🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that just did some napkin math. If 10 million Americans microdose, at least three of ‘em forwarded you this email. Now it’s your turn to pass it on. 🫡

Here’s what we got this week.

“Move fast and break things” doesn't work in psychedelics.

With all due respect to our tech bro readers, what’s at stake here (trust, safety, integrity) isn’t as easily fixed as broken code.

So on Feb 28, Synthesis is hosting a free half-day event with the likes of Rick Doblin and Rosalind Watts to talk about how we move this field forward without compromising what makes it transformative. Or, dare we say, sacred.

There’s also a guided session planned to help you figure out how you can get involved, whether you’re already in practice or considering training.

Quality over quantity: Microdosing appears to improve the originality of creative thinking, but it doesn’t increase the speed or number of ideas generated.
Double-edged sword: Psilocybin can benefit some people with bipolar disorder, but there’s also the risk of increased mania, psychosis, and depression.
Beyond set and setting: Medicine, dosage, and motivation (unsurprisingly) predict the intensity of an altered state of consciousness. So do the user’s age and gender.
Pure awareness: Now we know what happens to the brain under the world’s strongest psychedelic.
Splitting hairs: What’s the difference between psychological support and psychotherapy in the context of psychedelic medicine?

Divide and conquer heal: New Mexico has named the seven committees (and all but one chairperson) responsible for rolling out its medical psilocybin program.
More homework: Maryland lawmakers filed bills to extend the state’s psychedelic task force so it can update its legalization proposal. (See previous coverage.)
Boots on the ground: At its second meeting, Ohio’s House Ibogaine Study Committee heard testimony from veterans. Meanwhile in Ohio, a state-sponsored psychedelic crisis training for first responders has officially kicked off.
Poetic justice: Mississippi lawmakers are planning to use their opioid settlement funds to study ibogaine, alongside states like Texas and Arizona.
Missed the memo: Attorney General Pam Bondi was supposed to set new rules easing restrictions on psychedelic research by Jan 16. She missed the deadline.

Sink or swim: 2026 is a high-stakes year for psychedelic pharma. At least four companies have major clinical milestones coming up.
Rerouting minds: Definium Therapeutics (formerly MindMed) launched a public awareness campaign about the history and future potential of LSD.
Gut check: Psylutions, Colorado’s first licensed psilocybin manufacturer, added a microbiome expert to its board. The company is also hiring.
Exit strategy: Healing Hearts Changing Minds awarded $566,260 in grants to seven organizations focused on psychedelic end-of-life care.

Who needs GPUs? Scientists can make living computers out of mushrooms now.
Big ball energy: The Las Vegas Sphere may be getting a sibling on the East Coast.
All that jazz: A neuroscientist and jazz drummer explains how psychedelics affect listening and memory.
Before the hype: This doctor was the first to work with LSD in North America.
Meme of the week: When you set a specific, thoughtful, and positive intention for your mushroom journey…

Once upon a time, psychedelics were considered fringe. The domain of hippies, ravers, and biohackers chasing that elusive flow state.

Well, fairy tale's over.

The RAND Corporation just confirmed it. According to their new study, nearly 10 million Americans microdosed psychedelics in 2025.

(When the gov’t contractors that helped create the internet start tracking your mushroom habit, you know we've gone mainstream.)

RAND surveyed 10,122 adults, then used population weights to project nationally representative estimates. Here's what they found.

Now for the popularity contest. Psilocybin dominated with 11 million users, followed by MDMA or MDA (4.7 million), Amanita muscaria (3.5 million), ketamine (3.3 million), and LSD (3 million). See the full list here.

Yeah, Amanita’s top-3 ranking surprised us, too. But the fact that it’s legal (and often mislabeled on sketchy products) may have inflated the number. More on that in a minute.

These data land at an interesting time. Since 2019, over two dozen cities and counties have decriminalized psychedelics, and four states have introduced a legal path to access. RAND already warned federal policymakers to “decide what they want these supply models to look like” before a patchwork of local laws creates an industry too difficult to regulate.

Hmm, seems like plenty of Americans know what their supply model looks like. 🫠

Laughing gas may be, too, according to new research. Scientists at the American University of Beirut just found that nitrous oxide shows the potential to treat PTSD by growing new brain cells.

For their study, they put rats through severe stress via immobilization, forced swimming, and anesthesia. (Rough day.) This traumatic protocol suppressed neurogenesis in the hippocampus, a brain region essential for memory and emotional regulation. They then treated half the stressed rats with nitrous oxide over several days. The treated rats showed significantly reduced anxiety and robust growth of new neurons. The untreated rats, however, stayed impaired. (Poor guys.)

PTSD is still a major unsolved problem. Many people simply don’t respond to SSRIs and talk therapy. And while MDMA has shown the most promise among psychedelics, it’s still unapproved. Nitrous oxide, on the other hand, has a known safety profile from decades of medical use. (The FDA has warned consumers not to inhale recreational nitrous products, though.) Now let’s see if these results translate to humans. If so, “just breathe” could go from platitude to prescription.

Sigh, reading the ingredients label just won’t cut it these days. Denver health inspectors just raided six local smoke shops and seized PolkaDot-branded chocolate bars and gummies that supposedly contained psilocybin. And surprise, surprise, lab tests found way more than mushrooms.

To be fair, some of the confiscated products did test positive for psilocybin, which is decriminalized (but still illegal to sell) in Colorado. But they also included a cocktail of synthetic tryptamines including 4-HO-MET, 4-HO-DET, and 4-AcO-DET. None of these compounds were disclosed on the labels. Even weirder, the samples pulled from different stores were inconsistent. One had pure psilocybin, another had synthetics only, and a third contained a mix of both.

Admittedly, “legalization” is more nuanced than it sounds. See, Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act did create legal paths for both facilitated and personal psilocybin use, but it explicitly banned retail sales and excluded synthetics. These unregulated products hit shelves anyway. Now inspectors are forcing stores to pour bleach on their inventory (literally), pay hefty fines, and turn in their licenses if they’re busted again. God help us if they rebrand the bleached edibles as a microdose “cleanse.”

That’s all for today, Cyclists! Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.