Psychedelics hit the spot 🍄
Timothy Leary got two parts of it right when he said “turn on, tune in and drop out”.
This year’s Mental Health Awareness Month is giving way to a new wave of momentum for mental health, alternative medicines & mushrooms.
As the full reopening rolls out, preparations are in place for the next big disruption: going back to work, school, traveling, and socializing. The work that still needs to be done? Getting people mentally prepared.
One of the main pushes of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Month? The healthcare community is focused on getting people mentally prepared to deal with the inevitable anxiety, fear, and stress of getting back out into the world full force and adjusting to post-quarantine life.
Mental health is going through a new wave of momentum.
In the 90s, marketing campaigns for Prozac broke all stereotypes about clinical depression and ushered in a new era for mental health. Now the pandemic and quarantine are making clear just how integral mental wellness is to our physical health. It’s no longer just about treating severe mental illnesses — it is about proactively supporting all the factors that contribute to our mental wellbeing: from personal connections and resilience skills to exercise and self-care.
We are on the cusp of new innovations in treating mental health and promoting mental wellness through herbal and medicinal mushrooms.
Mushrooms are showing promise as a practice to get our minds right. Some of the ways people are benefitting from the psilocybin in mushrooms:
- Adaptogens: We’re eating more mushrooms because they improve our cognitive function, helping us focus and achieve mental clarity and balance.
- Microdosing: Taking psychedelics consistently in small quantities has been shown to spark creativity, boost energy, promote emotional balance, and successfully treat anxiety, depression and addiction.
- Spiritual Experimentation: Spas and wellness retreats are using shrooms to facilitate guided spiritual journeys aimed at opening up participant’s minds to deeper understanding, spiritual breakthroughs, and belief transformation.
- Alternative Investments: Investors believe the psychedelic research happening worldwide will lead to a major “shroom boom” when it comes to investing.
THE TAKEAWAY
As May closes out, mental health leaders are committed to making mental health awareness an ongoing, year-round conversation.
Says APA President Jeffrey Geller: “This is a call to action for policymakers, who need to remember that in our COVID-19 recovery, there’s no health without mental health.”
DEEP DIVE
Here’s how mushrooms are hitting on all 5 drivers of momentum…
DISRUPTION: Our lives and routines are once again being disrupted as companies and schools call employees and students to come back in person.
Herbal and medicinal mushrooms may be the solution to getting through the disruption.
- “I think it’s gonna blow up,” said Dr. Matthew Johnson, a Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins University. During a recent study, his team discovered that just two doses of the psychedelic substance Psilobin sharply reduced depression and curbed smoking addiction. Already, several states have moved to decriminalize psychedelics, including Oregon and Washington D.C.
- “I think there’s incredible potential here. I think it’s gonna be a new paradigm within psychiatric treatment,” said Johnson. “It’s a new treatment model, and there’s a lot of opportunities. That’s gonna come with both the positive and challenges. This stuff has to bedone safely.”
INNOVATION: Investors say psychedelics and alternative medicines are the next alternative investment to watch…
If you realized you were late to the game on investing in Cannabis and CBD or even more recent alternative investment crazes like cryptocurrency and trading cards… there is still time to explore shrooms as the next alternative investment.
Gabe Rodriguez, the head of investor relations at psychedelics company E-Have said it’s just the beginning. “This is the time,” said Rodriguez… “If you missed the run on cannabis, you’ve got psychedelics. Rodriguez added, “We think psychedelics are gonna make the cannabis sector look like child’s play. If you got burned on the cannabis side, that means you came in toward the end of the sector when it was hot. So, how about you turn it around and come into the psychedelics sector when it’s hot instead of when it’s already running on top?”
POLARIZATION: Prominent companies in the psychedelics space are changing the stigma surrounding psychedelics
- Silo Wellness Inc. (Canadian Securities Exchange: SILO) is expanding its portfolio of psilocybin and ketamine product and retreat offerings to include 5-MeO-DMT. They are doing this through a partnership with Kaivalya Kollectiv, a Los Angeles-based wellness company that conducts psychedelic-integrated spiritual coaching and facilitated retreats in Mexico, Jamaica and Costa Rica.
- “Now more than ever, people are struggling with mental health issues and prioritizing their mental and physical wellbeing. [Silo Wellness is] pleased to expand our portfolio of psychedelic wellness retreats to include 5-MeO-DMT, which is known for creating truly transformative and spiritual experiences that can be deeply healing,” Douglas K. Gordon, chief executive officer of Silo Wellness, told Benzinga.
- MindMed (NASDAQ: MNMD) (NEO: MMED) released a series of new announcements following the company’s Q1 earnings report — they are launching a Phase 2b clinical trial on LSD for generalized anxiety disorder. It had received positive feedback from the FDA on recent pre-Investigational new drug (IND) meetings. The company expects to submit its IND application in the third quarter of 2021.
- Seelos Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEEL) announced positive proof-of-concept results on Ketamine Nasal Spray for the treatment of acute suicidal ideation and behavior in patients with major depressive disorder.
- “Rapid and clinically meaningful efficacy both as an antidepressant and anti-suicidal therapeutic after a single dose could make SLS-002 an ideal therapy for this large unmet need of acute suicidality in major depression,” said Raj Mehra, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Seelos.
- Delic Holdings Inc. (CSE: DELC) (OTCQB: DELCF) has completed the purchase of Complex Biotech Discovery Ventures, a psilocybin and cannabis research laboratory focused on extraction, analytical testing and chemical process development. The lab is located at the University of British Columbia.
- “The Delic platform now allows us to reach much broader psychedelic and medical communities and help ensure cutting-edge treatments become accessible for all. We believe our IP and innovative findings will enable Delic to become the leader in psychedelic wellness discovery and treatment,” says Dr. Markus Roggen, CEO of Complex Biotech.
STICKINESS: Influencers promoting the mushroom movement are helping to educate on the benefits and make the mainstream more comfortable with it.
Chopra told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith” that mental distress “is the number one pandemic in the world,” and that every 40 seconds, someone is committing suicide, and was another reason why he wants to bring awareness to psychedelics.
- Kevin O’Leary: “The potential of psychedelics far exceeds the potential of cannabis,”. “What interested me is the scale and size of the market,” O’Leary said. “These opportunities have been ignored ever since the 1960s.” O’Leary has invested in MindMed and Compass Pathways as the past year-and-a-half has seen a major ramp in market acceptance of psychedelic usage in medicine, and multiple clinical trials moving along
- William Padilla-Brown: A rising star in the mycological movement is a bona fide mycological influencer. Part of the hope in promoting ethically, sustainably sourced mushrooms is that they’ll be worth the extra price to conscious consumers. The cannabis industry sets an example. High-quality extracts such as oils, concentrates, hash, shatter, and other refined forms of marijuana are familiar to informed cannabis consumers. That same product class is beginning to emerge around Cordyceps and other medicinal mushrooms. The question remains open whether there is as high a ceiling in the market for medicinal fungi as there is for pain relief and recreation represented by CBD and THC.
SOCIAL IMPACT: The proof is in the Psilocybin. Emerging studies have uncovered the positive impact the effects ingesting psilocybin on a regular basis can have on people.
“Psychedelics are about health care, medically approved therapies. It’s not going to go the recreational route that cannabis did,” said Payton Nyquvest, who co-founded Numinus in 2018 and is its chief executive.
Various mushroom tinctures, serums and powders are finding their way into wellness regimens partly because after decades of relying on pharmaceuticals to control various diseases and conditions, consumers are now increasingly focusing on diet and more natural ways to improve their health, said Dr. Lambert, of Penn State.
Hour Detroit, May 17, 2021 Johns Hopkins researchers published a small study of adults with major depression that found two doses of psilocybin resulted in significant improvements over a four-week follow-up. Other studies have shown success in participants with obsessive compulsive disorder and in newly diagnosed patients suffering from end-of-life anxiety, Greenwald says.
Medicinal mushrooms are gaining momentum due to their immune-enhancing, antioxidant, skincare, and anti-cancer prosperities. Recently, there has been remarkable growth in health issues among people from all across the globe. As a result, a major health-conscious populace is inclined toward consuming functional foods. This factor is stimulating demand avenues for the global medicinal mushrooms market.
ON THE DOWN: Baking Banana Bread
People are over spending lots of time in the kitchen. They want to get baked and feel better. Not be the one always doing the baking.
