PCoD Monthly Dose

Monthly articles written by members of the Psychedelic Club of Denver board, ranging on topics from recent news to history, education and research.

April, 2021

LSD, Neurochemistry (for beginners), and Spirituality
by Kess Hirsheimer

An individual’s experience after consuming LSD is exceptionally subjective - there have never been two people who have shared the exact same experience while in this altered state, and there never will be. The same is true to be said for the experience of life itself, and in that, who is to say our waking reality is any more or less real than that of our dreams, imaginations, etc. Maybe this ambiguous uncertainty is part of what makes life so beautiful.

Let’s consider our objective “reality” here on this plane, in this current time and space here on this rock we have named Earth…

LSD was first invented by Albert Hofmann, a researcher with Sandoz, a Swiss chemical company. He was working to synthesize a respiratory and circulatory stimulant. Research of the substance’s potential began 5 years later, after Hofman ingested 250 micrograms, and continued until 1970, when the substance was scheduled to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” in the Controlled Substances Act. It has since been theorized that this scheduling was intended to mitigate the influence of the counter-culture who used LSD, as they were also generally opposed to the government’s agenda concerning war and politics. It wasn’t until very recently that research on the substance has once again been continued, made possible with exclusive licencing from the DEA and other government regulatory agencies.

Our current objective, scientific understanding of altered states of consciousness involves research into how chemicals affect the brain. This gets difficult given that humanity’s understanding of the brain is quite elusive. To research how little humanity knows about the brain can be a daunting, curious task, as most research on brain activity is speculative even for the world’s best scientists. It is clear that there are connections that transmit data, but how that data is processed is still unknown. Research into psychedelics and altered states of consciousness has not only proven to improve mental health, but also further humanity’s understanding on how the nervous system works as a whole.

LSD is known to have effects on multiple brain receptors, which are areas in the brain made of protein that a molecule (such as a neurotransmitter, hormone, or drug) can bind to. LSD affects many receptors in the brain, including dopamine and adrenaline receptors. The chemical also affects a variety of serotonin receptors, including the 5-HT2A receptors, which are credited for causing the psychedelic experience. When the 5-HT2A receptor is blocked, the psychedelic effects of LSD are diminished. The 5-HT2A receptor is most present in areas of the brain that deal with consciousness and perception. For example, 5-HT2A receptors are very densely expressed in the reticular nucleus, which is credited for filtering incoming sensory stimuli.

LSD has also been found to increase the interconnectivity of the visual cortex, located in the very back of the brain, with all other regions of the brain. This is credited for individuals having reports of synesthesia, such as “seeing” music or “hearing” colors.

This information is important because it shows that LSD influences brain activity from an intimately interconnected, comprehensive, holistic approach. The current pharmacological approach for mental health illnesses usually only targets one area of the brain, which unfortunately has proven to be relatively unsuccessful for many people in their healing journey. That is not to say that current medications are a complete failure, as they are great for many people, but the success rates from current research reflect that LSD may be a more effective treatment for assisting individuals struggling with depression, anxiety, etc.

Furthermore, LSD is highly regarded for its ability to influence an individual’s interpretation of their spirituality and understanding of self.

Given the influence the substance has on consciousness and perception, many people find it difficult to differentiate between whether or not they are simply perceiving an abnormal experience, or if the experience is in itself entirely typical and they can simply perceive more about it that they were unable to recognize before.

Aside from a shift in perspective, LSD also causes extraordinary shifts in the understanding of self. The chemical is considered an entactogen, which is a class of psychoactive drugs that produce experiences of emotional communion, oneness, relatedness, and emotional openness. It is not uncommon for people to report that every living thing on Earth is the same life source. Perhaps, each individual living through the subjective experience of LSD is one small manifestation of a greater consciousness. This would suggest all experiences are all the same because they are all experienced by the singular consciousness; a God. This reality is a simulation made by said God so that it could experience all there is, in turn learning about self in the pursuit of self definition.

The objective (scientific) and subjective (spiritual) elements of this incredible substance cannot be independent of one another. They are both ingrained in the LSD experience in such a beautiful melodic harmony that perfectly complements the other, curating an experience humans are so incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity.

March, 2021

Psychedelic Exceptionalism
by David Wasserman

Biden has just been elected to Delaware Senate. He helps introduce a bill that creates a sentencing disparity for crack cocaine where possession of a single gram of crack is treated the same as possession of 100 grams of cocaine. Crack and cocaine are the same drug, just different forms used by different members of society. With myths such as "An african high on cocaine cannot be stopped with a .32" floating around and the media reporting about this new drug ruining society we saw the anti drug abuse act of 1986 get introduced and unfairly putting thousands of black men behind bars for years for possessing less than $100 of crack. In 2010 when Biden was vice president the fair sentencing act was signed by president Obama. It eliminated the 5 year mandatory minimum for 5 grams and reduced the sentencing disparity from 100:1 to 18:1. The RAVE act which penalizes any music promoter whom acknowledges substance abuse takes place at their event has caused harm reduction to step into the shadows or be non-existant resulting in misbranded and or adulterated substances harming otherwise law abiding party go-ers. Another one of Joe Biden's contributions to our federal drug legislation.

Lets fast forward to 2021. Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States. No one alive has been more involved in drafting legislation that harms poor people, people of color, people perceived as unwanted by society.

After Denver's psilocybin decriminalization the country seemed to see a resurgence in drug policy reform. Only a few weeks later resolutions were brought before council members in cities like Oakland and Ann Arbor. An organization called Decriminalize Nature started building chapters all over the country. The city of Washington D.C. voted to decriminalize entheogens and Oregon decriminalized possession of extremely small amounts of common drugs. While this may seem extremely progressive, it's too little too late. The damage from our nations war on drugs has already taken it's toll. Families have been destroyed, careers have been ruined, nobody will get the years back that they spent rotting in a federal penitentiary over 5 grams of crack cocaine or a few ounces of cannabis.

We are starting to see cannabis stores pop up all across the country, while MDMA and psilocybin are on track to become prescription medications. The people who sold cannabis when it was illegal are often unable to enter the now stateside legal industry.

While I believe that change happens in small increments, this is too little too late. It's also creating a major problem with psychedelic exceptionalism. Previously alcohol, nicotine, and recently cannabis were socially acceptable.

Now society is telling us that if you have a medical marijuana card or your doctor recommends psilocybin it's acceptable. Meanwhile the other 15 million Americans are still looked down upon and considered criminals who face incarceration every moment of their lives simply because their substance of choice isn't socially acceptable.

While cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, prescription drugs, ketamine, GHB, benzodiazepines, and other "harder" drugs are unacceptable we should not use the judicial system when dealing with users and instead view their problematic usage as a public health issue.

Whether or not you think meth and heroin should be legal and regulated the scientific data shows that prohibition only harms society and people will not stop using illicit substances based upon draconian laws.

We should be offering help instead of punishment. 90% of drug use is non-problematic. That 10% contains the people we see on the streets or passed out at bus stops. The other 90% is your local accountant, firefighter, neighborhood attorney, people who's lives are usually pretty put together.

The key to drug policy reform is slowly changing the status quo. While I do agree that psilocybin is probably the best drug to do that, we have to go much much further as fentanyl becomes a common street drug. With our country nearing close to 100k overdoses a year, more than car accidents and gun violence we need to embrace harm reduction and look at substance use as the public health issue it is. We cannot fix it by locking everyone up and we also cannot ignore it.

With 1 in 8 Americans on an antidepressant obviously something needs to change on a national level. Our drug laws are so inconsistent that on the state level in Colorado 2,000 doses of Fentanyl carry a $500 fine and a misdemeanor while 2 doses of psilocybin mushrooms are still a felony.

While nobody has died from psilocybin, the same is true for many substances and if we choose to keep advancing in a way where we choose what substances are or aren't allowed we will end up in a very bad place. Drugs don't harm people, drug laws, drug adulterants, drug misbranding hurts people.

Take Oregon's 110 and replace psilocybin with any other drug. Those 1 in 8 Americans mentioned earlier probably don't know that modern day antidepressants(SSRIs) are derived from LSD.

Society says taking doctor prescribed SSRIs is 100% acceptable, but microdosing LSD is not...

I hope you are starting to see the problem because we need to keep reforming drugs laws, but we need to make sure we don't decide to alienate the street methamphetamine user from the student prescribed adderall or the young adult smoking heroin instead of sniffing oxycodone. We need to include the soccer mom who trips on shrooms or DMT or 2c-b. We're all humans with serotonin, norepinephrine, dopamine, and opioid receptors who have a humanistic tendency to self medicate or take a mind altering substance to cope with pain that is either physical or emotional. Humans should be allowed to respond to trauma with substances. Substances of their choosing and not what Joe Biden thinks is acceptable. We should be looking at cocaine the same way we look at caffeine. We've let alcohol destroy our society simply because an elected official decided it should be legalized, sold in stores and taxed. By cherry picking what we will allow and what we won't we are just spinning in circles following the same mistakes America took with alcohol prohibition.

--

Best Regards,

David Wasserman
Government Affairs Specialist
Conscious Consulting Co

David.P.Wasserman@Gmail.com

February, 2021

Sustainability of the Psychedlic Toad
by Andrew Reynolds

The psychedelic toad experience is the most significant thing I have done in my life; it feels like it is the most important thing that will ever happen. The venom of the Sonoran Desert Toad (Bufo Alvarius) contains the tryptamine five-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine (5-MeO-DMT) which is chemically similar to, and experientially very distinct from its more famous cousin N,N-DMT.

Harvesting the venom comes at a cost to the toads. The venom is “milked” from glands that run along the toad’s body. After catching the toad, the animal is held over a hard surface, such as pyrex. A gland on the toad is squeezed, causing the venom to be released onto the surface where the venom then hardens. It is later scraped off and smoked as crystal.

This practice can be done sustainably by handling the toads gently and milking only some of the toad’s glands, then releasing it. This is important as the venom is the toad’s defense mechanism against predators. Sadly, many people who harvest the toads’ venom take all of it, or totally mishandle the toads, causing them injury and sometimes even killing them.

The toads are constrained to a fairly small geographical region. As the human population encroaches on the toads’ natural habitat, toad mortality increases from a variety of factors such as being hit by cars. The toads are also increasingly victims of natural predation as they are mesmerized by artificial light, a byproduct of human presence.

This situation is not unique to the Sonoran Desert Toad—the Ayahuasca Vine (Banisteriopsis Caapi) is also becoming more scarce as it grows in popularity. Many people who have experienced Ayahuasca and/or Toad say it is among the most significant experiences of their lives, rivaling the death of a loved one or even the birth of a child.

Given the profound impact these entheogens have on humanity, and the positive changes they bring both to individuals and society, what can we do?

There are synthetic alternatives to both, as well as other natural sources of monamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), the active ingredient in B. caapi and 5-MeO-DMT. Some people believe that you have to use the “natural” or “traditional” version to get the “right” experience. You’ll hear this debate around psilocybin mushrooms (natural) and LSD (synthetic) as well, though in the case of mushrooms and LSD the discussion is over two distinct molecules whereas in the Ayahuasca and Toad dilemma, the alternatives are the exact same molecule either found in other natural sources or synthesized in a lab. It’s also worth noting here that the smoking of toad venom only recently began to be documented and publicized in the ‘70’s. There is very little documentation on the use of 5-MeO-DMT in regards to traditional ceremonial experiences.

I have not tried 5-MeO-DMT or MAOIs from sources besides Toad and Ayahuasca respectively, so I can’t comment from personal experience. I do love tradition, and think there is something really special about both of these experiences. At times, it feels like that specialness is coming from the plant or the Toad, as though the vine or the Toad have a message for us.

Our planet is becoming increasingly unsafe for humans. For me, one of the most important lessons of the psychedelic experience is that each of us is responsible for this planet; we all must protect the biodiversity of the Earth. It may be the only path to the survival of our species. In light of that, it is of the utmost importance to preserve the animals and plants who have brought us these sacred medicines, even if it means finding alternative sources for the medicines they have given us.

The Trippy Start-Up Boom, The Future of Psychedelia (Part 1)
By Jacob Curtis
https://medium.com/p/90e47b3c2557/edit

This past year has seen dramatic mushrooming growth in the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry, and in Canada specifically. Companies like COMPASS Pathways have launched on the NASDAQ, and other ambitious start-ups have listed themselves on the Canadian Securities Exchange. A quick glance of the company database on Psychedelic Finance lists 50 companies, with at least one based in Denver; Unlimited Sciences.

In working on this article I interviewed two psychedelic journalists who are very familiar with the situation. Joe Moore, of the podcast Psychedelics Today, and Reilly Capps of Rooster Magazine, DoubleBlind, and The Third Wave. Both are Colorado-based experts in the general field of all things psychedelia.

I speculated that it was because Canada has approved psilocybin assisted psychotherapy for end-of-life anxiety in cancer patients that the start-ups are taking root in the Great White North. Reilly Capps set the record straight: “the reason that they’re listed in Canada, because Canadian securities law is different from ours. And so, we have more stringent regulations about if you’re touching this Schedule 1 substance in any way, you can’t list. So that’s why they’re up there.”

Ah yes, Canada is ahead of the US in drug policy reform. They legalized cannabis nationwide, but they also can list their companies with less regulation. Yes some of them are small, hence why I refer to them as start-ups: Reilly says: “I think there’s some really good and robust companies. COMPASS is a pretty robust company. But I bet if you drill down to how big they are, I bet it’s like 50 or 100 people. I just bet it’s not that much.”

Joe Moore of Psychedelics Today offered his take on why the Canuck psychedelic industry is booming: “Canada kind of got going early just because it’s not the United States. It’s a very developed nation. Their stock markets don’t have the same kind of rules that the NASDAQ does. And I think there are some advantages to Canada. It’s easier also to list in these other countries. Your company can be very small, and still get a public listing. Whereas it needs to be pretty sizable to get a public listing in the US. That was a big reason. There’s always going to be new, interesting paths here for these big companies. And they’re really sophisticated about how the world works and how finance and capital markets work. They’re going to be able to do things that the majority of the psychedelic community wishes it could do…” It is by listing themselves on the CSE that companies can gain investment capital in their proposed products.

Ok, so we’ve heard a little bit about why Canada might be a good place to start a psychedelic pharmaceutical company; but what about the culture? One event that stands out is when a Member of Parliament presented a petition to the House of Commons to decriminalize psychedelics. MP Paul Manly, who spoke on September 30, 2020 said: “almost 15,000 Canadians have signed this petition calling for the decriminalization of psychoactive plants and fungi that have traditionally been used for medicinal and ceremonial purposes by indigenous people since time immemorial. The petition points out that there is a growing body of peer reviewed evidence that these traditional remedies support recovery from addiction and help people suffering from PTSD, treatment resistant depression and end of life anxiety. And I’d like to thank the Minister of Health for giving an exemption for several people who are at the end of their lives for the use of psilocybin assisted therapy. The petition calls on the Government of Canada to amend the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the Food and Drug Act and regulations to distinguish and exempt these organisms, when used for therapeutic practices, as adjuncts to medical care, for healing ceremonies, or solitary spiritual growth, and self development, and I’d like to thank Trevor Miller and MAPS Canada for bringing forward this petition. Thank you.”

And what about the role of pharmaceutical companies historically playing in the development of psychedelic drugs, is there anything to that? Of course there is… MDMA was synthesized by a pharmaceutical company, LSD was synthesized by a pharmaceutical company, and the most prolific psychedelic chemist of our time, Sasha Shulgin, worked for Dow Chemical. Big corporate pharmaceutical companies have their fingerprints all over the history of psychedelia. Joe Moore, again, expands on the subject:

“Everything that Shulgin did was because of drug and chemical companies, and Shulgin’s work all existed inside capitalism. There’s a lot of great stuff that has come from capitalism. There’s also plenty of horrible stuff, too. Are these new drugs being developed a net positive or net negative? I think a net positive. The mental health care services we offer are pretty rudimentary right now, and this stands to revolutionize psychiatry and psychology substantially over the next 30 years.”

This is such a huge topic, I’ll have to get back to you with more in Part 2 next month.