Some “psilocybin” gummies contain no psilocybin, Pennsylvania holds hearing on COMPASS psilocybin trigger law
Plus: Psychedelics pilot program bill advances in Massachusetts, and Psychedelics’ effects on non-human primates
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.
Some “psilocybin” gummies contain no psilocybin, study reveals
While Oregon has a state-regulated program through which people can take psilocybin under supervision, the state still has a thriving unregulated market too, with unauthorized headshops selling psilocybin gummies and chocolates. A study recently published in JAMA Network Open analyzed 12 such samples purchased in Portland, Oregon and determined that just three contained psilocin, the active metabolite of psilocybin. Seven samples were “adulterated,” meaning “they contained ingredients not disclosed on the labels.” Two of the samples were a psilocin-containing gummy and chocolate that were labeled as containing only non-psychoactive mushrooms, including lion’s mane and reishi. Four gummies, including one that claimed to contain 100mg of psilocybin per gummy, contained no active ingredients at all. Another gummy contained caffeine, another contained cannabinoids, and two contained synthetic tryptamines, the class of compounds that includes psychedelics like psilocybin and psilocin.
“Mislabeling and ingredient substitution endanger consumers and erode public trust in emerging psychedelic therapies,” the authors of the paper conclude. “Given their widespread availability, including online distribution, there is an urgent need for improved testing standards, stricter regulation, enhanced quality control, and state and federal enforcement.”
Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a notice to consumers about a brand of unregulated mushroom-infused gummies, chocolates, and candies called Diamond Shruumz, which were linked to 180 illnesses (including potentially three deaths). Diamond Shruumz’s parent company said the products contained muscimol, a compound found in the psychoactive mushroom Amanita muscaria, but it’s unclear which compounds ultimately led to consumers’ illness.
The risks of adulteration and unclearly or incorrectly labeled product potency in the psychedelic supply chain were raised at a recent listening session hosted by Colorado state agencies responsible for the state’s Natural Medicine program. At that meeting, several attendees urged the state to consider allowing labs to test samples for personal use. The founder of one lab said he’d found bacteria in psilocybin samples as well as samples containing no active ingredients. Rhonda DeSantis, founder of testing lab Psylutions, also spoke at the meeting, suggesting updates to the state’s standards for lab testing. The results of this study published in JAMA Network Open “underscore the very real risks of purchasing unregulated psychedelic products,” she said. “Transparency in labeling and adherence to legal, science-backed standards are not optional—they are essential for building trust and protecting public health. This is precisely why regulated pathways matter.”
Pennsylvania holds hearing on COMPASS psilocybin trigger law
On Tuesday, the Pennsylvania House Democrats’ Policy Committee held a public hearing on addressing treatment-resistant depression with psilocybin. In March, Representative Craig Williams (R) and Representative Jennifer O'Mara (D) circulated House Bill 1439, which would make “crystalline polymorph psilocybin” legal in the state, if and when the drug is approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The bill was one of several introduced earlier this year specifically naming “crystalline polymorph psilocybin,” a psilocybin formulation developed by the company Compass Pathways, which the company also calls COMP360. If passed, the bill’s current language would only advantage Compass by automatically rescheduling their proprietary formulation, and not naturally occurring psilocybin and other synthetic psilocybin formulations.
Colorado, Arizona, and Virginia legislators passed their version of this law, though Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin vetoed the bill. Kansas legislators held a hearing about their version of the bill but ultimately did not pass it, and versions in Iowa and Georgia also did not advance.
Pennsylvania’s hearing looked similar to the one held in Kansas: it included remarks from people attesting to the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to help people with depression symptoms, as well as testimony from COMPASS representatives. The company’s associate director of government affairs Tess Bettler, who also spoke in Kansas in February, explained that while roughly half of U.S. states have “trigger laws” that automatically update state law to align with federal law when drugs are rescheduled, Pennsylvania is not among them, which could lead to delays in COMPASS shipping the drug to clinicians. Brett Waters, co-founder of veteran psychedelic organization Reason for Hope, said that the bill is “a step in the right direction to ensure prompt state rescheduling aligned with federal scheduling after FDA approval, avoiding unnecessary lags for patient access,” Waters said. He also recommended that the state adopt automatic rescheduling for any FDA-approval controlled substance to ensure fast access should other psychedelics be approved.
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Psychedelics pilot program bill advances in Massachusetts
Last Thursday, the Massachusetts Senate’s Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use, and Recovery advanced S.1400, a bill that proposes establishing a pilot program allowing mental health clinics to use psychedelics to treat patients with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and substance use disorder. The bill, initially introduced at the beginning of the year along with several other psychedelics-related bills, has now been referred to the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing.
Unlike the other bills introduced in the Massachusetts legislature this session, which largely focus on psilocybin, this bill does not specify which psychedelic substances would be eligible for such a pilot. In general, the text of the bill is light on details, and tasks the state Department of Public Health with determining the rules and regulations of the pilot program. It requires that any data collected must be shared with the department, and it specifically excludes pharmaceutical companies, “psychedelic molecule development companies,” or “subsidiaries, affiliates or members of cannabis industry organizations” from running any pilot program.
Psychedelics’ effects on non-human primates
As research on psychedelics’ medical potential ramps up, most pre-clinical animal research has been done using rats and mice. But what do we know about psychedelics’ effects on primates, which are humans’ closest living relatives? Researchers affiliated with Yale published a review in Molecular Psychiatry of psychedelic studies in non-human primates from chimpanzees — one of humans’ most closely related modern species — to squirrel monkeys, a more distant relative.
The existing studies investigate the effects of many different drugs on a variety of primates. Still, there are not enough studies yet to draw firm conclusions, and much remains unknown about psychedelics’ effects on non-human primates. For instance, the authors point to the mixed evidence for whether psychedelics cause visual hallucinations in other primates. The authors write that non-human primates could be an important model for studying psychedelics, as these species might be a better stand-in than rodents for these substances’ effects on humans.
Studies that the authors reviewed suggest that rhesus macaques exhibit body shakes in response to psychedelics, including LSD, DMT, mescaline, and possibly psilocybin. This reaction is “reminiscent of” the well known rodent head-twitch response to psychedelics, the authors write. But they note that environment may have an effect here; these twitch behaviors were seen primarily in primates kept in lab environments, whereas a study of DMT in free-ranging chimpanzees found none of those twitching behaviors. “The chimpanzees’ naturalistic habitats and social structures may have provided an outlet for the DMT-induced hyperactivity,” the authors write, paraphrasing speculation from that study’s researchers.
Overall, the authors conclude, non-human primates’ similarities to humans can elucidate psychedelics’ mechanisms of action and clinical effects. Plus, they add, studies on these species, unlike studies with humans, will not require complicated placebo conditions, since non-human primates don’t have preconceived notions or expectations about the drugs. (Non-human primates could, however, develop expectations about the drugs if they were to receive repeated doses.) Interestingly, the authors do not delve into the ethical considerations of dosing primates with psychedelics, but they make recommendations about study design should pre-clinical work with non-human primates move forward, such as standardization of dose sizes and routes of administration, as well as conducting studies to better understand psychedelics’ effects on primates’ social behaviors, such as grooming.
On Thursday, atai Life Sciences announced they received a multi-million dollar grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to develop “psychedelic drug-like” non-hallucinogenic drugs to treat opioid use disorder. According to atai, the grant is worth up to $11.4 million.
A piece on the website of the International Center for Ethnobotanical Education, Research and Service (ICEERS) explains how Mexico’s Supreme Court is analyzing whether its current ban on practices involving psilocybin mushrooms violates fundamental rights, including the right to health and free development of personality.
In Mad in America, therapist Will Hall calls for the retraction of a 2021 paper about how psychedelic practitioners navigate touch and relationships with clients. Hall writes that “the 23 therapists who were interviewed described practices that justify sexual assault of patients under the guise that these practices promote healing,” and alleges that the authors failed to include information from interviews and about their own conflicts of interest.
Pharmaceutical company AbbVie’s purchase of bretisilocin, a psychedelic compound developed by Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals likely foreshadows more big pharma deals in the psychedelics sector, sources tell STAT.
Navy veteran Zach Phillips has long been a staunch advocate for cannabis, psilocybin, and ayahuasca treatments for PTSD in his fellow veterans. Now, reports Westword, he’s onto something new: snake venom.
Willamette Week reporter Anthony Effinger, who has consistently reported on the high costs of Oregon’s psilocybin program, takes the “cheapest trip in town” (still $900!), and reflects on the experience. “So, was an expensive, legal trip worth it, as opposed to an underground one, which might have produced the same relief?” he asks. “I think it was, mostly because it put my mind at ease.”
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