In January, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism co-hosted a two-day virtual workshop. The subject was psychedelics as therapeutics.
For three federal agencies to sponsor such an event is as clear of an indicator as any that psychedelic research and treatments have, despite their mostly illegal status, left the confines of the underground. In her closing remarks, Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said, “With all the attention that the psychedelic drugs have attracted, the train has left the station.”
In January 2023, Oregon will start to accept applications from businesses to run psilocybin service centers. FDA approval of MDMA (for PTSD) and psilocybin (for treatment-resistant depression) looms just a couple years ahead of that. Numerous for-profit companies developing known and new psychedelic compounds will be ready to produce and deliver these drugs the second they’re approved.
But to extend Volkow’s metaphor, if the psychedelic train has left the station, how far have the tracks been laid out ahead of it? The early data and research on these substances are promising, but in a cultural climate that has become extremely positive towards psychedelics, there’s reason to worry that there hasn’t been enough preparation for negative outcomes amidst the hype.
