Psychedelics News October 2020

October brought us a flurry of research on psychedelics and updates from the corporates developing psychedelics medicines. In the NGO sector, there was some infighting but all eyes are now on the November ballot that may provide a further step towards decriminalization.

Several psychedelic companies have gone public and others are showing the first signs of real progress. Numinus has harvested their first psychedelic mushrooms, and Field Trip is working on their own psychedelic that should last about a third as long.

Translating research to practice will take time, MAPS is showing (in a peer-reviewed journal) that the costs may very well be much lower than currently used treatments. One company has already brought psilocybin-assisted therapy into practice, as Synthesis starts offering treatment for depression.

This and more in this month’s report.

First Week of October

Research

A study on Salvinorin A, a psychedelic that works via different (neural) pathways to others like psilocybin or ketamine, finds similar effects such as a lowering of the Default Mode Network (DMN). The first author, Manoj Doss, explains more details on Twitter.

Research is getting a welcome boost by the corporate MindMed, as they announce funding for a clinical training program at NYU Langone Health. In the future, the school aims to open it’s own Center for Psychedelic Medicine.

• Also reported in The New Yorker

NGOs and Advocacy

The infighting between different decriminalization efforts continues. The different groups have other goals and that seems to be playing them apart. Although it’s too early to say, it looks like they are now doing work that may prevent decriminalization (by opposing a measure that is too limited in their eyes).

Corporate Corner

Field Trip looks to be the only company with significant news this week. They will start trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) on October the 7th. And have now done so at a market capitalization of around $100 million.

More News/Links

• Why Magic Mushrooms Are The Next Big Booming (and Legal!) Drug Market (Observer)
  • A good primer on psychedelics and why they are not (contrary to the title) really suited for a (profitable) recreational market (low usage, not much diversification possible, ‘bad’ trips)
• LSD Microdosing to Boost Attention: Too Soon to Tell? (Medscape)
  • Talk/notes from 33rd European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) Congress
• How Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Changed My Life (Mad in America)
  • Personal story and motivation behind starting Mind Medicine Australia by Tania DeJong
• Psilocybin’s Positive Effect on the Brain (Medium/Adjustable Normal)
  • Reflections on Barrett et al. (2020), on the neurological changes up to one month after a single psilocybin session
• Combatting resistant depression with DMT and digital therapy (Health Europe)
  • Article on ATAI and its subsidiary Viridia Life Sciences

Second Week of October

Research

The Founders Pledge did a full report on the most effective places to donate for psychedelics. In the report, they focus mostly on MAPS and Usona and their respective efforts with MDMA- and psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy. One interesting thing about the report is that they discount for common errors of optimism and founder-therapist effects. Or in other words, they try and extrapolate from the amazing results that have been found to what they expect the effects to be in a wider role out of psychedelic-assisted therapy. Recommended reading.

• Dive deeper with this article ‘The case for funding psychedelics to treat mental health‘ (Vox)

NGOs and Advocacy

The decriminalization movement in Oregon is getting a welcome boost of $500k. The surprising backer behind this is Mark Zuckerberg (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative). If passed, the commission behind the movement is expecting a drop of 91% reduction in felony and misdemeanor conviction related to (personal) drug possession.

Corporate Corner

Field Trip keeps the press releases coming, and has added Andrew Weil to their medical advisory board. Andrew Weil is seen as the father of modern integrative medicine, looking at the whole person when diagnosing/healing/preventing, an approach definitely needed for psychedelic therapies.

Mydecine (NeuroPharm) has filed a patent on an ‘enhancer’ of psilocin, which reduces the breakdown into psilocybin. This may make it more effective at lower dosages, or make the trip last longer. Although the press release indicates possible lower costs and benefits for therapy, both don’t seem to make sense as ‘natural’ psilocybin is already very cheap and a small increase in duration will not do anything as drastic as trying to find better ways to synthesize psilocybin more effectively. They may however use this formulation in their cooperation with Leiden University and/or to have a ‘unique’ type of treatment available in the future.

Pilz Bioscience, a company focussing on psychedelics for ASD, has been bought by Nova Mentis. Although the details say little to someone outside of this side of the psychedelics business, it may be a good sign that there is interest in the development of psychedelics for ASD. It should be noted that Phase I trials are scheduled for Q2 2021, so there is still quite a way to go there.

More News/Links

• Set and Setting for Society’s 21st Century Trip (Lucid News)
  • Reflections on the world and how the psychedelic renaissance finds its place in it by Ido Hartogsohn
  • Crucially that the set and setting heavily influences the effect of psychedelics (in his book he identifies seven sub-cultures)
• New Association Brings Psychedelics to the Medical Mainstream (Lucid News)
  • Primer on the newly formed Psychedelic Medicine Association (PMA)
• 5 Ways Technology Is Powering The Psychedelic Movement (Green Entrepreneur)
  • Written by CEO of Mindleap, most interesting point is the possibility of virtual treatments (digital therapeutics)
• MDMA Therapy Helped Me Overcome Trauma From Growing up in a War Zone (Vice)
  • Showing once again how MDMA(-assisted therapy) can help and that it isn’t just/even fun but also a therapeutic agent
• ACT and Psilocybin-Assisted Psychotherapy for Depression Part I: A Natural Synergy (Psychedelic Science Review)
  • Good information on how Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is a good match for psychedelic-assisted therapy
  • Something that was also discussed on various panels at ICPR 2020
• Food for Thought: Can Psychedelics Boost Brain Growth Factor Levels? (Psychedelic Science Review)
  • More data needed, reflects on (amongst other papers) on Hutten et al (2020)
• What Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Teaching Us About Human Consciousness (Discover Magazine)
  • A good overview for laypersons on the neuroscience of/with psychedelics
• Is the Psilocybin Community in an Information Bubble? (Psychedelic Support)
  • There is little news coverage (outside our bubble) on psychedelics
  • The only positive/more-often-mention-of-psychedelics was found in the New York Times
  • This is based on ‘Analysis of Newspaper Coverage of Psilocybin from January 1, 1989 to December 31, 2019‘

Third Week of October

Research

MAPS released its cost-effectiveness analysis that estimated “net savings of $103.2 million over 30 years while accruing 5,553 discounted QALYs, compared to continued standard of care.” Or in other words, large savings that haven’t even included societal and personal benefits not easily measurable. The peer-reviewed study did come from MAPS itself and is more optimistic than the Founders Pledge estimate we covered last week. So do read both and compare which assumption you think are more reasonable. Further analysis of the costs and benefits will follow here in the future.

More interesting research has been done on how DMT changes the cortical activation in our brain. And an interview study on Norwegian psychedelic users found that narrative techniques help them recontextualize bad trips. Finally, a meta-analysis finds large (positive) effects of psychedelic therapy. The longest follow-up was 55 weeks, which is just over a year in time. The article below on Synthesis does put in question if the effects will persist after that time.

NGOs and Advocacy

Canadians are awaiting a response to a petition on decriminalization. The deadline for a response is November 7th. In the meantime, a good article on Filter provides critique and proposes a model on how Canada could one up Portugal in not only decriminalization but even legalization.

Corporate Corner

Synthesis has made a big announcement and is now offering psychedelic therapy for depression. Notable is that Rosalind Watts, previously lead researcher at Imperial College London – now working for Synthesis, said that she saw the depression coming back (in limited form) for patients she had treated in their studies. Long-term follow-up studies do show continued positive results, but more studies will be necessary to see what the long-term effects are (which ties back into the cost-effectiveness calculation done by MAPS above).

It’s good to see Field Trip partnering up with Heroic Hearts Project, a non-profit that aims to help veterans with mental trauma (e.g. PTSD) through psychedelic-assisted therapies. The psychedelic in question is ketamine, one on which currently the research isn’t that solid (e.g. a meta-analysis by Varker et al., 2020 “the evidence for ketamine in combination with psychotherapy as a PTSD treatment was ranked low”.)

Finally, Cybin has raised $45 million Canadian and aims to soon list on the TSXV (Canadian stock exchange). This is good news for bringing money to psychedelics. From the outside, it does bring about questions on how this is justified for a company developing (only?) a sublingual method of psychedelics administration.

More News/Links

• What if a Pill Can Change Your Politics or Religious Beliefs? (Scientific American)
  • Interesting reporting on belief-changing from psychedelics
  • But also criticized on Twitter by Matthew Johnson as being too loose with the interpretation of the effect size
  • The therapeutic outcomes are great, but becoming more ‘left’ or believing in God are not things psychedelics reliably do
• Oregon Leads the Way for First US Psilocybin Legalization (Lucid News)
  • Oregon may become the first state (after a handful of cities) to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy
  • Although more limited in scope (no decriminalization/legalization) it’s the largest in scale (4.2m residents)
• Scientists Unlock Neurological Code of Dissociation (Lucid News)
  • Interesting take on what if we could use electric stimulation of the brain to induce psychedelic (ketamine) like effects
  • The article does seem to be too optimistic/extrapolates from the research (paper) to practice a bit too quickly
• Joe Rogan Experience #1543 – Brian Muraresku & Graham Hancock (YouTube)
  • Everyone is talking about the theory of religions being shaped or originating with psychedelic (wine) use
  • The information stems from ‘The Immortality Key’ by Brian Muraresku
• This Is My Brain on Salvia (Wired)
  • A personal ‘trip report’ on the recent Salvia study by Doss and colleagues (2020)
  • “It’s as if the musicians in the orchestra stop following a central conductor and each start keeping time with separate metronomes”
  • “Considering salvinorin A has subjective effects quite different from classic psychedelics, it certainly doesn’t bode well for the idea that the default mode network is key to their effects“

Fourth Week of October

Research

The effects of LSD on healthy subjects has been studied for over 60 years. But it took until last week to thoroughly describe the effects at different dosages (up to 200 µg). The best therapeutic dosage is thought to be at 100 µg, as at 200 µg the negative effects (e.g. anxiety) were more pronounced.

We also continued working on the database and most of the prominent papers should now be searchable by title, author, type of experiment, and many more parameters.

Finally, we published our first top 10 post. These posts provide experienced readers with a quick overview of a specific part of the research. Or, as this first one does, provide new researchers with an overview and quick-start guide to psychedelics research.

Do check out the article at ‘Top 10 Articles for Psychedelic Novices‘.

NGOs and Advocacy

Many cities (and states) around the US (and in other places) are putting psychedelics up for a vote. In many cases this means a deprioritization of enforcing laws, in other cases it may mean legalization or doctor-prescribed use. Vox has us covered and explains the 2020 psychedelic drug ballot measures. The two votes (Oregon and Washington DC) could pave the way for future actions towards better drug laws.

• Continue your exploration of decriminalization in this article by Rolling Stone

Corporate Corner

Numinus takes the lead in Canada and is the first to harvest their Psilocybe mushrooms. At the end of the press release, they also note that they have applied for a permit to sell the fruiting bodies (to other researchers, for now).

Compass Pathways continues with filing patents, but even after a quick analysis by a patent lawyer, I’m none the wiser. You can get a good overview of all patents on the website of Psilocybin Alpha.

More News/Links

• Opioid Addiction Ibogaine Treatment Centers Could Soon Be Coming to Canada (Psychedelic Spotlight)
  • a bit of information on ‘Clear Sky Recovery’ by Universal Ibogaine, ibogaine for opioid addiction
• Examining the Effects of Psychedelics on Experiential Avoidance (Psychedelic Science Review)
  • An analysis of Zeifman et al. (2020)
  • “In the three areas of interest – experiential avoidance, depression severity, suicidal ideation – the data from both studies showed long-lasting significant reductions after psychedelic use.“
• How Dolphins on Lsd Shaped the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Supercluster, via Double Blind)
  • long-read, interesting history, not much science

Fifth Week of October

Research

A new analysis of data on a trial with ayahuasca shows the potential for decreasing suicidality. The effects were measured after one session (n=15) and were sustained for at least 21 days. The participants in the open-label trial were suffering from depression (MDD) on which an earlier analysis of the data also showed significant improvements.

Do (always) see all the research that we’ve reviewed in the last month in ‘Psychedelics Research October 2020‘.

Corporate Corner

Journey Colab launches onto the psychedelics scene with $3 million funding by Y Combinator (a startup school/incubator) founder Sam Altman and others (via Apollo Projects). Their first product will be synthetic mescaline. Among their advisors, they can count on the expertise of Robin Carhart-Harris.

MindMed continues to raise money and has now raked in another $28.75 million. The many projects (18-MC, LSD microdosing & anxiety, training programs, and more) will surely benefit from this amount of capital available.

More News/Links

• The Psychedelic Election (Andrew Sullivan)
  • Newsletter, notes on ballots, and history of psychedelic use
• Inside the Movement to Decolonize Psychedelic Pharma (Neo.Life)
  • Reflections on the developing psychedelics industry and the negative externalities of capitalism
  • With contributions from Francoise Bourzat, and mention of Journey Colab