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In this issue:
More details on the PAT rollout in Australia and what they might mean for the US
How to stop worrying about being in a simulation
Operational security for group chats
For all this, plus new research on an overlooked toxidrome and an excitingly positive community initiative, read on!
Table of Contents
Industry Insights:
Clinical Psychedelics in Australia and implications for the US
Psychedelic Alpha did some much-appreciated heavy lifting earlier in the month and reported the results of it’s freedom of information request to to the TGA for figures on how many prescriptions had been issued for Psilocybin and MDMA under our Special Access Scheme. The round figure: 100.
Combined with previous reports that there are no more than 30 (and probably closer to 15) approved prescribers, we can start to put together a more complete picture of the emerging sector here.
The most obvious one is that, on average at least, prescribers seem to be going slow and not churning through large numbers of patients. Simple arithmetic shows that each prescriber is only dosing between 4 and 7 patients per year. Is this a refection of the psychological intensity of such work, the burden of compliance paperwork, or clinical caution? Time will tell.
Either way, these numbers are especially bad news for companies like Optimi Health Corp, as it limps along with less than 6 months worth of cash left at its current burn rate. This is doubly true when you consider that its recent(ish) announcement of shipping 1000 doses of GMP MDMA to Australia could represent up to 20 years worth of supply at current prescription rates. Shares were already diluted in January when the corporation settled CAD$98,126.25 of debt for “marketing and investor relations services” in an equity swap. I’d expect whatever fundraising that comes next for them to be pretty punishing for existing investors.
(Sorry $OPTHF ( ▼ 8.78% ) shareholders, I did try to warn you.)
The irony that 1000 doses of MDMA could easily be consumed in a day at any decent sized music festival, yet is somehow worth a press release should not be lost on anyone. Someone should tell former Optimi CEO, Bill Ciprick, that the hippies in yurts are still winning.
How this is playing out also allows us to make some more educated speculations about legal/clinical psychedelics in the US. The big psychedelic corporations and non-profits will have watched developments in Australia. If they genuinely want to make money from selling psychedelic pharmaceuticals (rather than just as a meme-stocks for temporarily embarrassed techbro millionaires who still live with their parents), they will not want to see bigger markets go down the same road that we have.
Right now, Australia has fewer than 1% of psychiatrists approved to prescribe, and those that are do not churn through huge numbers of clients. Imagine scaling this up to the US. Even if people like self-professed chaos agent, Matt Zorn, can help PAT clear the FDA’s hurdles, if the resulting regime is too restrictive, we’ll basically see a bigger and even more expensive version of what’s happening here.
People pumping billions of dollars into $ATAI ( ▼ 3.29% ) or Lykos aren’t dong this so a measly 1% of US psychiatrists can collectively prescribe 4000 doses of largely unpatentable medicines with minimal insurance coverage. Their long game will involve patented formulations, dispensed by a wider range of practitioners, with vastly less patient supervision. So, no matter what lobbyists and mouthpieces say, the big money will be aiming for a future that involves less ‘tripping while supervised by two psychologists in a comfortably furnished yurt’ and more ‘take one of these and get back to work.’
Maybe keep this in mind next time certain organisations come to your community asking for donations, or when you allow them to borrow your legitimacy and street cred by attending their events. Just sayin’.
Of course, this all assumes that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train of environmental or political collapse. There are no dividends on a dead planet, and you’ll only get healthcare under fascism if you’re the kind of person the government wants to exist.
Perspective is everything.
New Research: Wood Lover Paralysis
A new paper featuring community-driven research on Wood Lover Paralysis (WLP) is out: “Wood-lover paralysis”: Describing a toxidrome with symptoms of weakness caused by some lignicolous “wood-loving” Psilocybe mushrooms. Carried out by researchers who are respected by the community because they’re part of it and in conjunction with the Australian Psychedelic Society, this paper is an important step in discovering patterns of how and when WLP impacts people. It also includes one of the clearest discussions of a hypothetical pharmacological mechanism I’ve read so far.
Picking these suburban Melbourne P. subaeruginosa mushrooms is illegal and makes Dan Andrews sadder than he is already. So don’t.
Philosophical Brief: Ultimate Reality is Overrated
Thinking too much about the nature of reality isn’t anything new. But as psychedelics grow more popular, more people will interpret their experiences as a peek behind the curtain of everyday reality to perceive something deeper.
While not the most common reaction, some people experience genuine intellectual concerns that if maybe the world isn’t what it seems, this renders life meaningless, or just plain terrifying.
It was coming across such concerns that prompted me to write this piece for the Australian Psychedelic Society blog, some years ago now.
Back in 2019, there was some talk online and in communities, about the possibility that we’re all living in a simulation. Despite being founded in an argument that’s not great (which is a side issue - I’ll write up my criticism of Bostrom another day) the simulation trope remains. These days, it’s more likely to be a variation of the DMT+laser technique, which purports to show the underlying base code of our reality.
Whilst it’s not always stated, the underlying logic of why these supposed glimpses of ‘true’ reality are significant follow this basic logic, that was sketched by Hilary Putnam, and I’ve adapted (mangled) here:
If you’re part of a simulation, then you don’t have hands( because you’re just made of code).
You don’t know that you’re not in a simulation.
Therefore, you don’t know that you have hands.
In this context ‘have hands’ is just a placeholder for any other thing that you’d be concerned about not being ‘real’.
Whatever the concern is, and whatever the brand of scepticism is underlying it (matrix scenario, brain in vat, glorified sim run by alien space bats) there are a couple of responses that give some important perspective.
One: It doesn’t matter.
Imagine someone in a Matrix-style scenario, whose simulated body has lost its hands in a simulated accident, while their real body still has them. Would this person be comforted to be told that it’s OK because they ‘really’ have hands? How about the psychedelic version, where it’s fine because there’s no such thing as physical hands and we’re really all made from vibrations or something? I wouldn’t be very impressed in either case. Why? Because my lack of possibly illusory hands is more important to my everyday life than my ‘real’ ones, and the suffering that this causes me is most definitely real.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t interrogate if self or suffering are illusions. But we can’t have an experience of our suffering not being the centre of lives if we pretend it doesn’t genuinely affect us.
Two: What makes you think that your psychedelic visions are more real?
If seeing reality as different causes you to think that maybe your everyday perceptions aren’t ‘real’, then why would you think that any perceptions were trustworthy? Psychedelics show that we can’t always trust our perceptions. But this applies just as much to any places or entities people perceive during these experiences. Maybe all the things we perceive are real. Maybe none of them are. The point is, no matter how much acid you take, you can’t perceive your way out of the fact that our perceptions might not be perfect.
This isn’t justification to try to blast your way to the highest/deepest level of reality via heroic doses of obscure tryptamines. It’s just to stop and think about why one experience might be a more trustworthy source of information than another. (Here’s a hint: it’s not because it feels real.)
If you happen to be talking to a friend who has concerns about something like simulation theory, please take note: while I’m not a qualified therapist, I do have a bit of experience with what can change thoughts or behaviour for people in different mental states. If your friend’s worries about the nature of reality are highly emotional, visceral, or otherwise resistant to reasoning or evidence, neat little arguments like the ones I presented here today aren’t going to help much. They have the advantage that you don’t need to prove the unprovable, but some things can’t be solved by application of logic.
Also, use a bit of common sense and don’t ask someone tripping hard if they are worried about whether or not they really have hands or stuff like that.
(If you’re a therapist or experienced guide/facilitator talking to a client who has these concerns, you’d know all this already.)
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Consultancy Corner: Group chat OPSEC
Whether you’re supporting someone through integration, coordinating a legal advocacy campaign, or just trying to keep that spicy conversation about boofing cactus private, digital hygiene is a must. Operational Security (OPSEC) isn’t just for spooks or that random skinny guy who always wears camo pants and talks about his knife collection. It’s for anyone who wants to keep confidential client info or politically sensitive collaborative projects out of the wrong hands.
Now, everyone knows about using end to end encrypted tools like Signal, secure email, and VPNs, so I’m not going to belabour those points. (If you don’t, go jump on DuckDuckGo for more information and do some reading.)
In my experience, most breaches are due to the human factor, not some nefarious hacker. One key weak point is the dreaded group chat.
Here are some tips on maintaining privacy and confidentiality in your sensitive group conversations:
Your group chat is only as secure as its least discreet, silliest, or most compromised member.
Your friend who doesn’t lock their phone or reuses the same password for every single login may be a great person, but is probably not the best fit for a chat that needs to remain private and confidential.
Make group rules or norms clear for all participants and be prepared to put people who can’t follow them in time out or boot them altogether.
Keep groups relatively small. The bigger they get, the harder they are to maintain.
If you don’t want every member to be able to add new people, turn off the invite link for everyone other than mods/admins.
Disappearing messages can be annoying, but they cut down on the clutter. If it’s important enough to remember, make a note of it somewhere else.
If you’re a charitable org in Australia, you could be liable for what’s said in any group chat you officially sanction. Make choices about what operates under your banner accordingly.
If you wouldn’t post something on your public social media profile under your real name (or want it being published by The Atlantic) don’t say it in a group chat with strangers.
Remember: no tool, including Signal, can protect privacy and confidentiality 100% of the time.
Make sure all apps and operating systems up to date.
Keep these things in mind, and screenshots of your unhinged rants are much less likely to end up in the Instagram reel of a content creator who ran out of ideas that week.
EPIC Inspire Community Recognition Initiative
In the psychedelic space, ethical behaviour often happens quietly, behind the scenes, without recognition or fanfare. But it matters. Deeply.
That’s why EPIC is collecting stories of people, communities, and organisations who’ve shown up ethically in psychedelic (or adjacent) contexts. Not to verify. Not to award. Just to honour what integrity looks like in real life.
These stories aren’t just worth recognising. They show us what good practice looks like, and they can inspire others to do the same.
If someone’s actions stuck with you because they were honest, careful, transparent, or brave we want to hear about it.
To nominate an individual, community or organisation, use the form here: https://forms.gle/ctSxpFrbqFQjFuRD7
As always thank you for reading!
I’ve been investigating a new psychedelic platform with big claims, glossy branding, and some odd gaps in its story. More on that next time.
If you know someone who you think would enjoy this newsletter, please consider forwarding this email to them. Alternatively, if you know someone who would hate what I’m saying, I guess they’re an option too. I have no incentive to offer, other than my gratitude, and the knowledge you’ve made someone’s day better, or, possibly, worse.
As always, all feedback and suggestions are welcome, and I promise* to not to make veiled references to your pathological need for attention which functions to cover up your inability to affect meaningful change.
*Unless you’re Legalise Cannabis MP, Jeremy Buckingham, who snitched to the Daily Telegraph that magic mushrooms were growing in the front garden of the NSW parliament House in Sydney.
PS:
Q: How can you tell if you eyeballed your microdose correctly?
A: When you start hearing buzzing and the cement kangaroo in your neighbor’s yard works for the CIA.
Written on Worimi lands. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Icon by Freepik from Flaticon
