Synthesis folds; New Rhode Island bill and decrim in Ferndale, Michigan; Psychedelic self-treatment outcomes

Plus: Breakthrough Therapies Act and more trouble at atai

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 Latest in Oregon: Synthesis folds

When Oregon was first considering Measure 109, Myles Katz, co-founder of Dutch psychedelic company Synthesis, moved to the state to support the measure’s campaign — and to prepare for the U.S. arm of the company’s business to open. Synthesis bought 124 acres of land in Ashland, OR to use as a retreat center, and the company started a program to train practitioners to administer psilocybin services. 

Looking to enter Oregon’s psilocybin industry, Claire Johnson, 28, began a 13 month Synthesis course in November. “I signed up for a Synthesis program based on their reputation – the years they’d been in business, and their credibility and reputation as a sustainable business in the space,” she says. She’d completed around 40% of her coursework when she received an email last week from Synthesis CEO Rachel Aidan saying that the company was declaring bankruptcy and pausing its training programs. Aidan said that a company called Retreat Guru would be taking over training programs. The Canadian company manages payments for retreat companies around the world, including Synthesis retreats and training programs, and according to its website, it took over operations of the training program on March 4. 

Synthesis enrolled hundreds of students across its training programs, and none of the students in its Oregon program have completed the course. Johnson says that of the ten people assigned to her training “pod,” only one plans to continue with the program. Others are seeking refunds for their enrollment fees; according to Synthesis’s website, tuition for its April 2023 cohort is $13,000. Johnson says some of her classmates spent nearly $20,000 in tuition and prepaid retreats, which are also now canceled. 

Retreat Guru’s website says students can expect a “slight delay” of 2-3 weeks before trainings resume, but it could be longer: all Oregon psilocybin practitioner training programs must receive accreditation from the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC). Kyle Thomas, HECC’s Director of Legislative and Policy Affairs, told The Microdose that the agency does not currently have official confirmation of Synthesis’s plans to hand the reigns over to Retreat Guru. But, he says, if the training program is acquired by a new majority owner, the new owner would need to initiate a new application process for approvals. “However, there is a possibility of a temporary license to serve as a bridge,” Thomas says. “This option serves to try and protect student interests in completing their program while the permanent license process is completed.” 

An accredited facilitator training program declaring bankruptcy does not bode well for Oregon’s nascent psilocybin services industry, which requires facilitators to train with state-accredited institutions. (For more on Synthesis’s woes, Psychedelic Alpha delves into how the Measure 109 opt-outs, zoning laws, and waning training program enrollment contributed to the company’s demise.) Meanwhile, students like Johnson are supporting one another coordinating efforts to get answers about potential tuition refunds and the future of the training courses via the messaging app Signal. “From what’s being shared in the chats, I sense others are feeling disappointment and a sense of betrayal,” Johnson told The Microdose. 

The State of Psychedelics: New Rhode Island bill and decrim in Ferndale, Michigan

Last week, a bipartisan group of Rhode Island legislators introduced H5923, which would amend current state law to allow people to possess up to an ounce of psilocybin mushrooms without penalty, and to cultivate psilocybin mushrooms for personal use. 

Ferndale, Michigan (part of the Detroit metro area) passed a resolution declaring that investigating and arresting people for possession, cultivation, distribution and purchasing entheogenic plants are henceforth the “lowest law enforcement priority.” The resolution also specifies that the drugs’ use by minors, possessing or distributing the drugs in schools, driving under the influence of the drugs, or commercial manufacture or sale of the drugs are not authorized or enabled as a result of the resolution.

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Psychedelic self-treatment outcomes

As researchers are amassing data on psychedelics through clinical trials, many thousands of people are using psychedelics on their own, sometimes to treat mental health conditions. In a new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, a group of researchers from the UK, the Netherlands, and Australia investigate how people self-medicate using psilocybin mushrooms and LSD.

In their study, the researchers analyzed data from the Global Drug Survey 2020, an online survey of over 3,000 people about their drug use, which was conducted between November 2019 and February 2020. Respondents said they used psilocybin mushrooms and LSD to treat a variety of issues: around 40 percent used the drugs to treat their depression and 20 percent  said their use was to manage anxiety. Smaller numbers of people reported using the drugs to treat conditions like PTSD, OCD, or an eating disorder. Nineteen reported taking the drugs to manage psychosis.

The survey asked respondents to rate whether their self-administered treatment led to changes in 17 different aspects of their lives, including changes in mood, empathy, anxiety, and sleep. The vast majority of respondents (94.6 percent) said that their self-administered treatment changed at least one of those domains. Sixty-four percent said that they noticed positive changes within 24 hours of their experience. The effects seemed to endure, too; more than half of respondents said positive effects lingered for about a month after their experience, and 17.6 percent reported that those positive effects lasted for over 6 months. Around a fifth of respondents reported negative effects from the drugs as well, with over 500 people saying they’d experienced “mental confusion, memory problems, or racing thoughts.” Twenty-eight respondents said they sought emergency treatment after administering self-treatment. 

“Persisting negative outcomes were relatively uncommon but appear more frequent than in clinical settings,” the researchers conclude. “Our findings can contribute to harm reduction efforts, as well as inform experimental research about potential risks, benefits and underlying therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics.”

Breakthrough Therapies Act

Roughly a third of U.S. states have introduced psychedelics-related legislation in 2023, and national politicians are following suit. This week, Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rand Paul (R-KY), along with Representatives Nancy Mace (R-SC) and Madeleine Dean (D-PA), introduced the Breakthrough Therapies Act. The act is an updated version of the act Booker and Paul introduced in December 2022. It proposes that the Controlled Substances Act be updated so that Schedule I drugs designated by the Food and Drug Administration as potential breakthrough therapies would become Schedule II drugs instead, which could allow scientists and physicians to more easily access psychedelic drugs like MDMA and psilocybin for research purposes and for treating patients with serious or life-threatening illnesses for whom other treatments were not effective. 

More trouble at atai

In January, we reported that atai Life Sciences’ stock tumbled after it announced underwhelming results from a phase 2 clinical trial using PCN-101, their proprietary formulation of R-ketamine, to treat depression. This week, the company announced in a press release that it has let go about a third of its workforce by eliminating administrative and non-clinical business development roles. 

• Canadian patients seeking psychedelics for end-of-life care had hoped that the country’s new Special Access Program would make the process easier. But has it? Undark investigates.

• For National Geographic, Ferriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellow Rachel Nuwer delves into the history and future of ibogaine.

• In Lucid News, Shayla Love explores how the patent system and the psychedelics industry will need to change in order to incentivize innovation over greed. 

• Discover writes about binaural beats, which “some advocates say can produce psychoactive effects resembling everything from ayahuasca to cocaine.” 

• Oregon’s Measure 109 didn’t approve psychedelic therapy, writes STAT News’s Olivia Goldhill, but many people interpret it that way. What will that mean for people seeking therapy as service centers open?

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