A nationally representative cross‐sectional survey of U.S. adults found the among all psychedelics, ibogaine and 5‐MeO‐DMT (5‐methoxy‐N,N‐ dimethyltryptamine) resulted in the most frequent self‐reported adverse outcomes, according to a recent study. The study, “Adverse Health Outcomes of Psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, Ibogaine, and 5‐MeO‐DMT,” by Otto Simonsson, Ph.D., and colleagues, was published...
Cannabis use and cannabis use disorder (CUD) are common in early‐onset psychosis. Clinical presentation is key when determining which is present and which to treat first. But reducing cannabis use would help. A study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that cannabis use preceded the psychosis symptoms. Researchers found that screening and...
The Michigan Society of Addiction Medicine (MiSAM) has written a letter to the Michigan legislature opposing bill HB 6020, which would use opioid settlement funds to expand research into ibogaine.
New research on the relationship between cannabis and psychosis was released, and a presentation on how low‐dose buprenorphine combined with ketamine reduced suicidality in adults with major depressive disorder was published and presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association (APA).
On April 17, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “establish a pathway for eligible patients to access investigational psychedelic drugs, including ibogaine compounds.” While citing the need for solutions to treatment‐resistant mental illness, Trump also required the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to...
When conducting randomized controlled trials, the study drug is pitted against a placebo. The problem with psychedelics trials is that subjects always know when they have been given a psychedelic. The only “placebo” for a psychedelic is another drug with similar properties, because psychedelics have such obvious effects.
In a small study, researchers observed a possible link based on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between elevated dopamine function, cannabis use, and schizophrenia. It is known that cannabis use is linked to psychosis, and dopamine is linked to psychosis, but whether there is a dopamine link is unclear.
Not for the first time, experts have expressed concern about whether randomized controlled trials (RCTs) can be conducted with psychedelics. A placebo for a drug with such a powerful effect would be difficult to create. But placebos are needed to prove that a medication works because it works, not because the patient thinks it will (the so‐called “placebo effect”). To avoid the placebo effect...
A cohort study of 11,868 adolescents found that those who used cannabis at any point reported a greater number of psychosis symptoms, and more distress from those symptoms, compared to teens who never used cannabis. This study, “Psychosis Spectrum Symptoms Before and After Adolescent Cannabis Use Initiation,” published last week in JAMA Psychiatry, sought to answer the question of whether the...
The typical conundrum with cannabis use by adolescents and first episode psychosis — which came first? — was displaced by Steven Batki, M.D., in a plenary session at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders (CCSAD) in September. Bakti, who is a professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences, presented his conclusions allowing the...
The typical conundrum with cannabis use by adolescents and first episode psychosis — which came first? — was displaced by Steven Batki, M.D. in a plenary session at the Cape Cod Symposium on Addictive Disorders (CCSAD) last week. Bakti, who is professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco Weill Institute for Neurosciences, presented his conclusions allowing the audience...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not accept the application of Lykos Therapeutics for MDMA as a treatment for post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a letter dated Aug. 9 and released by Lykos Therapeutics, the for‐profit arm of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the company stated that it is disappointed in the FDA response, but that it intends to...
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did not accept the application of Lykos Therapeutics for MDMA as a treatment for post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a letter dated Aug. 9 and released by Lykos Therapeutics, the for‐profit arm of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the company stated that it is disappointed in the FDA response, but that it intends to...
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted 9‐2 to reject the application of Lykos Therapeutics, the newly formed commercial arm of MAPS, for “midomafetamine” (actually MDMA, or methylenedioxymethamphetamine) to treat post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
From 2017 – 2022, law enforcement seizures across the United States of mushrooms containing psilocybin increased dramatically, according to a new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The number of law enforcement seizures increased from 402 seizures in 2017 to 1,396 in 2022. In addition, the total weight of psilocybin mushrooms seized by law enforcement increased from...
A National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)‐funded study published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence titled “National and Regional Trends in Seizures of Shrooms (Psilocybin) in the United States, 2017‐2022” reported a significant increase in law enforcement seizures of psilocybin mushrooms, also known as “magic mushrooms” or “shrooms,” in the United States from January 2017 to December...
When we weren't looking, the annual “Innovations” issue crept up on us. And coincidentally, so did advances in the use of psychedelics to treat substance use disorders (SUDs). ADAW reviewed its own archives, as well as the medical literature, attended a conference and found that indeed, psychedelics can be used not only to treat post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but to treat SUDS, in...
It is possible to fight cravings — whether for opioids due to addiction or opioids for pain relief — with mindfulness, according to Eric L. Garland, Ph.D., associate dean for research and a professor at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, who presented to a packed plenary at the Cape Cod Symposium for Addictive Disorders on Sept. 9. The annual meeting of treatment professionals is an...
The beneficial effects of psilocybin‐assisted psychotherapy on alcohol use disorder (AUD) are significant, based on a study published in JAMA Psychiatry last month. In general, psychedelic medications have been a focus of research, but less is known about psilocybin, and it has been 40 years since the studies with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) provided double the remissions as comparison...
The January issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) focuses on the interactions between alcohol use, cannabis use, substance use disorders (SUDs), and other psychiatric illnesses. One of the biggest questions for clinicians treating patients with first‐episode psychosis when cannabis has been involved is the chicken‐and‐egg question — was the psychosis brought on by cannabis use or...
Most patients with substance use disorder (SUD) also have anxiety, and many have post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), using drugs or alcohol to self‐medicate (although not effectively). What happens with PTSD occurs in the amygdala, explained George Koob, Ph.D., director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), in an interview with ADAW last week. The emotional part...
First it was the plant, cannabis. How could this be made into a saleable profit‐making commodity when it grows in the ground? Witness the marijuana (a chemical from the plant) industry, which lobbied to make sure laws in states that legalized it banned people from growing more than a few plants.
Telling the difference between primary psychosis, cannabis intoxication, and cannabis‐induced psychosis is challenging but important, especially now that it's known that almost 50% of cannabis‐induced psychosis precedes primary psychosis. A fictional case study reported in Paediatrics & Child Health makes these challenges come to life. But the purpose of the case study is only as an...
Telling the difference between primary psychosis, cannabis intoxication and cannabis‐induced psychosis is challenging but important, especially now that it's known that almost 50% of cannabis‐induced psychosis precedes primary psychosis. A fictional case study reported in Paediatrics & Child Health makes these challenges come to life. But the purpose of the case study is only as an introduction...