Welcome to The Trip Report, a newsletter on the future of psychedelic medicine, legalization and the businesses, professions, policy, and issues that will come with it.

If you’re as obsessed with thinking about the emerging psychedelic space then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re new, welcome.

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Business

Do you have a psychedelic based start-up, non-profit, research lab, clinic or investment fund? Do you need to gain traction, influence, and engagement in the emerging psychedelic ecosystem? Let us do the heavy lifting on creating captivating, informative and engaging content that will bring your message to readers.

reach out to thetripreport@protonmail.com with a brief description of your project and what you need

Policy

Regulators, Mount Up The Beckley Foundation released their Roadmap to Regulation, a document intended to educate policy makers on the harm that comes, not from consuming MDMA as the current ideologically driven drug laws presuppose, but from the unregulated production and distribution: “Crucially, our evidence shows that most harms associated with MDMA use arise from its unregulated status as an illegal drug, and that any risks inherent to MDMA could be more effectively mitigated within a legally regulated market.” Executive Summary

Full Report “The report outlines, for the first time, detailed recommendations for drug policy reform in order to better control the production, distribution, purchase, and consumption of MDMA products.” No, I did not read the 158 page summary—I have a 2 year old son. But, this painstaking and unglamorous work represents the effort and focus that allows us to be here at this moment, talking about, thinking about, investing in a future in which compounds like MDMA, Psilocybin, LSD, etc and the states of consciousness they evoke. Thanks to people like Amanda Fielding, Rick Doblin, Bob Jesse and others I can write a newsletter, you can start psychedelic clinics, startups, fund startups, seek treatment, etc. in an emerging field that has been locked behind bars for decades. So a sincere thank you is in order for Karenza Moore, Hattie Wells and Amanda Fielding for this document. Hopefully it gets read by the people who need to read it because they are policy makers and their children are old enough to sleep through the night. The rest of us can watch this video: Sign up now The Oregon Signature Trail Activitsts in Oregon are attempting to get two ballot initiatives on the 2020 ballot: Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act

Psilocybin Service Initiative To do so each ballot will need to collect a shit load of signatures, 112,200 each. I wonder how much these two efforts will either feed off of each other or compete against each other. I suppose we’ll find out.

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Impact

Beware the Psychedelic Influencer As Trip Report readers you may have picked up on the fact that I am cannabis-suspicious. I think the market incentive to pedal cannabis and cannabis products as health promoting and medicinal is a bad idea and dishonest. Let’s just call a spade a spade and say weed feels good and it’s fun. So, when I saw this piece from VICE on how cannabis companies rely on influencers to push the wellness message to make it stick in customers minds and without getting in trouble with the FDA, I knew right away…. It is a genius move. And got me wondering about how this might play out with psychedelics. I think the comparison between cannabis legalization and the movement in psychedelics are a reversal since the psychedelic movement is riding on a wave of scientific research. This of course has been the case for alternative medicine, supplements, healing arts and health promoting practices for a while. When we combine a traditionally used compound or practice with modern marketing and profit motive it is easy to find examples of over reach in claims. This happens with acupuncture, natural supplements and nutrition. The rise of cannabis Direct to Consumer brands which lean heavily on Influencer Marketing creates an environment where brands take the upside but not have to suffer the consequences of their affiliates claims. Has science finally explained the mechanism of psychedelic experience? “The unique and important thing about this study is the scientists monitored two physiological aspects of the test subjects while they were under the influence of psilocybin—the levels of psilocin in their blood plasma and the amount of psilocin bound to the 5-HT2A receptors in their brains.” “This is the first time researchers have correlated psilocin bound to 5-HT2A receptors in the brain, levels of psilocin in the blood, and subjective experiences.”

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That’s it for this week’s roundup, thanks for reading and see you on Sunday in which I’ll publish a piece on Gabor Mate, Psychedelic Medicine, and the Resilient Phenotype.

If you’ve read this far you either like what we’re doing here or you’re just really into the emerging psychedelic ecosystem and as curious as we are as to how this whole thing will unfold.

Do you have a psychedelic based start-up, non-profit, research lab, clinic or investment fund? Do you need to gain traction, influence, and engagement in the emerging psychedelic ecosystem? Let us help you by doing the heavy lifting on creating captivating, informative and engaging content—Newsletters, articles or web content—that will bring your message to readers.

Comments, questions, tips? Send me a note!

Written and Curated in Portland, Maine by Zachary Haigney, thetripreport@protonmail.com

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