New psychedelic legislative efforts in WA; NJ bill passes; MindMed and Cybin rebranding
Plus: Psychedelic retreat safety protocols vary, and are psychoplastogens “sanitizing” psychedelics?
Happy Friday and welcome back to The Microdose, an independent journalism newsletter brought to you by the U.C. Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics.
The State of Psychedelics: Updates in WA and NJ
Washington State’s legislative session kicked off this week, and numerous psychedelic bills are in the mix. Senate Bill 5201 and House Bill 1433 both propose a state-regulated psychedelic services program similar to those in Oregon and Colorado. The same bills were introduced in the 2025 legislative but neither moved forward and so they’ve been reintroduced.
A third bill, Senate Bill 5921 also proposes a psilocybin program, but one that would be overseen by the Department of Health and focused on medical use only. The bill was drafted by the Coalition for Better Community Health, which includes Tom Eckert, one of the architects of Oregon’s psilocybin services ballot initiative, University of Washington psychedelics researcher Nathan Sackett, Americans for Ibogaine’s Bryan Hubbard, and Healing Advocacy Fund’s executive director Taylor West. The bill was proposed by Jesse Salomon (D), who also proposed SB 5201.
Meanwhile, local advocacy group REACH WA is also trying to get another psychedelics bill off the ground in Washington State. Their draft bill, for which the group is currently seeking a sponsor in the legislature, would allow people over 21 to access services to support natural psychedelic use, allow personal possession, use, cultivation, preparation, and gifting of psilocybin, psilocin, DMT, and mescaline (excluding peyote), establish rules about advertising such services, and require psychedelic businesses to retain majority Washington state residency through 2029.
On Monday, the last day of its legislative sessions, the New Jersey Senate passed bill S2283, which will provide $6 million from the state’s general fund to a two-year pilot program to conduct psilocybin research. The bill passed the assembly 48-23, then the senate 35-4. It now awaits a signature by Governor Phil Murphy.
At a New Jersey State Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing about the bill in December, members of the public raised concerns that the allotted $6 million would end up going to psychedelics companies conducting clinical trials with synthetic psilocybin (i.e., Compass Pathways, which is already partnering with New Jersey healthcare system Hackensack Meridian). People were also worried that the bill’s language did not explicitly mention preparation and integration sessions for study participants. The final version of the bill has amendments that explicitly include integration and require applicants for the research grants to include hospitals from each region of the state.
MindMed and Cybin rebranding
On Monday, New York-based psychedelic company Mind Medicine, known as MindMed, announced it would be changing its name to Definium. Definium also announced that it expected topline data from two Phase 3 clinical studies using DT120 — their formulation of LSD, which takes the form of an oral disintegrating tablet — in treating generalized anxiety disorder, as well as data from a Phase 3 study using DT120 to treat major depressive disorder.
MindMed isn’t the only psychedelics company to rebrand in the early days of the new year. Psilocybin company Cybin announced last week that it would be changing its name to Helus, pronounced “Heal Us,” and would be trading on the Nasdaq with the ticker symbol HELP.
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Psychedelic retreat safety protocols vary
As psychedelics have become more popular, so, too, have retreat centers offering guided trips. A new study spearheaded by bioethicists and health policy scholars studied the safety precautions put in place by 49 psychedelics retreat organizations in the Americas. The results were published recently in JAMA Network Open.
Of the 49 organizations the researchers interviewed, all reported collecting client medical histories and including integration sessions in their practices. All but one shared the names of the substances they offered; those 48 organizations all provided ayahuasca, psilocybin, or both, and some also provided ibogaine, 5-MeO-DMT, San Pedro cactus, or DMT.
The screening practices of the organizations were variable. Thirty-six of the 49 organizations said they excluded individuals with certain health conditions, and 32 provided specifics about grounds for exclusion, including mental health disorders like a personal or family history of schizophrenia or psychosis, heart conditions like hypertension, and neurological conditions like stroke or epilepsy. Six said they explicitly exclude pregnant people, and five presented exclusion criteria that the researchers labeled as “other,” which comprised a varied list, including AIDS, cancer, eating disorders, IBS, asthma, recent surgery, and a history of blood clots. Forty-three of the 49 organizations said they required or recommended clients stop taking medications like SSRIs before the retreat, but the methods by which they confirmed that client compliance varied.
Only about half (21 of 49) of retreat organizations said they worked with at least one licensed healthcare professional, such as a physician, nurse, or therapist; and 20 of the 49 said they had such a professional present at retreats.
Overall, the researchers say that the variability in standards across these 49 organizations suggests the need for clearer guidance on safety practices. “While many retreat organizations implement thoughtful safety practices, substantial variability and lack of oversight remain,” they write. “Consumers and health care professionals must navigate this landscape with caution.”
Are psychoplastogens “sanitizing” psychedelics?
There is still no scientific consensus on how, exactly, psychedelics might improve mental health, but there is a well worn divide in the field: some believe the subjective experiences that psychedelics engender — the trip — are crucial to healing, while others that these subjective experiences are not necessary for therapeutic benefit. Some who champion the latter theory are now engineering so-called psychoplastogens: drugs that are chemically similar to psychedelics, but that mostly skip the trip.
In a new paper published in BioSocieties, Bar-Ilan University scholar Ido Hartogsohn argues that the emergence of psychoplastogens has “begun to reshape how psychedelics are framed.” Now, he says, classic psychedelics like psilocybin or LSD are called “first-generation psychoplastogens” to contrast them with the “newer, purportedly more controllable and clinically tractable” drugs that are developed and marketed as “second- or third-generation psychoplastogens” by companies like Delix.
Furthermore, he writes, while psychedelics are associated with inner work and transformative experiences, psychoplastogens “exemplify a drive toward optimization without disruption, a form of experiential sanitization that tames unpredictability while extracting benefits.” Essentially, Hartogsohn argues that non-hallucinogenic psychoplastogens represent the desire to take a shortcut to healing without undergoing the potential difficulties and soul-searching that can accompany a psychedelic trip — and those values could set a dangerous precedent for mental health care in general. “At stake is not merely whether subjective experience is therapeutically necessary, but the nature of mental suffering, what kind of healing is valued, and what kind of subject it is meant to produce.”
Journalists: Applications are now open for ten $10,000 awards to report in-depth print and audio stories related to psychedelics. Applications for the Ferriss – UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship are due January 31.
The New York Times reviews the growth of state-regulated psilocybin programs and the potential for Compass to become the second company to apply for Food and Drug Administration approval of a psychedelic treatment.
Psychedelic Alpha’s Josh Hardman asked people across the psychedelics field (including yours truly) what they’re excited about, concerned by, and hoping to gain clarity on this year.
Some psychedelics journalists are increasingly stepping into an influencer role, where they’re offered free access to retreats and deals to receive sponsorships or affiliate deals — a “troubling trend,” writes journalist Jim Tate in a Substack essay republished by Lucid News. “These relationships can create subtle (or overt) pressure to present psychedelics in a positive light, downplay risks, or ignore negative findings.”
On Monday, the Ohio State University’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education held its first in-person training for therapists through its Psychedelic Emergency, Acute, and Continuing Care Education program. The event included training for how to handle a person undergoing a psychedelic crisis, reports Spectrum News.
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