🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

PRESENTED BY ALTHEA & FOUNDATIONS 🤝

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that died before we die, so we won’t die when we die. Make sense? ☠️

Here’s what we got this week.

• Psilocybin extends lifespan 🫀

• MDMC gets breakthrough therapy designation 🚀

• Another $10M for DoD psychedelic research 🪖

• Tripping with your parents 👵👴 

FROM OUR SPONSORS

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Tickets are normally $97, but for now, Cyclists can register for free.

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MICRODOSES

🔬 Research

Unsure about microdosing? Here’s what the science says and what we still don’t know.
Check their work: Results from the clinical trial that led to Spravato’s monotherapy approval are out.
Set, setting, and safety: Psychedelic use in a “risk context” can lead to challenging experiences and increases in depressive symptoms.
Polarizing results: Psilocybin therapy may be safe and effective for bipolar 2 depression. An open-label trial found no increased risk of mania, psychosis, or suicide.
Mystically significant: People who had mystical experiences during psilocybin-assisted therapy also saw a greater antidepressant effect.

🏛️ Policy

Got a pen? Natural Medicine Alaska needs at least 34,099 signatures by January to get its legalization measure on the 2026 ballot.
Anotha one! Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House, pledged to advance access to ibogaine.
Don’t call it a loophole: Psilocybin companies can work around Internal Revenue Code Section 280E using a strategy pioneered by the cannabis industry.
Peace in the Middle East: Could psychedelics help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
Money talks: PAREA has received a €50,000 grant to integrate psychedelic treatments into Europe’s healthcare systems.

📈 Business

Inside baseball: Psychedelic executives weigh in on recent readouts from Compass Pathways and atai Beckley, market reactions, and the drugs’ commercial viability.
Nature calls: Sensorium Therapeutics received FDA clearance to investigate SNTX-2643, a first-in-class serotonin modulator “inspired by nature.”
Moms on mushrooms: Women’s Health highlighted Reunion Neuroscience’s first-ever US-based trial of a psychedelic treatment for postpartum depression.
Whac-a-shroom: Local police in Canada are cracking down on illegal psychedelic dispensaries… again.

🫠 Just for fun

More sad than fun (sorry): The Sonoran Desert toad, prized for its 5-MeO-DMT secretions, is at risk of extinction.
Plan B: If Bufo does go the way of the Dodo, maybe this company can revive the species, as it’s done with others already.
System overload: Can your brain run out of memory?
The divine within: The American chemist Jonathan Ott, who popularized the term “entheogen,” has passed away.
Meme of the week: When you trip with another person and realize you’re part of the same whole…

THE PEAK EXPERIENCE

Psilocybin for life

Hey good news, Cyclists. You can cancel your plasma transfusion appointment with your blood boy first-born child.

There’s an easier way to extend your lifespan now. Less creepy, too.

Researchers at Emory University just dropped a bombshell study showing that psilocybin can slow down aging at the cellular level. This isn’t theoretical. It’s not based on vague reports of “feeling younger” either. We have hard data now, from live mice and human cells.

Here’s what the scientists found.

• 🐁 Live long: 19-month-old mice (equivalent to 60-65 human years) that were given psilocybin lived 30% longer than their untreated peers.

• 🖖 … and prosper: Treated mice also had better fur quality, fewer white hairs, and even hair regrowth.

• ⛲️ Fountain of youth: Human skin and lung cells lived 50%+ longer when treated with psilocin (psilocybin's active metabolite).

• 🧬 Improved biomarkers: Human cells also showed preserved telomere length, reduced oxidative stress, and improved DNA repair.

The two-part study suggests psilocybin works by activating longevity pathways and reducing cellular damage. Specifically, these findings support something called the "psilocybin-telomere hypothesis,” which until now had been mostly speculation.

The basic idea is that because depression and chronic stress shorten telomeres (the protective caps on chromosomes that shrink as we age), psilocybin's mood-boosting effects might help preserve them and thereby slow aging.

Now, the researchers have more questions. Like, what is the optimal dosing protocol for longevity? Would starting treatment earlier provide greater benefits? How long do these anti-aging effects last? Only time (i.e., more studies) shall tell.

You gotta appreciate the irony, though. The same compound that helps people face their mortality could also be the key to living longer, healthier lives. Lesson in there. 🫠

AFTERGLOW

Look out, MDMA

There’s a new entactogen on the block. This week, the FDA granted breakthrough therapy designation to TSND-201, Transcend Therapeutics’ formulation of methylone, for PTSD. Methylone (aka MDMC) is in the same class of compounds as MDMA, but there’s a big difference in how it’s being developed. Transcend's clinical trials used only “non-directive psychological support” during dosing sessions. No psychotherapy.

And yet, it works. The breakthrough therapy designation (that’s the sixth granted to a psychedelic medicine so far) is based on strong Phase 2 results from 65 patients with severe PTSD, who received 4 oral doses spaced a week apart. TSND-201 showed rapid and durable improvements in PTSD symptoms and was well tolerated, with no discontinuations due to side effects. Now, Transcend is gearing up for Phase 3 trials.

Ever since the FDA rejected Lykos's MDMA application last year, psychedelic drug developers have been shying away from the whole “-assisted therapy” model. (Regulators clearly struggled to wrap their heads around the psychotherapy component.) But a drug that works without specialized therapy protocols, for better or worse, could be just what the FDA ordered. More pills, that is.

Double or nothin’

Ten milly? Why not twenty? A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is pushing to add another $10 million to the Defense Department's psychedelic research budget. The proposal, led by Rep. Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), a Navy SEAL veteran who's been very vocal about his own positive experiences with ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT, would expand DOD's existing clinical trials on psilocybin and ibogaine for active-duty military.

We say another $10 million because that’s how much was already allocated last session. (The first chunk isn’t going away; pardon the sassy headline.) The new funding would support "DoD Wide psychedelic medical clinical trials" and has backing from the Congressional Psychedelic Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus co-chairs and other heavy hitters like Dan Crenshaw and Nancy Mace.

There’s really been a seismic shift in military attitudes toward psychedelics lately. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. recently committed to providing legal psychedelic access for veterans "within 12 months," and VA Secretary Doug Collins has been scoping out psychedelic research facilities. Seems the conversation has moved from "should we?" to "how much funding do you need?”. (‘Bout time.)

CYCLISTS’ PICKS

• 🫂 Free Workshop: This Sunday, DoubleBlind and psychotherapist Lauren Taus are hosting a workshop on the delicate art of tripping with your parents, including how to broach the topic in the first place.

• 📆 Event: The Enchanted State is a one-day, in-person gathering focused on the future of psychedelics in New Mexico and beyond.

• 🌎 Worldwide celebration: This November, 2,000+ attendees from 100+ countries will participate in the first ever Global Psychedelic Week. Take 10% off tickets with our link.

• 📕 Book: Anti-Hero’s Journey is a trope-defying war memoir from a US army veteran turned psychedelic practitioner, who cheekily asserts that the path to enlightenment begins with dismantling the self.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

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

ONE CYCLIST’S REVIEW

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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.