🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that knows timing is everything. Which is why we sent this email at the precise moment your dopamine system was craving another notification. 🧠

Here’s what we got this week.

This experience is a 3-day group retreat at Fernlove, a 30-acre forested service center about an hour from Portland. It's built for people navigating transitions like divorce, loss, burnout, or career change, and the weekend includes private cabins, chef-prepared meals, yoga, sound healing, and a guided psilocybin journey.

Glow up: Classic psychedelics may promote lasting increases in openness and reductions in neuroticism.
Fungus roulette: Tryptamine concentrations in psilocybin mushrooms can vary by 7.8x between strains, and up to 23% within strains, even under strictly controlled cultivation conditions.
Cheat code: Brain stimulation can produce states of consciousness similar to psychedelics without the drugs.
We like ‘em: University of Michigan received $3.3 million from the NIH to study how Americans perceive and use psychedelics.
Plant B: A secret Amazonian plant may offer another natural source of ibogaine, separate from the African shrub iboga.

Yale yeah: Connecticut’s psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program is now open to the public.
Say synergy one more time: Oregon’s psilocybin and cannabis agencies are merging to cut costs, as regulators propose fee hikes for licensees. (See previous coverage.)
Decrim nature: Portland city councilors introduced legislation to ease enforcement of psychedelic offenses and shift resources toward harm reduction.
Don’t mess: Texas lawmakers reaffirmed their plans to fund ibogaine clinical trials and committed to reimbursing their research partners for any additional expenses.
Reporting for duty: A new bill would require the Department of Defense to evaluate how research on psilocybin therapy could help members of the military.

True north: Compass Pathways announced new data from its second Phase 3 trial. The company expects to complete its rolling NDA submission next quarter and launch COMP360 psilocybin in the first half of 2027.
Nothing to see here: A lawsuit against Definium Therapeutics, alleging the company stole trade secrets from its clinical trial partner, has been dismissed.
Wider release: AtaiBeckley dosed the last participant in its Phase 2b DMT trial and plans to expand beyond treatment-resistant depression in Phase 3.
Some assembly required: PharmAla Biotech can now begin GMP manufacturing of its “Gen 2” MDMA derivative.
Back to school: InnerTrek, one of the first psilocybin businesses in Oregon, closed its licensed service center location to focus on training and education.

Tell me why: Althea shares the reasons people seek out psilocybin therapy, based on real-world data.
Fair balance: The adverse effects of psychedelic therapy may be rare, but they can be serious.
Come to my window: Melissa Etheridge is organizing a summit on psychedelics for addiction with Gabor Maté.
The $100M question: The Austin Chronicle asks why republicans are suddenly for ibogaine.
Meme of the week: What I mean when I say I met God on psychedelics…

*Beeeeelllllllch*

Oh, excuse us. We’re still digesting the 25 hot dogs we ate over the long weekend. One for each decade since our nation’s birth, naturally.

While we bask in the indigestion afterglow of that altered state, we know someone out there is integrating an actual July 4th psychedelic journey. (Those fireworks must’ve been something else.)

If that’s you, get ready to step up your patriotism.

A new study, which tracked ~22,000 Americans for two months, found that the calendar date of someone's most intense psychedelic experience predicted how their views shifted around political and partisan violence.

Here’s what the researchers saw.

So what do we make of this? The researchers argue these patterns kill the romantic idea that psychedelics are inherently pacifying. A better explanation is they act as neutral amplifiers of whatever cultural mood is in the air.

That checks out. Another recent paper found that, contrary to popular opinion (and even prior research), psychedelics don’t seem to shift authoritarian attitudes in one reliable direction either.

In any case, we still wouldn’t recommend mixing psychedelics and pyrotechnics. That is, unless you are politically neutral about the number of fingers on your hand. 🫠

Last week, bipartisan U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill with maybe the most tortured acronym we've ever seen. They’re calling it the Initiating Biomedical Outcomes to Garner Advancements into Innovative Neuroplastogen Efficacy (IBOGAINE) Act. The purpose of this mouthful is to write Trump’s April executive order on psychedelic medicine into permanent law.

Much like the EO itself, this bill covers a lot of ground. It directs the Attorney General to decide within 60 days whether to move ibogaine from Schedule I to Schedule II, sets up automatic rescheduling review for any Schedule I substance that clears Phase 3 trials, and clarifies that Right to Try laws do apply to psychedelics (meaning qualifying patients could access them before FDA approval). The bill also defines ibogaine loosely, so that the iboga plant and any lab-made analog are also covered.

This legislation is the obvious next step, given that executive orders only last until a future POTUS feels like undoing them. Now, if Congress needs a name for a follow-up bill, we'll workshop it for free. How’s this? The This Rescheduling Idea Could Yield a Collective Long Exhale Act. Policy wonks could never.

We Cyclists tend to hold a pretty optimistic worldview. But sometimes you gotta shine your light on some real sinister darkness. Last week, the House Oversight Committee held a hearing on MKUltra, the CIA's mind control program that ran from 1953 to 1973, using LSD and other consciousness-altering tools on people who never consented. Based on the testimony, the abuse was even worse than we imagined.

Witnesses Stephen Kinzer and Tom O'Neill testified that Congress still doesn't have the full picture of what happened. But Kinzer did say MKUltra's leader, Sidney Gottlieb, held what amounted to a government-issued “license to kill,” with officers authorized to seek out “expendables” abroad. And O'Neill introduced a document he says contradicts what the CIA told Congress in 1977. He estimates the true number of subjects could run into the tens of thousands.

Big oof. Obviously, this cautionary tale is quite extreme. Still, let this stain on American psychedelic history serve as a reminder why ethics boards and IRB review exist at all. And for the love of all that is sacred, please actually read your consent forms.

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.