It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A single positive experience on a psychedelic drug may help reduce stress, depression and anxiety symptoms in Black, Indigenous and people of color whose encounters with racism have had lasting harm, a new study suggests.
The participants in the retrospective study reported that their trauma-related symptoms linked to racist acts were lowered in the 30 days after an experience with either psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms), LSD or MDMA (Ecstasy).
"Their experience with psychedelic drugs was so powerful that they could recall and report on changes in symptoms from racial trauma that they had experienced in their lives, and they remembered it having a significant reduction in their mental health problems afterward," said Alan Davis, co-lead author of the study and an assistant professor of social work at The Ohio State University.
Overall, the study also showed that the more intensely spiritual and insightful the psychedelic experience was, the more significant the recalled decreases in trauma-related symptoms were.
A growing body of research has suggested psychedelics have a place in therapy, especially when administered in a controlled setting. What previous mental health research has generally lacked, Davis noted, is a focus on people of color and on treatment that could specifically address the trauma of chronic exposure to racism.
Davis partnered with co-lead author Monnica Williams, Canada Research Chair in Mental Health Disparities at the University of Ottawa, to conduct the research.
"Currently, there are no empirically supported treatments specifically for racial trauma. This study shows that psychedelics can be an important avenue for healing," Williams said.
The study is published online in the journal Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy.
The researchers recruited participants in the United States and Canada using Qualtrics survey research panels, assembling a sample of 313 people who reported they had taken a dose of a psychedelic drug in the past that they believed contributed to "relief from the challenging effects of racial discrimination." The sample comprised adults who identified as Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American/Indigenous Canadian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander.
Once enrolled, participants completed questionnaires collecting information on their past experiences with racial trauma, psychedelic use and mental health symptoms, and were asked to recall a memorable psychedelic experience and its short-term and enduring effects. Those experiences had occurred as recently as a few months before the study and as long ago as at least 10 years earlier.
The discrimination they had encountered included unfair treatment by neighbors, teachers and bosses, false accusations of unethical behavior and physical violence. The most commonly reported issues involved feelings of severe anger about being subjected to a racist act and wanting to "tell someone off" for racist behavior, but saying nothing instead.
Researchers asked participants to recall the severity of symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress linked to exposure to racial injustice in the 30 days before and 30 days after the experience with psychedelic drugs. Considering the probability that being subjected to racism is a lifelong problem rather than a single event, the researchers also assessed symptoms characteristic of people suffering from discrimination-related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
"Not everybody experiences every form of racial trauma, but certainly people of color are experiencing a lot of these different types of discrimination on a regular basis," said Davis, who also is an adjunct faculty member in the Johns Hopkins University Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. "So in addition to depression and anxiety, we were asking whether participants had symptoms of race-based PTSD."
Participants were also asked to report on the intensity of three common kinds of experiences people have while under the influence of psychedelic drugs: a mystical, insightful or challenging experience. A mystical experience can feel like a spiritual connection to the divine, an insightful experience increases people's awareness and understanding about themselvess, and a challenging experience relates to emotional and physical reactions such as anxiety or difficulty breathing.
All participants recalled their anxiety, depression and stress symptoms after the memorable psychedelic experience were lower than they had been before the drug use. The magnitude of the positive effects of the psychedelics influenced their reduction in symptoms.
"What this analysis showed is that a more intense mystical experience and insightful experience, and a less intense challenging experience, is what was related to mental health benefits," Davis said.
The researchers noted in the paper that the study had limitations because the findings were based on participant recall and the entire sample of recruited research volunteers had reported benefits they associated with their psychedelic experience - meaning it cannot be assumed that psychedelics will help all people of color with racial trauma. Davis and Williams are working on proposals for clinical trials to further investigate the effects of psychedelics on mental health symptoms in specific populations, including Black, Indigenous and people of color.
"This was really the first step in exploring whether people of color are experiencing benefits of psychedelics and, in particular, looking at a relevant feature of their mental health, which is their experience of racial trauma," Davis said. "This study helps to start that conversation with this emerging treatment paradigm."
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This work was funded by the University of Ottawa, the Canada Research Chairs Program and the National Institutes of Health. Additional co-authors included Yitong Xin of Ohio State's College of Social Work; Nathan Sepeda of Johns Hopkins; Pamela Grigas and Sinead Sinnott of the University of Connecticut; and Angela Haeny of Yale School of Medicine.
Wednesday, February 02, 2022
Study Finds 65% Of Americans With Mental Health Conditions Want Access To Psychedelics
The Mexican magic mushroom is a psilocybe cubensis, a specie of psychedelic mushroom whose main active elements are psilocybin and psilocin - Mexican Psilocybe Cubensis. An adult mushroom raining spores. red and blue color. horizontal orientation. GETTY
A new study conducted by The Harris Poll and Delic Holdings Corp found that 65% of affected Americans want access to psychedelics for mental health.
Respondents who self-reported that they suffer from a mental health condition say that psychedelic medicine including ketamine, psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA, should be made available to patients with treatment-resistant anxiety, depression, or PTSD.
“The pandemic has skyrocketed the need for psychedelic wellness,” says Delic CEO Matt Stang. “We’re at a tipping point where the data and science regarding psychedelic therapies have become undeniable in treating a variety of serious conditions.”
As it stands, ketamine is legal in the U.S. for medical use. Ketamine is an FDA-approved anesthetic and can be prescribed for a myriad of ailments in a regulated setting by licensed clinicians. Psilocybin, like cannabis, is still considered a Schedule 1 drug in the eyes of the federal government. Therefore, its sale and use is illegal, despite some states and cities that have begun to decriminalize mushrooms. Beginning in 2019, psilocybin has been decriminalized in Denver, Oregon, and Santa Cruz. The state of California even has a measure on the 2022 ballot that would decriminalize psychedelic medicine in the state.
Delic acquired Ketamine Wellness Centers (KWC) in November 2021. Today, Delic runs the largest chain of psychedelic mental health clinics in the U.S., operating 12 ketamine wellness clinics. The company has plans to open an additional 15 clinics in the next 18 months. Stang says his team founded Delic in order to improve people’s lives and offer access to lifesaving medicine.
The Harris Poll study found 83% of Americans experiencing anxiety, depression or PTSD would be open to pursuing alternative treatments. Respondents said that if plant medicines were “proven more effective than prescription medication with fewer side effects,” 66% would try ketamine, 62% would try psilocybin, and 56% would try MDMA.
18% of people surveyed said that traditional pharmaceutical medication did not improve their condition or even made it worse. The survey was conducted from December 6 to 8, 2021, polling 2,037 adults ages 18 and older. Among them, the survey polled 953 people who suffer from anxiety, depression, and/or PTSD.
“Delic Labs is developing analytical capabilities that will help form a complete picture of psychedelic medicine and ensure drug safety,” says Dr. Marcus Roggen, President & Chief Science Officer of Delic Labs.
“In the area of medical developments, psilocybin and other plant-based compounds show great promise, but also have their limitations,” says Dr. Roggen. “With our medicinal chemistry expertise as the foundation, we will continue to explore these novel psychedelic compounds and other drug candidates with the goal of adding them to this exciting field of medicine.”
Psilocybin in Delic’s lab. DELIC
The group demographics varied. “Of the people who participated, 48% identified as male and 50.9% identified as female. In regard to age, we saw a wide variety of respondents with 28.4% aged 18-34; 16.7% aged 35-44; 15.9% aged 45-54; 16.6% aged 55-64 and 21.5% over the age of 65. In regard to race, 61.8% identified as white, 16.5% identified as Hispanic and 11.8% identified as Black,” says Stang.
The survey is not comprehensive, and the respondents self-reported, which can leave room for potential bias. “This survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated,” says Stang.
“We truly believe the world will look back on this moment right before full global acceptance and remark how much more effective treatment has become, in a very short time,” says Stang. “This promising family of new medicines has the potential to be more effective than traditional medicines with minimal side effects.”
In 2021, the company hosted its inaugural Meet Delic psychedelic medicine conference, one of the largest psychedelic wellness industry conferences in the world, which welcomed 2,500 attendees. Tickets are on sale for its 2022 event which will take place November 5 and 6, 2022, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Delic is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE: DELC), the OTC Market’s Group (OTCQB: DELCF) as well as Germany’s largest stock exchange market called the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FRA: 6X0).
Monday, July 10, 2023
In Philly and nationwide, interest is rising in psychedelics to treat depression. The FDA released new research guidelines.
2023/07/10
Jason Wallach, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences at Saint Joseph’ s University, left, and Garrett Walker, pharmacology and toxicology major, right, examine slides in the lab.
- Melissa Kelly/Saint Joseph’s University/TNS/TNS
When Jason Wallach started researching psychedelic compounds just over a decade ago, he expected he would spend his career laboring in obscurity.
Now the Food and Drug Administration is taking new steps to advise scientists studying these drugs, a sign that the federal government, and society at large, are paying closer attention to his rapidly-growing field of research. Wallach, a professor at Philadelphia's St. Joseph's University, develops psychedelic drugs to treat depression and other mental illnesses.
In June, for the first time, the FDA released a draft list of guidelines for conducting clinical research studies with those drugs.
The FDA has been approving studies for these drugs for some time, Wallach said, but the release of guidelines shows that interest in psychedelic compounds is higher than ever.
"They realize there's a lot of studies going on actively and likely to be a lot more," he said.
Wallach recalls how not long ago most researchers dismissed the possible therapeutic uses of hallucinogenic drugs like LCD and psilocybin, and more experienced colleagues told him to get out of the field entirely.
"A faculty member told me there was no funding, that people just don't understand the potential, and that prohibition and the drug war has done so much damage that it's just a bad career move. I didn't take that advice," he said, laughing.
Rising interest in Philadelphia
In Philadelphia, there's rising interest in the field of psychedelics, a class of hallucinogenic drugs that can alter people's senses and perceptions. Last November, hundreds of advocates and therapists met at a conference at the Independence Visitor Center aimed at helping attendees navigate the fast-growing industry.
Pennsylvania has not legalized many psychedelic drugs for therapeutic use, as Oregon and Colorado have. But there is a small but growing industry of clinicians in Philadelphia who incorporate psychedelic therapy into their work.
Some prescribe patients the hallucinogenic drug ketamine — which is legal in the state — to use under observation and in combination with therapy sessions. (The new FDA guidelines do not include studies researching ketamine.)
There's also an underground network of "trip sitters" who guide people through experiences with psychedelics that haven't been legalized here.
Wallach isn't involved in clinical studies, but for the last two years has partnered with Compass Pathways, a British biotech company, to develop psychedelic compounds to treat depression and other mental health issues. He partners with Compass researchers currently running trials, and the new guidelines won't change their existing work.
Stephen Levine, Compass's senior vice president for patient access and medical affairs, said the company is pleased to see the FDA recommend "rigorous" standards for psychedelic studies, just as they would any other drug. Currently, the company is running large-scale human trials on a psilocybin compound aimed at alleviating treatment-resistant depression.
"There are huge unmet needs out there — millions of people suffering," Levine said. "But we still do have a lot of unanswered questions. We have to make sure these things actually help people, and make sure that a safe framework is set up."
Unique research challenges
The new FDA guidelines — for which the agency is accepting public comment through Aug. 25 — apply to "classic psychedelics," a class of drugs that includes LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms.
They include recommendations on how to safely monitor study participants while they take the drugs, and note concerns around the potential for abuse of psychedelics.
The Drug Enforcement Administration classifies psychedelics as Schedule I drugs, those with "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Researchers have to comply with additional DEA regulations to study Schedule I substances.
The FDA also highlighted the unique challenges of designing effective studies with psychedelic drugs. For example, psychedelic drugs can cause people to experience hallucinations or alter their senses. So blind studies, in which one group of participants receives a drug and the other receives a placebo an effort to generate unbiased results, are more difficult to conduct.
"If you give one group psychedelics and one group a placebo, you're going to know which is which and they're going to know which is which," said Holly Fernandez Lynch, an assistant professor of medical ethics and law at the University of Pennsylvania.
The FDA is holding psychedelic drugs to the same regulatory standards as any other new medication, she said: "Researchers are going to have to demonstrate in some meaningful way that [the drugs] have their intended affect."
Can psychedelics combat prolonged grief? Dell Medical School launches study to find out
KUT 90.5 | By Seema Mathur Published October 13, 2022 KUT Researchers at Dell Medical School's Center for Psychedelic Research
and Therapy will use brain scans ...Patricia Lim/KUT
Researchers will examine brain responses following treatment with psilocybin, a psychedelic derived from certain mushrooms, and 5-MeO-DMT, which comes from toad venom.
After serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, some veterans have found themselves fighting an invisible war inside their own minds. In search of relief, many have gravitated toward non-FDA-approved psychedelic therapies and are abandoning prescription medications.
“[Veterans] are in pain and they know that the pharmaceutical cocktail isn’t going to work,” decorated Marine veteran Sgt. Jenna Lombardo-Grosso said. “You only need to call up one of your friends to find out so-and-so committed suicide.” Courtesy Of Jenna Lombardo-GrossoMarine Sgt. Jenna Lombardo-Grosso (center) said she was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq.
Lombardo-Grosso said during her eight years of service, she saw extensive suffering, including friends die and loose limbs in a mortar attack in Iraq. That attack contributed to her own mild traumatic brain injury. She was also diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which she mostly attributes to military and childhood sexual trauma.
Years of prescription medication and traditional therapy didn’t help much, she said.
“Before, when a trigger came up, it would be devastating," Lombardo-Grosso said. “Sometimes, I would vomit.”
Lombardo-Grosso left the service in 2012, but it wasn't until this year that she found relief — following just a couple of days of psychedelic therapy in March.
“It’s like I got a software update and there’s more processing power now," she said. “I have the ability to deal with [past trauma] in healthier ways.”
Lombardo-Grosso went to a retreat in Mexico run by The Mission Within, an organization that founder Dr. Martin Polanco says has provided psychedelic therapy to more than 700 veterans since 2017. The retreats are conducted out of the country because the compounds used are not legal as medical treatments in the United States.
“It's unfortunate that patients have to travel to Mexico or other countries to get this treatment,” Polanco said.
Polanco said he knows more evidence is needed before the FDA will greenlight psychedelic therapies and that he's eager to support research.
“We believe it is important to document scientifically what we have been seeing anecdotally," he said.
Measuring psychedelics' effectiveness
The Mission Within will be involved in studies UT Austin's Dell Medical School is gearing up to launch at its Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy.
The center was created in 2021 by Greg Fonzo and Dr. Charles Nemeroff. After almost a year of planning, they are now poised to find answers to questions about the effectiveness of psychedelics on various mental health conditions. Nemeroff said the studies will evaluate who psychedelic treatment is good for, how often it should be administered and at what doses.
The center's first study will focus on the diagnosis of "prolonged grief."
“It's sort of this black hole of misery in which they get stuck in this particular way of thinking," Fonzo said. KUT Dr. Greg Fonzo, co-director of the Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy at Dell Medical School, holds a EEG cap that a patient wears during a brain scan.
For this, researchers are recruiting Gold Star Wives, those whose spouses died while serving in the military. Thirty participants will be studied: 15 will be given psilocybin which comes from specific mushrooms; five will take 5-MeO-DMT, a psychedelic derived from the venom of a toad; and the other 10 will not receive anything.
The Mission Within will administer the psychedelics outside the U.S. Participants will be brought to Austin for a series of tests before and after taking the psychedelics to measure their impact.
“We think psychedelics disrupt those [depressive] patterns and allow the brain to operate in new ways that weren't otherwise possible before," Fonzo said.
All participants will undergo brain scans called functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which can measure how the brain responds in real-time.
"We're going to be investigating what are called behavioral tasks that people will complete inside the fMRI scanner, some of which are very unique to grief," Fonzo said.
While undergoing brain scans, participants may be shown pictures of their deceased spouses, for example, or look at grief-related words. Researchers will also analyze blood work to see how the participants' genetic makeup influences their response to psychedelic therapy. 'A connection to something greater'
Whether science can explain all that happens after taking psychedelics is yet to be seen.
"This spiritual medicine, what we call psychedelics, creates a venue to pass the filter of the mind, to open up that subconscious mind," said Andrea Lucie, a therapist who monitored and guided Lombardo-Grosso during her retreat at The Mission Within. “This is something that is sacred because it's touching the core of our human being."
Before she ingested the psychedelics, Lombardo-Grosso was instructed to set a clear goal of what she hoped to achieve.
“My intention was to let go of the traumas that were holding me back," she said.
“Imagine having the opportunity to just be reborn and see your entire reality with a fresh set of eyes." Jenna Lombardo-Grosso
Lombardo-Grosso took both of the compounds Dell Med will be studying. First she drank a cup of tea that contained psilocybin. In less than an hour of the first sip, she said, she began seeing herself in an objective way.
“I was just my child self, going back to the root of some of my deepest traumas," she said. "I felt all these feelings; I was so angry and then after all the anger, it was compassion for myself and for others and forgiveness.”
The next day she smoked 5-MeO-DMT.
“I felt my heart just open up and this pull and push of energy," she said. "Then I started purging. I could feel something being pulled out of me. Once that came out it was this white light and a profound moment where I felt a connection to something greater than myself.”
Lombardo-Grosso said her perspective of the world and herself changed profoundly in just 36 minutes.
“Imagine having the opportunity to just be reborn and see your entire reality with a fresh set of eyes," she said.
Polanco warns if psychedelics aren't used in a structured setting or without adequate support, a person can have a "psychotic break."
"You can have issues where the patient has trouble integrating the experience," he said. Repairing a bad reputation
Research on psychedelics for therapeutic use is not new. It started in the 1950s, but was shut down by the 1970s after scientific scrutiny and the drugs' recreational use.
“It made it very hard for any research to continue,” Fonzo said. “There was cultural bias associated with countercultural movements of that era and legality issues. I think it has taken a while to circumvent those barriers.”
Given the history, Fonzo and Nemeroff said researchers today are cautious but hopeful their investigations on psychedelics will lead to better treatments to combat the invisible war of mental illness.
Copyright 2022 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5.
A Canadian beverage company is looking to cash in on the popularity of psychedelics with a kava-based drink it is billing as the first of its kind.
Psychedelic Water says its namesake beverage is “the world’s first legal psychedelic blend of kava root, damiana leaf and green tea leaf extract for a mild mood-boosting experience.” The drink is not hallucinogenic, but the company says it produces a calming sensation that gives people positive vibes.
The drink is being backed by a pair of entrepreneurs, Pankaj Gogia and Keith Stein, a lawyer at Dentons in Toronto, who met through a mutual friend and began talking about the potential for a psychedelic-based drink.
Stein said his previous involvement in the cannabis industry and his entrepreneurial instincts — he helped found Simmons Records along with Gene Simmons, Belinda Stronach and Universal Music Canada and was also a founder of the Toronto Phantoms arena football team — motivated him to look into the psychedelic space. At first, he says he thought it was all about magic mushrooms and bad trips, but he was amazed at what he learned.
“I recognized that there was a real void, it was undeveloped, and it was untapped,” he said. “I also became aware of all of the benefits, like cannabis, that could be derived from this space in the shadows.”
He saw other companies were working on psychedelic products, but wasn’t sure if their business models, selling mushroom- or psilocybin-based products in international markets, would be profitable. So he brought a food science professor at New York University and a California company together to create a formula for a psychoactive but non-hallucinogenic drink. They tested the formula on hundreds of people, and they say they received positive feedback.
“We’re creating a new category here,” said Stein. “We have a real opportunity to be a pioneer from here in Canada.”
Gogia, who serves as chief executive, said all of the ingredients are sourced from American vendors.
That includes kava, an herb whose extract is popular in the South Pacific (it is Fiji’s national drink) for its soothing effect but that has also raised health concerns.
While the company says it is safe to consume, there can be side effects due to the active ingredients and it is not recommended for pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. All of Psychedelic Water’s products say 18+ on them.
Currently the product is only available to purchase online in the U.S., but they will be seeking approval from Health Canada for the beverage here at home and are looking to expand into Europe and Australia in the next little while as well.
Gogia said Psychedelic Water, which launched in February, has done $1 million in sales over the last few months. He is projecting $4 to $5 million in sales for the year, a number that could rise as more channels are brought on.
The company already has a following on TikTok, the social media site popular with millennials and Gen Zers, where its page has racked up about 24,000 followers. Gogia said the company has engaged with some influencers on the platform, but that much of its success has come from random viewers.
Gogia hopes the drink provides an alternative to alcohol-based beverages.
“This is something that people can try and have a healthier lifestyle without it affecting what they do or creating the harmful effects from alcohol,” Gogia said. “I think it’s something people should be open to trying and hopefully something that becomes part of their lifestyle.”
Financial Post
Wednesday, March 03, 2021
Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters: A True Secret History of LSD by David Black JUNE 3, 2020
Preface to Psychedelic Tricksters:
A True Secret History of LSD by David Black
BPC Publications. London 2020
Preface
Like atomic power and artificial intelligence, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was discovered in the closing years of World War Two. Since then, atomic bombs and computers have been the constant source of fears that combined they might bring about the destruction of humanity. LSD has aroused similar fears. Albert Hoffman, the Swiss chemist who discovered its effects in 1943, likened the LSD trip to an ‘inner bomb’. He warned that, if improperly used and distributed, LSD might bring about more destruction than an atomic detonation. But it has also been argued that, if properly used and distributed, LSD use might actually change people’s consciousness for the better and help to prevent nuclear war. Professor David Nutt, who sat on the British Labour government’s Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs until he was sacked in 2009, argues that the study of psychedelics is essential for understanding the nature of consciousness itself:
‘This is core neuroscience. This is about humanity at its deepest level. It is fundamental to understanding ourselves. And the only way to study consciousness is to change it. Psychedelics change consciousness in a way that is unique, powerful, and perpetual – of course we have to study them’.
As is well known, in the 1950s and early ‘60s the US Central Intelligence Agency used LSD, in secret and illegal experiments, on unwitting subjects. The CIA did so according to Cold War logic: if the Russians could work out how to use LSD in bio-chemical warfare — or in ‘brain-washing’, as a ‘truth drug’, or even as a ‘Manchurian Candidate’ — then the USA needed to work it out first.
In 1953, the CIA launched a top-secret ‘mind-control’ project, code-named MK-Ultra. The CIA’s assets in the US medical profession ‘officially’ labelled LSD as ‘psychosis-inducing drug’, only of use in psychiatric analysis and research. Many CIA officers, contractors and assets however, became enthusiastic trippers themselves, in full knowledge that LSD could produce atrocious as well as enchanting hallucinations. Knowing the secrets of LSD, they thought of themselves as a kind of anti-communist spiritual elite who, unlike the US citizenry at large, were ‘in the know’.
But by the end of the 1950s, with no sign of the Russians contaminating the water supply with LSD, there were plenty of signs in the United States that the psychedelic experience was escaping its captors. Some of the researchers in American hospitals – who had little awareness that their work was being secretly sponsored by the CIA — realised that LSD had ‘spiritual’ implications, i.e. for developing an ‘integrative’ enlightened consciousness, conducive to visionary creativity. These researchers stressed the importance of ‘set and setting’ in properly supervised LSD sessions. The English scholar, Aldous Huxley, who took his first LSD trip in 1955, related in his essay Heaven and Hell the hallucinogenic experience to the visionary works of William Blake:
‘Visionary experience is not the same as mystical experience. Mystical experience is beyond the realm of opposites. Visionary experience is still within that realm. Heaven entails hell, and “going to heaven” is no more liberation than is the descent into horror. Heaven is merely a vantage point, from which the divine Ground can be more clearly seen than on the level of ordinary individualized existence’.
Huxley, though an advocate for psychedelic drugs, wanted them strictly controlled. In contrast, Timothy Leary, who first took LSD in December 1961, became the ‘guru’ of psychedelia as LSD ‘escaped’ into the counter-culture of the 1960s. The ‘escape’ has been the subject of conspiracy theories which have been weaponised in today’s so-called Culture Wars. According to one widely-held view, the entire psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s was engineered by the CIA as part of a plot by some secret global elite bent on mass mind-control. For elements of the Right, the psychedelic counter-culture undermined ‘traditional values’ such as patriarchy, nationalism and subservience to authority. On the Left, some see the 1960s hedonism of ‘Sex, Drugs and Rock’n’Roll’ as having been a distraction from politics. The theory, as it has spread, has thrown in extra villains for good measure: satanists, MI6, the psychiatrists of the Tavistock Institute, the Grateful Dead, and Theodor Adorno of the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, etc, etc.
In truth, the extent of the CIA’s involvement in the psychedelic counter-culture of the 1960s has always been difficult to determine; not least because Sidney Gottlieb, head of MK-Ultra, illegally destroyed the project’s operational files in 1973. Nonetheless, some leading figures of the counter-culture, such as Timothy Leary, can hardly be discussed without reference to the CIA – not least because Leary himself had so much to say about it. In the present work, whilst I pay only scant attention to conspiracy theories, I make no apologies for investigating, where necessary, real conspiracies.
The underground networks of acid producers and distributors on both sides of the Atlantic were described after their downfall in the nineteen-seventies in such terms as ‘Hippie Mafia’ or ‘Microdot Gang’: so out of their heads that they didn’t know any better; or were ‘only in it for the money’; or were tools of organised crime and/or state agencies. In an earlier ebook I noted that nearly everyone involved – the psychedelic revolutionaries, the financiers, intelligence and anti-drugs agencies, CIA-sponsored scientists and researchers – operated to a greater or lesser extent outside of accepted standards of ‘legality’, or didn’t even recognise them; hence the title: Acid Outlaws: LSD, Counter-Culture and Counter-Revolution. But although the term ‘outlaw’ certainly fits many of people in this study, it doesn’t fit all of them by any means. Stephen Bentley, ex-undercover police officer and author of Undercover: Operation Julie – The Inside Story, takes exception to my use of the term ‘questionable legality’ regarding of some of the surveillance methods he and his colleagues used:
‘Questionable by who? Illegal – mostly not… Yes, I smoked a lot of hash… and did some cocaine. Technically, that was illegal. Tell me what I was supposed to do given I was undercover. I wasn’t Steve Bentley. I was ‘Steve Jackson’ – wild, carefree, giving all the impression I was a dealer. I’m now 72 years’ old. I don’t care for the historical revisionism applied to Operation Julie recently. It was a highly successful and unique police investigation carried out professionally under difficult circumstances’.
On my reference to the ‘ham-acting of drunken undercover officers’, Bentley retorts:
‘Maybe you should try living a lie for the best part of a year; doing things alien to you; becoming a different person. Those who know will scoff at the thought of it being an act. It’s not. You become someone else – believe me’.
The point is, I concede that although Stephen Bentley mixed with ‘acid outlaws’ and behaved like one when he was infiltrating them in north Wales in the 1970s, he certainly wasn’t one himself. Steve Abrams – who inspired me twenty years ago to write about this subject in the first place – wasn’t an outlaw either. He is described in an obituary in Psychedelic Press – quite accurately — as a ‘psychedelic trickster’. Many of the leading players who feature in this tale were certainly outlaws at various times but primarily they were tricksters. In Carl Gustav Jung’s definition of archetypes, the ‘Trickster’ surfaces in many stories in mythology, folklore and religion. More generally, anthropologists studying indigenous cultures in various parts of the world identify the trickster with cunning crazy-acting animals such as the fox or coyote, shape-shifting gods such as Loki in Norse mythology and rustic pranksters in human form. In the literature of Greek antiquity, Prometheus, the son of a Titan, tricks the gods with his buffoonery and steals fire from heaven for the benefit of human kind, for which he is severely punished by Zeus. As the historian of religion, Klaus-Peter Koepping, puts it:
‘In European consciousness Prometheus becomes the symbol for man’s never-ceasing, unremitting, and relentless struggle against fate, against the gods, unrepentingly defying the laws of the Olympians, though (and this again shows the continuing absurdity) never being successful in this endeavor, which, however, is necessary for the origin of civilized life (the ultimate paradox of rule breaking as a rule)’.
Like fire, psychedelic drugs can be dangerous as well as beneficial. In various ways the tricksters who feature in this book tended to believe that their antics were beneficial to humanity as well as themselves; and in most cases had to suffer the consequences of their actions. CIA MK-Ultra chief, Sidney Gottlieb, believed that that his immoral and dishonest actions were outweighed by his patriotism and dedication to science, but his reputation has been posthumously trashed (a biography by Stephen Kinzer calls him as ‘the CIA’s Poisoner-in-Chief’). On the ‘other’ side, the reputation of Timothy Leary, who likewise believed he was acting as a patriot and saviour of civilisation, has shape-shifted from brilliant scientist to mystical guru, wanted criminal, wild-eyed revolutionary, renegade informer and finally self-aggrandising ‘showboater’.
I sent a copy of the previous book to Tim Scully, a most significant actor in the events unfolded in this story. Scully is a meticulous researcher (he is compiling a history of LSD production in the US) and, as it turns out, a very reliable witness. Scully, born 1944, was in 1966 taken on as apprentice to the famous LSD chemist Owsley Stanley (AKA Bear Stanley). After Owsley withdrew from LSD production following a bust of his tableting facility in December 1967, Scully was determined to continue. After making LSD in successive laboratories in Denver, Scully began to work with fellow psychedelic chemist, Nick Sand (another trickster). Their collaboration led to the establishment in November 1968 of a lab in Windsor, California, which ultimately produced well over a kilo (more than four million 300 μg doses) of very pure LSD that became known as Orange Sunshine. Scully, in writing to me, pointed to a number of errors in my writings regarding events in the USA. Generously, he provided me with a lot of very useful information: firstly, on how underground LSD production was organised in the United States in the 1960s; secondly, on the relations between the American LSD producers in the United States, their collaborators in Great Britain, and the ‘Brotherhood of Eternal Love’; and thirdly on the alleged CIA asset, Ronald Stark, who Scully knew and did business with. With further research and fact-checking I realised that none of the previous books on the subject (including mine) have accurately covered these three issues. I hope – whilst making no claim to have written anything like a comprehensive or definitive history of the LSD underground – that this one does.
Contents
1 – MK-Ultra: The CIA’s ‘Mind Control’ Project
Sorcery
Midnight Climax
Heartbreak Hotel: the Death of Frank Olson
Human Ecology: an MK-Ultra Front
Personality Assessment
2 – How the CIA Failed the Acid Test
Magic Mushrooms
Harvard Trips
Timothy Leary and Mary Pinchot
‘Captain Trips’: Alfred Hubbard
Coasts of Utopias
3 – London Underground
Centre of the World
Psychedelic Situationists
The 1967 ‘Summer of Love’
4 – David Solomon and the Art of Psychedelic Subversion
Psychedelic Jazz
Acid Revolution
5 – Steve Abrams: E.S.P., C.I.A., T.H.C.
Parapsychology
Potboilers
SOMA, Solomon and Stark
6 – The New Prohibition versus the Acid Underground
Psychedelic Alchemy
Owsley and the Grateful Dead
Heat
The Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Money Matters
Orange Sunshine
7 – The Atlantic Acid Alliance
Richard Kemp – Liverpool’s LSD Chemist
Tripping with RD Laing
8 – The British Microdot Gang and the Veritable Split
9 – The Downfall of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love
Ronald Stark and the Brotherhood
Takeover
Operation BEL
The Scully-Sand Conspiracy Trial
10 – Timothy Leary’s Reality Tunnels: One Escape After Another
Political Intoxication
Weather Underground: Stalinism on Acid
Armed Love
Hotel Abyss
Leary ‘Co-operates’
11 – Operation Julie: the Hunters and the Hunted
S.T.U.F.F.
The Chase
Showtrial
12 – The Many Faces of Ronald Hadley Stark
Busted in Bologna
Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’
The Red Brigades
Lebanon
Prison Wager
13 – Tricksters
14 – Acid 2.0: Redux or Recuperation?
The Barbarism of Pure Culture Psychedelic Culture, Situationist Poetics and Films, Radical Politics, Working-Class History
Psychedelic psilocybin-assisted therapy reduces depressive symptoms in adults with cancer and depression
Clinical trial results support further study of this psychedelic substance, administered with psychological support from trained therapists, in affected patients
Results from a phase II clinical trial indicate that psilocybin, a hallucinogenic chemical found in certain mushrooms of the genus Psiloybe, may benefit individuals with cancer and major depression. Trial participants treated with psilocybin not only experienced a lessening of depressive symptoms but also spoke highly of the therapy when interviewed at the end of the trial. The findings are published by Wiley in two articles appearing online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society.
By binding to a specific subtype of serotonin receptor in the brain, psilocybin can cause alterations to mood, cognition, and perception. Psilocybin is currently classified as a Schedule I drug—defined as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse—and is not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for clinical use. However, multiple randomized controlled trials have demonstrated the safety and potential efficacy of psilocybin-assisted therapy—which combines psilocybin with psychological support from trained therapists—to treat major depressive disorder. Additionally, ongoing research is looking into the use of psilocybin-assisted therapy for various other mental health conditions, such as anxiety, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In this latest phase II open-label trial involving adults with cancer and major depression, 30 participants at Sunstone Therapies in Rockville, Maryland received a single 25 mg dose of synthesized psilocybin plus a 1:1 session with a therapist and group therapy support.
“This study was differentiated by its group approach. Cohorts of 3-4 patients were simultaneously treated with 25 mg of psilocybin in adjacent rooms open at the same time, in a 1:1 therapist:patient ratio. The cohorts had preparation for the therapy as well as integration sessions following the psilocybin session as a group,” explained lead author Manish Agrawal, MD, of Sunstone Therapies.
Participants enrolled had moderate to severe depression scores at baseline. After eight weeks of treatment, Dr. Agrawal and his colleagues observed that patients’ depression severity scores dropped by an average of 19.1 points, a magnitude that would indicate the majority no longer experienced depression. Furthermore, 80% of participants experienced a sustained response to treatment, and 50% showed full remission of depressive symptoms after one week, which was sustained for eight weeks. Treatment-related side effects such as nausea and headache were generally mild.
“As an oncologist for many years, I experienced the frustration of not being able to provide cancer care that treats the whole person, not just the tumor,” said Dr. Agrawal. “This was a small, open-label study and more research needs to be done, but the potential is significant and could have implications for helping millions of patients with cancer who are also struggling with the severe psychological impact of the disease.”
Dr. Agrawal is also the senior author of a second study led by Yvan Beaussant, MD, MSc, of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute that gathered input from patients in the trial during exit interviews. Participants described generally positive experiences. In terms of safety, they noted that being a part of the group calmed their fears and increased their sense of preparedness to engage in therapy. Regarding therapeutic efficacy, they felt that being connected to the group deepened and enriched their experience, ultimately contributing to their experience of self-transcendence and compassion for one another. Also, the use of both individual and group sessions was found to support the therapy in different ways. For example, the implementation of individual and group sessions allowed the therapy to remain an intimate introspective process while adding a sense of “togetherness” to it.
“As a hematologist and palliative care physician and researcher, it was profoundly moving and encouraging to witness the magnitude of participants’ improvement and the depth of their healing journey following their participation in the trial. Participants overwhelmingly expressed positive sentiments about their experience of psilocybin-assisted therapy while emphasizing the importance of the supportive, structured setting in which it took place,” said Dr. Beaussant. “Many described an ongoing transformative impact on their lives and well-being more than two months after having received psilocybin, feeling better equipped to cope with cancer and, for some, end of life.”
Before this intervention is implemented into clinical practice, additional studies should include larger numbers of patients, along with a control arm to compare its effects with other treatments or placebo.
Additional information NOTE: The information contained in this release is protected by copyright. Please include journal attribution in all coverage. A free abstract of this article will be available via the CANCER Newsroom upon online publication. For more information or to obtain a PDF of any study, please contact: Sara Henning-Stout, newsroom@wiley.com
Full Citations: “Psilocybin-assisted Group Therapy in Patients with Cancer Diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder.” Manish Agrawal, William Richards, Yvan Beaussant, Sarah Shnayder, Rezvan Ameli, Kimberly Roddy, Norma Stevens, Brian Richards, Nick Schor, Heather Honstein, Betsy Jenkins, Mark Bates, and Paul Thambi. CANCER; Published Online: December 18, 2023 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.35010).
“Acceptability of Psilocybin-assisted Group Therapy in Patients with Cancer and Major Depressive Disorder: Qualitative Analysis.” Yvan Beaussant, Elise Tarbi, Kabir Nigam, Skye Miner, Zachary Sager, Justin J Sanders, Michael Ljuslin, Benjamin Guérin, Paul Thambi, James A. Tulsky, and Manish Agrawal. CANCER; Published Online: December 18, 2023 (DOI: 10.1002/cncr.35024).
Contact for Dr. Beaussant: Nicole Oliverio, Senior Media Relations Specialist, Department of External Communications, at nicole_oliverio@dfci.harvard.edu, or +1 617-257-0454
About the Journal CANCER is a peer-reviewed publication of the American Cancer Society integrating scientific information from worldwide sources for all oncologic specialties. The objective of CANCER is to provide an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of information among oncologic disciplines concerned with the etiology, course, and treatment of human cancer. CANCER is published on behalf of the American Cancer Society by Wiley and can be accessed online. Follow CANCER on Twitter @JournalCancer and Instagram @ACSJournalCancer, and stay up to date with the American Cancer Society Journals on LinkedIn.
About Wiley Wiley is a knowledge company and a global leader in research, publishing, and knowledge solutions. Dedicated to the creation and application of knowledge, Wiley serves the world’s researchers, learners, innovators, and leaders, helping them achieve their goals and solve the world's most important challenges. For more than two centuries, Wiley has been delivering on its timeless mission to unlock human potential. Visit us at Wiley.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
Psilocybin-assisted Group Therapy in Patients with Cancer Diagnosed with a Major Depressive Disorder
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
18-Dec-2023
Trip or treat?
Scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin make strides in designing non-hallucinogenic psychedelic treatments that may accelerate research on mental health benefits; research findings published in Nature Communications.
SCIENTISTS AT THE MEDICAL COLLEGE OF WISCONSIN MAKE STRIDES IN DESIGNING NON-HALLUCINOGENIC PSYCHEDELIC TREATMENTS THAT MAY ACCELERATE RESEARCH ON MENTAL HEALTH BENEFITS; RESEARCH FINDINGS PUBLISHED IN NATURE COMMUNICATIONS.
Scientists at the Medical College of Wisconsin make strides in designing non-hallucinogenic psychedelic treatments that may accelerate research on mental health benefits; research findings published in Nature Communications.
Milwaukee, Wis. – Dec. 15, 2023 – There is nothing magic about the recent increase in interest around the study of psychedelic drugs as potential treatments for patients suffering from a myriad of mental health conditions.
“The excitement follows the science,” says John McCorvy, PhD, assistant professor of cell biology, neurobiology and anatomy at the Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW). “The number of landmark studies continues to grow, and the potential has caught the attention of academia and the pharmaceutical industry.”
The legal status of psychedelic compounds slowed research progress to a crawl for decades before some studies began to garner regulatory approval in the early 2000s. Even in approved clinical trials, the hallucinogenic properties of these drugs lead to additional hurdles. Research participants need to take the substances under strict supervision in a clinical setting. Trained therapists monitor participants for a long time as the length of a hallucinogenic experience ranges from about four to 12 hours depending on the drug and the individual. The treatment can cause confusion and anxiety for some patients who do not respond well to hallucinations, underscoring the need for vigilant healthcare personnel. For those who have tolerated the drugs and associated hallucinations, however, promising studies have indicated that participants have experienced a substantial and sustained improvement in symptoms after taking a single dose.
“We’ve seen double-blind, placebo-controlled trials with psilocybin where patients with major depressive disorder reported improved symptoms for months,” Dr. McCorvy says. “It is unheard of to get those kinds of results, especially without the patient having to take a pill every day.” Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound made by hundreds of types of fungi, often referred to as “magic” mushrooms.
As promising as these and other results may be, however, the legal and practical hurdles for scientists and would-be research participants continue to loom large. But what if you could remove the hallucinogenic properties of possible psychedelic treatments without reducing their therapeutic potential?
MCW scientists published results in Nature Communications in December 2023 from experiments investigating what causes a psychedelic compound to elicit hallucinogenic experiences and how this characteristic can be manipulated by drug designers to create new psychedelic treatments for depression.
“There was no clear answer as to why a drug is hallucinogenic just based on chemical structure,” Dr. McCorvy says.
To better understand the source of hallucinogenic potential in these compounds, the scientists began by investigating a serotonin receptor called 5-HT2A that is found on the surface of cells throughout the central nervous system. It appeared likely to be involved in hallucinogenic potential based on other research findings. The team knew that psilocybin and other well-known psychedelics would increase activity in this receptor, but it was unknown whether the compounds would favor one of two potential cellular signaling pathways. The scientists found that psychedelics did not completely favor either the Gq signaling pathway (the G protein responsible for typical cellular signaling) or the β-arrestin pathway (a protein that competes with Gq for the binding site to decrease signaling activity into the cell).
“We know that G protein signaling pathways are like the gas pedal for signaling and the β-arrestin pathway is like the brakes,” Dr. McCorvy says. “Our question was, which of these signaling pathways is responsible for the hallucinogenic effects?”
To find out, scientists at St. Joseph’s University, led by assistant professor Jason Wallach, PhD, synthesized hundreds of compounds and Dr. McCorvy’s lab profiled their ability to selectively activate one of the two pathways through the serotonin 5-HT2A receptor. Compounds that feature this type of pathway-selective activation are known as biased agonists. Ultimately, the team found the most effective option for discovering biased agonists is by adding additional molecular bulk to one of the compounds they had synthesized. This atomic manipulation reduced the Gq signaling while preserving the β-arrestin activity. Then, Adam Halberstadt, PhD, and his lab at the University of California San Diego began testing the compounds in mice using an automated head twitch measurement that predicts psychedelic potential in humans. They found that these modified psychedelic biased agonist compounds with reduced Gq signaling did not induce a number of head twitches that correlates to hallucinogenic experiences, suggesting Gq signaling from the 5-HT2A receptor is necessary for psychedelic effects.
“We took a psychedelic and made it non-psychedelic, and we did it in a structure-based fashion,” Dr. McCorvy says. “Hopefully in the future this will help increase study of these compounds if the hallucinogenic hurdles can be removed.”
Dr. McCorvy would like to see industry build on this research by developing and testing new potential psychedelic treatments without the hallucinogenic trip.
“My vision is to get some of these compounds properly vetted in trials and out to clinics in my lifetime,” Dr. McCorvy says. “I know too many people who have suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental health conditions without enough relief from current therapies. They need new treatment options as soon as it is prudent and possible.”
Reference: Jason Wallach, Andrew B. Cao, Maggie M. Calkins, Andrew J. Heim, Janelle K. Lanham, Emma M. Bonniwell, Joseph J. Hennessey, Hailey A. Bock, Emilie I. Anderson, Alexander M. Sherwood, Hamilton Morris, Robbin de Klein, Adam K. Klein, Bruna Cuccurazzu, James Gamrat, Tilka Fannana, Randy Zauhar, Adam L. Halberstadt, John D. McCorvy. Identification of 5-HT2A Receptor Signaling Pathways Associated with Psychedelic Potential. Nature Communications, 15 December 2023.
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About the Medical College of Wisconsin
With a history dating back to 1893, The Medical College of Wisconsin is dedicated to leadership and excellence in education, patient care, research, and community engagement. More than 1,400 students are enrolled in MCW’s medical school and graduate school programs in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Central Wisconsin. MCW’s School of Pharmacy opened in 2017. A major national research center, MCW is the largest research institution in the Milwaukee metro area and second largest in Wisconsin. In the last 10 years, faculty received more than $1.5 billion in external support for research, teaching, training, and related purposes. This total includes highly competitive research and training awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Annually, MCW faculty direct or collaborate on more than 3,100 research studies, including clinical trials. Additionally, more than 1,600 physicians provide care in virtually every specialty of medicine for more than 2.8 million patients annually.
Identification of 5-HT2A Receptor Signaling Pathways Associated with Psychedelic Potential
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
15-Dec-2023
COI STATEMENT
JW, ALH, and JDM submitted a patent application for the novel compounds in this study entitled “Selective, partial, and arrestin-biased 5-HT2A agonists with utility in various disorders,” PCT WO2022241006A1. AKK is currently an employee of Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals. All other authors declare no competing interests.
The untalented visionary may perceive an inner reality no less tremendous, beautiful and significant than the world beheld by Blake; but he lacks altogether the ...
