos and Furnish are following that that same road, and are currently recruiting for a randomized controlled trial on psilocybin for phantom limb pain.
They talk about the relationship between the mind and chronic pain: how people confuse pain with the simple act of nerves firing, but how it’s so much more. And they discuss how pain can become part of one’s identity (and how the Default Mode Network could be contributing); how physical therapy is related to neuroplasticity; mirror box therapy; microdosing for chronic pain; the unusual nature of phantom limb pain; and where the mystical psychedelic experience may come into play. If this topic is as fascinating to you as it is to us, stay tuned – we will be featuring much more on chronic pain and psychedelics, including a blog series from Court Wing coming soon.
Notable Quotes
“One of the things that may be unique about or interesting about chronic pain is that the longer it goes on, the more people start seeing pain as a part of their identity and that Default Mode Network is probably playing a role in that. And it’s possible that something like psychedelics could open up the possibility of changing that internal story so that pain is no longer so much a part of one’s identity.” -Tim “I think that people oftentimes confuse pain with simply nerves firing. …[But] there is this rich interplay between the way we think about pain, the way we perceive pain, and how we feel about it.” -Tim “When you’re not really dealing with chronic or severe pain on a daily basis, it’s really hard to think about how life-changing that is or can be.” -Joel
“When we hear things like ‘It’s only just in your head,’ I don’t think people quite get [that] the head can be a scary place to be trapped sometimes.” -Court
In this episode, Kyle interviews Dr. Steven Radowitz: Medical Director at Nushama, a wellness center in New York City primarily offering IV ketamine, with a strong focus on letting the experiencer explore their journey undisturbed.
Recorded in-person at Nushama’s flagship location just over a year after opening, Radowitz talks about his past and why he became interested in ketamine, the look and feel of Nushama, their process, and why they favor IV ketamine. He highlights his biggest takeaways from the year: the surprise in just how effective ketamine has been; the role of integration and what aftercare truly looks like; and the importance of learning to hold space and be a compassionate listener – that the doctor isn’t the healer and the psychedelic isn’t the magic bullet cure; instead, they are just tools that allow the patients to heal themselves.
He discusses how he sees psychedelics as a dimmer switch for the ego; how disorders are tools to deal with trauma; why he is reframing trauma as a learning experience; why he thinks ketamine will survive once psilocybin and MDMA are legal; why group work is so effective and powerful (and likely the new model for psychedelic therapy); and the importance of staying humble through all of this – humble to the power of the medicine and humble to the amazing capacity for people to heal and grow, simply by being allowed to explore their journey and be heard.
Notable Quotes
“I’m not a healer, and I often tell people [that] during their preparation, when I do my medical intake. I talk to them about that. I say, ‘I’m not here [to heal you], I’m here just giving you a tool. You’re the healer. All this stuff does is [that it] just takes away what’s blocking you from realizing that. It’s like a dimmer switch on the ego [and] on the mind.” “I’m trying to move away from the word ‘trauma.’ It’s a difficult life event that’s there to teach us. It’s there for something. And with every one of those events; there’s a little jewel within it, but you have to go in there and go through it. And it’s just a cloud, just a myst, almost, that’s preventing you. Just push [through it] and hold space. As long as people are in a safe place to go there and journey there, then they’ll realize that it’s just an event. It’s just an experience, and you move on. That wisdom is: a memory without the emotion.”
“I think any type of journey work, any type of psychedelic work, I almost think you have to be called to it in a way. You shouldn’t be coerced, ever, into this. …I find that the ones that are really ready to do the work are finding us on our own.”
In this episode, Joe interviews the Co-Founders of Tesselate Therapeutics: Dr. Rochelle Hines, Ph.D. (also the CEO and an Associate Professor at UNLV), and Dr. Dustin Hines, Ph.D. (the CSO as well as an Assistant Professor at UNLV).
While Tesselate’s primary objective is the development of novel psychedelic molecules, the Hines’ work goes much deeper than that, as they are researching the ways the brain communicates with itself and other parts of the body: how neurotransmitter systems interact, why synaptic partners find each other, and how certain substances may be able to modulate the actions of specific receptors. They are exclusively studying phenethylamines and using EEG to isolate signatures that could help predict the outcome of a therapy session. Additionally, they’re attempting to build a “tripnogram,” modeled after the hypnogram that explains the stages of sleep.
They talk about the reductionist base of neuroscience; the biodiversity in human populations and how heterogeneous depression can be; the reliability of the head twitch model; the structure of the cerebral cortex; neuroplasticity; the price of bringing new drugs to the FDA and the strategy of “failing fast,” and much more. You’ll likely learn a lot from this one, especially if terms like polypharmacy, laminar, ocular dominance columns, synaptic pruning, and “psychedelicitivity” (thanks for that one, Joe!) are new to you.
Notable Quotes
“I’m really fascinated by these connections that cells form with one another in the brain. And I’m really fascinated by how they form these partnerships so reliably, and all the right equipment gets there. And generally under typical conditions, we have this really high fidelity system so that [a] neurotransmitter gets released, and the right receptors are there to receive it, and the signal gets passed on. That always struck me as just this incredibly cosmic process. How do we make it right all the time, hundreds of thousands of times during development?” -Rochelle “The average drug that gets into the clinic costs about 3 billion. And most of that cost is racked up from failures that get pushed along, pushed along, make it into clinical, a lot of money goes into them, and then they ultimately fail. So I think a big strategy now is to see how quickly you can get something to fail, because then you’ll save yourself some time and money in the long run.” -Rochelle “If you want the answer, you should listen to everyone. You should be [a] skeptic, but you should listen to everyone.”-Dustin “I’m not at the stage where I think this is our last hope; I think there’s other hopes. But I see a revolution here. I really do, because it’s impacting the basic science that we’re doing also. People need this. People deserve it.” -Dustin
Could a nation defined by inflammation find relief in psychedelics?
It’s a verifiable truth that the United States of America may be considered a global leader, especially when it comes to the prevalence of mental and physical health disorders. In fact, of the nearly 330 million people in the population, millions to hundreds of millions of Americans suffer from chronic conditions like:
These sobering statistics beg the questions: How could a single nation of relatively modest size be home to such a vast selection of chronic diseases?And how could psychedelics be used to combat these conditions affecting so much of the population?
The American diet overall is egregiously devoid of whole grains, beans, fruits, vegetables, and nuts, with the US Department of Agriculture estimating they represent a mere 11% of the populous’ typical daily food intake. Despite this lack of prevalence, these unprocessed natural foods are otherwise rich in medicinal phytochemicals found to support the immune system and strengthen the body’s resistance to infections, as well as fight cancer and diabetes; diseases that are twice as prevalent in the US relative to the global average. Shockingly, the US also leads the world in obesity rates by nearly 400%, and is first in global consumption of sugar, outranking Germany by about 26% yearly.
Although diet quality is proven to significantly impact the likelihood of disease development, what Americans eat is only one contributing factor among many. Poor diet alone doesn’t explain the exceptional amount of chronic health conditions seen in the population. In fact, it’s estimated that over 60% of Americans suffer from at least one chronic health condition, 42% of the population are diagnosed with at least two, and up to 12% of Americans live with five or more chronic diseases.
To put those percentages in perspective, the 2020 election saw the highest voter turnout in 120 years, with the most votes for a single presidential candidate ever recorded in American history. Joe Biden reportedly received over 81 million popular votes, representing less than half of the 198 million Americans suffering from at least one chronic health condition, and only marginallymore than half of the 139 million with at least two.
Despite the fact that they’re by no means a minority in the population, chronic diseases are found to disproportionately affect socioeconomic minorities in the United States of America and beyond. A recent study published in the journal, “Archives of Public Health,” used 20 years (1995-2015) of empirical data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to investigate the impact of education on health across the populations of 26 countries, including the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and other founding nations that became members when OECD was created in 1960. This data, taken from millions of people in numerous countries across the globe over one fifth of a century, clearly demonstrated that higher educational attainment in adults positively correlates with longer lifespans, better health outcomes, increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and reduced infant mortality rates.
Put simply, the OECD data suggests that highly educated adults with ample finances generally live up to 12% longer (8-10 years), enjoy healthier lives, make more money, and are less likely to die at birth or of cancer, when directly compared to individuals of lower socioeconomic status (SES). Unsurprisingly, adults with higher GDP per capita also spent more money on healthcare and education over their lifetime, with college and university education found to positively influence life expectancy, child vaccination, and enrollment of children in education, as well as negatively impact infant mortality. Taken as a whole, the OECD data demonstrates an essential principle:
If appropriate education and adequate income significantly increase life expectancy, then access to quality schooling, sustainable employment, and equitable socioeconomic mobility are inherent to health care services.
However, even if we factor in education and employment as essential contributors to health, the fact remains that as of 2021, over 85 million Americans older than 25 had attained a Bachelor’s Degree or higher, and US unemployment was a mere 3.7% in August 2022. Since neither education nor employment are able to fully reconcile the disproportionately large number of Americans currently suffering from chronic health conditions, there must be a deeper underlying cause contributing to the pathology of diseases reportedly observed in the country’s citizens and resident aliens.
Compellingly, inflammation has been identified as a central contributor to all aforementioned chronic health conditions and beyond, and is implicated in over 60% of all human deathsaround the globe. Some may already be familiar with acute inflammation in the form of localized pain, redness and swelling, usually in response to an injury or infection. Acute inflammation is typically a normal immune response during which the immune system is activated through the release of specific proteins, essentially called inflammatory markers. These markers then act as beacons to recruit immune cells, which subsequently migrate to the particular body part(s) in need of defense or repair.
In contrast, chronic inflammation is less apparent and far less immediate, but has insidiously dire consequences when left unchecked. Instead of causing localized pain or swelling, chronic inflammation causes systemic issues with immune cell signaling through excess “noise” created by high levels of inflammatory markers. Rather than being recruited to areas of the body most in need of healing, immune cells are drowned in an overwhelming number of biochemical beacons and ultimately disoriented. By disrupting this essential communication between immune cells, chronic inflammation prevents the appropriate direction of immune cells to critical issues needing attention, and may instead direct disproportionate amounts of immune activity to arbitrary areas – thus crippling the body’s capacity to effectively heal itself or prevent systemic disease.
In this self-guided class, we investigate the history, science, and best practices for safe and effective microdosing; with Adam Bramlage, founder of Flow State Micro, Dr. James Fadiman, the “father of modern microdosing,” and a dozen expert guest faculty. Enroll today!
Over the past 20 years, a growing body of research has further investigated the complex relationship between chronic inflammation, various mental and physical diseases, and socioeconomic status (SES). High levels of inflammation measured by markers in the blood of low SES patients were found to prospectively predict whether they would suffer from depression, heart disease, ischemic stroke, and/or mortality.
Furthermore, factors such as poverty, lack of social or educational resources, obesity, and diets rich in refined sugar were all closely associated with increased inflammatory markers, chronic diseases, and mortality rates. Stress derived from socio-political, financial, environmental (chemical, biological, electromagnetic), or psychosocial (relationship experiences, trauma, social conditioning) aspects of a patient’s life also reportedly influenced inflammation, with chronic psychological and emotional stress inducing a significant increase in observed blood inflammatory markers; thus promoting immune dysfunction and ultimately increasing the likelihood of chronic diseases in individuals of low SES.
Psychedelics as Anti-inflammatory Medicine
Despite these undeniable correlations and profound implications, the medical model of inflammation as the root of disease is not a new concept. Whether willow bark or aspirin, both traditional Ayurvedic and modern Western medicine employ preparations of anti-inflammatory drugs to treat a number of maladies, from headaches to heart disease. In fact, many over-the-counter (OTC) medications, commonly prescribed pharmaceuticals, and even psychedelic drugs owe some portion of their medicinal benefits to anti-inflammatory effects exerted in particular tissues of the human body.
For example, recent research has revealed that two of the most commonly prescribed classes of antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs), may instead induce their expected medical effect via anti-inflammatory action within the brain itself, thus alleviating underlying neuroinflammation implicated as a central contributor to malaise, fatigue, brain fog, emotional reactivity, and other psychological symptoms. This revelation casts significant doubt on the broadly accepted model for the pathology of depression that classically purports serotonin deficiency as the primary cause. Today, a new breed of antidepressants specifically intended as anti-inflammatory drugs are undergoing feverish development by major drug corporations.
But before we herald these pharmaceutical innovations as the ultimate solution to tame the treachery of chronic neuroinflammatory disease, we must address the unjust marginalization and criminal victimization of disaffected Americans self-medicating via naturopathic means. Notwithstanding their evolutionary, anthropological, and social significance, the potent anti-inflammatory effects of cannabis, psilocybin mushrooms, and other psychedelic derivatives are now well-supported by an ever-growing body of recent scientific research. Although prohibitionist laws previously precluded a thorough investigation of their potential, the US has slowly and begrudgingly allowed the pursuit of psychedelic pharmacological power. As the barriers of outdated, impermissible, and fallacious legislative paradigms fall, clinicians are finally gaining critical insights that have enabled the development of novel pharmaceutical psychedelic derivatives with extreme precision; such that specific medical characteristics like an anti-inflammatory effect or psychedelic effect may be intentionally targeted and enhanced or diminished.
However new this scientific perspective may seem, medicinal preparations of psychedelics have reportedly been used for centuries, and even pharmaceuticals investigated and approved for clinical use decades ago were arguably directly modeled after psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin. Most notable of these compounds, Methergine (methylergometrine), is an LSD derivative used to induce contractions during childbirth since 1582, and is currently included on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) List of Essential Medicines. A similarly indispensable class of pharmaceutical psychedelic derivatives, the triptans, were first developed and patented in 1991 to treat migraines and cluster headaches, conditions which are both implicated to be caused byneuroinflammation. Interestingly, early triptans display remarkable structural similarities to tryptamine psychedelics like DMT and psilocybin.
Further progress spearheaded by brave and dutiful psychonauts in professional practice, underground social circles, and beyond has steadily illuminated the psychological and pharmacological nuances of many psychedelic drugs, revealing that they’re in fact highly safe and effective treatments for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), suicidality, depression, anxiety, addiction, Fibromyalgia, various chronic inflammatory diseases, and more. Tireless efforts across decades of clinical trials using psychedelics such as cannabinoids, MDMA, ketamine, and psilocybin have paved the way to their current or imminent approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
It finally seems quite possible that psychedelic medicines previously incorrectly admonished as “psychomimetic drugs” that imitated psychosis, damaged DNA, and were toxic to the human body may soon be available as legitimate pharmaceutical compounds aiming to alleviate the suffering of millions. With the current medical and legal trajectories, it’s highly likely that sometime in the not-so-distant future, inflamed Americans in need of psychedelic therapies will be able to access them without the unnecessarily harmful (but now still-looming) threat of social, criminal, and civil persecution. As much as one author celebrates this opportunity for a modicum of much needed progress in the United States, a single question remains:
Do a handful of state-level decriminalization initiatives for some select drugs, as well as the monetization and regulation of a limited number of pharmaceutical psychedelics at the federal level truly represent a sufficiently compassionate and broad solution to remedy the innumerable and egregious offenses against American life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness committed by the war on drugs?
In this episode, Kyle interviews Dr. Jennifer Montjoy: Tucson, Arizona-based psychiatric nurse practitioner with a private practice specializing in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, and Medical & Research Director at TRIPP (Transpersonal Research Institute of Psychotherapeutic Psychedelics); a 501(c)(3) organization that provides psychedelic training and research opportunities largely for female and BIPOC scientists.
A Vital student introduced Kyle to Montjoy’s research on ketamine and PTSD and presented with her at the recent ICPR conference in Amsterdam, where this was recorded in-person (as Kyle and Johanna were there, representing Psychedelics Today). Montjoy talks about her protocol, the self-transcendent scale she’s using with clients pre- and post- induction, how ketamine can help people get over past trauma through shifts in emotional memory, and what she sees most in successful cases: a gradual shift toward self-agency.
She discusses how integral titration is to her process; how ACE (adverse childhood experience) scores work; how dissociation can help with childhood trauma; how clients often naturally fall into using Internal Family Systems to describe their process; and how physicians and therapists shouldn’t be afraid of the concept of ceremony and opening sessions with intention – and, as she likes to say, giving one’s mind coordinates on where it can end up.
Notable Quotes
“I do think it’s helpful to have a skillset and general understanding of that so you know what’s happening in real time, but for the most part, I subscribe to the philosophy that we all have an inner healer. We all have that inner wisdom, but most of us don’t have access to it because we have these managing protectors from our trauma.”
“Often [for the] opening, I’ll ask the higher self to step into the light, to take the reins and let all those parts know that the goal here is not to annihilate or bypass them. That’s the language I consistently use in opening, because as the facilitator, we want to align with those parts too. We’re not the enemy.”
“Don’t be afraid to incorporate ‘ceremony.’ …I think that makes a lot of physicians maybe uncomfortable; that idea. [But] opening and closing [the ceremony] can be very helpful tools, [and] making sure we’re asking about intention before each session. I call that the coordinates, because we want to give the unconscious mind the coordinates.”
In this episode, recorded in-person at the recent From Research to Reality summit, David interviews one of the more well-known figures in the psychedelic space (who somehow hasn’t been on the show yet), David Nutt: Psychiatrist, Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Drug Science, Chief Research Officer at Awakn Life Sciences, and Edmund J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology in the Division of Brain Science, Dept of Medicine, Imperial College London.
At Awakn Life Sciences, amongst other projects, Nutt is working to set up clinics for legal psychedelic therapy (so just ketamine for now), and, after a successful study on MDMA in the treatment of alcohol use disorder, he’s doing something nobody has really done before in seeing if improvements can be made to MDMA. He tells the story of when he was fired as chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs due to telling the truth about the differences in harm between alcohol, tobacco, and “bad” drugs like LSD and cocaine, which led to the birth of Drug Science (and embracing the truth about drugs even more).
He covers a lot of ground in this episode: how serotonin seems to affect the default mode network; glutamate, cortexes, and the flexibility in the human brain; Robin Carhart-Harris’ “Trial of Psilocybin versus Escitalopram for Depression” study and the realization that psychedelics were doing something different in the brain; Measure 109 and the importance of how Oregon establishes a new paradigm around legal mushrooms; drug hysteria in the US and UK and how drastically that differs from Portugal’s incredibly successful approach to drugs; why real world evidence is the core of science; and why psychedelics seem best at disrupting internalizing disorders.
Notable Quotes
“The reality is that the psychedelic impact on depression has been so powerful, it’s changed the whole narrative about how we think about depression. Our one study in [treatment]-resistant depression spawned 40 companies now [that] are working on psilocybin for depression, which is amazing. …It’s been a spark to this amazing expansion. Why? Because for the last 40 years, there’s not been any innovation in terms of mechanisms in treating depression, ever. All the drugs we have today are essentially safer derivatives of the drugs we invented in the 1950s. So this is a new approach, and that’s really, really exciting.” “We’ve got to get our politicians, our policymakers to admit that these drugs should never, ever have been put in Schedule I. They were put in Schedule I [because] we said they were ‘very harmful’ (which they’re not), and they have no medical value (which they do), and it’s actually immoral now, reprehensible that politicians could not see that.”
“They just said, ‘Let’s try a different approach. Let’s try decriminalization and let’s treat drug addicts as human beings and help them get off the addiction rather than put them in prison.’ And that’s been one of the greatest success stories in the history of drug interventions. In the 15 years we have data since the Portuguese experiment was instigated, the Portuguese have reduced opiate deaths to one third of what they were before. In the same 15 years in Britain, using prohibitionist policies, we’ve doubled our deaths from opiates. And that, frankly, is an insult to humanity that we’ve pursued policies which we know are actually killing people.” “Real world evidence is the core of medicine.”
David Nutt is a psychiatrist and the Edmund J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology in the Division of Brain Science, Dept of Medicine, Imperial College London. There, he uses a range of brain imaging techniques to explore the causes of addiction and other psychiatric disorders and to search for new treatments. He has published over 400 original research papers, a similar number of reviews and books chapters, eight government reports on drugs, and 36 books, including one for the general public, Drugs: Without The Hot Air, that won the Transmission Prize in 2014.
In this episode, Joe interviews Julie Zukof: Head of Strategic Partnerships for Nue Life and the creator of Psychedelic Women, and Michelle Weiner: a double board-certified Doctor specializing in integrative pain management, using cannabis, ketamine, and other holistic modalities to get to the root cause of chronic pain.
Weiner tells of how her pain-management methods changed as her patients told her about the healing power of cannabis and ketamine, and how she was even more inspired by learning how much chronic pain is a result of fight-or-flight trauma reactions and resulting learned behavior. She discusses the central sensitization of fibromyalgia; ketamine infusions and dose discovery; the differences between how therapists and coaches are viewed (and the need for both); session music and trusting the facilitator in their music choice; and the importance of preparing for a ketamine experience through meditation and/or breathwork.
And they talk about Psychedelic Women, which was just founded in January as a result of Zukof realizing how much women were a minority in the psychedelic space. She talks about why we need more women in psychedelia; women’s natural inclination to connect and support each other; and how medicine should mirror that – where people from all methodologies can work together for the betterment of the patient. Psychedelic Women is in the process of updating from a speaker series to a more community-based platform. If you want to become a part of the community, sign up at their waitlist today!
Notable Quotes
“Personally, the coaches and the therapists that I use (my nurse practitioners) are mainly women. And I don’t know if that’s because they gravitate towards this field or because patients gravitate towards them, but there’s that nurturing, innate property of being a woman that also is special and unique and we can use to our advantage in that sense.” -Michelle
“I think people are under the impression that psychedelics are always meant to be enjoyable. And while ketamine oftentimes is enjoyable, sometimes it’s meant to be part of a healing journey.” -Julie
“I credit Dustin [Robinson] for bringing us on and featuring the group at Soho House, and something he said was, ‘It’s not that I don’t want to feature women on the panel, I just need more women in the space to feature them.’ And I think that’s an excellent point. And if we can help do something about that, then I think we’re winning.” -Julie
“There’s so many other people that are involved in making this experience more effective for people. It’s not just the medicine and the doctor and the therapist and the coach. …It’s so nice to see because this is really how medicine should be. It shouldn’t be everybody in their own box like with other physicians. …This whole group is really bringing people together that have certain talents and passions and saying: ‘We can work together.’” -Michelle
Julie Zukof is the creator of Psychedelic Women, a speaker series and influential community. Over her eighteen year career in NYC, Julie has created, innovated, marketed, and grown wellness brands by working at prestigious innovation firms and then starting her own consultancy. Julie is now Head of Strategic Partnerships for Nue Life, the leading mental wellness company in at-home ketamine treatments.
Dr. Michelle Weiner is double board-certified in Interventional Pain Medicine and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and a partner in private practice at Spine and Wellness Centers of America. She is a member of Florida’s Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee, vice president of Mr. Psychedelic Law, a not-for-profit with the mission of responsible legal reform of psilocybin, and a clinical advisor for Iter Investments, a venture capital firm focused on supporting emerging companies within the psychedelic ecosystem of behavioral and mental health. Dr. Weiner’s research focuses on using cannabis as a substitute for opioids in chronic pain patients and cannabis’s effect on seniors with chronic pain, as well as comparing psychedelic v psycholytic doses of ketamine for chronic pain and depression. Her unique approach of personalized and preventative medicine focuses on empowering her patients to cultivate health using cannabis and ketamine-assisted psychotherapy as a catalyst to identify the root cause of one’s suffering, optimizing their quality of life.
In this episode, Joe interviews Co-Founder and CEO of Sensorium Therapeutics, Dick Simon.
Sensorium Therapeutics was created by professionals from Massachusetts General Hospital who started to wonder: With so many plants with rich, ethnobotanical history, what if we looked to those plants for answers instead of just analyzing the trendy psychedelics so many are focused on now? Why not fully research what already has established efficacy? Their goal is to have the largest collection of psychoactive plants (which they’re calling their Neuro-Natural Library), and use machine learning to figure out exactly which molecules are doing what, to then synthesize new drugs that are safe and effective; eventually bringing these new compounds through the FDA approval process.
Simon talks about how so much of what we know to be effective and beneficial is based on assumptions or best guesses, and while that doesn’t discredit very real benefits, it does beg the question: Is this all optimized as best as it could be?
He also discusses how recent advances in neuroscience and technology are catalyzing molecular research; how we can learn about other mental health indications from studying rumination; the benefits and challenges of nutraceuticals; geopolitical conflict resolution; organoids; the necessity of the FDA; why “them” can be a very dangerous word; the challenges of benzodiazepines; Burning Man; and the problem with people needing to be treatment-resistant or seriously ill to gain access to psychedelics. He hopes that what Sensorium Therapeutics learns over the coming years will help bring better medicines to more people.
Notable Quotes
“The goal here is to look at the 500+ plants and fungi and what their component elements are (what’s actually driving that efficacy, or signals of efficacy; signals that they make a difference in a high throughput way), to really assemble massive data. Then, we’re using machine learning to distill all that down to: ‘Alright, we have all this cool information; what does it mean? What does it tell us? And how do we convert that into a drug that helps people?’” “We operate under a lot of assumptions that are based on experience, but are not based on any controls on the experience. Even something basic like the assumption [that] music and playlists are really important – they’ve been used and they seem to work. We don’t really know if that’s true. …I’m not saying that music and a controlled playlist isn’t absolutely the best answer, but it seems like it’s something we really ought to know an answer to, rather than make assumptions.” “If I would have told someone ten years ago: “No, no, we’re going to have this company, Sensorium, and it is going to be able to, in a 384-well plate, take a look at groups of neurons growing, and we’ll have sophisticated microscopy to take a look at it, and we’ll be able to do it at a high throughput basis, and we can reliably do it and replicate,’ the question would have been: ‘Alright, what other drugs are you taking? That’s not going to [happen].’ [But] we’re there.”
“Even questions as to how important the psychedelic effect is to efficacy; the assumption tends to be that somehow or another, the intensity of the experience is related to the efficacy. …There are people now who are looking at: ‘What if you removed the psychedelic effect from psychedelics? Are you still getting the same neuroplasticity, neurogenesis, and much of the effect?’ I don’t know the answer, but I think those that are ideologues on either side of that [are] silly. Let’s figure it out. …Why don’t we find the answer rather than argue for whatever our position is?”
Dick Simon is a serial entrepreneur and leader in advancing psychedelic-assisted therapies. He is the Chairman of the Advisory Council of Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Co- Founder and Board Member of the Boston Psychedelic Research Group, and on the steering committee for the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard Business School. After September 11, 2001, he co-founded and led the YPO Peace Action Network which leverages personal and business relationships, resources, and expertise for conflict resolution on local and global levels. Dick’s work has earned him YPO’s Global Humanitarian Award, Harvard Business School’s Making a Difference Award, inclusion in Real Leaders magazine’s “100 Visionary Leaders” and in the “100 Most Influential People in Psychedelics” list.
In this episode of the podcast, recorded in-person in Joe’s living room, Joe interviews Philip Wolf: Founder of Cultivating Spirits, Co-Founder of the Cannabis Wedding Expo, past guest, and friend whose path in cannabis aligns nicely with that of Joe’s with Psychedelics Today.
Wolf’s work in cannabis has largely been in the form of “elevated dining,” where participants are treated to an experience similar to what wine aficionados seek out; with dispensary tours, cannabis tasting, and food-pairing. His current project is CashoM: a platform offering education to cannabis consumers, from beginners to connoisseurs, covering everything related to cannabis – from teaching a newbie how to pack a bowl to the science behind terpenes, and everything in between.
Wolf discusses the free-for-all, wild west early days of recreational cannabis in Breckenridge; similarities between those days and what’s happening in Oregon with psilocybin; cannabis as medicine and the reframing of what “medicine” is; his recent appointment to the Rolling Stone Culture Counsel; and the recent “deep dive into winter” he took by staying at a house alone in Wisconsin for 2 months.
And he talks about some higher concepts: The importance of sitting in a circle with a group, the need for integrity in all things, embracing uncertainty, and why we need challenging trips. There is no one tool, modality, or programmable set, setting, and dose that will work for everyone every time, but he believes the secret to making this all work is to find commonality between each other. Can we all grow enough to make that link a general love for one another?
Notable Quotes
“Right now, we’re really limiting the potential of cannabis, and limiting how it can actually affect someone’s experience, and how people are connecting with it. And this comes from people trying to create digestible marketing because they feel like that is the route in order to get new consumers on board. But actually, I think, through that, they’re actually doing a really big disservice, because people are just pigeonholing cannabis with sleep or anxiety relief or [to] energize. It’s just really limiting everything in my opinion. …Having a limited understanding of what cannabis can actually do for your life isn’t going to allow people to tap into the true potential of that particular medicine.”
“I think there is a wisdom to the medicine. Like, if you feel like you ate too many mushrooms, maybe you were supposed to eat too many mushrooms. …You get provided a lot of things in your life that can lead to a lot of other things, and we don’t always have the capability of seeing the importance of that.”
“Hopefully it’s a good reality check for a lot of people to understand how we’re going to come together to get this right. And it’s not my way, it’s not Joe’s way, it’s not your way, it’s not this person’s way, it’s not this company’s way, it’s not MAPS. It’s none of it. All of that together is the only way that this is going to happen.” “When we’re going through a bad experience, we grow from it. If we were happy all the time – if we have the happy pill, if we have the happy mushrooms all the time – then there’s no point to grow and advance. But if we can push the edge, as we spoke about, then there’s that opportunity for growth.”
Philip Wolf is grateful to do the work he was born to do: open the minds of the world to the benefits of cannabis, and showcase them in the form of celebration, ritual, and elevated dining. Since then, he’s founded Cultivating Spirits, co-founded the Cannabis Wedding Expo, co-founded Hispanola Health Partners (501-c3 non-profit) and is currently creating CashoM, a Cannabis Masterclass program for beginners and connoisseurs. His focus: to bridge the gap between mainstream America and cannabis through education, experience and lifestyle. Philip has been featured on CBS Nightly News, NBC, Business Insider, New York Post, Rolling Stone, Forbes, Time Magazine, Bloomberg, Vice, Entrepreneur, and many more. He’s appeared in viral Facebook documentary style videos with over 12 million views, and starred in an episode of the popular television show, “Bong Appetite” on Viceland. Philip was recently honored this year by the Rolling Stone Magazine Culture Council to join its ranks.
The history of kratom’s long path to (mostly) legality shows us that if done right, fighting against prohibition can actually lead to wins. But to truly fight these battles, we can’t fall into the trap of psychedelic elitism.
Ever since Westerners first encountered psychedelics, they have been prohibited, demonized, and considered unfit for civilized folk. Beginning with Columbus’s first encounter with psychedelic-snuff-using natives in Hispaniola, this class of psychoactives has always been relegated to the underground. (Ott, 11) While the recent emergence of psychedelic commercialization and medicalization marks our first flirtation with aboveboard operations in nearly 50 years, psychedelic advocates are all too familiar with prohibition after 500 years of psychedelic distrust and drug war assaults.
The road to our blossoming revival of psychedelic culture has been filled with tragedy and struggle. Even with the decriminalization of some psychedelics in select cities, most Americans cannot trip without the fear of losing their freedom. We are criminalized for possessing a portal to an unordinary state of consciousness. Undoubtedly, psychedelic prohibition has brought with it the tragic ruination of thousands of lives. Passionate advocates, then, have a chip on their shoulder – an urge to close the chapter on the long history of the Western demonization of psychedelics.
For many, this is a noble and moral goal. Yet in shedding the chains of prohibition, we must ensure that we thoroughly scrub ourselves clean of it. In our desperation to leave our struggle behind, we must not fall into the trap of a prohibitionist mindset.
Psychedelics are not becoming legal and mainstream because they are “good drugs” in contrast with the rightfully-prohibited “bad drugs.” There is no such distinction, and it was prohibition which constructed the illogical demarcation between “good” and “bad” drugs in the first place. As the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus mused many centuries ago, the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose – not whether or not it occasions a psychedelic experience.
What is Psychedelic Elitism and Why is it Bad for the Anti-Prohibitionist Movement?
Despite emerging from the same struggle against prohibition that most other “drugs” face, the narrative around psychedelic legalization has often included an attitude which can be termed “psychedelic elitism.” Psychedelic elitism is the belief that psychedelic drugs (psilocybin, LSD, etc.) are harmless and beneficial, and used by responsible, upstanding citizens; whereas other drugs (such as PCP, methamphetamine, or heroin) are bad, inherently dangerous, and only used by the lowest characters in society. As such, psychedelics are seen as wrongfully prohibited, while other drugs are rightfully prohibited.
Dr. Carl Hart’s 2019 presentation at the Horizon’s Conference in NYC directly touched upon this issue. He warned that any internalization of the prohibitionist mindset would be counterproductive to our overarching goals of creating a more just and equitable society. All drugs, removed from their social context, have potential for both good and bad reactions. For example, in mainstream narratives, psilocybin is used by affluent professionals and underlies the business model for publicly-traded companies, whereas methamphetamine is only used by impoverished individuals without social status. So psilocybin is associated with success and health, while meth is associated with ruin and sickness. This narrative holds sway despite the fact that methamphetamine is legally prescribed under the name Desoxyn, which has helped countless patients live a better life – very much confusing the moralizing mindset which demonizes some drugs but not others.
We were honored to have Dr. Carl Hart on the show last year. Check it out here!
Psychedelic experiences can be freeing, euphoric, problem-solving, pain-reducing, easy going, recreational, creative, therapeutic, medicinal, spiritual, ad infinitum. While these qualities drive our passion for psychedelic advocacy, we should keep in mind that the broader category of psychoactive substances, including non-psychedelic drugs (a category which is largely arbitrary and subjective), can also bear these same positive traits. Therefore, they should be included in our struggle against prohibition.
Any drug, psychedelic or non-psychedelic, can also be indicted in unpleasant experiences as well. It seems, rather clearly, that psychedelic elitism comes from a positive drug experience with what happened to be a psychedelic. With this experience, part of the propagandist veil which obfuscates our understanding of how drugs affect us individually and on a societal level falls away. We become acutely aware that a drug – in this case a psychedelic – can have a positive effect; a profoundly different narrative than the one peddled by prohibitionists. Yet this newfound knowledge of the contradiction is internalized as simply: “Psychedelics are good.” There is rarely any further research to see if the prohibitionists were lying about all drugs or just psychedelics.
Psychedelics are worth advocating for, but this should never be done at the expense of other substances and their consumers. Removing the risk of imprisonment for psychedelic users but retaining it for other illicit drug users is hypocrisy at its finest. Allowing individuals and organizations to make exorbitant profits with psychedelics while forcing illicit drug merchants into the unregulated underground perpetuates unnecessary user risk while furthering the divide between the wealthy and the poor.
Prohibition didn’t originate to prevent the so-called “menace of drugs on society.” Rather, it was enacted to broaden the range of authority held by law enforcement. From its origin in the Harrison Act of 1914, prohibition has been about power and control – usually with a racial slant. The Harrison Act was passed to regulate and tax opium and coca imports in the US. This effectively made it impossible for Chinese immigrants to procure opium legally, thus making opium users liable for arrest. Cocaine was described in the press as giving superhuman strength to black men while simultaneously making them belligerent and violent. From the get-go, prohibition has never been about protecting people, but rather about protecting the status of the dominant class.
Selectively opposing psychedelic prohibition may be easier than challenging the entire status quo. Focusing on psychedelics means you don’t have to learn about other drugs and why people choose to take them. And speaking out in favor of psychedelics has become increasingly in vogue. In many places you will be positively received when opening up about your psychedelic drug use. But by including all drugs in the fight against drug prohibition, we can selflessly aid others and reduce overall ignorance of pharmacology while raising awareness of sociocultural inequity.
We should step back and remember why we oppose the prohibition of psychedelics in the first place. If we are committed to fighting for freedom of choice, the reduction of non-violent prison sentences, and the liberty to alter one’s consciousness as one pleases, then complete anti-prohibitionism is necessary. What I hope to convey is that being a psychedelic advocate should be no different than being an anti-prohibitionist. Both fight for freedom, the right to dictate one’s own consciousness, and the end to unnecessary violence instigated by the war on drugs.
An extremely relevant case study in fighting prohibition (and winning) can be found in the story of the Southeast Asian tree leaf, kratom.
What is Kratom?
Kratom, or Mitragyna speciosa, is the leaf of an evergreen tree that grows from the base of the Himalayas to the Pacific Islands of Southeast Asia. In Thailand, there is written historical evidence of kratom’s use since the mid-17th century, but many believe it has an undocumented history of use dating back thousands of years.
A photo by Soren Shade of kratom trees from Top Tree Herbs’ greenhouse
Kratom also has a therapeutic folklore associated with it. A 350-year-old Buddhist temple in Thailand has a message etched in stone recommending kratom for diarrhea. In the “Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia” episode on kratom, a farmer mentions that he reaches for kratom leaves to help with coughing.
Thailand has the richest history of kratom use among the Southeast Asian countries where kratom trees grow and traditional use centers around the common laborer. Regardless of what kind of manual work they are performing; the scorching heat, unremitant sun, and long days wear on Thai workers. They chewed kratom long before coffee was introduced to the peninsula, with kratom leaves or tea serving the same purpose of energizing them and pushing them through the physical discomfort of hard work.
Kratom use originated as simple plucking and chewing of the tree’s leaves. People pick a leaf from the tree, tear the stem from the leaf, roll it into a quid, insert the quid into their mouth and lightly chew on it. They express the juices from the leaf for a little less than a minute, letting the juices come into contact with the mucus membrane, before the leaf is spat out and discarded. This chewing and spitting act can be repeated multiple times throughout the day as desired.
Another popular way to consume kratom is as a tea. Usually, teas are brewed for social settings or to be sold in the bazaar. Leaves are taken from the tree and added to a pot of water, which is left to simmer over a fire for around three hours. In the marketplace, kratom tea is frequently sold in plastic bags to customers who seek it with the same intent as an American Starbucks patron – for the boost. There are also groups of friends who gather in the evenings to drink a shared cauldron of tea that they make over a fire. At this time of day, the tea isn’t meant to give an energizing kick, but rather to be drunk socially while taking it easy and relaxing. Consuming a larger portion actually provides an effect opposite to the one desired when laboring.
Kratom has a unique response curve depending upon how much is consumed. One or two tea bags or anything under five or six chewed leaves may have an energizing effect, while stronger tea (or tea consumed in larger quantities) may have an unwinding and sociable effect while comforting the whole body.
For more about kratom, check out Joe’s interview with Clinical Professor at the University of Florida, College of Pharmacy: Oliver Grundmann, Ph.D.
Kratom and Prohibition
Despite the abundance of native ethnopharmacological options, many Thai citizens were regular opium users in the early 20th century. The opium trade was blessed by the Thai government, and a 20% tax was passed onto the consumer. By 1940, it was estimated that between 8%-20% of all tax revenue in Thailand came from opium.
In 1942, however, Thailand declared war on Allied forces and entered World War II. With war came economic hardship, and in 1943, the Thai government noticed that their opium tax revenue had plummeted. Usually, opium taxes were a fairly constant source of revenue for the government, as consumers maintained their use continually to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
Following an investigation in 1943, the Thai government realized that their former opium taxpayers had switched from state controlled opium to locally-growing kratom after someone had discovered that chewing on kratom or drinking kratom tea allowed them to stop using opium without unpleasant side effects. The word got out and spread like wildfire.
In a special meeting on January 7th, 1943, Police Major General Pin Amornwisaisoradej, a member of the House of Representatives from Lampang, stated “Taxes for opium are high while kratom is currently not being taxed. With the increase of those taxes, people are starting to use kratom instead and this has had a visible impact on our government’s income.” Later that year, kratom was made illegal, marking its first encounter with prohibition. In the 1970s, the war on kratom escalated, and the law changed to require that all kratom trees in Thailand be chopped down. Thousands of people were imprisoned and had their lives ruined, while many more were negatively impacted in other ways.
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Terence McKenna and Kratom
In 1987, Terence McKenna was approached by a magazine called Trip to write a column called “Our Man in Nirvana.” McKenna was to be sent to remote locations around the world to relax and report back on the local culture. The magazine closed its doors shortly after he started writing for the column, but he had been sent to Thailand on the magazine’s dime, and had produced a brief article from his journey.
Ever the curious adventurer, he sought out kratom while in Thailand, which he had read about in Richard Evans Schultes’ book, The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. Impressed with the leniency of Thai culture and permittance of drug manufacture and use – especially heroin – Terence was intrigued as to why the kratom tree was illegal.
According to Terence, “We put out the word, and lo and behold, we got samples of this plant – rootstock. And it was very hush-hush. Everyone was either giggling or looking at us with thin, hard expressions as we scored this plant.” He took the rootstock back to Hawaii and made it “available for certified phytochemists and biochemical researchers to determine what this thing is.” Remarkably, this makes McKenna perhaps one of the earliest kratom vendors in the United States.
Still intrigued by the mystery of kratom prohibition, McKenna continued to look into the issue. Finally he heard a theory that registered with him. “What we learned as we made our way towards it was why it’s illegal. It’s illegal because it inhibits and interferes with heroin addiction.” Referencing how Thailand exported up to “one third of the world’s heroin,” he hypothesized that perhaps the reason it was illegal was due to its threats on their legal opioid industry. “So, who knows, you know, if this is true. But say it were true. So that means, you know, that this is, ethnobotanically, one of the great coups of the decade. And it explains, then, why the Thais are of such an ambivalent state of mind about it, because it’s poised like a dagger at the heart of their economic life if it’s real.”
Americans were first introduced to kratom in the aftermath of the Vietnam war, when GIs returning from Southeast Asia brought leaves back with them. While small circles of interest developed, only hardcore nerds like Terence McKenna were speaking publicly about kratom in the 1980s.
Despite McKenna making it available to “phytochemists and biochemical researchers,” public interest in kratom grew slowly. By 2005, kratom was beginning to develop niche appeal on online bodybuilding forums, and by 2016, the ranks of American kratom consumers were swelling. More and more, people were drawn to kratom by the idea that it may give them energy, help them with an opioid use pattern that they wanted to leave behind, or act as a natural painkiller. The DEA, however, challenged these beliefs when it was announced that they would be scheduling kratom as a controlled substance in August of 2016.
Instantly, passionate kratom consumers jumped into action. Petitions were circulated that drew more than 100,000 signatures. The DEA’s bulletin, the Federal Register, was bombarded with tens of thousands of passionate stories from people recounting how kratom made their lives better. Kratom business leaders joined together to form a lobbying group called the American Kratom Association (AKA). In a short time, dozens of members of Congress, including Bernie Sanders, had written to the DEA expressing their concern that a kratom ban would cause more harm than good.
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Amidst the public outcry, the DEA backtracked on their plan to schedule kratom. This marked the first instance that anything listed by the DEA to be added to the Controlled Substance Act was overturned: a monumental achievement that cannot be overlooked by those studying the history of prohibition.
The parent agency of the DEA and FDA, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), reviewed the claims put forth by the DEA and concluded that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to make kratom illegal. However, following their receipt of the HHS letter, the FDA maintained for years that their official policy was that kratom was a threat to public health. It took a congressional investigation in 2020 to reveal that the executive branch’s official position on kratom was that it presented no substantiated risks, and that making it illegal would likely cause widespread social harm.
In the years that the FDA knew they were directed to not pursue kratom, they still solicited a number of local municipalities and state governments to prohibit kratom anyway. They ultimately convinced six states to make kratom illegal – Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Tennessee, Vermont, Wisconsin – driven by an internal, prohibitionist conviction. The AKA responded, and lobbied five states – Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, and Georgia – to pass protections for kratom consumers with a standardized regulatory framework to ensure the quality and safety of the sales. These legal regulations were filling the void that would normally be filled by the FDA, who, instead of focusing on protecting consumers through regulations, chose to pursue total prohibition.
The anti-prohibition trend has caught wind overseas as well. After over 75 years of prohibiting an ancient, traditional, and naturally occurring tree leaf, Thailand announced they would re-legalize kratom in 2020. Since 2021, 12,000 prisoners have been freed from their sentences related to possession or sale of kratom, and the price of a kratom leaf has dropped by 80-90%. In 2021, kratom was estimated to be a $1.3 billion dollar industry, and with an overwhelming majority of the world’s kratom being exported from Indonesia, the Thai government recognized how much money their prohibition was leaving on the table. After such positive change in global kratom acceptance, Thailand’s legalization news, however, was quickly overshadowed.
World Court
In July of 2021, kratom once again narrowly escaped prohibition. After failing to convince enough state governments to ban kratom, the FDA announced that they would be sending an official letter of recommendation to the United Nations, advising them to add kratom to the international list of controlled substances. When it was announced in the Federal Register, the kratom community was once again quick to respond.
Initially, the AKA sent out a mass newsletter to inform kratom consumers that the UN and World Health Organization (WHO) were in the process of making kratom illegal on behalf of the FDA. They concluded that the FDA was likely frustrated with the slow progress of attempts to push kratom prohibition through individual states, so they changed their strategy and decided to take their prohibitionist mission to the international level. Having failed at the federal level in 2016 and having lost the blessing of the HHS, it was no longer feasible to make kratom federally illegal.
The United States is constitutionally bound to UN declarations that it signs. Since the US signed onto the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, Congress is required to make any substance illegal that finds its way onto the UN’s list of controlled substances. This would allow the FDA and the DEA to effectively skirt the need to supply the evidence required to ban a substance in the United States, and render the failure to prohibit kratom domestically null and void.
Kratom advocates submitted over 70,000 comments against the prohibition to the FDA via the Federal Register. The AKA organized dozens of scientists and researchers to present their work on kratom to the WHO. By the time the hearing date came around, kratom advocates were ready for a fight. The strategy at the WHO meeting was to present as much evidence regarding the safety of kratom as possible, and science was on the side of kratom. Point by point, kratom advocates and scientists refuted each false claim made against kratom, proving they were unsubstantiated. On November 18th, 2021, the WHO’s Expert Panel of Drug Dependence concluded that “there is insufficient evidence to recommend a critical review of kratom.”
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The KCPA has a distinct focus on health and safety regulations. It recognizes that contamination and adulteration are real and dangerous, and any adverse effects resulting from contamination would be spun by the media and prohibitionists to further harm kratom’s reputation. The strategy, then, is to lean into the robust safety profile of kratom to ensure its longevity. The largest kratom businesses have also banded together to enact quality control measures and perform audits on themselves to prove that they are adhering to food grade cGMP (commercial Good Manufacturing Practice) standards. This is not a cheap or easy process, but the effort is undertaken to show in good faith that the industry is mature and responsible.
Finally, the role of normalizing the use of a substance plays a significant role in the fight against prohibitionists. Generally, getting a majority to oppose prohibition (as 91% of Americans feel towards cannabis) is the goal of all grassroots anti-prohibitionists. As such, there have been a few attempts to personalize kratom, oftentimes through pathos-driven commercials detailing the story of people who can enjoy life again because of kratom. Today, kratom is increasingly being seen as a household object, as products such as kratom tea bags grow in popularity and broaden the consumer demographic.
Another kratom shot from Top Tree Herbs’ greenhouse
What to Learn About Prohibition From Kratom
Kratom has successfully defeated every federal prohibition attempt made against it in the United States. Six states have made it illegal, but even those states are now considering replacing their bans with the regulatory framework laid out in the KCPA. Thailand, the country with the richest history of kratom use, recently re-legalized it, likely due to the undeniable economic benefit kratom exportation would bring to their country. The WHO and UN, normally aligned on drug policy with the US, couldn’t ignore the overwhelming outpour of grassroots support and unanimous scientific consensus on the safety profile of kratom.
Still, the most impressive feat performed by the kratom community yet was defeating the DEA in 2016. Normally, the DEA has unilateral decision-making power when it comes to prohibiting substances in the United States. That kratom was able to slip their grip suggests that prohibition at large is defeatable. The methods used to defeat kratom prohibition – hiring lobbyists, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of supporters, and convincing Ph.D.s and MDs to testify – should be taken to heart by anyone who finds themselves standing up against prohibition of any sort.
At this very moment, the DEA is attempting to schedule more than half a dozen psychedelic compounds, including DOI and DOC. Together, they have been utilized in over 2,000 peer reviewed scientific publications and have been indispensable to psychedelic research. 4-OH-DiPT, 5-MeO-AMT, 5-MeO-MiPT, 5-MeO-DET, and DiPT are also slated to be scheduled soon, which would prevent further study of their effects. (DiPT, for example, causes novel auditory distortions which have the potential to elucidate the mysteries of auditory neural-processing.) Some journalists and advocates have stepped up to the plate to fight the DEA for their continuation of prohibition. However, a united psychedelic front hasn’t emerged, which kratom advocates have argued as being essential to stopping these bans.
Like psychedelics, kratom has a storied history of use. Both have been devastated by prohibition, but the true test of their merit is shown in their phoenix-like ability to continually inspire consumers to fight for their legality. Use of a substance – any substance – is not justification to imprison someone. Prohibition exponentially raises the possibility of harm that comes with consuming any substance by preventing education, quality control, and normalization. We must expand our scope to include more than psychedelics in our advocacy. Prohibition needs to end, and the clues to victory may just be found in the story of a tropical tea leaf.
A graphic Top Tree Herbs made when fighting the UN
In this episode of the podcast, Joe interviews cannabis expert and social ethnobotanist, Amanda Reiman, Ph.D., MSW. Reiman is the Founder of Personal Plants; an organization dedicated to promoting a deeper relationship between people and plants, and Co-Founder of Sacred Garden; a Web3 project which advocates for entheogenic plant conservation.
Reiman has over 25 years of experience growing cannabis and is intensely passionate about deepening the relationship between people and their source of healing, which she hopes is with plants they are growing. She talks about her early days of growing cannabis; the pros and cons of pharmaceutical vs. herbal plant models; the rules around cannabis regulation and taxes; the concept of retreat centers soon having liability insurance; how the different consumption patterns of cannabis and psychedelics could lead to vastly different pharmaceutical models; and what she’d like to do to promote a better connection to plants: guided tours of sacred gardens in virtual reality.
This episode swerves into territory often touched on but not fully dissected in the podcast, as they delve into the endless possibilities of cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and other Web3 projects. While the mining of cryptocurrency does present many environmental concerns, Reiman discusses how NFT groups like hers are mitigating these worries by focusing on conservation efforts, and how the benefits of being able to decentralize the internet and return control to the people may far outweigh most concerns. She sees the future bringing on the possibilities of legal defense funds and clinical trials being entirely crowd-funded, and therefore taken out of the hands of venture capitalists and the endlessly corruptible government.
Notable Quotes
“People who don’t even consume cannabis are finding joy in growing cannabis and giving it to their friends who do consume. So that’s really what Personal Plants is about: it’s taking a step back from that culture of high-level sophistication and bringing it back to the joys of gardening.”
“It becomes about profit margins and it becomes about revenue and I think that’s probably the biggest threat to plant medicine (the way we’ve seen it be a threat to healthcare). The fact that healthcare is a business means that what’s best for the people is never going to be number one, and so if we create a plant medicine system that also upholds those same values, I’m afraid the people will lose.”
“You can sit and listen to someone talk about something, [and] even if it’s freaking fascinating, it’s still not going to be the same as actually physically touching something, smelling something, [and] seeing something come alive in front of you. It just impacts the brain in a different way. So what I would love to do is have guided tours in the virtual reality space of a sacred garden.”
“I don’t think drugs are going back. I don’t think we’re going back. I think it’s too late. I was just looking at the latest Pew research figures yesterday and only 8% of the entire population thinks cannabis should be illegal. So we’re done. And I think now that we’re done with cannabis, it’s tugging on the thread of questioning about other drugs. And when I first started doing reform work, people would say, ‘Oh, you just want to legalize cannabis because you really just want to legalize all drugs.’ And you know what, Joe? I do. I do want to legalize all drugs. And I think we’re getting there.”
Amanda Reiman, Ph.D. , MSW, is a social ethnobotanist. She is the Founder of Personal Plants, a platform designed to deepen the relationship between people and flora, Co-Founder of Sacred Garden, a Web3 project focused on entheogenic plant conservation, and the VP of Public Policy Research for New Frontier Data, a cannabis-focused data analytics firm.
An internationally recognized cannabis expert and public health researcher, Dr. Reiman is a leader in the field of cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs, and has presented her research all over the world. She has written for/been quoted in The Huffington Post, New York Times, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and Playboy, as well as numerous peer-reviewed academic journals and several textbooks.
In this episode of the podcast, Kyle interviews psychiatrist, Dr. Reid Robison, and clinical psychologist, Steve Thayer, Ph.D. Together, they host the Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers podcast and work at Novamind; Robinson as the Chief Medical Officer, and Thayer as the Clinical Director of Education & Training. They talk about their respective journeys from psychology into the field of psychedelic medicine, their current work with ketamine-assisted psychotherapy (KAP) at Novamind, and their combined efforts in educating and training future KAP therapists and clinicians – a need they feel is going to become increasingly urgent as ketamine becomes more mainstream. To meet the challenge of scaling accessibility of psychedelic therapies, Novamind recently combined forces with Numinus Wellness, creating a platform and standard of mental health care within psychedelic therapy.
Robison and Thayer discuss the different ketamine dosing modalities and purpose for each; the ketamine sessions Novamind provides for frontline healthcare workers (called ‘FrontlineKAP’ or FKAP); how difficulties in emotion-processing are often at the heart of mental health struggles; and how ketamine can help loosen emotional binding, allowing greater access to them. They also discuss current clinical trials on LSD for anxiety and alcoholism; how ketamine can be used for therapist burnout; the challenge of long LSD sessions and therapist stamina; the benefits of group ketamine sessions; the concept of combining ketamine with other therapeutic modalities (or substances); and the power of stepping aside and allowing the inner healer to take over.
Notable Quotes
“Difficulties in emotion processing are often at the heart of many mental health struggles. And if we can support the clients in developing skills and confidence in moving towards their emotions, and leverage the power of the corrective experience, the healing power of caregivers, [and] supporting them with emotion coaching skills, then we’re wrapping the client in this really powerful therapeutic healing environment and leveraging ketamine as a catalyst.” -Reid
“People will tend toward self-actualization and transcendence if you give them the environment to do so. To be well is not something we have to teach people to do, it’s something that they can remember how to do. It’s in them. If we can help them peel away the negative programming and conditioning and trauma and all that stuff, they’ll find their way to health and healing.” -Steve
“To me, it makes complete sense to use something like LSD for anxiety because what we think perpetuates something like generalized anxiety is what Steve Hayes of ACT might call ‘experiential avoidance’; that we don’t want to feel these intense feelings of fear or embarrassment or rejection or whatever it is, so we worry chronically, we get addicted to worry itself, [and that] keeps us safe from having to do scary stuff. And the LSD experience is just (for a lot of people) going to crack that open and give you an opportunity to face your fears, so to speak. It’s like exposure therapy on psychedelic steroids.” -Steve
Dr. Reid Robison is a board-certified psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at Novamind. He is adjunct faculty at the University of Utah, founder of the Polizzi Free Clinic, co-founder of Cedar Psychiatry, the medical director for the Center for Change, and was voted Best Psychiatrist in Utah in 2020. Over the past decade, Dr. Robison has led over 200 clinical trials in neuropsychiatry. Notably, he served as Coordinating Investigator for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study of eating disorders. As an early adopter and researcher of ketamine in psychiatry, Dr. Robison led a pivotal IV ketamine study for treatment-resistant depression by Janssen, leading to FDA approval of Spravato™. Dr. Robison is also the co-host of the Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers podcast.
Dr. Steve Thayer is a clinical psychologist and Clinical Director of Education & Training at Novamind. As a USAF military veteran, Dr. Thayer maintains his commitment to serving the veteran and first responder community through his position as the Executive Director of Therapeutic Operations for the World Voice Project. At Novamind, Dr. Thayer conducts and provides training in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy. He serves as Lead Therapist on several clinical trial studies involving psychedelic medicine. Dr. Thayer is also the co-host of the Psychedelic Therapy Frontiers podcast.
In this episode of the podcast, Joe interviews retired Nurse Practitioner, Midwife, and Air Force Captain, Kimberly Juroviesky.
Juroviesky was forced to retire from her career and aspirations in the Air Force after she fell during a training exercise and again on ice months later, eventually realizing she had developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome; a little understood condition where essentially, nerves continue to tell one’s brain that a healed injury should still hurt. When she tried ketamine and it cut her pain in half, she wondered, “Why aren’t more people doing this?” and created the Ketamine Task Force to fight to get insurance to pay for ketamine (and eventually, other legalized psychedelics).
She discusses Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and her path to ketamine; the redefining of “treatment-resistant”; the lack of knowledge from so many physicians about drug interactions and proper dosing; the mental health benefits of primal activities like swimming or dancing; the utility, timing, and efficacy of each ketamine method (for others and what’s worked best for her); the arduous and frustrating process of applying for a new CPT code with the AMA; how chronic pain and suicidality are intertwined; and the relationship between the timing of ketamine sessions, improvements, and problems returning.
Juroviesky is currently practicing Nue Life‘s protocol, with at-home ketamine and participating in group integration sessions. She believes the future of ketamine will be similar to how many feel psychedelics like ayahuasca, psilocybin, or LSD should be used: using smaller (and lighter) doses as maintenance in between larger experiences (in this case, in-office IV or ketamine infusions) – with, of course, lots of integration.
Notable Quotes
“The biggest hurdle has been access for me [and] access for everyone, because unfortunately, the majority of insurances refuse to pay for ketamine. It’s very depressing, very upsetting that you have all these people who could benefit but they can’t get access because they can’t afford it, because most of the people who need this medicine, unfortunately, are on disability and no one has the money to pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for this treatment. So I founded an organization called the Ketamine Task Force in order to fight to get insurances to cover ketamine.”
“Unfortunately, there’s so many clinicians out there who are either not telling their patients things like which drugs prevent ketamine from working at its best, or they’re doing doses that are so ridiculously low that their patients get no response and then their patients think they’ve ‘failed ketamine.’ And I’m like, ‘You haven’t even tried ketamine! You think you’ve failed it, but really, you’ve only gotten .2 milligrams per kilogram. That’s like taking a baby aspirin for a brain tumor.’ Education is so important; not just education for patients, [but] education for clinicians.”
“There are people who go into their ketamine treatment completely suicidal, with a plan, ready to kill themselves, and they come out and they say, ‘I don’t want to kill myself anymore.’ It’s unbelievable, the changes. Even in one session, it can reduce that suicidality. It doesn’t [work right away] for everyone. Sometimes it takes three, four, six, ten [sessions], but almost everyone sees some improvement immediately, and that’s the amazing thing. …And if it’s not ketamine, then, like I said: try psilocybin, try MDMA. But there is hope. Don’t give up hope. There’s always hope. As long as you’re alive, there’s always hope for tomorrow.”
“We want to be the go-to who’s going to help with ground-breaking and changing laws and getting things done. …We want to be the ones to bring it to the world because we just feel like this is soimportant. We literally are changing the world right now.”
Kimberly Juroviesky is a retired Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Midwife who trained at Columbia University and The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She was injured on active duty while in the USAF and developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome which unfortunately, forced her to retire from her career early. Kimberly began getting ketamine infusions in 2015 as part of a research study. While they don’t make her pain levels disappear, they do bring them down to what she describes as “livable levels.” Kimberly has always been driven to help people so she started up a Facebook group to support patients in their ketamine journeys. Kimberly also started a second Facebook group to allow ketamine providers to connect with one another. Kimberly also wrote a book to help patients to know what to expect during their infusions called Ketamine Infusions: A Patient’s Guide. She also is the author of Ketamine Journeys: A Journal for Your Ketamine Experiences. Kimberly has found a new passion in being an advocate for the use of ketamine to treat both mental health and pain diagnoses. She advocates for and talks with both patients and providers around the globe on a daily basis.
David Nutt 
Julie Zukof is the creator of 
Dr. Michelle Weiner is double board-certified in Interventional Pain Medicine and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and a partner in 
Dick Simon 
Philip Wolf is grateful to do the work he was born to do: open the minds of the world to the benefits of cannabis, and showcase them in the form of celebration, ritual, and elevated dining. Since then, he’s founded 
Amanda Reiman, Ph.D. , MSW, is a social ethnobotanist. She is the Founder of 
Dr. Reid Robison is a board-certified psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer at Novamind. He is adjunct faculty at the University of Utah, founder of the Polizzi Free Clinic, co-founder of 
Dr. Steve Thayer is a clinical psychologist and Clinical Director of Education & Training at 
Kimberly Juroviesky is a retired Nurse Practitioner and Nurse Midwife who trained at Columbia University and The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. She was injured on active duty while in the USAF and developed Complex Regional Pain Syndrome which unfortunately, forced her to retire from her career early. Kimberly began getting ketamine infusions in 2015 as part of a research study. While they don’t make her pain levels disappear, they do bring them down to what she describes as “livable levels.” Kimberly has always been driven to help people so she started up a