[HN Gopher] A psychedelic medicine performs well against depression
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A psychedelic medicine performs well against depression
https://archive.ph/rIPvX
Author : vinni2
Score : 39 points
Date : 2026-02-19 21:21 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.economist.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.economist.com)
| helterskelter wrote:
| Obligatory mirror:
|
| https://archive.ph/rIPvX
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I believe there have been other studies that prove this for not
| just the synthetic. Yet we are all supposed to accept the "facts"
| that psilocybin (and cannabis) are considered schedule 1 illicit
| substances (high potential for abuse and no currently accepted
| medical use).
| reverend_gonzo wrote:
| It is outrageous that both cannabis and psilocybin are
| scheduled 1 drugs and also completely legal to buy in certain
| locales.
| pjerem wrote:
| At that point it's not "other studies", it's more "tons of
| studies". It's truly an exponential number of studies that had
| the same conclusions in the last 5-10 years.
|
| And N=1 but I can say without any doubt that LSD (and a pretty
| low dose at that, 50ug at once plus some microdosing) played an
| immense role at recovering from burnout. It was like night and
| day even after such a low dose that I _knew_ I recovered.
|
| Those are amazing and powerful but also potentially dangerous
| substances and it's a crime that we don't allow everyone to get
| the benefits by, if not freely legalize it, at least adding
| those in the medical toolbox.
| dylan604 wrote:
| "I believe with the advent of acid we discovered a new way to
| think, and it had to do with piecing together new thoughts in
| your mind. ...
|
| Why is it that people think it's so evil? What is it about it
| that--that is--scares people so deeply? Even the guy that
| invented it. What is it? Because they're afraid that there's
| more to reality than they have confronted. That there are
| doors that they're afraid to go in, and they don't want us to
| go in there either, because if we go in, we might learn
| somethin' that they don't know. And that makes us a little
| out of their control"
|
| --Ken Kasey
| nosuchthing wrote:
| This paper is an incredible read: _TESCREAL hallucinations:
| Psychedelic and AI hype as inequality engines_
|
| https://akjournals.com/view/journals/2054/7/S1/article-p22.x...
| > "Researchers have called attention to the ways that the hype
| promoting psychedelics as miracle cures replicates
| preceding claims about the efficacy of SSRIs and other
| antidepressants in prior decades. As the drug historian
| David Herzberg articulated in conversation with UC Berkeley's
| The Microdose: There's been an enormous amount of
| money invested in psychedelics as people hope that they
| can be the real Prozac in the same way that Prozac hoped it
| would be the real Valium and Valium would be the real
| barbiturates, which would be the real morphine.
| There's a long history of hoping that maybe this time, it's not
| so complicated; maybe there is a simple switch to
| change people without having to change any [other] aspect of
| their [lives]. While others have noted similarities
| between the earlier SSRI hype and the ongoing hype for
| psychedelic medications, the rhetoric of psychedelic
| hype is tinged with utopian and magico-religious aspirations
| that have no parallel in the discourse surrounding
| SSRIs or other antidepressants. I argue that this utopian
| discourse provides insight into the ways that global
| financial and tech elites are instrumentalizing psychedelics as
| one tool in a broader world-building project that
| justifies increasing material inequality. This elite
| project reveals how medicalized psychedelics can potentially
| undermine the very prosocial and pro-environmental
| outcomes that the field's funders insist psychedelics will
| promote. To understand the envisioned role of
| psychedelics within this elite project, this paper analyzes a
| different parallel hype, revealing correspondences
| between the psychedelic industry hype and the concurrent
| hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI), including the
| Large Language Models (LLMs) that power ChatGPT. The
| presence of these parallels is understandable when one
| considers their underlying affinities, like two blooms
| from one plant: the same Silicon Valley and venture capital
| forces are investing enormous amounts of capital to
| develop both as cultivars in their own image, selecting
| for desired traits that further the existing socioeconomic
| order.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Yet we are all supposed to accept the "facts" that psilocybin
| (and cannabis) are considered schedule 1 illicit substances
| (high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical
| use).
|
| To be clear, this compound they're testing is also a Schedule 1
| drug. COMP360 is their name for their psilocybin formulation.
| It's not a separate chemical, it is literally psilocybin.
|
| Schedule 1 drugs can be used in clinical trials. Positive
| results in a clinical trial does not automatically remove the
| Schedule 1 designation. The medication is not approved yet and
| the clinical trial results are preliminary.
| _alternator_ wrote:
| The fact that they are using a synthetic version likely means
| they have constructed a molecule that's patented or otherwise IP
| protected. I'm always torn about this, because it means that a
| cheap, globally available compound (psylocibin) which _was what
| inspired this company to begin with when the founders used it on
| their son_ will remain medically inaccessible, possibly at
| Schedule I in the US, while this startup's compound may end up
| being covered by insurance and rake in piles of cash.
|
| I get that it takes a lot of money to prove the efficacy of
| drugs. But there should be a better way to open some of these
| chemicals up and acknowledge the community that has worked hard,
| often at great personal and reputational risk, to demonstrate
| that these well-known drugs offer powerful options to treat a
| range of psychiatric illnesses.
| reactordev wrote:
| You just described 150 years of Big Pharma Law.
|
| Pharma, sprang up from taking wondrous compounds found in
| nature and isolated them or refined them into new compounds
| that they could patent, market, and sell to consumers.
|
| Ibuprofen, for example, is crude oil.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| Yet Ibuprofen is so easy to make that only 6 plants make it
| worldwide and when one goes offline the shortages are felt
| throughout the world. Might be a bit more difficult than just
| crude oil
| reactordev wrote:
| 6 plants _are allowed to make it_. Everyone else thought
| the licensing fee was too high.
|
| Unless you are referring to natural botanical plants, in
| which case, Pine Trees and turpentine is a good alternative
| found. IANAL but it would still need to find a way around
| the Ibuprofen compound patent.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| What licensing fee? There aren't any patent protections
| on Ibuprofen anymore. It's a generic for a very long
| time.
|
| Also last time there was a shortage, one american BASF
| plant went down and they had trouble for almost a year
| before they could resume production
| Aurornis wrote:
| > 6 plants are allowed to make it. Everyone else thought
| the licensing fee was too high
|
| What licensing fee? It's an old, generic medicine. Anyone
| who wanted to set up an Ibuprofen manufacturing plant
| could do so relatively easily.
|
| The reason more plants aren't coming online is that
| Ibuprofen is a couple pennies per pill at retail prices.
| There isn't money in making more ibuprofen.
| jrmg wrote:
| FWIW I at least am willing to pay someone else to make my
| Ibuprofen from the crude oil so I don't have to. Sounds like
| it'd be messy.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Devil's advocate suggests that a synthetic can be produced the
| same way every time where a cultured plant might have varying
| levels of the active compound in the plant. That makes it
| difficult to prescribe doses. As an example, suggesting a
| patient take 1 cap and 2 stems will be problematic for accurate
| dosing.
|
| Conspirator's advocate says that bigPharma has synthesized and
| patented every active plant compound so that keeping the actual
| plants scheduled is to their benefit.
| dmbche wrote:
| I'm fairly certain it's possible to extract psylocibin from
| the murshroom, giving the same advantages that the synthetic
| would have!
|
| Edit0: for a more thorough look:
| https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8247/18/3/380
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| that's generally much more expensive
| dmbche wrote:
| Than RnD for a brand new synthetic drug?
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| The same thing with Ketamine. As an i.v.-Medication dirt cheap,
| but the same drug in a nasal spray suddenly 500$(Spravato)
| Aurornis wrote:
| It's a myth that you need a novel molecule to get a patent on a
| medicine.
|
| A company can develop a formulation of generic, off-patent
| compounds and get FDA approval for that patented formulation.
|
| Even old off-patent drugs are often brought back in new, on-
| patent formulations that can't be sold generically until the
| expiration of the patents on the formulation that was approved.
|
| So even if they used psilocybin, they would get a patent on
| their formulation and get FDA approval for that formulation.
| dekhn wrote:
| Yes, they have a few patents on the unique formulation (a
| hydrated crystalline form of psilocybin). See also:
| https://psychedelicalpha.com/data/psilocybin-patent-tracker
| yewenjie wrote:
| Does anyone know if it is just synthetic psilocybin or a
| psilocybin-like molecule?
| dzmien wrote:
| From what I can tell from searching for "Comp360", it is simply
| synthetic psilocybin. See
| https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10595939/
| dekhn wrote:
| Everything I've read from them indicates it's the same
| chemical, but in a specific formulation. It's described in
| detail in the patent (one of them:
| https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200199161A1/en)
| zamalek wrote:
| What people get wrong is that you don't just trip balls and get
| cured. Re-integration therapy is vital for lasting effects.
| Grabbing some shrooms and digging in is recreation, which is
| perfectly fine, but don't fool yourself or anyone else by
| suggesting it's for treatment.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I think there's simply so much value in being able to see the
| same thing in so many different perspectives that you never
| have considered possible at all in your life before.
| jesse__ wrote:
| As someone who accidentally discovered the anti-depressive
| effects of psilocybin in my early 20s, I approve this message!
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(page generated 2026-02-19 23:00 UTC)