[HN Gopher] Startups are betting on a psychedelic gold rush
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Startups are betting on a psychedelic gold rush
Author : paulpauper
Score : 22 points
Date : 2021-10-17 21:12 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.vox.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.vox.com)
| mistrial9 wrote:
| money wants to tell the story like it is all about money -- who
| knew?!
| breck wrote:
| I just listened to an interview with the director of the new
| Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Massachusetts
| General Hospital. If you're looking to build up a balanced
| perspective on this subject worth a listen:
|
| https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/keep-talking/episode-17...
| tmpz22 wrote:
| Is there anything startups won't bet on?
| klyrs wrote:
| Moderation, apparently.
| Kiro wrote:
| What stocks should I buy?
| crate_barre wrote:
| Pretty sure any company in the legal marijuana business will
| immediately add this product if it starts becoming more legal.
| Fatboyrunning wrote:
| The sale of drugs to non-addicts just doesn't scale.
|
| Startups selling psychedelics want repeat customers.
|
| Terence McKenna said he would take magic mushrooms less than once
| per year.
|
| I don't know what John Hopkins advises, but I would be surprised
| if they advocated even greater than annual dosing after initial
| treatment.
| pengaru wrote:
| Microdosing treats psychedelics like supplements/vitamins, such
| consumers are the epitome of a repeat customer.
| andai wrote:
| I was surprised recently to see an ad for microdosing
| psilocybin (it's legal here). They don't even make an
| extract, just grind it up and put it in capsules so it comes
| with a disclaimer that the dosages are unpredictable.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I think there are some interesting treatment opportunities, but I
| also really don't like the direction this is all going.
|
| Locally, ketamine treatment clinics are popping up all over the
| place. We have so many in my city that they're now competing with
| each other in radio advertisements, inviting people to come on
| down and get some ketamine for their depression, anxiety, PTSD,
| or even vague symptoms like stress. One of them even had a
| frequent visitor pass - Buy five ketamine sessions and the sixth
| is free! Another was shut down for a while when they were caught
| leaving patients unattended and one injured themself while on a
| high dose of ketamine. They were found to not even be performing
| screenings of patients - Anyone who showed up with cash got
| ketamine.
|
| But it doesn't stop there. Internet prescribers are taking
| advantage of the temporary COVID rules changes for telehealth
| controlled substance prescribing to give ketamine over the
| internet. I won't name the company, but one specific provider is
| known for providing prescriptions for exorbitantly high doses of
| ketamine. From what I saw, nobody is turned away. If you're
| willing to pay, you get a prescription for a lot of ketamine and
| you don't even have to leave your house.
|
| What makes this all worse is that ketamine is very much _not_ a
| cure for depression. The antidepressant effects of ketamine are
| famously short-lived, so it's used as a way to jump-start
| traditional therapy in normal settings. Not so at these ketamine
| clinics, which prefer you return to them for more and more
| expensive treatments each time it wears off, at least until you
| have such a high tolerance that it doesn't do anything at all for
| the depression any more.
|
| Whatever you think about the substances, I am not excited for a
| wave of "growth hackers" at psychedelic startups brainstorming
| ways to get people to pay for more and more ketamine or
| psychedelic sessions to improve their numbers. I hope the
| regulatory bodies step in and steer this back to sanity before
| these startups cause so many problems that these substances
| become untouchable again.
| SashaShulgin wrote:
| Sasha and Ann Shulgin famously believed that disassociatives
| (e.g., ketamine, xenon, phencyclidine) have no safe role in
| psychedelic therapy: "We are strongly
| prejudiced against psychedelic drugs which cause such mind-body
| separation, as we are against any drug which causes separation
| from feelings and emotions. However, we acknowledge that the
| ketamine state can be highly instructive for researchers trying
| to understand the functions of the human mind."
|
| Disassociatives are too addictive, too pleasurable, and
| reliably produce long-lasting delusional states (e.g., as
| observed in John C. Lilly and Marcia Moore).
|
| For example, see D. M. Turner's "The Essential Psychedelic
| Guide". Before he died in his bathtub (after injecting
| ketamine), he wrote the following: "A major
| concern regarding safe use of Ketamine is its very high
| potential for psychological addiction. A fairly large
| percentage of those who try Ketamine will consume it non-stop
| until their supply is exhausted. I've seen this in friends I've
| known for many years who are regular psychedelic users and have
| never before had problems controlling their drug consumption.
| And I've seen the lives of several people who developed an
| addiction to Ketamine take downward turns." "After
| about two years of once-per-week Ketamine use I even found that
| I had developed an addiction. Although it was less severe than
| what I've described above, it took considerable effort to break
| the cycle of repeatedly using it, even though I was aware of
| detrimental effects that it was causing. Since that time I've
| used Ketamine only occasionally, but find that I must
| continually exercise a high degree of will power to prevent
| myself from falling into a pattern of regular use. Amongst
| those I know who use Ketamine, I've seen very few who can use
| it in a balanced manner if they have access to it."
|
| On the other hand, there are very useful and beneficial
| tryptamines (e.g., psilocybin) and phenethylamines (e.g.,
| mescaline). These drugs produce informative, useful,
| introspective, challenging mental states and are NOT prone to
| abuse. These are the valuable psychedelics.
| crate_barre wrote:
| Experienced drug users (loosely using that term, don't want
| to call them drug addicts :p) will tell you not to even
| attempt a psychedelic if you are not in the right headspace.
| You'll have a bad trip. Is that still not the case? Isn't
| depression about as bad a headspace you can be in to try this
| stuff?
| symlinkk wrote:
| Why not let the free market work its magic? If ketamine doesn't
| work, the word will get out and these places will go out of
| business. People will self medicate with whatever is available
| to them. If you lock up ketamine, people will reach for
| alcohol.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| > Why not let the free market work its magic?
|
| the literal snake oil market? no thanks.
| klyrs wrote:
| Look, I think that ketamine has some great potential... but
| the medical (especially pharmaceutical) industry has shown
| time and time again that regulation is absolutely necessary.
|
| From what I've gleaned, low-dose ketamine is quite effective
| at reducing treatment-resistant suicidal ideation, which can
| be a literal life-saver and has very low risk. High-dose
| ketamine (k-hole) is a significantly riskier proposition:
| people can grow dependent on it, and it does significant
| long-term damage to the body (and in the short term,
| apparently, walking out of the clinic tripping balls and
| getting injured). As an emergency emergency remedy
| (treatment-resistant depression), paired with talk therapy,
| the high-dose treatments may be promising.
|
| A real risk is blowback: if the industry is too cavalier,
| then there will be actually good reason to clamp down on it.
| If the industry can get their shit together and be careful,
| then there's no need for strict regulation. If the industry
| blows its chance with public sentiment now, we won't have a
| chance to see the positive effects for another few
| generations.
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