Tag: psychedelics

New Congressional Amendments Would End Marijuana Tests For Federal Job Applicants And Encourage Psychedelic Research

New marijuana and psychedelics amendments have been filed by bipartisan congressional lawmakers as part of large-scale spending bills—including proposals that would end the practice of drug testing job applicants at certain federal agencies for marijuana.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) introduced two versions of the same cannabis measure for separate appropriations bills, one covering Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies (MilCon/VA) and another on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies. It would prevent the use of funds to drug test most applicants for cannabis at the agencies covered by the legislation.

There’s also an amendment to the MilCon/VA bill from Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI) and Lou Correa (D-CA) that’s meant to encourage the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to carry out “large-scale studies” into drugs like psilocybin and MDMA that have been designated as “breakthrough therapies” by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The sponsors are also the founding co-chairs of a congressional psychedelics caucus that promotes research into entheogenic substances.

The cannabis measures from Garcia would prevent THC drug testing for job applicants in the relevant federal agencies, except for “positions listed as Presumptive Testing Designated Positions by the Selection of Testing Designated Positions Guidance under Federal Drug-Free Workplace Program.”

The proposals also curiously only cover select states, including some such as Tennessee and Texas that have extremely limited low-THC medical cannabis programs while excluding others such as Ohio and Pennsylvania that have more comprehensive medical marijuana laws.

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GOP Congresswoman Pushes For Psychedelics And Marijuana Research For Veterans In Floor Speech

A GOP congresswoman is touting recently released Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance on psychedelics research and calling for additional work to study the therapeutic benefits of marijuana for military veterans.

In a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) talked about the need to support “novel forms of research” to unlock the potential of psychedelics and cannabis for the treatment of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that commonly afflict veterans.

“As a doctor, former director of the Iowa Department of Public Health and 24-year U.S. Army veteran, the mental, emotional and physical health of my constituents and fellow veterans is one of my top priorities in Congress,” she said. “For too long, PTSD and other mental or physical ailments have had devastating effects and far too often go untreated.”

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MDMA: Australia begins world-first psychedelic therapy

Earlier this year, researchers raised eyebrows when Australia’s traditionally conservative medicines regulator approved the use of psychedelics to assist therapy sessions.

The decision will see psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, used for treatment-resistant depression. It will also allow MDMA, known as ecstasy in tablet form, for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

The changes come into effect on Saturday, making Australia the first country to classify psychedelics as medicines at a national level.

While initial access to the drugs will be limited and costly, many experts and patients are hailing it as a landmark moment.

But major health organisations have also urged caution.

Marjane Beaugeois was diagnosed with severe depression in 2017. “Within two months, I lost my mother, grandmother, beloved pet dog and my romantic relationship,” she recalls.

She couldn’t eat, shower, or leave her house in Melbourne – but says prescription antidepressants left her “zombie-like, unable to cry, self-soothe or feel better”.

“I’d still go to bed praying not to wake up,” the 49-year-old says.

When her research for alternative therapies led her to a psilocybin clinic in Amsterdam, she was hesitant.

“I have no history of drug or alcohol use. As an addiction counsellor, I was always very against it,” she says.

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Pilgrims Are Flocking to This Psychedelic Temple

UPSTATE NEW YORK has been the birthplace of many Great Awakenings. In the 1820s, religious fervor so swept the region it became known as “the burned-over district.” In the 1960s, Timothy Leary’s commune in Millbrook became ground control for the East Coast psychedelic movement. “By the time we got to Woodstock,” sang Joni Mitchell, “we were half a million strong.”

More than five decades after Woodstock, in Wappinger Falls, Alex Grey and his wife, Allyson Grey, are trying to use art to get back to the garden. Under the full June moon earlier this month, the Greys opened the bronze, 700-pound doors of Entheon, a temple-museum hybrid dedicated to advancing visionary art, and a message of ecological unity. 

“Humanity’s materialistic worldview must transition to a sacred view of oneness with the environment and cosmos,” Alex tells me after the celebration where soap heir David Bronner, who funded part of the museum, billowed about in his purple robes like a psychedelic Medici. It is a message Americans heard before — in the indigenous language of animacy, and in the prose of Alan Watts, who wrote that the individual is not, contrary to our common perception, a separate “ego inside a bag of skin,” but more like a wave coming out of the ocean. 

As psychedelics return from the outlaw regions of the culture, arriving alongside the climate crisis, the gospel of interconnectedness is spreading again, this time through the mycelial tendrils of the internet. Alex Grey, demure and snowy-haired at age 69, is not entirely sure why he has become such a popular progenitor, but he nevertheless has: On Instagram, he is one of the most famous living visual artists in the country, with 1.4 million followers — more than Jeff Koons and Yayoi Kusama combined. 

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A Neurosurgeon Compares His Near-Death Experience With Smoking Psychedelic Toad Slime

Few neuroscientists can claim to have probed the outer limits of human consciousness to the same extent as Dr Eben Alexander. After contracting bacterial meningoencephalitis in 2008, the brain surgeon wrote a book describing his remarkable near-death experience (NDE) while in a coma. A decade later, he smoked the psychedelic venom of the Sonoran Desert toad, and has now provided a detailed comparison of the two life-changing events.

Introducing their interviewee, the authors of the new report explain that NDEs and psychedelic experiences often have “shared characteristics such as entering other worlds, meeting menacing or benevolent entities, experiencing synesthesia, perinatal regression, and lucid dreamlike properties.” However, they go on to say that no studies have ever compared the experience of dying with the effects of 5-MeO-DMT, the main psychoactive component in the secretions of certain hallucinogenic toads.

Finding a subject familiar with both experiences is no easy feat, and it’s unlikely there are many out there other than Alexander. Recording the neurosurgeon’s testimony, therefore, provided the researchers with a rare opportunity to analyze the “high level of comparability” between NDEs and smoking 5-MeO-DMT.

In particular, the authors say that both experiences are characterized by a sense of “ego dissolution” as well as “transcendence of time and space.” Regarding the former, Alexander explains that during his NDE, he found himself “in a position similar to that of someone with partial but beneficial amnesia. That is, a person who has forgotten some key aspect about him or herself, but who benefits from having forgotten it.”

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FDA creates path for psychedelic drug trials

Federal regulators are laying out guidance for psychedelic drug trials for the first time, in a move that could encourage the mainstreaming of substances like magic mushrooms and LSD as behavioral health treatments.

Why it matters: Psychedelics are turning into a multi-billion industry and gaining widespread acceptance after decades of concerns about recreational use of the products — and the high risk for misuse. But research to date has largely been backed by private sponsors.

Driving the news: The Food and Drug Administration on Friday released first-ever draft guidance outlining considerations — including trial conduct, data collection and subject safety — for researchers looking into psychedelic treatments for a variety of conditions, including PTSD, depression and anxiety.

  • The agency filed the 14-page document two days after a bipartisan coalition in Congress led by Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) introduced legislation directing the issuance of clinical trial guidelines.
  • It also came as 10,000 attendees and hundreds of exhibitors converged on Denver for what was billed as the “largest psychedelic conference in history,” with guests ranging from New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers to National Institute of Mental Health director Joshua Gordon.

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Ancient Egyptian followers of a deity called Bes may have used hallucinogens

An ancient Egyptian vase in the shape of the deity Bes showed traces of chemical plant compounds known to produce hallucinations, according to a recent preprint posted to Research Square. The authors suggest that members of the cult of Bes may have consumed a special cocktail containing the compounds to induce altered states of consciousness.

There is ample evidence that humans in many cultures throughout history used various hallucinogenic substances in religious ceremonies or shamanic rituals. That includes not just ancient Egypt but also ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca, and Aztec cultures. The Urarina people who live in the Peruvian Amazon Basin still use a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca in their rituals, and Westerners seeking their own brand of enlightenment have also been known to participate.

Lacing the beer served at their feasts with hallucinogens may have helped an ancient Peruvian people known as the Wari forge political alliances and expand their empire, according to a 2022 study. As previously reported, the use of hallucinogens, particularly a substance derived from the seeds of the vilca tree, was common in the region during the so-called Middle Horizon period, when the Wari empire thrived.

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Psychedelic drugs like LSD could enhance the effects of brain simulation

New research provides evidence that LSD alters the effects of brain stimulation and produces different and potentially larger changes in brain activity. The preliminary findings suggest that psychedelic drugs and brain stimulation may have a synergistic effect that could be used in innovative ways for treating various conditions. The proof-of-concept study has been published in the journal Psychedelic Medicine.

Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy has shown promising potential as a therapeutic approach for various mental health conditions. This treatment combines the use of psychedelic substances, such as psilocybin or LSD, with psychotherapy sessions to enhance the therapeutic process.

The psychedelic substances used in this type of therapy are known to induce altered states of consciousness, leading to profound experiences that can have therapeutic benefits. These substances are thought to work by affecting brain receptors, particularly the serotonin 2A receptor, which influences perception, mood, and cognition.

These drugs have also been found to enhance neural plasticity, which refers to the brain’s ability to reorganize and form new connections. This may contribute to their long-term therapeutic effects. It is believed that combining psychedelic drugs with therapies like psychotherapy or brain stimulation could help direct these neuroplastic changes and lead to lasting behavioral changes.

“Current treatments like transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have a large potential to help people with a variety of psychiatry disorders, however, these neuromodulatory treatments tend to have relatively short-lived effects,” explained study author Lucas Dwiel, a postdoctoral fellow at The Doucette Lab at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. “So if we could prolong the effects of these treatments by first using drugs like LSD to make the brain more malleable or susceptible to change, we could help a large number of patients achieve their therapeutic goals.”

The researchers conducted experiments using rats to eliminate the biases inherent in human studies. The study focused on the effects of LSD and involved two main components: measuring brain activity changes after LSD administration and assessing the effects of brain stimulation combined with LSD.

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Healing brain trauma with psychedelics

Ian McCall is a former professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighter who suffered from symptoms of traumatic brain injuries. After retirement, McCall experienced confusion, anger issues, depression, addiction and suicidal ideation. He tried brain stimulation therapy, but that did not work. So, he turned to a less traditional form of therapy: psilocybin mushrooms.

“I am a very loving, happy person, and I wasn’t for a large portion of my life. Because I was just tortured. I was tortured, and then I was confused, and I was addicted, and I was just crazy for a long time,” McCall said.

Psilocybin mushrooms, also known as magic mushrooms or shrooms, are naturally occurring psychedelics that can affect all senses. They can alter a person’s way of thinking and can cause hallucinations.

“The most important thing to know is that if you take psilocybin or LSD, they’re incredibly safe from a physiological standpoint. You can’t really overdose on them,” Dr. Daniel F. Kelly, a practicing neurosurgeon in Santa Monica said. “They don’t create an addictive behavior like say opiates or alcohol do or nicotine. And in fact, as you probably know, they’re used to break addiction.”

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Hallucinogen use is on the rise among young adults

A significant upsurge in the usage of non-LSD hallucinogens among young adults in the United States is causing concern among researchers. An insightful study conducted by the University of Michigan and Columbia University reveals that in the period between 2018 and 2021, the use of these drugs by individuals aged 19 to 30 almost doubled.

Back in 2018, it was found that 3.4% of young adults reported having used non-LSD hallucinogens in the past year. This figure spiked to 6.6% in 2021. 

Sudden surge is surprising

While this prevalence remains relatively low compared to substance usage like alcohol and cannabis, this sudden surge over a mere three years presents potential public health worries.

“The increase in non-LSD hallucinogen use occurred while LSD use remained stable at around 4% in 2018 and 2021,” stated Megan Patrick, a research professor in the Survey Research Center at U-M’s Institute for Social Research. 

Patrick, who is a co-author of the study, emphasized that the leap in prevalence is substantial and raises critical health-related concerns.

How the study was conducted

This noteworthy information was uncovered as a part of the Monitoring the Future study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the results were published in the journal Addiction. 

The study, involving a longitudinal follow-up of 12th-grade students transitioning into adulthood, focused primarily on substance use and health.

In addition to the overall increase in hallucinogen usage, the research team discovered that the consumption of these substances was notably higher among males compared to females. 

Additionally, white young adults reported higher usage rates than Black young adults, and those whose parents possessed a college education, indicating a higher socioeconomic status, were also found to use these substances more frequently.

While the reasons behind the usage of these drugs, whether recreational or therapeutic, were not identified in the study, previous research has shown a link between nonmedical hallucinogen use and an increased risk of substance use disorders, self-harm, injury, and anxiety.

“With increased visibility for medical and therapeutic use, potentially comes diversion and unregulated product availability, as well as a lack of understanding among the public of potential risks,” explained Katherine Keyes, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School and the lead author of the study.

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