Tag: mental health

Magic mushroom guides in Oregon face uncertain trip ahead

In the last few weeks, dozens of students have graduated from schools in Oregon where they were trained to guide people through magic mushroom trips that can last as long as six hours. At one school, an alpaca farmer, a social worker, an ER nurse and a nutritionist were all in the same class, attempting to learn the tricks of a new trade. 

But it will be a few months until any of them can legally practice what they’ve learned in their state — and once they can, there are open questions about how the psychedelics industry will shape up there.  

“Our big mantra to students is, don’t quit your day job,” said Nathan Howard, the director of one facilitator school called InnerTrek, adding, “Yet.” 

The Oregon state government and 22 training schools are writing the rule book on the best strategy for administering a drug that has shown promise in clinical trials in combatting depression, addiction or dependencies, and anxiety around terminal illnesses.  

 he first licensed magic mushroom guides could be a model for a new sort of health care professional — but are they ready for the realities of the work and how much of a risk are the new guides taking on?  

In November 2020, Oregon voters became the first in the country to approve therapeutic use of psilocybin, which is the key ingredient in magic mushrooms. The drug became legal Jan. 1, 2023, though actual sale of the psychedelic can’t begin until the state gives its stamp of approval to laboratories which will produce the psilocybin products and service centers where they’ll be consumed. Unlike cannabis, magic mushrooms won’t be sold at dispensaries and can only be used under supervision at licensed locations. 

By state law, the supervisors or psilocybin facilitators have to be over 21, have a minimum of a high school education, and they must graduate from a training school before they take a licensing exam. Beyond that, the state entrusts school administrators to vet people through the application process and to iron out the specifics of what a day on the job might entail.  

Keep reading

Helping veterans, battling opioid addiction driving magic mushroom legislation progress

Forty lawmakers, 36 Democrats and 4 Republicans, have co-sponsored a bill aiming to allow for the medical use of psilocybin and a psilocybin therapy grant program, which is currently sitting at the committee level of the Assembly, with its Senate version also in committee. The Assembly bill, A03581, was introduced by Democrat Pat Burke in February. There has been other legislation introduced regarding the hallucinogen as well, with Linda Rosenthal’s version legalizing the adult possession and use of hallucinogens like it.

Research has shown that psilocybin, an organic psychedelic compound, can benefit people with cluster headaches, depression, anxiety, irritable bowel syndrome, ADHD and obsessive compulsive disorder, but it’s getting the most universal traction because of its impact on those suffering from PTSD.

“Psilocybin doesn’t have the huge appeal that marijuana had,” Democrat Assemblyman Phil Steck, who is the Assembly’s Chairman of the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee, says. “But, there are definitely people who make a strong case for the proposition that it helps with PTSD. Certainly we want to do everything that we can to help people that are coming back from war, and if psilocybin has proven to do that, then it should be legal for that purpose.”

Johns Hopkins University has conducted several studies on psilocybin, saying it has substantial antidepressant effects, but needs to be administered under carefully controlled conditions through trained clinicians and therapists.

Keep reading

US could soon approve MDMA therapy — opening an era of psychedelic medicine

For Rick Doblin, 2023 could be a landmark year: the year that the US government decides whether it will allow the use of hallucinogenic drugs to treat mental illness.

Doblin, who is based in Belmont, Massachusetts, is the founder and president of the non-profit organization Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He has spent nearly 40 years researching whether the experience produced by the psychedelic drug MDMA — also called ecstasy or molly — can help people with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 2021, MAPS’s phase III clinical trial of 90 people with PTSD found that those who received MDMA coupled with psychotherapy were twice as likely to recover from the condition as were those who received psychotherapy with a placebo1 (see ‘Response to MDMA therapy’).

Keep reading

NEVADA COMMITTEE TO VOTE ON BILL FOR RESEARCH, DECRIMINALIZATION OF PSILOCYBIN

Greg Rea had his first experience with psychedelics when he was 56 years old. Up until then, he’d been a Reno police officer on SWAT for 12 years before retiring from the force to become a pastor and then a real estate investor.

“I retired a couple years ago, but I still was a pretty tightly wound guy,” Rea tells the Weekly in a phone interview. “And I had a seven-days-a-week drinking problem.”

Rea says that despite having a “pretty good life,” like many first responders, alcohol use was adversely affecting him—until about three years ago, when a friend invited him to a group psychedelic experience.

During that experience, which comprised several sessions, a combination of psilocybin [the drug in “magic” mushrooms] and MDMA [aka ecstasy or Molly]took Rea back to two “fairly violent, critical incidents” in which he was involved as a SWAT officer. The intense, emotional trip led to a breakthrough, he says.

“I realized I had some form of PTSD connected to those things,” Rea says. “And I had no idea I’d carried it for almost 20 years.”

After group sessions with other first responders, he began to find a community to talk about mental health—“inner world things” that the wider community might misunderstand. “First responders are exposed to an inordinate amount of human suffering [that] the typical citizen isn’t. So, we said, why don’t we start our own group?”

In the group, firefighters, first responders and current and former military service members are opening up and “finding their healing with psychedelic medicine,” he says. “And I’m free from my seven-days-a-week alcohol habit. My life is just inordinately better. And my relationships are better.”

Rea was one of many who gave public comment during a March 23 hearing for Senate Bill 242 (SB242).

In his testimony, Assemblyman Max Carter said that his therapy with ketamine, the only drug currently legal for psychedelic therapy, has been “transformational” in his mental health and struggle with chronic depression.

“Psilocybin, studies show, is much more powerful. Where I’ve gone through eight or nine ketamine sessions, [it] probably would have been one or two [sessions], if psilocybin was legal,” Carter said, adding that, based on studies, the effects of psilocybin appear to be longer lasting than ketamine.

The bill would establish a framework for research of psilocybin in the state and, if passed as amended, decriminalize possession of the substance, currently listed as a Schedule 1 drug.

Keep reading

In California, Parents May Soon Effectively Lose Custody of Kids 12 and Older 

In California, “stranger danger” may be about to acquire a whole new meaning. 

Forget warning kids. It’s the parents in California who will need to be terrified of strangers if a new bill passes. 

Snuck into AB 665, legislation ostensibly about extending mental health care to lower-income California youths, is a provision that effectively would terminate parents’ rights over their kids as soon as they turn 12. 

The California Family Council warns that this bill “would allow children as young as 12 years old to consent to being placed into state funded group homes without parental permission or knowledge.”  

As long as a mental health professional signs off on it, the kids can go to such a group home—and it doesn’t matter what their parents think. 

“This bill gives a stranger, a school psychologist, power to decide whether a sixth or seventh grader comes home from school that day, and that’s terrifying,” Erin Friday, a California mom of two teens, tells The Daily Signal. 

“This bill is essentially stating that parents are criminals that have to prove their innocence to get their child back,” adds Friday, who is a leader of the parent advocacy group Our Duty. 

Seriously? 

AB 665, which passed out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee last week, builds on a 2010 measure signed into law by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. That law, the Mental Health Services for At-Risk Youth Act, allowed California children 12 and older to receive mental health care without their parents’ knowledge if a mental health provider determined it was best not to involve the parents.  

That provision was no accident. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, celebrated the California law in a 2010 report as a “useful model for state or federal legislation to address mental illness among LGBT youth.”  

Keep reading

Psychedelics and mental health: Having mystical experiences may yield strongest benefits

It’s a trope seen countless times in books and movies. A character emerges from a drug-induced psychedelic stupor with a fresh outlook and more positive perspective on life. According to new findings from The Ohio State University, however, there may really be some truth to this hallucinogenic notion. Scientists report particularly mystical and insightful psychedelic drug experiences may be associated with an enduring drop in both anxiety and depression symptoms.

Study authors performed a comprehensive machine learning analysis of data pertaining to nearly 1,000 survey respondents who answered questions about their previous non-clinical experiences with psychedelic drugs. Sure enough, those scoring the highest on questionnaires assessing the mystical and insightful nature of their experiences also consistently reported improvements in both depression and anxiety.

Of course, there’s also the risk of encountering a “bad trip.” What happens if a psychedelic experience becomes unpleasant, frightening, or destabilizing? Surprisingly, the study actually found that even challenging psychedelic trips can be beneficial — especially within the context of mystical and insightful experiences. This finding in particular may be especially helpful for practitioners to know as they guide patients through clinical trials focusing on the therapeutic potential of psychedelics.

“Sometimes the challenge arises because it’s an intensely mystical and insightful experience that can, in and of itself, be challenging,” says senior study author Alan Davis, assistant professor and director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education in The Ohio State University College of Social Work, in a media release.

Keep reading

Quebec Approves Magic Mushrooms Under Public Health Coverage

Quebec, Canada last week approved the used of psilocybin – the primary psychoactive in “magic mushrooms,” as a valid therapy under the state’s medical system.

Advocates hope the move will set a precedent for other Canadian provinces to take similar action, Forbes reports.

“This decision is a huge step forward for the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy as a legitimate medical treatment,” wrote TheraPsil, a nonprofit group that advocates for the advancement of psilocybin therapies, in a Dec. 15 statement. “It not only provides greater access to this potentially life-changing treatment for patients in Quebec, but it also sets a precedent for other provinces to follow suit.”

Clinical research and other studies into psychedelics such as psilocybin have shown that the drugs have potential therapeutic benefits, particularly for serious mental health conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety. Research published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry in 2020 found that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy was an effective and quick-acting treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorder. A separate study published in 2016 determined that psilocybin treatment produced substantial and sustained decreases in depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer. -Forbes

As we noted in April, psychedelic mushrooms are becoming increasingly popular in the US as a possible treatment for psychiatric disorders, with their main active ingredient, psilocybin, moving from the fringes of medicine, to become increasingly mainstream. It appears that Canada, however, is actually making moves to bring the benefits to actual patients.

Keep reading

TikTok’s algorithm promotes posts about eating disorders and suicide, report finds

TikTok’s algorithms are promoting videos about self-harm and eating disorders to vulnerable teens, according to a report published Wednesday that highlights concerns about social media and its impact on youth mental health.

Researchers at the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate created TikTok accounts for fictional teen personas in the U.S., United Kingdom, Canada and Australia. The researchers operating the accounts then “liked” videos about self-harm and eating disorders to see how TikTok’s algorithm would respond.

Within minutes, the wildly popular platform was recommending videos about losing weight and self-harm, including ones featuring pictures of models and idealized body types, images of razor blades and discussions of suicide.

When the researchers created accounts with user names that suggested a particular vulnerability to eating disorders — names that included the words “lose weight” for example — the accounts were fed even more harmful content.

Keep reading

Mental health and worship apps are found to be some of the most privacy invasive

Apps that deal with some of the most sensitive and personal data, such as that concerning a user’s mental health or religious activities, are said to rank among the worst privacy offenders.

This is the conclusion of a study conducted by the Mozilla Foundation, which singled out mental health and prayer apps as being prone to track and collect data revealing a person’s state of mind, feelings, and thoughts, and then “share” that for-profit via targeted advertising.

Mozilla’s team looked into 32 apps from this category, putting a “privacy not included” label on 29, and publishing the findings in a guide of the same name. 25 of these apps didn’t pass the foundations’ minimum security standards around password quality and handling of security updates.

PTSD Coach, developed by the US The Department of Veterans Affairs, has “strong privacy policies and security practices,” while chatbot Wysa “seems to value users’ privacy.” And the Catholic prayer app Hallow was the only one to “respond in a timely manner” to Mozilla’s emails.

Besides these technical issues, the apps singled out in the report are also said to target “vulnerable users with personalized advertisements” and track and share biometric data.

Keep reading

Love & Other Drugs: The Couples Using Psychedelics as a Way To Get Closer

Some couples like to take time off and wander the world to recharge, rejuvenate and reconnect with each other. Others prefer a different kind of trip. 

Psychedelics are increasingly gaining prominence as well as regulatory approval as a form of treatment for mental health disorders ranging from PTSD to anxiety. This has also sparked a larger conversation on whether using hallucinogens like psilocybin mushrooms or LSD could then also emerge as a form of relationship therapy, given that these substances have the ability to curb inhibitions and change the way we perceive reality. 

The rise and rise of psychedelic wellness has also led to couples experimenting with the substances together, either to forge stronger bonds, deal with deep-seated issues in a controlled setting or simply share the euphoric experience together. In fact, though psychedelics are not legal in most countries, relationship counsellors are increasingly advocating their use in counselling sessions, where a couple is administered a mild dosage in a controlled environment, asked leading questions about their hopes and fantasies while they’re tripping, and given calculated counselling based on their experiences. 

“Psilocybin has incredible [potential] as a catalyst for such therapy because it tears down all your walls and filters, and changes the way you think about the relationship,” Kripi Malviya, a psychologist and founder of de-addiction and rehabilitation centre TATVA, told VICE. 

Keep reading