☁️🍄 Issue No. 024: Business Trip

Happy Sunday, lovely people. Welcome back to another week of Headlines, your resource on the latest in the world of mental health. 

This week: Tripping at work is trending, and it could change the psychedelic renaissance as we know it. Let’s dive in.

BUSINESS TRIP

Forget nap pods and office gyms. Psychedelics are taking center stage in work performance and well-being.

PSILICON VALLEY

From executives to entrepreneurs, employees are tripping to expand their minds. 

• MUD\WTR, makers of a coffee alternative, encourages its employees to microdose at work; founder and CEO Shane Heath openly discusses how his own experiences with hallucinogens have shaped the company.

• From Elon Musk to Sergey Brin, SpaceX to Facebook, psychedelics have infiltrated the tech scene to become the performance enhancer du jour. 

• Soap company Dr. Bronner’s, which has donated over $23M towards psychedelic efforts, partnered with Enthea last year to give employees access to ketamine-assisted therapy.

And a growing number of companies are experimenting with workplace ketamine retreats to improve job performance and work-life balance. 

It’s no surprise that the tech startup world, notorious for its obsession with the high-performance lifestyle, is keen to get behind consciousness-expanding substances. 

But zoom out a little wider and an interesting question emerges: Could workforce well-being usher in psychedelics to the mainstream?

ENTHEOGENS FOR ENTERPRISES

The past few years have seen significant progress in reducing stigma and improving research around psychedelics. Still, it’ll likely be many years before health insurers cover treatments for mental health interventions. 

This hurdle has kneecapped companies attempting to bring forth all sorts of novel treatments. DTx pioneer Pear Therapeutics struggled to get payors onboard before filing for bankruptcy, and cash-only ketamine clinics have been falling left and right. 

On the other hand, employers looking to boost productivity, retain talent, and improve their bottom lines may have a compelling case to extend coverage for psychedelics even sooner.

• Employee happiness is increasingly becoming the new performance indicator. 

• Lost productivity from mental health disorders cost companies a staggering $1T annually. 

• Worker burnout is at record highs across the globe, with more than 42% of employees experiencing burnout at work. 

The benefit of B2B. One example, meditation giants like Headspace and Calm have been steadily pivoting their businesses towards enterprise. Skirting the risks and red tape of the highly regulated medical market, the psychedelic renaissance may see the merits of riding the B2B wave as well.

In fact, partnering with companies could foster greater cultural awareness, legitimacy, and broader acceptance for psychedelics to a wider population in a whole new context.

ALL WORK, NO PLAY

Beyond the matter of distribution and practicality, there’s also the question of philosophy. 

For the past few years, the psychedelic conversation has been dominated by medicalization — MDMA for PTSD, ketamine for depression, psilocybin for anxiety, etc. 

And some folks ardently believe that psychedelics should only be used in the context of severe mental health disorders. “I’m okay with it if it’s going to solve a problem,” says former US congresswoman Mimi Walters,”I’m not okay with using psychedelics because you want to go trip and have a good time.” 

But as workplace trippers are already experiencing firsthand, psychedelics have so much to offer beyond psychiatry, opined Oshan Jarow: 

LOOKING AHEAD

Today, most mainstream psychedelic conversations have honed in on mental health. A powerful angle, this has been crucial for destigmatization, transforming decades-old narratives that psychedelics will “melt your brain.” 

But as more and more psychedelic companies face the realities of insurer speedbumps, a rigid healthcare system, and cash crunches, the clinical psychedelic movement is, in some ways, still loading.

Of course, going B2B won’t be without its own challenges. Even as psychedelics sweep the tech scene, employers will likely demand metrics and proof points before investing in emerging approaches. 

Punchline: Proving out their potential, employer-sponsored plays for productivity and performance could become the ultimate trojan horse for ushering psychedelics into the mainstream. 

And ultimately, well-being isn’t binary. With the perspective, wonder, and creativity that psychedelics engender, don’t be surprised if, coming full circle, mental health follows close behind. 

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QUICK HITS

• Tune up. Live Nation launches mindfulness app for artists. 

• House of Shrooms. President Biden is allegedly “very open-minded” about psychedelics; 2024 candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promises legalization. 

• Sobering stats. Suicides among children in China aged five to 14 have spiked a staggering 10% in the last decade.

• All in favor. Over 60% of US voters support creating a regulated legal psychedelic therapeutic framework, akin to those in Colorado and Oregon. 

• God molecule. 5-MeO-DMT center Tandava is launching a series of specialized offerings for BIPOC and female survivors of sexual trauma.

• PRBLMS. 6LACK teams up with functional sound startup Endel to release alternate wellness versions of his new album. [Re-read Issue No. 011: Of Sound Mind]

NEWS & TRENDS

1) Psychedelics Down Under

This past weekend, Australia made history as the first-ever country to legalize psychedelics as medicine. Effective July 1, 2023, authorized psychiatrists can now prescribe MDMA and psilocybin to patients struggling with treatment-resistant depression or PTSD. 

The move, announced in February by Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), has sparked both excitement and apprehension in the global psychedelic sphere. In particular, many are wary of hasty implementation, citing insufficient evidence and undertrained providers. 

One thing’s for sure: whatever happens will have a significant impact on how the US considers its own federal psychedelic rollout. → Read more

2) Deconstructing depression

Contrary to popular belief, depression isn’t a monolithic disorder — it describes a set of broad and complex mental challenges characterized by common symptoms. What’s more, its causes (and solutions) are highly variable. In other words, an antidepressant that helps one patient might have no effect at all for another.

Thus, a big facet of improving depression treatments will require getting a better grasp of the different types. And this past month, Stanford researchers investigating this problem identified a new subtype of depression, coined the “cognitive biotype.”

Patients classified under this subtype have difficulty with cognitive tasks such as planning ahead, displaying self-control, and suppressing inappropriate behavior. It accounts for nearly a third (27%) of those suffering from the disorder — potentially explaining why so many people don’t respond to common antidepressants. → Read more

DEALS & DEBUTS

🧭 COMPASS Pathways, a psychedelic biotech company, secured a term loan facility for up to $50M from Hercules Capital. → source

🌱 NewYork-Presbyterian, a nonprofit academic medical center affiliated with Cornell and Columbia universities, announced a $35M gift from the Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation to address the youth mental health crisis.→ source

🇨🇦 Canada announced a nearly $3M investment to study the potential benefits of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy.→ source 

🛀🏿 Soaak Technologies, a “whole-person” healthtech company, acquired RenuYou Clinics, known for its comprehensive offerings ranging from metabolic therapy to neurofeedback to EMDR.→ source

🫀 Valera Health, a virtual mental health platform, announced that it is now an in-network provider for Humana Medicare Advantage members across 10 states in the US; nationwide expansion is expected in September. → source

WHAT I’M READING

• Cracking consciousness. Despite decades of research, the science of consciousness remains an elusive and mystifying problem. → Vox

• Placebo or psychedelic? As psychedelics near approval, there’s still little to no consensus on how and why they work. → STAT

You’re all caught up! Hope you’re having a nice and restful weekend. 

I’ll see you next Sunday,

-Mel