Your brain on DMT, Field Trip in a tailspin, a flurry of new bills
Plus: First Oregon licenses issued, and a patent showdown
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. Here’s the rundown on the last two weeks in psychedelics news:
Your brain on DMT
New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the most comprehensive view yet into what happens in the brain when participants take dimethyltryptamine, or DMT. The psychedelic compound is found in plants including Psychotria viridis, which is a component of ayahuasca.
In the study, researchers at Imperial College London injected twenty participants with either 20 mg of DMT or a placebo. They then measured participants’ brain activity using electroencephalography (EEG) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), a relatively new combination of techniques that allows researchers to more accurately assess the location and timing of changes in brain activity. As you might guess, participants who received DMT reported seeing visual patterns, feeling “unusual bodily sensations,” and experiencing “a different reality or dimension,” while those in the placebo group did not.
The brain activity of participants given DMT showed several key differences from those given a placebo. First, the brain’s typical patterns become dysregulated; the brain’s usual hierarchical organization collapses once DMT takes hold. Then communication across the brain becomes more fluid and “hyperconnected,” the authors write. Brains on DMT also showed more ‘entropy,’ or random and spontaneous brain activity, which Robin Carhart-Harris, an author on this new paper, has previously proposed is key to the human experience of consciousness.
Field Trip in a tailspin
Two weeks ago, Toronto psychedelics company Field Trip announced it was closing five of its ketamine clinics. The next week, CEO Ronan Levy resigned, and the company said it was laying off more staff and seeking protection under Canada’s Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, which allows companies with debts exceeding $5 million to restructure in hopes of avoiding bankruptcy.
In the aftermath of this news, psychedelics-industry business experts say the business grew too quickly too soon.
“All-in-all, Field Trip was likely too early, too aggressive, and too extravagant: from its luxe furnishings and expensive leases through to its entirely out-of-pocket sticker prices at a time of belt-tightening for many,” Psychedelic Alpha wrote in their analysis. In Lucid News, Ken Jordan situates Field Trip’s struggles among others in the industry, including Synthesis’s implosion, atai’s recent layoffs, and Silo Wellness and Havn Life’s restructuring. The Lucid News story quotes one venture capitalist estimating that over 70 percent of psychedelic companies are in trouble. One consultant is quoted saying, “It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
The State of Psychedelics: A flurry of new bills
In at least 21 of the U.S.’s 50 states, lawmakers have introduced psychedelics-related bills this legislative session. Some of the bills focus on reducing penalties for possession of psychedelics, while others aim to make it easier for researchers to conduct studies with the drugs; still others seek to lay the groundwork for launching psilocybin services, like those in the works in Oregon and Colorado. This month saw a number of new bills introduced, as well as progress on a variety of bills introduced earlier in the year:
Washington State’s senate has passed Senate Bill 5263, which establishes an advisory committee to develop a plan to roll out psilocybin services. When first introduced, the bill proposed psilocybin services similar to Oregon’s, but the senate’s Committee on Labor & Commerce altered it so it now only creates an advisory committee to investigate establishing psilocybin services. The bill is now in the hands of the state’s House Committee on Health Care & Wellness.
Oklahoma representative Daniel Pae (R) introduced House Bill 2107. The bill would allow universities to conduct research using psilocybin to treat conditions including PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, early-stage dementia, brain injury, moderate to severe chronic pain, and palliative or end-of-life care.
Democrats in Nevada introduced Senate Bill 242, which would make it state-legal for Nevadans to possess up to four ounces of psilocybin-containing fungi and to allow researchers to register with the state to study psilocybin and MDMA.
Texas now has three psychedelics bills in the works: HB 4423 would establish a Psilocybin Research Advisory Board that would review and award research grants; HB 4561 would create an Alternative Mental Health Therapy Research Consortium to study the use of ketamine and psychedelics and to conduct studies evaluating the efficacy of ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT; and HB 4288 would greenlight a study in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine to study the efficacy of MDMA, psilocybin, and ketamine to treat PTSD.
Vermont lawmakers introduced legislation that would reduce penalties for people possessing a “personal use supply” of LSD, MDMA, and other drugs like cocaine or meth to just $50. Companion bills S.119 and H.423 would also launch on-site community drug-checking services run by the Vermont Department of Health, where residents could test their drugs for adulterants. These bills join H.371 and S.114, introduced in late February, which would establish a Psychedelic Therapy Advisory Working Group to investigate how health care providers might administer psychedelics in a therapeutic setting.
In Massachusetts, representative Nick Boldyga (R) filed HD.2137, which would remove MDMA from the state’s list of controlled substances if the federal government approves it for treating PTSD. It also caps the cost of an MDMA treatment at $5,000.
And in California, Senate Bill 58, which would decriminalize the possession and use of psychedelics, moved forward:
The Latest in Oregon: First licenses issued
Last week, Portland’s Satori Farms became the first psilocybin manufacturer licensed by the Oregon Health Authority. Soon after, Satya Therapeutics, which is leasing a 4,000 square foot facility in the state’s Jackson County, became the second.
Oregon Psilocybin Services is now publishing a weekly report detailing license applications and approvals; this week’s report shows that there are dozens of pending applications submitted by individuals and companies looking to manufacture and test psilocybin, as well as those hoping to open service centers and serve as facilitators.
Over at Harris Bricken’s Psychedelic Law Blog, attorney Vince Sliwoski looks at those application numbers and makes two predictions: there will be more facilitators than jobs available at service centers; and the small number of testing labs could cause a bottleneck for the industry. “Problems may surface for Oregon psilocybin due to lab scarcity. These include testing delays; geographic access hardship; price inflation; and testing integrity issues,” he writes.
Patent showdown
As drug companies seek to patent psychedelic compounds, there have been a number of disputes over patented compounds, including Polymorph A, a crystalline form of psilocybin, or the combination of MDMA and LSD (long known to psychonauts as “candyflipping”). Now, one psychedelic pharmaceutical company has sued another for claiming a patent through “inequitable conduct.”
In mid-March, Canadian company Reunion Neuroscience announced it has filed a lawsuit against fellow psychedelics start-up Mindset Pharma. In a press release, Reunion alleges that Mindset “knowingly copied” Reunion’s formulation of the drug 4-HO-DiPT, a synthetic psychedelic compound the company calls RE104. It goes on to say that Mindset “misleadingly presented that exact composition to the Patent Office as Mindset’s invention,” which resulted in a patent for Mindset. The suit also requests that Reunion’s Chief Scientific Officer Nathan Bryson be added to Mindset’s patent for the compound, and alleges that Mindset’s actions were an attempt to “impair Reunion’s opportunity to obtain funding,” for which Reunion is requesting $25 million in damages. The next day, Mindset issued their own press release, saying the company “disagrees with and denies the allegations,” and that the company plans to “vigorously defend itself.”
For more on the lawsuit, read Psychedelic Alpha’s analysis. It dives deep into the timeline and details of the two companies’ disagreements, which come down to interpreting patent rights.
MDMA Worries in Australia
In Australia, psychedelics experts have serious concerns about the Therapeutic Goods Administration’s decision to allow approved psychiatrists to prescribe MDMA and psilocybin starting in July, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. And, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, the costs of therapy could be staggering, with out-of-pocket costs expected to be at least $25,000 Australian, or the equivalent of $16,700 in the U.S.
Delic Corp has shut down all 13 of its ketamine wellness centers, STAT reports, leaving its patients in a lurch.
The Dutch government has announced a commission to study MDMA.
In his newsletter, attorney Mason Marks details concerns about a lack of transparency in the selection of and Senate approval of Colorado’s Psilocybin Advisory Board members.
NBC News reports on the newly founded Psychedelic Medicine PAC.
CBC highlights Vancouver Island University’s Naut sa mawt Center for Psychedelic Research and the importance of Indigenous knowledge in understanding psychedelics.
In the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project newsletter, Jules Evans reflects on the ethics of fundraising for psychedelics projects.
Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton spent the pandemic learning to paint, and Rolling Stone features his psychedelic art.
Musician Diplo claims he ran a marathon on LSD — but according to experts interviewed by USA Today, he’s tripping.
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.
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Great write up. The Psychedelic bubble is reminding me a little of the Cannabis bubble during legalization in Canada. Hopefully some companies survive!