
A German Financier Wants to Turn Magic Mushrooms into Modern Medicine - headalgorithm
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-psychedelics-evangelist-a-german-financier-wants-to-turn-magic-mushrooms-into-modern-medicine/
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hirundo
Check out Figure 6 in this paper:
[https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.201...](https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.2014.0873)

"we ... compare resting-state functional brain activity in 15 healthy
volunteers after intravenous infusion of placebo and psilocybin—the main
psychoactive component of magic mushrooms. The results show that the
homological structure of the brain's functional patterns undergoes a dramatic
change post-psilocybin, characterized by the appearance of many transient
structures of low stability and of a small number of persistent ones that are
not observed in the case of placebo."

Psilocybin promotes neuroplasticity/neurogenesis, and the effect isn't subtle.
Yet its application is still on the fringe. It's not surprising that this
makes a financier salivate. It's more surprising that it isn't yet a gold
rush.

~~~
devoply
Yes back in my day they were called drug dealers. Cries regulatory capture by
the rich to me.

~~~
TomMarius
Well if it wasn't for the rich it would still be a complete taboo. I'm
thankful.

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brootstrap
Not sure if taking some shrooms can help cure depression but it can really
change your perspective on life. Maybe that is what folks are talking about in
this article. You are going thru all this pain and suffering, it affects your
family , loved ones. It really sucks, we have all experienced something like
that. If the patient takes a dose of shrooms (insert mind altering drug of
choice) it could help give them a new perspective on the world, their live,
and their place in nature.

~~~
supergauntlet
Considering there's pretty compelling research that ketamine can help people
that suffer from depression and MDMA in conjunction with therapy helps those
with PTSD, I really think we should take a very hard look at what drugs should
be illegal and why. I'm honestly not convinced there's a good reason most of
the schedule 1 drugs should be illegal.

They all seem to have lots of therapeutic uses. Throwing that away seems like
a huge waste.

~~~
mnm1
I think that is one, of many, exact reasons they are illegal. The government
will do anything to protect big pharma and these substances are not
patentable. Nor do they need to be taken often for beneficial effects. That
scares the living shit out of pharma companies that sell a lot of garbage like
anti depressants that aren't even shown to be effective and often lead to
worse outcomes like suicide. I'm surprised about what the guy in the article
is doing and conflicted on whether I support it or not. Nature already
provides this medicine in an almost perfect form. Extraction is trivial. I see
no need for synthesis or especially for patenting it to the detriment of the
natural mushrooms.

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mindslight
Awesome. Another molecule that is an ongoing target of persecution, now
showing commercial value so it can be patented, productized, prescribed (with
individuals as _medical subjects_ rather than self-actors), and otherwise
subjugated for the matrix's approved use(s). Then we can pat ourselves on the
back celebrating fake "progress" while the resulting revenue continues fueling
the very root of the problem.

Actually ending the war on drug users means voiding the entirety of its errant
laws, full stop. Anything short is just perpetuating this violation of natural
rights wherein individuals are restricted in how they may effect their own
consciousness.

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funkjunky
"The therapist can also steer them away from the notorious “bad trips”
sometimes associated with magic mushrooms."

Bad trips are where the most important breakthroughs occur and lessons are
learned

~~~
toomuchtodo
I was considering taking a trip on magic mushrooms, but a friend mentioned
they had an acquaintance have a bad trip where they hallucinated spiders
crawling all over their arms and they did significant physical damage to the
arms in the process.

I'm not against growing from a bad trip, but I don't want lasting physical
damage from the experience. Would love to hear any advice or suggestions
experienced users have in how to mitigate a bad trip.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Before I get into mitigation strategies, I’ll get into the two primary reasons
that people have bad trips (and they are inherently tied to each other often).
The first is the actual catalyst, the second is secondary but usually leads to
the first. The primary thing that people describe as a “bad trip” is a
positive feedback loop of negative thoughts. I use positive feedback loop in
the scientific sense, meaning that when you have a positive feedback loop of
negative thoughts, the thoughts feed on each other and create more negative
thoughts. The second is feeling physically unwell. Unfortunately mushrooms
don’t taste great and people react physically in negative ways oftentimes,
including but not limited to puking (most common) but also upset stomach and
weird bowel movements. Knowing this, it’s easy to see how feeling physically
ill can lead into the primary cause of bad trip, positive feedback loop of
negative thoughts. It’s hard to avoid feeling physically ill for a lot of
people but knowledge of the physicality of what you are feeling (and
contrasting that with the mental aspect) can help people to avoid bad trips.
In other words, I can tell myself that the reason I might not feel too hot
right now is simply because of the way my body is digesting mushrooms, vs any
mental aspect of my psychology.

To mitigate a bad trip:

\- Be in a comfortable environment where you feel safe. This is usually where
you live or the abode of a close trusted friend. It’s not recommended for the
first psychonaut voyage to try something someone hands you at a concert.
That’s a risky way to go about things.

\- Have several comforting escapes set aside. A warm blanket and a bed are two
very easy ones.

\- Music that you are intimately familiar with helps. It also helps to have
multiple playlists of music style that you enjoy as change of music can help
break any positive feedback loop. Under the influence of psychedelics, music
enjoyment and perception is significantly enhanced and can act as a complete
change of mood and does wonders to break thought cycles.

\- An experienced sitter to talk you through what you are feeling. This is the
single most important thing that can break the cycle for people, so try and
have this if you can, although not everyone will have this luxury.

\- I’ve found that I have less negative physical response when dealing with
extract vs raw mushrooms. I like to make tea, but there are other ways that
are preferable to just eating the mushrooms as they are.

\- Depending on your mindset, it’s generally a good idea to avoid mirrors when
undergoing your first voyage, as this will send you into a contemplation of
self quite easily, and you might not be mentally prepared for that yet. Later
on in your voyage of discovery, you might want this though.

Lastly, I want to try and dispel the notion of what psychedelics are based on
your post. I cannot speak to your anecdote that you relay in your post, but no
one I have known (myself included) experiences mushrooms in the way you
describe. I feel like media in general does a very bad job of describing and
portraying what psychedelic experience is like. Users typically do not
hallucinate things out of thin air like spiders on arms (though I am not
saying your anecdote is untrue!). Oftentimes the hallucinogenic experience is
more along the lines of completely new life being breathed into things that
you normally perceive as everyday objects. For instance, you normally witness
much greater depth perception of fractal-like objects (tree leaves/branches
are a classic example) or normally static patterns like patterns on wallpaper
will begin to move, breathe, and pulsate with life. You can conjure patterns
from nothing when you close your eyes, but this is only a much amplified
effect of the normal experience you have when you close your eyes and attempt
to perceive the patterns that your blood vessels create.

I want to wrap up by saying (and it sucks that I feel like I have to say this)
that I’m a well-adjusted member of society who works 9-5 as a software
engineer and pays taxes. Jobs was a big user of psychedelics. For a lot of
people psychedelics can be a good thing. They helped me conquer a lot of long-
standing anxiety issues I developed in my youth and helped me discover my love
for dance. Used correctly they are a really powerful and helpful tool for self
improvement and just connecting with the world in general.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Thank you for taking the time to reply; I appreciate all of the advice you
have provided.

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elektor
I've heard of Compass Pathways before and it made me wary of supporting them.

[https://qz.com/1454785/a-millionaire-couple-is-
threatening-t...](https://qz.com/1454785/a-millionaire-couple-is-threatening-
to-create-a-magic-mushroom-monopoly/)

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greguu
The idea of achieving peace by drugging the population reminds me of Stanislaw
Lem's book "The Futurological Congress", where this interesting concept was
turned into a fun to read and thought-provoking SciFi novel.

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Alex3917
So can the SEC seize the money from Compass if their investors get indicted
for securities fraud?

