☁️🍄 Issue No. 027: The Dark Side of the Shroom

Another Sunday, another Headlines. 🤟 Welcome back to your resource on the latest in the business of psychological well-being. 

In this week’s issue, we’re covering a topic I’ve witnessed firsthand and am quite passionate about raising awareness for. Let’s dive in.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE SHROOM

Powerful healers, psychedelics can also give rise to incredibly challenging experiences. 

And it’s not just a few-hour trip gone awry — today we’ll be covering the long-lasting, even permanent, harms that can come with these potent substances. 

ALTERED STATE

This July, a piece titled “Hot Take: Psilocybin was the Biggest Mistake of My Life” made its rounds in the psychedelic community. 

A harrowing tale, the article details a severe episode of psychosis (mania) triggered by psilocybin, penned by the individual himself: 

There are clear caveats: The author was on SSRIs, whose interactions with psychedelics are still being studied. What’s more, the author’s psychiatrist, convinced he’d been cured by the experience, weaned him off his SSRIs after the experience — which he’d been taking for over a decade. 

Still, the story is a sobering reminder of the dark side of psychedelics. For an unacknowledged minority of individuals, the impact can be enduring, incredibly challenging, and vastly underreported. And it’s not just psilocybin: 

• In a survey of 608 people experiencing long-lasting negative effects after taking psychedelics, a third reported difficulties lasting longer than a year, with a sixth suffering longer than three years. 

• A difficult MDMA therapy session led one patient to require 10 months and $100K in mental health costs simply to return to baseline.

• A promising antidepressant but not without risks, a recent study in trials of esketamine found that 40% of adverse events went unreported.

Power trip. And with the psychedelic market projected to reach $11B by 2029, many are concerned about the influx of capitalist interests and suddenly enlightened “gurus” wielding powerful substances and targeting vulnerable populations. Already, there are several disturbing cases of sexual abuse and financial abuse.  

SHADOW WORK

As the hype around psychedelics grows, the number of people trying them for the first time will naturally rise — as will the number experiencing adverse effects. 

Across the space, many practitioners are already reporting increased visits from struggling patients. Unfortunately, the number of orgs dedicated to these experiences are few and far between.

One org trying to change that is The Challenging Psychedelic Experience Project, a nonprofit academic research center launched by philosopher and researcher Jules Evans. 

Along with its weekly newsletter, the team provides resources and research for adverse experiences and spiritual emergencies and has published two papers covering extended difficulties after psychedelic experiences. The group is currently seeking funding for 2024. 

As psychedelic popularity grows, Evans told me about the road ahead for his team and others working to understand challenging psychedelic experiences:

Apart from Evans’ work, there’s a small but growing group of organizations supporting those seeking relief from challenging experiences: 

• The Perception Restoration Foundation is a nonprofit committed to research and harm reduction around Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD), a condition marked by hallucinations that can last long after a trip has ended.

• UCL’s Depersonalisation Clinic helps provide relief and expert treatment for Depersonalization Derealization Disorder (DDD), a hellish and dissociative experience linked to everything from cannabis to LSD to even meditation.

Meanwhile, the Zendo Project provides psychedelic peer support, education, and harm reduction at festivals and concerts, as well as resources like its Manual of Psychedelic Support. A peer support hotline, the Fireside Project is a team of rigorously trained, compassionate volunteers available by text or call at 62-FIRESIDE.

LOOKING AHEAD

Psychedelics have come a long way in bucking stigma, with research illuminating promising mental health benefits. Understandably, many are wary of slowing momentum with frightening stories of trips gone south.

But discussing risks doesn’t negate psychedelics' healing potential; rather, by acknowledging the full spectrum of their psychological impact, we gain a more nuanced understanding and ability to use these tools with greater care and responsibility. 

Punchline: Psychedelics can catalyze profound healing; they can also deeply wound. Sweeping this reality under the rug is a disservice to patients, facilitators, and the psychedelic community as a whole. 

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QUICK HITS

• Get real. VR therapy reduces stress and anxiety in patients by 34%. 

• Field test. The US military is trying out a wearable ketamine delivery device. 

• Brain drain. Days missed due to unplanned mental health absences cost the US economy an annual $47.6B in lost productivity. 

• MediGPT. Meet meditatewith.ai, contemplative tech designed to introduce people to multiplayer meditation. 

• Spiritual MBA. From vipassana retreats to vision quests, Curious Humans founder provides curation of spiritual adventures, modalities, trainings, and more. 

• Curb your enthusiasm. Psychedelic hype has gotten ahead of the science, pen the directors of the NIDA and NIMH.

• The new ecstatic economy. An overview of the venture-backed ecosystem of startups expanding consciousness.

NEWS & TRENDS

1) Child’s play

The kids don’t play like they used to. Over the past 50 years, kids’ freedom to roam and explore on their own has taken a nosedive. At the same time, there has been a dramatic increase in anxiety, depression, and suicide rates among children and adolescents. 

What gives? Well, play is more than just fun and games. From building independence to resilience, play shapes young minds in big ways, building the early mental muscles for controlling emotions, coping with stress, and believing in oneself down the road.

Now, researchers are arguing the downfall of child’s play is why so many youth today are struggling mentally. Kids need unstructured space to take healthy risks and grow on their own terms — in other words: forts in the woods and kickball under the streetlights. → Read more

2) Pare for the course 

Last week, the White House revealed new proposed rules to strengthen mental health parity in insurance coverage. In short, the rules aim to make sure that employer-sponsored health plans cover mental health care the same way they do physical care. This is a big deal — less hoops to jump through and reduced limitations on therapy visits or treatment options.

Under the new rules, health plans will need to analyze their networks and payment rates and prove that mental health care access is on par with primary care. If not, they'll have to expand their provider networks.

The bottom line? It’s major progress towards eliminating stigma and barriers around mental health treatment. And while physical healthcare in the US isn’t a gold standard by any means, it’s a promising start. → Read more

DEALS & DEBUTS

📈 Cybin Inc., a biotechnology company focused on progressing psychedelic therapeutics, suspended its prior purchase deal and closed an overnight marketed public offering of common shares for gross proceeds of up to C$9M ($8.25M). → source

💼 Likeminded, a Berlin-based mental health startup helping prevent employee burnout, secured €5.9M ($6.5M) in a seed round led by Heartcore Capital and Holtzbrinck Digital. → source

🧠 MPM BioImpact, a biotech investment firm, finalized its takeover of Reunion Neuroscience Inc., a psychedelic biopharma company, for $13.1M.→ source

🎓 The UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics launched a comprehensive, free online course about psychedelics and the mind. → source

🌹 Rose Hill, a Jamaica-based psilocybin cultivator, supplier, and exporter, launched ONE Psychedelic Retreats and PATOO psilocybin gummies.→ source 

🏛️ The University of Strathclyde, the NHS, and New York University (NYU) teamed up to create the Mental Health Futures Collaborative (MHFC), a collaborative to galvanize mental health research and practice. → source

🌍 Awakn Life Sciences completed the sale of its Norway clinics, officially completing its exit from healthcare services to focus on R&D. → source

🌐 Charlie Health, a virtual mental health platform for teens, is now serving half of US states with its expansion into Maryland and Wisconsin. → source

🙂 Let’s Get Happi, a mental health app from Veda Rehabilitation & Wellness and Bollywood actor and investor Suniel Shetty, launches. → source

🍄 Silo Wellness, a psychedelic wellness retreat provider, joined forces with Kaya Group, a Jamaica-based medicinal herb house.→ source

🌿 Panacea Life Sciences Holdings, a CBD wellness company, signed an LOI to acquire Halucenex, a company researching novel psychedelic compounds, from Melodiol Global Health. → source

WHAT I’M READING

• Tell me why it hurts. Bessel van der Kolk, author of the pop psych phenom The Body Keeps the Score, has “done for trauma what Carl Sagan did for the galaxy.” But the story of how trauma became America’s favorite diagnosis is not as straightforward as it seems. →  Intelligencer

Anddd that’s a wrap. Can’t believe it’s August already. Hope you’re enjoying the summer — I’m returning from a weekend in Yosemite with my girlfriends. We saw a bear! And a gorgeous sunset.

Sending lots of love + see ya next week,-Mel