Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
July 11, 2026
Gary Enos
A U.S. House member from Arizona has introduced legislation that would require the Pentagon to report on emerging evidence which suggests that psychedelic drugs can benefit military veterans with treatment‐resistant post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Republican Rep. Abe Hamadeh introduced the bill after visiting a nonprofit research lab in Arizona that is conducting the first federally...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
June 29, 2026
Alison Knopf
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.
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
April 24, 2026
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
November 8, 2024
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
August 16, 2024
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
March 1, 2024
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
February 16, 2024
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
October 14, 2022
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
November 19, 2021
Gary Enos
With nicotine being one of the most addictive substances and the available treatments for nicotine addiction leading to no better than a 30% success rate, it's no wonder that a newly announced multisite study of the psychedelic psilocybin for smoking cessation is generating excitement. While taking care not to oversell the potential of this strategy, those involved with the research hope at...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
October 29, 2021
Alison Knopf
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...
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly
September 24, 2021
Alison Knopf
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.