🫠 This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that would think twice before fiddling with plants. Except for fiddle leaf figs. They love to be fiddled. (We got consent.)

Here’s what we got this week.

Cyclists, we've been yapping about psilocybin for three years straight.

It’s time. We're finally making it easier to do it.

Today we're launching Althea Experiences, a marketplace where you can book vetted, legally operated psilocybin experiences in Oregon and Colorado.

With Experiences, we’ve removed the guesswork. Each one is a highly curated offering you can picture yourself joining, with specific dates, vivid details, and transparent pricing.

Take a look. There's a couples getaway in Portland, a leadership retreat in Aspen, a group journey in Lakewood, and more.

Soul searching: A single dose of psilocybin can change what people value most.
Still got it: In a Phase IV trial, J&J's esketamine held its antidepressant effects even after patients stopped taking it.
Maxed out: Through a study where participants received escalating doses of intravenous DMT, researchers found the ceiling for peak subjective effects.
Edge case: Preliminary evidence shows ketamine may be safe and effective for borderline personality disorder.
Abort, abort: This review weighs the pros and cons of several drugs that can be used to attenuate or terminate a bad trip.

Feeling it out: Illinois lawmakers introduced a bill to create a psilocybin advisory board and explore regulated therapeutic access.
Doubling down: Missouri's House is set to approve psilocybin and ibogaine clinical trials for veterans and first responders.
TBC: Maryland lawmakers advanced a bill to extend the state's psychedelics task force through 2027.
Live free or discuss: New Hampshire downgraded its psilocybin bill from a therapeutic access pathway to an advisory board.
Country roadblock: West Virginia's governor vetoed the state's ibogaine research bill among a dozen bills this week.

Skip ad: Psychedelic biotech companies are facing scrutiny over undisclosed promotional content on YouTube.
Trunk show: Pink Elephant has launched Elephant Gate, an accelerator backing up to 10 psychedelics infrastructure startups annually.
Shroom with a view: Oregon and Colorado are becoming psychedelic retreat destinations as travelers seek out legal, guided psilocybin experiences.
Phone a friend: Massachusetts General Hospital and Fireside Project are testing whether psychedelic coaching improves ketamine therapy for depression.
All roads lead to Robin: Red Light Holland and Filament Health are funneling their clinical network into Robin Carhart-Harris's global psilocybin study at UCSF.

Au naturel: A woman taught herself to enter a psychedelic trance without drugs, and brain scans confirmed it's the real deal.
Perks of the job: Tech workers have been harvesting magic mushrooms off Silicon Valley campuses for years.
Exit wounds: Some founders are turning to psychedelics to process the grief and identity loss that comes after selling their companies.
Meme of the week: Call me dysregulated one more time and see what happens…

Last year, Texas made the biggest public bet on psychedelic research in history.

We’ll jog your memory. SB 2308 committed $50 million in state funds to develop ibogaine into an FDA-approved medicine. But there was a catch. A private drug company had to match that $50 million, bringing the total to (*lifts pinky to lips*) $100 million.

Well, Texas posted the job requirements. But nobody got the gig. Now state officials are saying they’ll fund the whole thing themselves.

Here's what happened.

Now, Texas hasn’t disclosed who applied or why it didn’t work out. We won’t speculate.

Either way, UTHealth Houston and UTMB Galveston have a two-year clinical trial ahead of 'em. And while Texas couldn't land a private partner, it's had no trouble attracting public ones.

Mississippi just signed a bill into law that requires its consortium to coordinate with Texas's. Oklahoma, Tennessee, Missouri, and New Hampshire are advancing similar legislation. (West Virginia’s governor just vetoed theirs, but at least half a dozen other states are pursuing ibogaine research on their own terms.)

Since no one wants to go halfsies, maybe split the check six ways? 🫠

Science has always had its Frankensteins. But a few mad scientists researchers in Israel have really committed to the bit. Stitching together genes from DMT-containing plants, magic mushrooms, and a humble toad, they engineered a tobacco plant that simultaneously produces five psychedelic compounds. DMT, psilocybin, psilocin, bufotenin, and 5-MeO-DMT… yep, gang’s all here.

Why tobacco? In many ways, it’s the lab rat of the plant kingdom. Tobacco is fast-growing, easy to modify, and conveniently high in tryptophan, a key precursor for all of these compounds. Frankenstein’s best trick, though, was letting AI loose. The team used AlphaFold3 (Google’s model for predicting 3D protein structures) to redesign the enzymes, boosting 5-MeO-DMT yields by up to 40x. Good news for the toad. Poor guys have been milked into oblivion for their god-molecule-rich secretions.

Still, the monster needs work. When five compounds compete for the same molecular precursors, individual yields stay low. Some researchers think engineered bacteria or yeast will ultimately be more practical for scale. But hey, it’s a pretty remarkable proof of concept. One researcher even said the same approach could theoretically work in a tomato for microdosing. Fruits and veggies have never looked this good.

By now, you’ve all heard the elevator pitch. Psychedelics dissolve your brain's default mode network, ego goes poof, mystical experience ensues. Smaller studies (and best-selling books that shall not be named) have parroted this idea for so long it’s become canon. But this week, the largest psychedelic brain imaging study ever showed the story is more interesting than that.

Researchers pooled 500+ brain scans from 267 people across five psychedelics (different five from the aforementioned wacky tobacky fyi), all run through one standardized pipeline. What they found wasn't networks ‘turning off.’ Instead, they saw brain regions that normally ignore each other (like those governing abstract thought and sensory perception) suddenly in conversation. And this cross-talk looked about the same across all five drugs. A shared “neural fingerprint” of the psychedelic state, if you will.

As for the popular network-disintegrating narrative, there wasn’t much evidence. Granted, the scans only captured brief snapshots of trips that last hours, so there's plenty left to unpack. Still, after years of tiny studies that couldn't agree, it's nice when the science starts acting a little more like a brain on psychedelics. Connected, that is.

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.