Psilocybin for frontline workers; Ketamine lost in transit; What do we know about Luigi Mangione’s interest in psychedelics?
Plus: Illinois lawmakers hold psilocybin hearing and Psychedelic therapy curricula in academia
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.
Psilocybin for frontline workers
When the COVID-19 pandemic first emerged, medical professionals who worked long shifts saw a great deal of suffering and even isolated themselves from their families out of fear they could infect their loved ones with the virus. Some of those clinicians developed symptoms of PTSD, depression, and burnout. A new study published in JAMA Network Open found that one psilocybin session decreased depression and burnout symptoms in clinicians who spent at least a month working as first responders during the early pandemic.
Researchers at the University of Washington recruited 30 clinicians who provided frontline care for at least a month during the pandemic and were exhibiting moderate to severe depression symptoms. Participants attended preparatory sessions and took baseline assessments of their depression, PTSD, and burnout symptoms. They then underwent a dosing session; fifteen of the 30 participants received 25 mg of psilocybin, while the other half received 100 mg of niacin as an active placebo. (At that dose, niacin, or vitamin B-3, can cause side effects such as a racing heart and tingly skin — and nudge participants in the placebo condition towards believing they’d received psilocybin instead.) Afterward, the study subjects had three sessions to discuss and process their dosing session, and their depression, PTSD, and burnout symptoms were assessed again.
Participants who received psilocybin showed a significant improvement in their depression scores, while those in the placebo condition saw a smaller improvement in those scores. Those who received psilocybin also saw a larger decrease in burnout scores than those who received the placebo, but the difference in improvement between groups was not statistically significant. Changes in PTSD scores were also not significant in the placebo group.
Overall, the researchers say that this trial, the first to use psilocybin to treat COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers’ depression symptoms, suggests that psychedelic-assisted therapy could be a helpful option for clinicians. “Clinicians described a sense of betrayal by health systems, leaders, and colleagues; guilt from feeling that they had not been able to do enough; and grief from witnessing innumerable deaths and suffering. The question that repeatedly came up, in different forms, was ‘Do I matter?’” the researchers write. Psilocybin-assisted therapy helped these clinicians “take some time amid the urgency of their professional and personal lives to feel all of their feelings, find some perspective on their recent past, and come to terms with what they were unable to do—and what they were able to accomplish—for patients, families, colleagues, and society.”
Ketamine lost in transit
As more people become interested in ketamine as an off-label treatment for mental health issues, it’s unclear how much ketamine gets diverted from pharmaceutical companies to illicit sources, write public health researchers at New York University and Columbia University.
In a research letter published in JAMA, the researchers found that there were 1355 reports of pharmaceutical ketamine diversion between 2017 and 2023 from practitioners, hospitals, veterinary clinics, manufacturers, pharmacies, and other businesses. In that time, there’s been an apparent increase in employee theft, which accounted for 22% of those reports in 2017 but 49% of 2020 reports.
Meanwhile, diversion from practitioners seems to be decreasing; 49% of 2017 reports were practitioner diversions, but in 2023, that number was down to 36%. The most common type of diversion in 2023 — comprising 45% of reports — was ketamine being “lost in transit.”
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What do we know about Luigi Mangione’s interest in psychedelics?
Earlier this week, police arrested a 26-year-old man named Luigi Mangione and prosecutors charged him in the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Journalists and armchair sleuths dug into Mangione’s internet footprint, speculating about his interests. On X, Mangione frequently retweeted or replied to posts from technology thought leaders. Also among the 71 accounts Mangione followed are the drug education site Erowid, psychedelics researcher Matthew Johnson, famed mycologist Paul Stamets, and author Michael Pollan. (According to Mangione’s account on the book site Goodreads, he was “currently reading” Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind.)
This has led to widespread speculation that Mangione might be a fan of psychedelics, with some wondering, despite a lack of evidence, if drugs in some way played a role in the murder. The banner image on Mangione’s X account includes an x-ray of his spine; posts on a Reddit account believed to be Mangione’s, as well as friends and acquaintances, say that he had debilitating pain from a spine condition and had surgery last year to treat it. According to CNN, the Reddit user thought to be Mangione also posted about their history of severe brain fog and Lyme disease. Some have leapt to the conclusion that Mangione was interested in psychedelics to heal these conditions, but there is not yet any indication this is, in fact, the case.
On X, Johnson posted about Mangione. “The suspect in the CEO murder follows me here & appears to be a psychedelic fan,” he wrote. “IF guilty, it would reinforce the point that psychedelics don't necessarily make people MORAL or ETHICAL. In fact their generalized effects can potentially reinforce pathological & evil ideologies.”
Illinois lawmakers hold psilocybin hearing
On Tuesday, Illinois lawmakers held a hearing to discuss a proposed bill that would create a state-regulated psilocybin program. The bill, called the Compassionate Use and Research of Entheogens (CURE) Act, was reintroduced in February after languishing in committee during the Illinois house’s 2023 legislative session. The act was referred to the House Mental Health & Addiction Committee, who heard testimony from medical professionals and members of the public who said psilocybin had helped them heal.
“We are in the midst of a behavioral health crisis,” said the committee’s chair, representative Lindsey LaPointe (D). “It’s time we take a thoughtful look at alternative approaches, like psychedelics, to help Illinoisans struggling with distress.”
The committee has yet to vote on the bill, but if a simple majority votes to advance the CURE Act, it will go to the full House for a vote.
Psychedelic therapy curricula in academia
Interest in psychedelic-assisted therapy is growing, but there are still relatively few opportunities for healthcare professionals and students to learn about it. The mental health advocacy nonprofit BrainFutures teamed up with researchers at the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) to survey over 300 faculty and administrators at nursing, counseling, social work, and psychology programs, and summarized their findings in a report released Wednesday.
About a quarter of respondents said that their programs had some sort of curriculum related to psychedelic therapy; of the other three-quarters of respondents whose programs don’t have psychedelic therapy in their curriculum, 40% said they were interested in developing ways to incorporate it.
The survey also polled respondents about their attitudes towards psychedelics. While 79% said they at least “somewhat agree” with the belief that psychedelics show promise in treating psychiatric disorders, it appears that some participants also believe that psychedelics are not safe even under medical supervision. The report included the detail that 71% of respondents “disagreed to some extent” with that statement, suggesting that up to 29% of respondents agreed to some extent or were neutral with the statement that psychedelics are “unsafe even under medical supervision.”
For Oregon Public Broadcasting’s podcast The Evergreen, I report on Oregon psilocybin facilitators’ efforts to help terminally ill clients receive disability accommodations to receive psilocybin at home or in a hospice center.
A Virginia woman found guilty of selling “psilocyn [sic], marijuana, and drug-packing materials” could face a lifetime in prison, reports Jack Gorsline for Filter. However, local law enforcement’s photos of the seizure appear to show marijuana and mushrooms, not the pure chemicals psilocybin or psilocin.
The libertarian think tank Reason Foundation posted a list of psychedelic drug policy recommendations for the incoming Trump administration on its blog. The list includes issuing an executive order requiring the FDA and DEA to review their criteria for scheduling drugs, and encouraging the FDA to remove its requirement that clinical trials include a placebo arm.
The New York Times follows five business leaders on a retreat called The Psychedelic CEO, and reports on the growing resurgence of psychedelic retreats for business people.
Psychiatrist and longtime DMT researcher Rick Strassman was a recent guest on the Joe Rogan Experience.
The Beats were known for their copious drug use, and William S. Burroughs was no different. A new film about Burroughs’s life called “Queer” includes a pivotal ayahuasca scene.
Clarification: In last week’s issue, we mentioned a story from The Detroit Metro Times about a police raid on the Psychedelic Healing Shack. We originally reported that the seizure included 99 grams of psilocybin; that’s 99 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, which contain psilocybin but are not to be confused with pure, lab-synthesized psilocybin.
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