This Week in Psychedelics

Welcome to This Week in Psychedelics! Find out which US city just approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize psychedelics.

November 5, 2021

This Week...

Detroit. The cradle of the auto industry and the city that brought us the iconic Motown sound has officially approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize psychedelics. This is a very big deal. Click here to read more: https://www.marijuanamoment.net/detroit-voters-approve-psychedelics-decriminalization-ballot-measure/

It is true that psychedelic medicine is going to completely disrupt the mental health market, enabling a lot of sick people to heal while rewarding forward-thinking investors who got in early in an attempt to do well by doing good. But psychedelics are not a cure-all for all the world’s ills. An inconvenient truth, to be sure, for those who don’t treat these substances with the respect they deserve. In a new piece in VICE, Shayla Love dives into this issue in a piece called, The False Promise of Psychedelic Utopia. You can read it here: https://www.vice.com/en/article/dypzxj/the-false-promise-of-psychedelic-utopia

Comedian, psychedelics advocate, and all around good egg Sarah Rose Siskind will be doing a live event in New York City tonight. The event will discuss the good and the bad of opioids with psychiatrist Sally Satel, science and policy writer Maia Szalavitz and public health expert Daliah Heller. You can learn more about the event here: https://www.caveat.nyc/event/drug-test-11-5-2021

Dozens of psychedelics companies are actively conducting FDA clinical trials, seeking to treat everything from depression and anxiety to PTSD and addiction. But in order to safely get these medicines into the hands of the people that need them, qualified therapists are also necessary, thereby creating a huge opportunity for a few companies and organizations that provide proper training and protocols. So it was no surprise when this week, Fluence announced that it raised $1.6 million to further scale its training platforms and e-learning capabilities.

If you’re unfamiliar, Fluence is an expertise-driven educational platform that provides professional certification and training in psychedelic therapy and psychedelic integration for psychiatrists, psychotherapists, social workers, and other healthcare practitioners. The company has a clear first-mover advantage and you’ll likely continue to hear more about them as the industry continues to rapidly develop. You can read more here: https://bit.ly/43g2heX

Did You Know?

Did you know that the pharmaceutical company Parke–Davis (now a subsidiary of Pfizer) began offering peyote tinctures as a respiratory stimulant and heart tonic in 1893?  

Word is, some of Parke-Davis’ peyote was ultimately used by German chemist Arthur Heffter who isolated an alkaloid from peyote that produced psychedelic effects.  He called it mescaline.  And with that, the western world discovered something indigenous cultures had already known for thousands of years.