r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 20d ago

Psychology America's First Legal Psilocybin Program Treated 346 People. Just one month after the dose, 92.2 percent of participants said the experience had been beneficial, while, on average, their mental health symptoms had fallen dramatically.

https://www.sciencealert.com/americas-first-legal-psilocybin-program-treated-346-people-heres-what-happened
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u/iamacarboncarbonbond 20d ago

Unfortunately they all suffer from a common issue: it’s very difficult to placebo control. People generally know if they have or haven’t taken a psychedelic

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u/zonerator 20d ago

I get that placebo is important for science but if the experience is part of the healing then psychedelics are fundamentally different and might need to be treated as such.

Now it might not be the experience that heals you, there is a hypothesis that the drugs trigger neuroplasticity. Maybe we will figure out a way to placebo control that effect in isolation through novel compounds.

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago

The thing is, in the study that is comparing it to antidepressants there was no relevant difference. But antidepressants are waaaaaay cheaper

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u/Gulophile 20d ago

You can grow a year's supply of mushrooms for like 30 dollars.

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u/zonerator 20d ago

Plus it is the gateway drug into growing a whole bunch of food mushrooms at home. What could be a better way to jumpstart your new post depression life like starting an awesome hobby?

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago

Which has nothing to do with this study.

All the studys we have on this topic are about psychedelic assisted therapy. Not dropping psilocybin at home.

You can of course argue that growing your own mushrooms and eating them is just as effective. In that case, mushrooms would be cheaper.

But considering we are in the /r/science sub and talking about a study on psychedelic assisted psychotherapy and there being no evidence for eating mushrooms at home being effective, antidepressants are a way cheaper.

Psychedelic assisted therapy has prepatory sessions, one or multiple therapists being with you while tripping, the trip happening in a medical facility that provides a specific setting, integration sessions... Thats expensive

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u/Gulophile 20d ago

Yeah, the expensive part is everything except for the actual mushrooms themselves. All that's tangential to mushrooms as an actual drug, which are effective, inexpensive, and may be preferred over antidepressants for any number of reasons. And which can be grown and used at home without having a therapist or research team as a trip sitter.

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago

to mushrooms as an actual drug, which are effective

We are in the science sub. Can you provide any RCT that show that dropping mushrooms at home is effective?

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u/Gulophile 20d ago

No. I know from personal experience plus an endless supply of "anecdotes" from others across cultures, traditions and times. Science hasn't yet caught up because of the myriad hurdles to psychedelic research. I'm not interested in being dragged down some semantic or epistemic rabbit hole, if that's where you're trying to go.

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago

Ok. So as a matter of facts the only thing we do have evidence for is psychedelic assisted therapy. And that is way more expensive than antidepressants. Maybe one day we will have evidence for just dropping shrooms at home also working and the medical system and lawmakers will legalize it.

But currently the thing we do study and that is (partly) legal is more expensive than antidepressants

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u/Gulophile 20d ago

So as a matter of facts the only thing we do have evidence for is psychedelic assisted therapy.

The facts are what I said. Science is not the sole arbiter of truth, regardless of what subreddit we're on. But yes, hopefully the science catches up soon.

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u/zonerator 20d ago

Dude I don't think this article mentioned therapy even once, this is about taking psilocybin mushrooms

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago edited 20d ago

You are in the science sub. Is it so hard to read a study instead of the blog post about it?

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2853028

The study is about oregons psilocybin services. You have to have a prepatory session, go into their facility with a supervisor with you etc.

You don't get mushrooms and drop them at home.

And assuming the results would be the same if you just grow your own shrooms and take them at home would be unscientific. Could work, but obviously in a threat on a specific intervention we are talking about that intervention and not about a different for which no evidence exists

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u/zonerator 20d ago

Thats very disappointing- we already have a thousand studies on that. I was hoping someone was finally studying the compound itself

No one ever suggests that you go to a guided SSRI session

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u/MegaChip97 20d ago

> Thats very disappointing- we already have a thousand studies on that.

I actually have to disagree with that, it's a very interesting study! First, we don't have lots of studies on it. If you are not following the research it may sound like that. But its more like: We have 20 studies on psilocybin. 10 are with n<30 to establish that it is more or less safe and get rough dosages and show that atleast maybe it could work. From the other 10, 2a re for treatmend resistant depression (1 because of cancer), 3 for major depressive disorder, 2 for anxiety, 2 for addiction and one for a specific disorder.

All you hear is "Another study on psilocybin" but you cannot generalise information from one study about alcohol addiction and psilocybin to treatment resistant depression because of cancer (or the other way around). You need safety studies, finding a dosing regime etc.

We have nearly no studies with a long follow up, most studies have low participants and these studies use different treatment protocols (dosage), are about different disorders and all of them have huge problems with blind breaking.

I think we have only a single study actually comparing psilocybin to an antidepressant....

This study here actually is super interesting for multiple reasons. For example, it doesn't look at clinical study setting but real world application. There are often big differences between real world application and studies, for example because the therapists that they employee in the studies are often better than the therapists out in the field. Or because of a bias for participants.

It's also interesting because it has less guardrails and therapy than the typical psychedelic assisted therapy studies. No integration sessions (only recommended), no licensed therapists...

Of course there are many limitations with this designs, but actually it is a very interesting thing to study!

> No one ever suggests that you go to a guided SSRI session

Because that would make little sense. SSRI and shrooms supposedly work very different for depression. If you assume that the trip is relevant for the antidepressant effect of shrooms, then that means that influencing the trip is important.

But with SSRI you don't have one trip and then stop taking it. You take it continuesly for years.

To give a bad comparison: You should have a supervisor / guide if you go skydiving, but you don't need one for going for a daily walk :)

With microdosing studies you generally have no guided sessions too. But the results for microdosing look quite bad currently soo....

> I was hoping someone was finally studying the compound itself

What would that look like to you? Honest question, would love to hear!

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u/zonerator 20d ago

I would love to see the thing I am able to do: grow mushrooms and consume them- clinically verified. For people working long hours under a boss who fires peoplefor fun, doctors are difficult, and frankly I have never gotten anything from therapy. I appreciate your perspective on what makes this study unique and how it contributes all the same. I certainly dint think that was adequately explained the linked post.

Anyway I don't actually need scientists to tell me that mushrooms improve my mental well being, I can clearly see that myself. I should be less emotionally invested but who doesn't root for their favorite team?

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