🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that could never pick a favorite subscriber. We love you all equally. (Psst… it’s you. Don’t tell the others.) 🤫

Here’s what we got this week.

If you're living with depression and not currently on meds, a research team wants to hear from you.

And we mean that literally.

Osmind’s CANDID study is looking at whether patterns in speech and facial expressions can help researchers better measure depression.

All that’s asked of you is to knock out a few surveys and audio/video tasks from your laptop over about 6 weeks. You don’t even have to leave your couch.

If the study works, it could change how depression is diagnosed entirely. And they'll pay you up to $200 for your time.

Let go: This study identified the psychological traits shared by people who have mystical experiences with psychedelics.
Takes a village: Psychedelic therapists say therapeutic alliance and social support are the strongest predictors of a good outcome.
The trip that never ends: Pre-existing anxiety and post-viral fatigue were the biggest risk factors for developing Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) after a psychedelic experience.
Field notes: 1,529 psychedelic users cited health benefits, personal growth, and life-changing shifts in perspective as their biggest takeaways.
Gulp: Psychedelics get rosier, less risk-focused coverage than traditional antidepressants in the media.

Full send: Connecticut’s Senate unanimously passed a bill to expand its existing psilocybin pilot program to all adults 18 and older.
Concrete progress: New York is moving to decriminalize adult psychedelic possession, though the bill faces a mixed reception in the legislature.
Run it back: Maryland’s psychedelics task force is extended through 2027.
Turf war: A bipartisan U.S. Senate bill would create a VA psychedelics research office, but VA officials say an existing internal team already covers it.
MAHA meltdown: Trump pulled surgeon general nominee Casey Means, a vocal psychedelic advocate, and replaced her with a Fox News radiologist.

New company, who dis: Red Light Holland completed its acquisition of Filament Health and announced plans to rebrand.
Shrooms at scale: MSICS Pharma, Europe’s only licensed GMP psilocybin manufacturer, raised $3.6 million.
Taking notes: J&J’s esketamine nasal spray Spravato, which hit $1.7 billion in sales last year, may offer a template for the broader psychedelic industry.
Careful what you wish for: Is Trump’s push a boon for psychedelic biotech or a politicization risk that could undermine its scientific credibility?
Poetic justice: A federal judge approved Purdue Pharma's criminal sentence, dissolving the OxyContin maker and replacing it with a nonprofit focused on addiction treatment.

Stream of consciousness: Bryan Johnson’s 5-MeO-DMT livestream drew 1.5 million viewers, but what wasn’t shown could send the wrong message.
B-b-but we’re all one: The psychedelic revolution is leaving behind people of color.
Reporting for duty: How do we feel about active-duty military being treated with MDMA? Strongly, apparently.
Root cause: The New York Times traces how ibogaine went from Gabonese ceremony to Trump’s Oval Office.
Meme of the week: Me at 80 sharper than ever because I never stopped taking psychedelics…

Tricycle Day is usually a news-letter, but this week calls for a brief history lesson.

There once was a chemist named Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin. He’s widely credited with popularizing MDMA, but he was no one-hit wonder. This legend synthesized over 200 (!) psychoactive compounds in his backyard lab.

Whenever he was asked to pick a favorite, he never hesitated. 2C-B, hands down. He called it “one of the most graceful, erotic, sensual, introspective compounds I have ever invented.”

You can probably guess where this is going… Pioneering therapists in the '70s swore by it. Then it got scheduled, and the research stopped. (*blows raspberry* 👎)

Well, 50 years later, a University of Basel team finally put 2C-B in a head-to-head trial against MDMA and psilocybin.

Here's how Sasha's favorite phenethylamine stacked up.

We’ll get on our pulpit for sec. The psychedelic community has long romanticized “natural” compounds that “come from the earth.” But that's a cultural preference, not a pharmacological one. As far as we can tell, our serotonin receptors DGAF.

If 2C-B can match psilocybin's depth and MDMA's warmth with a gentler side effect profile, are we really gonna hold the fact that it came from a beaker against it?

Besides, on top of being “graceful, erotic, sensual, introspective,” it’s now peer-reviewed. 🫠

The Woodstock generation tripped in the mud without a therapist, IRB approval, or working porta-potties. But once the time came to study psychedelics clinically, boomers got shown the door. Now, a new $21 million NIH program is propping it back open. The INSPIRE network, led by CU Anschutz alongside NYU and UCSF, is the first federal psychedelic initiative dedicated to adults 65 and older.

Instead of the usual mental health focus, INSPIRE is going after chronic pain, which affects 38% of older adults and has no great treatment options. (We said what we said, Icy Hot.) Seniors have been excluded from psychedelic trials mostly due to cardiac risk concerns, so Phase I of INSPIRE will check safety first in healthy volunteers. Then Phase II will test psilocybin for chronic low back pain and LSD-assisted psychotherapy for cancer-related bone pain.

Keep in mind that NIH has awarded less than half its usual grants this fiscal year, with budget cuts across almost every major disease area. The fact that a $21 million psychedelic research project made it through says a lot about national science priorities. It seems we’ve crossed the rubicon. It’s no longer ok boomer. It’s now you ok boomer?

Texas is trying to clean up the ketamine industry, but it might kill it instead. The Texas Medical Board is proposing rules that would ban at-home use and force clinics to either hire an on-site physician or cap treatments at two patients at a time.

Doctor supervision isn’t too much to ask, right? Problem is, clinics are mostly staffed by nurse practitioners and already break even to keep treatment affordable for low-income patients. Now they’d have to choose between hiring an MD (adding $300 to $500 per treatment) or capping their patient load (putting them in the red). As for the in-home ban, rural patients who rely on telehealth would be completely SOL. So the very rules designed to protect vulnerable patients may be the ones that box ‘em out. (Classic American healthcare moment.)

The industry actually does want regulation because regulation is how you get insurance coverage. But these regulations would shutter the sort of clinics that exist precisely because there's no coverage yet. The board votes in June, and industry leaders say Texas is expected to set the national template. The teeth on that ouroboros are awfully sharp, y’all.

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.