The cat is out of the bag with cannabis. Anyone who thinks this goes back in the box is out of their mind — I said it last week, and I’ll say it again: more Americans partake in cannabis now than smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. Americans like to drink, smoke, gamble, and have sex. Shocking, I know. We’re not unringing that bell. So now the interesting question is what happens with psychedelics and/or mushrooms as it moves towards big pharma and legalization. And it’s moving fast.
Back in April, Trump signed an executive order directing the FDA to fast-track psychedelic drug review. Within a week, the FDA had already handed out priority vouchers — the kind that compress a 10-to-12-month review down to one or two — to three companies working on psilocybin and MDMA-like compounds for treatment-resistant depression and PTSD. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Eli Lilly announced it was acquiring a psychedelics company called AtaiBeckley for $2.8 billion in cash, with an additional $1 billion possible if certain milestones are met. That’s not a biotech flyer. That’s the company that gave us Prozac writing a multibillion-dollar check to get into this space. Their lead drug isn’t LSD, by the way — it’s a synthetic DMT compound, delivered as a nasal spray in a clinical setting, with patients monitored for a couple of hours after dosing. It’s shown real, lasting results for depression that hasn’t responded to anything else, although I know many who have done ketamine treatments for depression that have been incredibly successful.
We were talking about this at dinner last week. Are we excited, or are we scared? Because we’ve known for a long time that psychedelics genuinely help with PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, and other things traditional medicine hasn’t cracked, or we have not figured it out yet. That part isn’t in question anymore. What is in question is everything else. How does this actually get sold? Do you go to a dispensary-style storefront, or does this stay locked up in a clinical setting where you show up, take it under supervision, and go home? Is anyone going to let people walk out with a bottle and dose themselves at home, the way microdosing culture already does informally — because if so, who’s making sure what’s actually in it? Will this spur a larger illegal market?
Pharma has the money and the infrastructure to do massive, real research. But pharma also has a long history of cutting corners once something’s profitable, and I don’t think anyone’s forgotten that. How oxy was foisted on anyone with pain to become addicts was not that long ago. I don’t have the answers here. I just think it’s worth sitting with before the industry gets built. Considering the states haven’t done the best job of rolling out the cannabis industry, I fear what a mess this will be, although pharma has tons of cash with deep pockets for themselves and the government, and that is all they really care about.
What do you think — clinic-only, or eventually something more open access? I’m genuinely curious where people land on this.
