Psilocybin, best known as the stuff that makes mushrooms magical, is the next big wellness industry and a new frontier for mental health.
if you hadn’t noticed Moving psilocybin into the mainstream, a company like Numinus will come as a surprise. Led by founder and CEO Payton Nyquvest, Numinus is a brand fantasy of the next iteration of wellness: clean, direct, empathetic, inclusive, and self-aware. It is one of several Canadian companies, including Field Trip Health and Wellness, ready to capitalize on psilocybin. Their headquarters in Vancouver’s Gastown may look like any random vegan cafe, but instead of cookies, they have ketamine, currently the leading psychedelic used legally in therapy in Canada. At some point, the company plans to use psilocybin as well. Psilocybin, found in “magic mushrooms,” is in clinical trials, in Canada and internationally, for use as a potential treatment for mental illness.
Nyquvest turned to psychedelics to treat her long-term chronic pain, and her healing experience contributed to a significant career change. A savvy and aggressive trader, Nyquvest rose from a director role at Mackie Research Capital to founding Numinus in 2018, the same year cannabis was legalized in Canada.
Why psilocybin? Caroline MacCallum, medical director of the Greenleaf Medical Clinic and clinical assistant and adjunct professor at UBC, explains that, structurally, psilocybin is like serotonin. “This can lead to an antidepressant or anxiolytic effect,” says MacCallum. The medical community has heard that some patients have experienced visual distortions such as hallucinations, powerful emotional experiences, or self-reflective perceptions, all of which, according to MacCallum, can lead to new ways of thinking.
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Numinus and other Canadian health companies are considering psilocybin for the treatment of addiction, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and perhaps most notably, end-of-life distress through intentional travel with the drug. A landmark 2006 Johns Hopkins study found that psilocybin could “bring about mystical-like experiences,” and NYU Langone published findings in August 2022 that saw a significant reduction in alcohol dependence when subjects combined psilocybin and psychotherapy. Following these studies, among others, psilocybin has emerged in the medical community as an exciting potential treatment. But it remains illegal in this country outside of clinical trials and exceptions through Health Canada’s Special Access Program, which provides drugs with clinical promise to treat serious or life-threatening conditions, and through certain exemptions under the Act. of Controlled Substances and Medications, in force since 2020.
Psilocybin research is necessarily slow and expensive. Spencer Hawkswell, a lobbyist and CEO of the nonprofit group TheraPsil (which advocates for psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy), is working to support a lawsuit against the Canadian government and the current federal health minister to allow patients access to psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy; Hawkswell projects that it could be legal and regulated in a little over a year.
This moment in psilocybin is one of duality. At the same time that it is being studied for its therapeutic use, it is also an established wellness trend, one of many that have moved from marginalized communities or a global majority culture to the mainstream West through curious outsiders, then influential figures and their followers. , and later reformed. skeptics Psilocybin has replaced the weed as the illicit, discreet drug of choice for the respectable person, in the form of microdose capsules, chocolate, or the magic mushroom as crudité. Celebrities speak openly about psilocybin use; “Microdosing moms” have become their own subculture. The Wavering Nerd’s Guide to Psychedelics, Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to change your mindhas inspired a Netflix docuseries.
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Unlike research, insight seems to progress rapidly. Throughout recent history, the narrative of psychedelics in general has had its own wild ride, from psychologist and psychedelic front man Timothy Leary in the 1960s at Outré-Harvard to the study of Hopkins and the changing attitudes of psychedelics. Canadians. A 2021 poll by TheraPsil and marketing research company YouGov found that 54 percent of respondents, without having any additional information, supported changing regulations on psilocybin for medical use. That number increased to 66 percent when respondents were informed of the research results and current waivers available. (The perception in the business world of straight arrow and stigma avoidance is harder to change, but perhaps this is being addressed by CEOs like Nyquvest and Doug Drysdale, a veteran pharmacist who runs the psychedelic company Cybin based in Toronto).
This particular time, mainly before regulation and after stigma, has created an interesting scene made up of casual users, distributors, advocates, investors, executives, and doctors. With illegal dispensaries and home growers, this industry will continue to change along with regulations and perceptions. If psilocybin turns out to be as effective as current research suggests, it will transcend its trend-setting-wellness status and become a bigger part of recognized medical care. This is already happening in the medical community and for people who are on the edge of acceptability; all it takes is an open mind. And you know what could help with that?
This article appears in print in the February 2023 issue of maclean’s magazine. Buy the edition for $9.99 or better yet, subscribe to the monthly print magazine for just $39.99.
