Psychedelics users more likely to exhibit conspiracy thinking; California Governor Newsom signs a psychedelics bill; Psychedelics’ and AI’s “world changing” promise

Plus: Canadian practitioners seek psilocybin access and Small Pharma results suggest DMT can be used with SSRIs

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.

Psychedelics users more likely to exhibit conspiracy thinking

Psychedelics use appears to be linked to “non-conformist perspectives and conspiracy ideation,” according to a new study published in Scientific Reports. The researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute surveyed the beliefs of over 200 participants. They found that people who reported using psychedelics scored higher than those who didn’t on a conspiracy mentality questionnaire in which participants rated statements including “I think that government agencies closely monitor all citizens” and “I think that there are secret organizations that greatly influence political decisions.” Alcohol consumption, on the other hand, was negatively correlated with beliefs in these types of views. 

The authors note that higher scores on the conspiracy mentality questionnaire don’t necessarily indicate pathological levels of conspiracy belief; rather, they could reflect skepticism or what they call a “non-conformist mentality.” Some items on the scale, such as “I think that politicians usually do not tell us the true motives for their decisions,” struck this writer as pretty uncontroversial, at least for those of us living in the context of U.S. politics. The authors also caution against the conclusion that conspiratorial beliefs are the direct result of psychedelic drug use. There could be other mediating effects, they write, including the “social alienation and ostracization” of drug users resulting from the stigma around drug use. 

The State of Psychedelics: California governor Newsom signs psychedelic bill (but not the one you think), and the Portland, Maine city council passes a deprioritization resolution

Over the weekend, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1021, a bill that would allow California physicians, pharmacists, or “other authorized healing arts licensee” to prescribe Schedule I drugs that have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or rescheduled. However, SB 58, a bill approved by the state legislature last month that would make it state-legal for people over 21 to possess, prepare, grow, gather, gift and transport a variety of psychedelics found in plants and fungi, is still awaiting the governor’s signature. 

On Monday, the city council of Portland, Maine passed a resolution to make the prosecution and enforcement of laws related to personal use of psychedelic plants and fungi the lowest priority for city government. After more than an hour of public comment and council discussion — including comment from the police chief saying that city police had not recently arrested anyone for personal use of psychedelics — the council voted 6 to 3 to pass the resolution. As a result, no city funds will be dedicated to prosecuting people for personal use and sharing (but not sale) of psilocybin, psilocin, ibogaine, or DMT.

Want the latest psychedelics news? Subscribe! (It’s free!)

The parallels between psychedelics’ and AI’s “world changing” promise

In a recent paper published in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies, psychedelics humanities scholar Neşe Devenot compares the hype around both psychedelics and AI and their function as “inequality engines.” Devenot writes that psychedelics and AI are “like two blooms from one plant: the same Silicon Valley and venture capital forces are investing enormous amounts of capital to develop both as cultivars in their own image, selecting for desired traits that further the existing socioeconomic order.”

In the analysis, Devenot explains the ideologies at the center of Silicon Valley elites’ worldview, summarized by an acronym coined by AI scholars Émile Torres and Timnit Gebru: TESCREAL, which stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and longtermism. Devenot writes that TESCREALism has “normalized the perspective that extreme inequality is a societal good”, and that instead of addressing the roots of inequality, many wealthy and powerful Silicon Valley figures push AI and psychedelics as the key to building futuristic utopias.

Canadian practitioners seek psilocybin access exemptions for training purposes

In Canada, some people and organizations involved in training people to administer psychedelics want those trainees to be able to take psilocybin as part of their instruction. In late 2020 and early 2021, Health Canada, the country’s health policy agency, granted exemptions to the country’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to 19 practitioners, allowing them to consume psilocybin as part of their training. Subsequently, more practitioners applied for similar exemptions. In June 2022, the health minister denied those new petitions for access to psilocybin, saying that Health Canada “was not aware of any peer-reviewed clinical evidence demonstrating that healthcare professionals need to take a psychedelic drug in order to appreciate what the patient experiences.” Three months later, 73 parties, including psilocybin practitioners, prospective patients, and the advocacy group TheraPsil, sued the Canadian Minister of Mental Health and Addictions and the Associate Minister of Health for the right to access psilocybin. 

Now, a year later, a judge has dismissed the case, reiterating the health minister’s original response to those practitioners, which asserted that there is no evidence practitioners need experience with psilocybin to be adequately trained. According to The Globe and Mail, a group of health care professionals is trying to overturn the decision.

Small Pharma results suggest DMT can be used together with SSRIs

Last week, UK-based biotech company Small Pharma (which was recently acquired by Canadian biotech company Cybin) announced new results from their latest phase 1b clinical trial using the company’s intravenously administered formulation of DMT, which they call SPL-026. Phase 1 clinical studies seek to establish safety and tolerability of drugs in a small group of humans. This trial specifically looked at the safety of using selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, alongside SPL-026 in 17 patients with major depressive disorder.  Overall, the company reported that participants who took DMT with SSRIs showed greater improvement in depression symptoms than those who took just DMT. Additionally, patients reported 11 adverse events which, according to Small Pharma, were “deemed to be mild or moderate in severity.” The Microdose reached out to Small Pharma for more information about the types of adverse events reported by participants, but did not receive a reply before publication. 

• For DoubleBlind, journalist Mattha Busby dives into the history and future of the controversial Church of Psilomethoxin.

• Reader’s Digest traces the history of the psychedelics playlist.

• In a piece for Filter, journalist Holly Regan spoke with leaders in the psychedelics field about how to unite the psychedelics and harm reduction movements. 

• According to a new study in Molecular Psychiatry, psilocybin appears to help lower anxiety and increase resilience to stress in rats.

• The University of Michigan is conducting a survey on the future of the psychedelics. 

• Could psychedelics reverse aphantasia, a lack of mental imagery? Journalist Shayla Love explores the few case studies on the link between the two for Psyche. 

You’re all caught up! Have a great weekend. We’ll be back in your inbox on Monday with a new issue of 5 Questions. 

If you know anyone who might like the latest on psychedelics in their inbox, feel free to forward this to them, or click below.

Got tips? Email us at themicrodose@berkeley.edu.