This Week in Psychedelics: Stock turmoil, Colorado bill withdrawn, and who can run a ketamine clinic

Happy Friday, and welcome back to The Microdose. Here’s the news of the week:

Is the universe conscious? For many people, psychedelic experiences can be life-changing, permanently altering belief systems or ways of thinking. In a new study, Johns Hopkins researchers Sandeep Nayak and Roland Griffiths surveyed people about those experiences. Over 1000 participants filled out an online survey which asked about which psychedelic they took, what mystical-type experiences they had, and if their beliefs around consciousness, superstition, and free will had changed after their psychedelic experience. 

The results, published in Frontiers in Psychology, suggest that survey respondents came away from their psychedelic experiences with an increased willingness to attribute consciousness to non-human animals, plants, and even inanimate objects. Moreover, those beliefs appear to endure for years. The average length of time that passed between respondents’ psychedelic experiences and their survey participation was about 8 years, and the researchers asked respondents about their beliefs about consciousness shortly before and after their psychedelic experience, as well as their current beliefs. Respondents said their belief in the consciousness of living beings and objects remained unchanged between the immediate period after their psychedelic experience and the time at which they completed the survey. In contrast, psychedelic experiences didn’t seem to alter survey respondents’ belief in free will or in superstitions, like the statement “the number 13 is unlucky.”

As with any self-reported survey data, the results of this study might not be representative of the average experience of people who have tried psychedelics. “It is possible there were demand effects, wherein participants felt compelled to report belief changes along certain directions,” the authors write. But if that effect drove these results, it’s curious that respondents did not also report changes in their beliefs about free will. (Cultural expectations and narratives around psychedelic trips might have contributed as well — but that’s hard to measure.) Overall, the study points to something interesting: psychedelics have the power to change people’s beliefs about consciousness, and what possesses it. 

Psychedelic stock turmoil? Psychedelic companies are releasing their 2021 financials, and there’s buzz among investors about the future of the sector. In mid-March, Psilocybin Alpha’s Psychedelic Bulletin dissected the growth and shuttering of life sciences company MINDCURE, which announced it was ceasing operations. Mid-sized companies might be quickly burning through their “cash runways” — how much money they have before needing to re-up funding or shutter — and might be at higher risk of folding. And earlier this week, finance news site Benzinga reported that the 30 largest public psychedelic companies are trending downward in stock prices, and predicted that 2022 might be a year of consolidation of psychedelic companies, especially smaller ones that might need to either “be acquired or perish.” 

There has never been a more exciting – or bewildering – time in the world of psychedelics. Don’t miss a beat.

Psychedelic palliative care. Last weekend, three psychedelic advocates working with biotech company Psyence published a piece in Lucid News about the latest on Erinn Baldeschwiler, a woman in Washington State diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer who has been trying to access psilocybin-assisted therapy through the federal “Right to Try” act. 

That act, passed in 2018, allows patients who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness and exhausted all other treatment options to try “investigational drugs” which have gone through phase 1 clinical trials but have not yet been approved by the FDA. Psilocybin satisfies those requirements, but Baldeschwiler has had trouble finding a legal supply. Her story first appeared in Kaiser Health News in November 2020, and she’s been campaigning for access to psilocybin ever since. When her lawyers wrote to the DEA asking for guidance, the DEA told them that Right to Try laws do not exempt scheduled drugs like psilocybin from the Controlled Substances Act. Baldeschwiler and another cancer patient then filed suit against the DEA, but in January 2022, a federal appeals court dismissed the suit, saying the court did not have jurisdiction to make a ruling. 

Now, Lucid News reports that Baldeschwiler has met with Washington state senator Patty Murray’s staff, “urging her to help to secure DEA cooperation with the federally mandated access for her dying constituents.” In a statement to Lucid, Murray said her staff has reached out to the DEA, and that she is “going to keep pushing the DEA and Biden Administration for answers.” Baldeschwiler’s story shows how difficult it can be for patients to access psychedelic therapy as part of their palliative care. 

Who can run a ketamine clinic? With ketamine clinics popping up all over the U.S., more patients are seeking the drug to treat mental health issues. Ketamine was initially approved by the FDA as an anesthetic, but some medical professionals are now prescribing it off-label — and the legal bounds of that practice are a bit murky. 

In Harris Bricken’s Psychedelic Law Blog, Arizona-based attorney Ethan Minkin explores the legal standards around prescribing ketamine. For instance, how might providers be evaluated for medical malpractice? The norm, Minkin writes, is to meet “local or community standard of care” — but there are no federal rules. In Arizona, a medical malpractice claim must show that a provider “failed to exercise that degree of care, skill, and learning expected of a reasonable, prudent health care provider,” which gets into subjective territory. “Would it be reasonable for a dermatologist to perform neurosurgery? Would it be prudent for a radiologist to perform a colonoscopy?” writes Minkin. 

Colorado psychedelics bill withdrawn. In January, Colorado state representative Alex Valdez introduced House Bill 22-1116, which would create a plant-based medicine policy review panel to review the use of “naturally occurring hallucinogenic plant-based compounds” to support mental health. But this week, Valdez requested the bill be withdrawn, explaining that, with two voter-led initiatives competing for inclusion on Colorado’s ballot in November, he’d rather wait to see how voters react and allow the “democratic process” to take place, according to Colorado Newsline. 

• Manish Agrawal, an oncologist and founder of psychedelic company Sunstone Therapies, writes in The Washington Post about how psychedelics might help treat cancer patients’ depression and anxiety. 

• In Jacobin, journalist Rustam Yulbarisov explores the growing psychedelic market in a piece whose title makes his thesis clear: “LSD Capitalism Promises a Bad Trip For Us All.” 

• This week, The Nation published a special issue focusing on psychedelics, which includes a retrospective on the war on drugs, an exploration of how ancient civilizations used drugs, the “secret Black history of LSD,” and a cover story on the burgeoning psychedelics industry.

You’re all caught up! Have a great weekend. Stay tuned for a new 5 Questions on Monday.

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