Latest news with #psychedelics
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. is bringing psychedelics to the Republican Party
Driven by a desire to help ex-servicemembers with mental illness, GOP lawmakers led a failed campaign last year to persuade the Biden administration to approve psychedelic drugs. Now they may have found the ally they need in President Donald Trump's health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A longtime believer in psychedelics' potential to help people with illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, despite the lack of supportive evidence Biden officials found, Kennedy is ramping up government-run clinical studies and telling the disappointed lawmakers doctors will be prescribing the drugs soon. 'These are people who badly need some kind of therapy, nothing else is working for them,' Kennedy said at a House hearing Tuesday. 'This line of therapeutics has tremendous advantage if given in a clinical setting. And we are working very hard to make sure that that happens within 12 months.' The GOP's embrace of psychedelics is another, and perhaps one of the more jarring, examples of cultural transformation that Trump's populist politics have brought. Veterans seeking cures for mental illnesses associated with combat, combined with the Kennedy-backed Make America Healthy Again movement's enthusiasm for natural medicine, have strengthened a libertarian strain on the right in favor of drug experimentation. Meanwhile, the left, where hippies are giving way to technocrats, has become more skeptical. When Joe Biden was president, for example, agencies studied the drugs' medical potential, but an air of doubt prevailed. The head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Nora Volkow, compared the hype for psychedelics as a cure for mental illness to belief in 'fairy tales' in Senate testimony last year. Then in August, the Food and Drug Administration rejected drugmaker Lykos Therapeutics' application to offer ecstasy, alongside therapy, as a treatment for PTSD. FDA advisers worried the company's researchers were more evangelists than scientists and determined that they'd failed to prove their regimen was either safe or effective. Republicans complained the loudest. 'These technocrats think they know better,' Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a former Navy SEAL who lost an eye in Afghanistan, wrote on X after FDA advisers recommended Lykos' application be rejected. 'Their job is to say NO and support the status quo.' But Crenshaw, who's helped secure funding for psychedelic research at the Defense Department, got the response he wanted from Kennedy at Tuesday's budget hearing. Kennedy said results from early government studies at the Department of Veterans Affairs and FDA were 'very, very encouraging.' He added that his FDA commissioner, Marty Makary, sees it the same way. 'Marty has told me that we don't want to wait two years to get this done,' he said. Crenshaw was pleased. 'I've spent years supporting clinical trials to study the use of psychedelics to treat PTSD,' he told POLITICO. 'It's been a long fight, and it's taken a lot of grit. I'm grateful Secretary Kennedy is taking this seriously — helping to mainstream what could be a groundbreaking shift in mental health.' Kennedy's comments have revived hope among psychedelics' advocates that the Lykos decision was more hiccup than death knell. 'It's important for the entire community and the entire value chain around psychedelic therapy to hear that he wants to responsibly explore the benefits and risks of these therapies," said Dr. Shereef Elnahal, a health official at the VA under Biden who sees promise in the drugs. The VA, under Trump's secretary, Doug Collins, is working directly with Kennedy on clinical research. Collins has referenced psychedelics on a podcast appearance, on X and at a cabinet meeting this spring when Trump pressed him on what he's doing to drive down the high suicide rate among veterans. 'I talk with Collins about it all the time,' Kennedy said Tuesday. 'It's something that both of us are deeply interested in.' Earlier this month, Texas' Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed a law to put $50 million into clinical trials of the psychedelic ibogaine, as a mental health treatment. "That culture shift is underway," W. Bryan Hubbard, who spearheaded the Texas bill and is executive director of the American Ibogaine Initiative, told POLITICO. As Hubbard sees it, the narrative around psychedelics has evolved from counterculture recreation to a promising medical treatment for the "deaths of despair" from alcohol, drug overdoses and suicides the United States has grappled with in recent decades. Kennedy was happy to see it. 'It's super positive. It is really notable that the Republicans have become the party of some of these issues you wouldn't have expected before," Calley Means, a top Kennedy adviser, told POLITICO. "States pushing the envelope is certainly aligned with what Secretary Kennedy is trying to do. It gives him leverage to push bolder reforms." The Texas effort involved a six-month sprint by Hubbard and former GOP Gov. Rick Perry to convince state lawmakers to pass the bill. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, another Lone Star Republican who credits ibogaine he took in Mexico with helping him overcome trauma he incurred during military service, also lobbied for it. Hubbard attributes their success partly to Texas' independent pioneer culture and a red-state philosophy that was receptive to his pitch for a medicalized psychedelics model. It didn't hurt that Abbott had signed a bill to study ecstasy, psilocybin and ketamine as treatments for veterans with PTSD with Baylor College of Medicine. And since Texans are no stranger to religion, conversations about the spiritual aspect of ibogaine treatment seemed to resonate with lawmakers. "We had a message that was tailor-made for the Lone Star State," he said. Veterans turned out at public hearings to describe traveling out of the country, often to Mexico, where ibogaine is unregulated, to receive treatment they couldn't access in the U.S. "These heroes have gone to war to defend the land of the free, only to come home and be faced with inflexible, bureaucratic systems that offer ineffectual solutions, paired with the Controlled Substances Act that has forced them to flee the country that they have defended in order to access treatment in a foreign country," Hubbard said. But the biggest momentum push was likely the boost Hubbard and Perry got from conservative kingmaker Joe Rogan when the two went on Rogan's podcast in January. "That really put a tremendous amount of wind in our sails," Hubbard said. Still, last year's FDA decision to reject Lykos Therapeutics' application underscores the concerns raised by many scientists that the utility of the drugs is oversold. FDA advisers raised ecstasy's potential to damage the heart and liver; a suspicion that trial researchers were more advocates than scientists; and a worry that results had been skewed by the psychedelics' pronounced effects, since participants could figure out if they got the drug. Ibogaine also poses heart risks. The Drug Enforcement Administration lists both it and ecstasy on its schedule of drugs with no currently acceptable medical use and high risk of abuse. That would have once been enough to make law-and-order Republicans say no. Kennedy's adviser Means says things are changing for the better. "Ten years ago, nobody expected the Republican Party as the party of healthy food, as the party of exercise, as the party of questioning pharmaceutical companies, as the party of psychedelic research — but that's where we are," Means said. "The Democratic Party has become the party of blindly trusting experts," he concluded. "The Republican Party has become the countercultural party that's asking common-sense questions."
News.com.au
15 hours ago
- Health
- News.com.au
Green light for psychedelic drugs trial to treat binge-eating
Australian researchers will soon deploy a psychedelic compound found in 'magic mushrooms' to treat binge-eating in a world-first clinical trial. Experimental healthcare company Tryptamine Therapeutics announced the radical trial in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange this week, telling investors Swinburne University would conduct the open-label research on 12 patients suffering from binge-eating disorder. Open-label means there are no placebos involved and all patients and researchers know what is being administered. The patients will receives two doses of TRP-8803, a psilocin-based IV infusion. Psilocin, which is produced when psilocybin is broken down in the body, is a psychedelic compound that triggers changes in mood, perception and thinking patterns. Cognitive neuropsychologist Professor Susan Rossell, from Swinburne, designed the trial with Tryptamine and told NewsWire she hoped the psychedelics would open up the trial's participants to new ways of thinking. 'What we have found in other psychedelics work is that the psychedelic itself opens up people to think differently,' she said. 'And one of the things that we know with a lot of mental health conditions, is they start to have repetitive thinking and it becomes very rigid. 'So people with binge eating disorder, 'I need to consume lots of food to help with my emotional issues'. 'They are in that very stuck, rigid thought pattern and they can't find other ways to deal with their life stressors.' Binge-eating is the uncontrollable consumption of food and can lead to a range of serious health problems, including social isolation and weight gain. It is the second most common eating disorder in Australia. In the US, an estimated 1.25 per cent of adults experience the disorder each year and 1.6 per cent of teenagers aged 13 to 18 are affected. 'It's extraordinarily costly,' Professor Rossell said. The trial is expected to run for three to four months, with initial results due at the end of the year. Tryptamine CEO Jason Carroll said the primary objective of the trial was to assess TRP-8803's utility in treating the disorder, but it could also generate insights into how the product might help with other neuropsychiatric disorders. 'With patient recruitment initiatives now underway, we look forward to first enrolment and the commencement of baseline data generation from participations, prior to first patient dosing,' he said. Clinical trials involving psychedelics to treat medical conditions are growing around the world, but the impacts are not yet clear. Psychedelic drugs are illegal in Australia and there is evidence that consuming mind-altering substances can lead to adverse outcomes. A study on single-dose Psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, funded by psychedelics company Compass Pathways and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2022, revealed mixed results, with most participants experiencing 'adverse events'. 'Adverse events occurred in 179 of 233 participants (77 per cent) and included headache, nausea, and dizziness,' the researchers found. A small number of participants suffered serious negative impacts, the study revealed, including suicidal ideation and intentional self-injury. Professor Rossell said the Swinburne trial would be safe. 'I don't know whether these medications are going to work or not but I've worked with them now for two years and I haven't had anything negative happen with anybody in my trials, in the right and safe environment,' she said. She also said the use of an IV solution added an additional layer of control. 'The IV is even more safe,' she said. 'If we start to be aware that the person is having an unpleasant reaction, we can stop it straight away with the IV. 'With the oral preparations, they have to work through it. And it can leave people with some unpleasant feelings.' Tryptamine, a listed company with a market capitalisation of $43m, stresses the 'confirmed reversibility' of TRP-8803 as a key selling point for the product. 'This formulation aims to overcome several limitations of oral psilocybin, including significantly reducing the time to onset of the psychedelic state, controlling the depth and duration of the experience and reducing the overall duration of the intervention to a commercially feasible time-frame,' the company states. 'TRP-8803 also provides dosing flexibility and the ability to terminate treatment if the patient is experiencing an adverse event.' The company held $4.6m in cash as of March 31.
New York Times
3 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
New Zealand Approved Psychedelic Therapy. He's the Only Doctor Who Can Do It.
Dr. Cameron Lacey has spent years studying how psychedelics might help treat depression and other mood disorders. Last week, he became the first and only psychiatrist in New Zealand allowed to prescribe psilocybin, the hallucinogenic found in 'magic mushrooms.' The approval from New Zealand's health ministry is the latest boost to a growing global movement to study and use psychedelics like psilocybin and MDMA — long relegated to the fringes of psychiatry — to treat depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse. Dr. Lacey was chosen because of his extensive experience in safely using psilocybin for psychiatric treatment during clinical trials, according to the health ministry. He said that in 2021, he started looking into a psilocybin clinical trial after he noticed that many of his patients were not responding to antidepressant medications. The government has said the psilocybin treatments will be strictly controlled. Patients will not be able to simply walk away from an appointment with a tablet or mixture containing psilocybin, which New Zealand still classifies as an illicit drug, alongside heroin and cocaine. Instead, Dr. Lacey said, they will get their first dose after three sessions of talk therapy. Then, while lying down or sitting in a recliner, wearing eye masks and noise-canceling headphones, patients will receive 25 milligrams of psilocybin in a capsule. The hallucinogenic experience, or trip, begins around 45 minutes later, he said, as sounds of nature and traditional Māori music play through the headphones. The trip lasts around eight hours. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Maxim Group Maintains a Buy on Atai Life Sciences (ATAI) With a $6 Price Target
Atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI) is one of the 13 Best Long-Term Penny Stocks to Buy According to Analysts. On June 6, analyst Michael Okunewitch of Maxim Group maintained a Buy rating on Atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI), retaining the price target of $6.00. The analyst gave the optimistic rating due to various factors, including the strategic merger between Beckley Psytech and Atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI). A close-up of a medical professional providing advice to a patient struggling with opioid use disorder. Expected to close in H2 2025, the merger is expected to strengthen Atai Life Sciences' (NASDAQ:ATAI) pipeline through Beckley's advanced short-acting psychedelic programs, including BPL-003. The merger is, however, contingent upon the success of the Phase 2b trial for BPL-003 in treatment-resistant depression, with results expected to be released by mid-2025. The analyst further reasoned that Atai Life Sciences' (NASDAQ:ATAI) financial position is further bolstered by the concurrent $30 million private placement, which is independent of the merger. The company also has a robust pipeline, such as its internal VLS-01 DMT program, which, according to Okunewitch, can provide potential benefits in the psychedelic therapy market. Headquartered in Germany, Atai Life Sciences (NASDAQ:ATAI) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on treating mental health disorders. While we acknowledge the potential of ATAI as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: The Best and Worst Dow Stocks for the Next 12 Months and 10 Unstoppable Stocks That Could Double Your Money. Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Daily Mail
The deranged killer who nearly decapitated a schoolboy in a state of drug-induced psychosis...and the chilling warning signs that were missed before his bloody rampage on the streets of London
Brewed from the leaves of the psychotria viridis shrub, ayahuasca is a powerful South American hallucinogenic tea created by ancient Amazonian tribes for spiritual ceremonies. So potent is the psychedelic concoction, users are advised to ingest it only when supervised by an experienced shaman. Drinking the tea is often followed by aggressive vomiting before a euphoria so intense users claim they have been on a mystic journey that has changed them forever. Like all psychedelics, however, it can induce powerful feelings of fear, paranoia and detachment from reality. One person very familiar with ayahuasca's mindbending effects is Brazilian handyman Marcus Monzo, who was yesterday convicted of decapitating a schoolboy with a sword while in a state of drug-induced psychosis. Along with a £100-a-day cannabis habit, Monzo regularly devoured a heady cocktail of psychedelics including ayahuasca, LSD, 'magic mushrooms,' and salvia – known as 'Mexican Magic Mint.' In an obsessive pursuit of spiritual fulfilment ignited by a fascination with an Indian guru, Monzo would ingest the psychoactive substances daily in the belief it helped him connect with the mystical world. This substance abuse would lead him not to enlightenment, however, but to strangle and skin his pet cat before a blood-soaked 20-minute rampage that left 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin dead. At 6.51am last April 30, residents of Laing Close in Hainault, northeast London, were shaken awake by the crash of a speeding van slamming into the side of a house. Donato Iwule, a security guard at the Co-op, was walking to work when he was struck by the vehicle and catapulted into a garden. As he tried to stagger to his feet, Monzo emerged from the van wielding a samurai sword. Standing over the dazed security guard, Monzo unsheathed the weapon, tossed the scabbard onto the ground and, gripping the sword with both hands, swung it at Mr Iwule's neck. Mr Iwule immediately saw blood and shouted 'I don't know you' at his attacker. Monzo, said to have been grinning and with 'black eyes,' replied: 'I don't care, I will kill you.' As Monzo continued to swing his weapon, Mr Iwule twisted away just in time to see Daniel Anjorin leave his house for school. He screamed a warning at the schoolboy to go back inside but Daniel, dressed in his school sports clothes and wearing earphones, was oblivious to the danger. Tom Little KC, prosecuting, told Monzo's trial that the Brazilian 'moved quickly like a predator' behind Daniel, raised the sword above his head and chopped down on the boy's neck. Daniel fell to the ground and Monzo continued to attack his prone body with the blade, before dragging him a few yards along the road by his schoolbag then retreating out of sight. An ambulance arrived at 7.02am but as it approached Daniel's lifeless body, Monzo emerged once again and struck the vehicle with his sword, forcing the crew to retreat. Daniel, the son of health and safety consultant Dr Ebenezer Anjorin and science teacher Grace Anjorin and a student at £25,000-a-year Bancroft's School, was later given CPR and taken to the Royal London Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 8.48am. When police arrived at the scene shortly after paramedics Monzo burst from a bush brandishing the blade and bellowing questions about whether the officers believed in God. They doused him with pepper spray and he turned and sprinted away, still wielding the sword, with PC Cameron King and PC Yasmin Mechem-Whitfield in pursuit. Monzo then ambushed PC Mechem-Whitfield, stepping out of an alley and slashing her in the face, shoulder and arm before her colleague caught up and hosed him once again with pepper spray. Mr Little said it was 'a miracle' that she was not killed. While PC King was tending to his colleague, Monzo dashed back down the alley and through a back door into the home of Sindy Arias and Henry De Los Rios Polania. The pair were asleep with their four-year-old daughter when the crazed Brazilian burst into their bedroom demanding once again: 'Do you believe in God?' As the swordsman swung his weapon at the family Mr Polania, an IT engineer, raised his arm to shield his partner from the attack, sustaining deep wounds to his forearm. Monzo left the house through the front door at 7.08am and officers were able to herd him into an enclosed garage space. Backed into a corner and facing multiple jets of pepper spray, Monzo furiously slashed his sword, catching inspector Moloy Campbell across the hand, causing an arterial bleed. In the chaos, Monzo jumped onto the roof of a garage and into some rear gardens before he was eventually Tasered and arrested in a doorway. His blood-soaked rampage – which left two police officers wounded, two members of the public seriously injured and a bright young schoolboy slain just yards from his home - would prompt calls for more frontline officers to be armed with Tasers. But during interviews, Monzo swore he had no recollection of the attacks. His explanation for the carnage was confounding yet revealing. 'One of my personalities is a professional assassin,' he told dumbfounded detectives. Monzo grew up in the municipality of Astorga in southern Brazil, in a village so small that his school also served as a shop and local church. Raised a Catholic, he spent his childhood worshipping in church, horse riding and playing with animals. His brother, Eduardo, told the Old Bailey their mother ran her own clothing business in the village and they had a comfortable life, with Monzo performing well at school and learning English from the age of 15. Monzo studied business administration at university in Brazil and set up an online clothing retailer with his brother before the family moved to New Hampshire in the US. Unable to legally work in America, Monzo moved to London and began working in a pub – and also experimenting with cannabis, LSD and magic mushrooms. 'We were a happy family and Marcus would work, meet with friends and enjoy the occasional social drinking,' Eduardo said. 'He was a healthy, popular guy, he had no problems.' Monzo was a keen martial artist but was forced to pause his ju-jitsu training due to a knee injury and took up yoga as a substitute. It was at yoga sessions in 2017 he was introduced to an online guru named Sadhguru, a yogi and spiritual leader who founded the Isha Foundation in India. Monzo was enraptured by the guru's teachings and travelled to an ashram retreat in India, an experience that transformed him into a 'completely different person,' according to his brother. 'Marcus's behaviour started to change,' he said. 'He didn't want to be contacted by me any more and when we did speak he would only talk about Sadhguru. 'He had grown a full beard and was wearing traditional white Indian clothing and had lost lots of weight.' In 2021, Monzo travelled to northern Brazil for another spiritual retreat which involved staying with indigenous Amazonian tribes and drinking copious quantities of ayahuasca. 'He said the drink was good for him and connects you to the spiritual world,' Eduardo said. 'I believe he was drinking it quite a lot. 'I had heard some people had had a negative response and very serious consequences but I knew he was strong and decisive person so I wasn't overly concerned.' Monzo, by this point working as an amateur musician and 'man with a van,' became a fixture at alternative festivals around the world, including 'breatharian' events in Italy and Denmark. Breatharianism is the belief that it is possible for humans to live without food, subsisting on 'life force' alone. Several of its proponents have died from starvation or – in the case of teachers such as Hira Ratan Manek – were caught secretly eating. One former friend, who met Monzo at Medicine Festival at a country estate in Berkshire, said he was already 'heavily into psychedelics' and was forming a god complex. 'He has become more extreme over the past couple of years talking about being a spiritual guide and a guru and even a god,' they told the Mail. 'He was using spirituality as a cover for his narcissism. 'Often the risks and harm caused by psychedelics are overlooked, particularly in spiritual communities. It's a socially acceptable way to be an addict and kid yourself that it is not a problem - you're somehow profound, superior and enlightened because of what is, in reality, a drug addiction.' Monzo's grip on reality began loosening, he started pushing family and friends away and his behaviour became increasingly bizarre. His social media posts became more deranged throughout 2023 He began 'urine therapy' at home, drinking and showering in his own waste for 'healing and cleansing.' By 2023, his Twitter output had become a constant stream of conspiracy theories and bizarre claims including that influential figures, including Elon Musk and Hillary Clinton, had been 'replaced' by 'illuminati implants.' He repeatedly engaged with accounts that claim the Earth is flat, suggested it was under the control of 'Zionists,' and would tell his customers the Pope was a lizard in human form. In June that year, he told self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate: 'I resonate with A LOT of the stuff you talk about.' Monzo also wrote: 'They demonized Hitler, because he was protecting Europe against their satanist communism.' And he described notorious conspiracy theorist David Icke as: 'Legendary, Ickonic! [sic].' On April 4 last year, Monzo recorded himself unpacking the samurai sword he would later use to cause so much bloodshed in Hainault, referring to the weapon as 'frigging sexy' as he admired its leather handle. Sat before him in the video is a small ginger cat, named Wizard, who in the days before his rampage Monzo came to believe was about to cause Armageddon. In the grip of a cannabis-induced haze, he strangled, skinned and deboned Wizard before placing him on a baking tray with the intention of cooking and eating the pet. Monzo later said he felt he 'didn't have time' to eat his cat due to the impending apocalypse, so set off with the animal's remains on a baking tray, a number of swords and a ball bearing gun on a mission to kill. Giving evidence during his trial, Monzo said he would often 'switch between personalities' to help process trauma he had suffered as a boy. This was despite his brother's claims of a happy childhood, however, and no specific source of trauma was ever provided by his defence. 'One of my personalities is like a professional assassin I think,' Monzo said. Forensic psychiatrist Dr Bernard Chin claimed in his defence that Monzo suffered from a pre-existing schizotypal disorder which made him vulnerable to psychotic episodes prompted by his drug use. But Professor Blackwood argued he was capable of curtailing his substance abuse and was aware of the risks. Jurors agreed it was the Brazilian's insatiable drug habit that drove him to carry out the attack, and he alone was to blame and he was yesterday/today convicted of murder, four counts of attempted murder, possession of a sword, aggravated burglary and wounding with intent. Indeed, so reliant is Monzo on psychoactive substances that, despite the carnage he knows can be caused, he admitted smoking synthetic cannabinoid Spice while on remand in prison. As his former friend put it: '[Psychedelics] can change people's personalities and brains permanently. 'Marcus I know had a serious psychedelic problem. It gave him delusions of grandeur. 'I have seen many lives destroyed by these drugs and I believe it is the cause of what happened. 'I hope there can be a conversation about them finally.'
