Welcome to issue #9 of The Ethical Trip! In this issue:

For all this, plus recent research, morally flexible product placement, and a joke that 4/5 chatbots assures me is funny (so it must be), read on!

As always, my deep and profound gratitude goes out to everyone who has supported me, including via Buy Me a Coffee Cactus, especially those who provide ongoing monthly contributions.

Another less-interesting fortnight of research, IMO, but they can’t all be super exciting.

Zheng (2025) makes an interesting argument that while psychedelic assisted therapy patients/clients can give ‘valid consent, the ineffable nature of their transformative experiences means they can never really give ‘substantially informed consent,’ essentially because they cannot understand what they will experience before they experience it.

Sen (2025) wrote what looks like an interesting PhD: “In summary, we report heterologous pathway reconstruction in E. coli to produce bufotenine from tryptophan (13.7 mg/L), 5-MeO-DMT from 5-HTP (11.7 mg/L), and trace levels of de novo 3,5-diMeO-4-OH-PEA.” Sadly, it’s under embargo until 2030, so presumably this has some valuable commercial application.

Falling just outside my normal window, probably because it went live while I was writing last fortnight’s issue, Rodan, SC., Meez, N., Lloyd-Hurwitz, S. et al (2025), looked at psychedelic use in individuals living with eating disorders or disordered eating, finding many had positive experiences, though the paper is careful to not overstate the possible therapeutic potential.

Lots more good stuff below, but only for subscribers!

A short(ish) note on atai Life Sciences. Christian ‘buddies with Peter Thiel but not a monster’ Angermayer has been talking up his pet company up this week. I imagine he’s keen to get their share price pumping again after the recent failure of Inidascamine, a drug for schizophrenia developed with Recognify Life Sciences.

Angermayer’s LinkedIn post glosses over some important factors, but also illustrates just how financially and ethically borked the psychedelic-pharmaceutical landscape is.

First, the fundamentals: Angermayer makes a big deal out of their two headline drugs: BPL-003 (5-MeO-DMT) and VLS-01 (DMT). But atai is so far from being profitable, even I don’t find it funny. It’s revenue would have to grow by almost 70% per year for them to finally squeak into profitability by 2030.

All this talk of the $ATAI ( ▲ 1.57% ) share price going over $10 is delusional or disingenuous. Even at $4 it’s wildly overpriced, IMO. And Angermayer’s appeal to ‘regulatory tailwinds’, which is the sanitised term for when you have a vaccine-denying brainworm-incubator pulling the levers of drug approval, is pure hype. A lot can happen in the next 5 years. I don’t know if anyone had noticed, but the social and economic situation in the US is kind of dicey.

Even if they get one of their drugs to market and there’s still a functioning market to sell into, they’d be competing against Spravato, and you can bet J&J isn’t going to let that cash cow go quietly.

On the ethical side, where to begin? BPL-003 is just intra-nasal 5-MeO-DMT and VLS-01 is just DMT formulated to be absorbed through the inside of the mouth. I’m not going to lie, as someone who can’t smoke any more due to a chronic lung condition, VLS-01 sounds pretty cool. But there are many ways that could have been achieved, and most of them aren’t patentable.

And don’t get me started on BPL-003. Putting something containing 5-MeO up your nose? Who thought of that first? Only the people who’ve been using Yopo & Cebil for hundreds if not thousands of years! In atai’s case they’ve hoovered up a 5-MeO-DMT benzoate formulation when they bought Beckley Psytech. But it’s hardly novel, and even if it were, it’s only the artificial gate-keeping of prohibition that makes it valuable.

If you know where to look, there are places where someone could (depending on jurisdiction) legally-ish buy a nasal spray pump with 100 2mg doses of 5-MeO-DMT benzoate for under a hundred euros. That raises a question: Did Beckley innovate this delivery route and analogue? Or did they opportunistically patent what was already circulating by adding non-novel surfactants or modulators to it? That patent’s still pending, so I guess we’ll see.

Either way, the disconnect between valuation and real-world accessibility is striking. If this is the psychedelic industry’s gold standard for IP-driven innovation, the emperor’s clothes are looking somewhat see-thru, and indigenous reciprocity, again, remains out of the frame.

Want to help upgrade my budget from ‘International Roast’ to ‘Moccona’? Support me via Buy Me a Coffee. Special perks available if you join the Founding Readers tier - but not for long!

What if a heroic dose of mushrooms once a month could extend your life by years, or even decades? A new paper in July (closely followed by an avalanche of breathless editorials) announced that psilocybin might have the potential to considerably extend human lifespans.

The largely wilful misinterpretation of this research, which does not translate to humans at this point, was pretty predictable. Few articles discussed whether or not we actually could live longer by chowing down on massive amounts of shrooms.

But none of them discussed whether or not we should.

This isn’t an easy question to answer. What we owe ourselves and the future unborn jostles against dystopian speculation, wicked demographics, loss of meaning, and living long enough to see if George RR Martin ever writes the last Game of Thrones book.

Nonetheless, I’ve given it my best shot. Should we Live Long and Trip Hard?

As some of you might know, I’m currently studying counselling. I’m coming up on the end of a module about decision-making and wanted to share one of the processes I looked at recently.

The Z model is based on elements of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I personally don’t think Myers-Briggs is particularly scientific (and this doesn’t change that) but this might be a useful idea nonetheless. The process uses different aspects of decision-making to help clients reach decisions based on more aspects of the question at hand, not just their preferred thinking style.

The ‘Z’ shape & name comes from the sense that the styles are paired and you’re crossing over from one to the other, i.e., from considering consequences (Thinking) to exploring emotional aspects (Feeling).

The four steps (very briefly) are:

I’m told the Z model may be helpful for those who rely too heavily on one style of thought/decision-making and neglect others. This is because it facilitates working through a broader range of considerations, e.g., helping people think about consequences or value-alignment when they normally don’t.

Obviously it’s not hard to adapt this to when you’re working though something yourself, rather than with someone else. (Also obviously, like any time you make a decision alone, there’s a chance you’ll miss something by not having someone help reflect on what you’re doing from a different perspective. So don’t think that this guarantees you’ll make good decisions.)

I don’t have counselling clients, and those of you who are already working as therapists probably have better tools (and a better understanding of how to use them.) But I can see how it’s useful, especially for people who are Myers-Briggs fans.

This week’s issue of The Ethical Trip was brought to you by Jungian Sperm Energy’s Seed Serum (patent pending), the only skincare product specifically designed for men with luxurious beards, unresolved shadow work, and massive share portfolios.

Jungian Sperm Energy^tm. Rooted in consciousness. Driven by attention. Distributed in discreet, bypass-proof packaging.

Remember: JIZZ—Jungian Inspired, Integrated Delivery, Zeitgeist-aware, Zero Regrets™.

🥛Retain today, profit tomorrow.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading!

What is the most unhinged product you’ve seen someone selling in the world of psychedelics? Hit reply to let me know and I’ll feature it next time (with your permission, of course.) Alternatively, forward this email to someone who posts unironically in r/shroomstocks.

As always, all feedback and suggestions are welcome, and I promise* to not betray you to the Borg Collective.

*Unless they offer a competitive salary.

PS:

I ran into Rick Doblin at the farmers market the other day. He said he was looking for mushrooms.

So I asked if he needed morel guidance.

Written on Worimi lands. Sovereignty was never ceded.

Icon by Freepik from Flaticon