Is Crowdfunding the Solution to Growing Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy?
Crowdfunding Psychedelic Research
The medical benefits of psychedelic drugs have been proven repeatedly, so why hasn’t there been more funding funneled into its research and development? The short answer is that big pharmaceutical companies can’t patent and reap profit from them.
Of course, there is also the stigma behind illegal drugs and their scheduling, but according to scientists leading the charge in research behind drugs like MDMA, LSD and Psilocybin, funding is the biggest hindrance.
This has led research groups like the Beckley Foundation and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, to look to crowdfunding campaigns for money. These groups have found clinical success in the past and haven’t had a lot of trouble getting government permission to test scheduled drugs, they just need resources.
That’s why there’s Fund a mental (health revolution). It’s a crowdsourcing campaign designed to garner money to donate to these organizations that have had success with treating mental health issues like PTSD, addiction and end-of-life anxiety, by using psychedelic drugs paired with intensive psychotherapy. The campaign was started by Rodrigo Niño, a man who, after taking the DMT-containing Ayahuasca, rid himself of severe anxiety upon discovering he had cancer.
MAPS
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies researches psychedelic drugs ranging from LSD, to Ibogaine and Ayahuasca. But their successful research treating PTSD with MDMA has gained them the most attention in scientific communities and the media. Repeated successful studies by MAPS has led them to try to expedite FDA approval by applying for breakthrough therapy status, potentially making MDMA available with a prescription by 2021.
Their success was described in a New York Times article saying, “patients reported a 56 percent decrease of severity of symptoms on average, one study found. By the end of the study, two-thirds no longer met the criteria for having PTSD.”
MAPS wants you to know that MDMA is not the same as “Ecstasy” or “molly,” and that their trials are carefully monitored in a controlled environment, while paired with intense psychotherapy.
There is clearly a cohesive community in this realm as MAPS works together often with The Beckley Foundation as well as NYU’s School of Medicine and other notable researchers like David Nutt. They have even started a week of talks and workshops called the Psychedelic Science Conference held in Oakland, joining members of the community from all over the world.
The Beckley Foundation
When Amanda Fielding discovered LSD in the 60s, she instantly understood the potential that the drug had for consciousness expansion, especially when it came to the creative process. Since then, the drug has been scheduled and vilified in the mainstream, but she knew that the best way to change that perception was to prove its utility through science.
One of the things that her foundation focuses on that is gaining in popularity and intrigue is micro-dosing. With the rise of nootropics and “biohacking,” many people, notably in the tech world, are looking for ways to increase cognitive function and mental performance, by way of psychotropic drugs and supplements. Micro-dosing involves taking a significantly diluted or small amount of a hallucinogenic drug, like LSD or Psilocybin, that does not make you trip. The effects can lead to higher levels of creativity, positive mood and an alert, awakened state. There is no scientific evidence of this, yet. Fielding hopes to change that.
We know that psychedelics can lead to awakened states of consciousness and have the power to heal. With the stigma slowly starting to lift in the mainstream, it seems that a push from the public could be what is needed to clear the final hurdles. Since the failure of the war on drugs, medical marijuana is rapidly being legalized or decriminalized in many states with numerous benefits clinically and fiscally. We could be on the verge of a revolution in decriminalization and sweeping changes in drug policy.
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Is Psychedelic Tourism Destroying the Sanctity of Plant Medicine?
As psychedelic healing and plant medicine go more mainstream, luxury psychedelic tourism is on the rise—good news for the spread of this medicine, but how might over-commercialism affect this sacred practice?
A recent Bloomberg article highlights the rise in all-inclusive psychedelic retreats. Indigenous plant medicine has been around for centuries, and its health benefits have been scientifically demonstrated, but as it gains mainstream acceptance and finds a bigger audience, some only see dollar signs.
Bloomberg reports, “according to Data Bridge Market Research the psychedelic market is expected to grow from $3.8 billion in 2020 to $10.7 billion by 2027.”
With the potential to make a lot of money, could some unscrupulous companies capitalize on this trend and remove the sanctity of this practice?
Carlos Tanner is the director of The Ayahuasca Foundation in Peru, he founded the center in 2009 as the result of his own healing journey. “When I started our retreat center, The Ayahuasca Foundation, I was coming off of a seven-year study myself; a four-year apprenticeship where I lived with a curandero and several years after that of studying with other teachers,” Tanner said.
“For most people that were starting centers at that time—which wasn’t many—you were a student first, and eventually after years of study, you came to the point where you wanted to offer this to people from outside of the culture. Now we see people who don’t have very much experience at all, but yet they’re opening a healing center.”
As this budding industry is dealing with rapid growth, there are some complicated issues regarding its increased popularity.
“When it comes to the commercialization of substances that have an ancestral background I would say that it is a delicate situation, and I hope that there would be a benefit to those indigenous populations from which those traditions were orignated. But at the same time, I know many indigenous people and they are for the spreading of what they believe to be their culture, which oftentimes was something that was looked upon negatively or was degraded as if they were second-class citizens, quite literally,” Tanner said.
“But now having people from the Western world, from the modern world, want to learn or experience elements of their culture, I think gives them a sense of pride. So it’s a complex question, to say the least.”
