Notes from Pim van Lommel,Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience(New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 119-121:

Oxygen deficiency is accompanied by an increase of carbon dioxide, and this increase has been suggested as a possible cause for near-death experiences. Patients breathing in unusual quantities of carbon dioxide have been known to experience a sense of separation from the body, and there have been occasional reports of a bright light, a tunnel, a sense of peace, and/or memory flashes. It should immediately be pointed out, though, that these memory images or flashes are quite rare, are extremely fragmented, and never involved either a life review or an encounter with deceased persons. Moreover, the sometimes dramatic life changes that have been extensively documented in connection with NDEs have not been reported in cases of carbon dioxide overload.

After a relatively technical discussion of medical resuscitations and the difficulties in measuring levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide during a frantic operating room emergency, Dr. van Lommel offers a simple summation:

The conclusion that a high concentration ofCO2 could be the cause of an NDE seems to be highly questionable, and at least very premature. (118)

But there are plenty of other hypotheses on offer. How about psychedelics such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, and mescaline? Perhaps surprisingly, Dr. van Lommel is somewhat more friendly to this suggestion than he was to oxygen deprivation or even to carbon dioxide overload. The latter three of these substances can be found fairly abundantly in nature. Psilocybin and mescaline, particularly, occur in plants native to Latin America and in (magic) mushrooms and have been used in potions, powders, and inhalants for centuries to induce mind-expanding experiences. All of them are closely related to the neurotransmitter serotonin, which is easily found in the human body, and their chemical structure is related to tryptamine.

During times of major physical or psychological stress, the body activates large amounts of DMT, notably via the pineal gland. This is probably also true during the dying process, when the cells of the pineal gland are dying and, it is thought, releasing DMT.

The experience induced by psychoactive substances is often surprisingly similar to a near-death experience, especially in the case of DMT although, depending on the dosage, confusing or frightening perceptions may also occur. These substance-induced experiences include the following elements: a sense of detachment from the body, out-of-body experiences, lucid and accelerated thought, an encounter with a being of light, a sense of unconditional love, being in an unearthly environment, access to a profound wisdom, and wordless communication with immaterial beings. Sometimes the characteristic post-NDE transformation, including the loss of the fear of death, is also reported after administration of DMT or LSD.

It is a new and surprising hypothesis that DMT, which occurs naturally in the body, could play an important role in the experience of an enhanced consciousness during near-death experiences. Perhaps DMT, its release triggered or stimulated by events in our consciousness, lifts our bodys natural inhibitions against experiencing an enhanced consciousness, as if it is able to block or disrupt the interface between consciousness and our body (and brain). Mention should be made here of the fact that zinc is essential for the synthesis of serotonin and related substances such as DMT. At a more advanced age, the body has lower levels of this metal, and, as mentioned earlier, NDE reports are less common at an older age. (120-121)

I would point out, though, that attempts to reduce NDEs merely to subjective brain events caused by oxygen deficiency or DMT an option that Dr. van Lommel himself clearly does not embrace fail to account for what seem to be verifiable out-of-body experiences in which the experiencers witness events and observe people from a vantage point distinct from the location of their bodies.

See more here:

Are NDEs caused by carbon dioxide overload? And what about psychedelics? - Patheos

When psychedelic drugs finally become legal in the United States and elsewhere around the world, the lion's share of the credit will go to Rick Doblin. Since founding the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in 1986, Doblin has argued forcefully for the benefits of frequently demonized substances such as MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and ibogaine in helping people cope with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, anxiety, and other debilitating problems. For decades, Doblin and MAPS have been pushing not just for social and cultural acceptance but also for legal and medical legitimacy.

MAPS is currently sponsoring Phase 3 clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy as a treatment for PTSD. Within the next few years, if all goes well, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to approve MDMAa.k.a. Ecstasy, which the federal government banned in 1985 as a dangerous party drugfor use by prescription as a psychotherapeutic catalyst. Further down the line, psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin, which the FDA has recognized as a "breakthrough therapy" for depression, could undergo a similar legal transformation.

The rehabilitation of these once-vilified substances is a remarkable development that signals growing recognition of their life-enhancing uses and perhaps growing tolerance of people who choose to explore that potential. During a late-February ride from Manhattan to the John F. Kennedy International Airport,ReasonEditor at Large Nick Gillespie talked with Doblin about his role in this psychedelic renaissance and the experiences that drew him to the movement.

"I'm very much a child of the Cold War," Doblin says, recalling how he was taught to "duck and cover" at school during the Cuban missile crisis. His fear of nuclear Armageddon, ecological catastrophe, and genocide was the initial impetus for his vision of "mass mental health" facilitated by psychedelics, which he believes can have a unifying effect when used properly.

Although MAPS is doing everything by the book in seeking approval of MDMA as a prescription drug, Doblin's vision goes beyond such doctor-approved uses. He aspires to a world in which people can use psychedelics responsibly without permission from physicians or priests. "Psychedelics are tools," Doblin says. "They're not good or bad in and of themselves. It's how they are used. It's the relationship you have with them."

Reason: Many people are attracted to psychedelics because they're fun. The approach that MAPS has taken, by contrast, suggests that psychedelics should not be taken lightly. Talk about the contrast between using psychedelics recreationally and using them by prescription as an FDA-approved medicine.

Doblin: I think that people should have the fundamental human right to change their consciousness. When we talk about the Bill of Rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom of religion, underlying all of that is freedom of thought. Psychedelics are a good example of the freedom of thought that we should have.

At the same time, when people take these things for recreational purposes and they're only looking for positive experiences, that can be dangerous if difficult material comes up. If you suppress it, you could end up worse off.

So there's an aspect of it that's work. One of our big statements is thatdifficultis not the same asbad. A lot of times, when people approach this as a recreational experience and stuff that's difficult comes up, they think, "Oh, it's a bad trip." But it is also an opportunity. So medicalization is a strategy for achieving broader access and mass mental health.

When you talk about medicalization, are you saying we need to maintain the current power structure, dominated by big pharmaceutical companies and doctors who serve as the high priests, telling us what to do and how to think? Or do you have in mind a broader concept of mental health or well-being?

Our core approach is that we are not the guides. We don't know where people need to go. People are their own guides. One of the concerns I have about traditional medicine, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, is that even in certain shamanistic settings, the healers are the ones who do it to the person. The power is in their hands. They're like surgeons; you don't do your own surgery. But when we're talking about mental surgery, we're trying to empower people to heal themselves.

To give you a sense of how much progress we're making, one of our donors, Bo Shao of the Evolve Foundation, said that when we had the psychedelic revolution in America, his parents in China were suffering under the Cultural Revolution. His parents' whole generation is traumatized still from that. So he's helping us bring [MDMA-assisted] therapy to China. We've already brought Chinese psychiatrists and psychotherapists to the United States for training, and I've been to China.

We're trying to universalize it in that way. But unlike most pharmaceutical companies, since we're doing it in a nonprofit context, we're trying to help people learn how to heal themselves without having to come to doctors and therapists.

Give me an update about what's going on with FDA approval of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD.

On November 29, 201630 years after I started MAPSwe had what's called an end-of-Phase-2 meeting. That's where we discussed the data we had gathered during Phase 2 of clinical trials and whether the FDA would permit us to go to Phase 3 [the final step before approval of a prescription drug]. The FDA said yes. Then we negotiated for eight months every aspect of the Phase 3 research protocol, the statistical analysis plan, all the other supplemental material that's required when you move into Phase 3.

Phase 1 usually involves healthy volunteers, and you're just trying to understand what the drug does. In Phase 2, you do pilot studies, exploring who is your patient population, what are your doses, what is your treatment, who do you exclude and include. Phase 2 enables you to figure out how to design Phase 3, where you do the large-scale, randomized, placebo-controlled studies that are required to prove safety and efficacy. Those are the pivotal studies that you need to get approval for marketing.

There are also Phase 4 studies, which the FDA can require after you've gotten permission to market the drug when there's additional information that the FDA wants. We've already negotiated some of the Phase 4 studies. If we succeed in Phase 3, the FDA wants more information about how we can tell ahead of time who will respond well to the treatment and what we can say about relapse rates. How long do the benefits last?

Another aspect of it is that many drugs are tested in adults, and then they're prescribed to adolescents or children. If we succeed in adults, which means 18 or over for PTSD, then we have to do studies in 12- to 17-year-olds. If that works, then we have to study 7- to 11-year-olds who are traumatized.

When do you expect the Phase 3 trials to be completed?

The FDA can come back and say, "You did everything right [and] it looks good, but we're going to screw you over and stretch it out a little bit." We don't expect that the FDA will screw us over, because, once we got permission for Phase 3, we entered into this eight-month process where we negotiated everything. That's called the special protocol assessment process. If you end up agreeing, you get what's called an agreement letter, and the FDA is legally bound to approve the drug, assuming you get statistically significant evidence of efficacy and no new safety problems arise. And since MDMA has been around for 40, 50 years, tens of millions of people have taken it. We have a very good idea of the safety profile.

The other thing the FDA did, after we got this agreement letter, was declare MDMA a breakthrough therapy [a designation that is supposed to facilitate approval of promising drugs for hard-to-treat conditions]. So I don't think that they want to screw us over in any way.

In Phase 3, we have to do a minimum of two studies, each with 100 people, and then we do what's called an interim analysis for each study. We have enrolled almost 100 people in the first of the Phase 3 studies, and the interim analysis will be sometime in late March or early April this year. Then we'll know whether we need to add anybody for statistical significance. We expect to start the second Phase 3 study in the summer of 2021, so we should have all the data from the studies near the end of 2021.

Then we submit that to the FDA, and sometime in 2022, depending on how long the review process is, we anticipate approval. We're also negotiating with the European Medicines Agency, and that process is a year or two behind the FDA process.

We will need to raise around $30 million to finish Phase 3 in Europe and a similar amount to finish Phase 3 in the United States. But in the history of MAPS, we've received donations of about $80 million, and we're trying to do this all through donations. We don't want investors. I'm sympathetic with for-profit people getting involved. The scale of the problem is so big. We need all sorts of people, sponsors, resources. But I think the profit motive has warped American health care.

You've created a public benefit corporation to market MDMA. How will that work?

For the first 25 years of MAPS, I just assumed that once MDMA became a medicine, it would be a generic medicine, and it would be sold for very little money. MDMA was invented by Merck in 1912, so the patents have expired.

Even though I wrote my Ph.D. thesis at the Kennedy School of Government on the regulation of Schedule I drugspsychedelics and marijuanaI missed something. I learned only in 2013 or so that President Reagan had signed a bill to provide incentives for developing drugs that are off patent. Since they couldn't give patents, they offered what was called data exclusivity, which means you're the only one who has the right to use your data in the U.S. for five years. If you do pediatric studies, you get an additional six months of data exclusivity, which blocks generic manufacturers from even applying, and it takes the FDA at least six months to review those applications.

So we'll have about six years of data exclusivity. Once I realized that we might actually be able to sell MDMA for more than cost as a medicine, I realized that we had a different story to tell our donors: We're not going to be perpetually asking you for money, and we might even be able to make money from the sale of MDMA and use that for more research.

Doing that is a taxable situation, and you can't stay inside the nonprofit. A public benefit corporation is a kind of corporation that explicitly seeks to maximize benefits for the public rather than the return to shareholders. So that's the approach we're taking.

This is kind of like a legal version of the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, which sold LSD for practically nothing in the '60s and '70s.

They are a big part of the story of psychedelics that not that many people know about. They really had a mission beyond making money, and the mission was consciousness change. That is our mission.

All of our research staff and all of the research money has been transferred to the public benefit corporation. We are taking not just a new approach to mental health, which is psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy, but a new approach to marketing medical treatments and drugs. We will charge somewhat more than the MDMA costs us, but we're not going to charge the maximum of what the market will bear, because that means that you have fewer people paying more for treatments. And our goal is mass mental health.

Where is the biggest pushback against what you're doing coming from these days?

So far we haven't had a whole lot of pushback. Veterans [with PTSD] have such support, particularly among Republicansthere's a libertarian strand of the Republican Party that has been a strong ally in looking at the benefits of illegal drugs. There's pushback from drug warriors who think that we need to demonize these drugs to justify the drug war. That's why there's been suppression of research into cannabis.

The pushback that I've received has not been from regulatory agencies. The FDA is aware that there are enormous numbers of people with mental conditions that are not adequately helped by the currently available medicines. That's why MDMA was declared a breakthrough therapy. Psilocybin has been declared a breakthrough therapy for treatment-resistant depression. The most important new development in mental health treatment over the last 20 or 30 years has been ketamine for the treatment of depression.

Traditional psychiatry is coming around. Yesterday, theAmerican Journal of Psychiatrypublished an article about psychedelic psychotherapy and how it was promising.

I've received pushback from some of our donors who ask, "Why did you accept money from [Republican] Rebecca Mercer, [libertarian Charles] Koch, or others? Just stick to medicine." Right now some of our big donors are telling me that I should shut up about drug policy reform and the fundamental human rights issue, that we want people to have access to these drugs with proper education and harm reduction, but outside of medicine and religion.

There is potential for pushback from fundamentalist Christians, although it doesn't seem to have happened yet. Classic psychedelics like psilocybin have been used for thousands of years for religious and medical purposes. Through ego dissolution, people have mystical experiences, which suggests there may be a common mystical core in all the world religions. There are fundamentalists in each religion who say, "My religion is the only true one. Everybody else is an infidel." The psychedelic mystical experience is a challenge to that. But I think the fundamentalists could benefit from a deeper appreciation of their own spirituality.

The other possible area of pushback is parents worrying about their kids. If you make this into a medicine, they might think, kids will get the message that it's a good thing.

What we've been doing in that regard is going to festivals around the world where young people are using these psychedelics. A lot of them are using them unwisely and irresponsibly and just trying to have a good time. Difficult material comes up, and they then try to suppress it or push it down. We've started what we call the Zendo Project, which does psychedelic harm reduction at Burning Man, the Boom Festival in Portugal, all over the world. The aim is to help people who have difficult trips work through them and process the material, so that they don't get tranquilized, don't go to the hospital, and don't have long-term mental disruptions because of it.

You once told a reporter, "We're not the counterculture; we are the culture." And I think there's some real truth to that. But you're also a parent. How old are your kids, and have you tripped with them?

My kids are 25, 23, and 21. We've wanted to take [psychedelics] together as a family.

That sounds both wonderful and kind of terrifying.

When I had my bar mitzvah at 13, that really opened the door to psychedelics for me. Because my bar mitzvah did nothing. I mean, it was a nice party. I was the oldest of four kids. I really did expect that there would be some kind of spiritual experience. And the next morning, I'm lying in bed, and God did not come. Nothing happened, but I was ready for it. I felt really bad, and I felt that traditional rituals didn't really work.

When our children turned 13, my wife and I spoke to them and said, "If you want to try marijuana or MDMA, come to us and, and we'll give it to you." It was the best anti-drug strategy that we could have had, this idea of doing drugs with your parent. They all said, "We're not ready yet."

This is a hot-button issue. But if you look at the traditional cultures that have successfully integrated psychedelics in America, we have half a million members of the Native American Church who use peyote. We have many people who are using ayahuasca in ritual settings, and they've successfully integrated ayahuasca. They believe that children who are interested in ceremonies with their families can try small amounts of these drugs, and they don't have age limits. I went to a Native American Church ceremony with my wife. It was to celebrate the wedding of a friend of ours. A Navajo man brought his 9-year-old son, who took peyote and stayed up the whole night. Now, the 9-year-old didn't take the full dose.

I am profamily values. When it comes to the education of children, we should leave that to the families, not to the government. In 23 states, the laws prohibiting the use of alcohol by young people have a parental override that allows parents to give alcohol to their children, even at restaurants, as long as there is parental supervision. So this idea is not foreign to America. I think that's the way it should be with other drugs as well.

One of the worst parts of the drug war is that parents are scared to be honest with their own children. To have the intrusion of the government in the most intimate situations, where you are trying to educate your children, is terrible. I know people who still hide the fact that they smoke marijuana from their children, even in legalization states like Massachusetts, where I live.

Do you worry about a backlash? In the 1960s, there was Diane Linkletter's suicide, which her father, the writer Art Linkletter, blamed on LSD. In the 1980s, there was the cocaine-related death of Len Bias, who had just been drafted by the Boston Celtics. His death helped inspire draconian anti-drug legislation. Do you worry about that sort of thing?

I very much worry about backlash. That's why we've reached out to the police, to try to educate them. That's why we are actively reaching out to bipartisan groups and why we have bipartisan financial support.

In the '80s and '90s, when the rave milieu was just starting, people were taking MDMA and overheating sometimes and dying from hyperthermia. Those stories were used to block the research, and then drug warriors could say there's no evidence of benefit. But now, because we have strong evidence of benefits, the situation is different.

Now we're able to say that in a medicalized context, we're getting more benefits than risks. When people take drugs in nonmedical settings and have tragic outcomes, I don't think that's going to boomerang back on the research. We have veterans who have attempted suicide multiple times but are now PTSD-free after MDMA-assisted therapy. I felt that it was necessary for us to work with the hardest cases and to show that there can be value for people who have unsuccessfully tried other treatments.

So we accept people [into our trials] who have attempted suicide in the past. We just have to create a very strong support system for people throughout the entire process of therapy. And so far there's only been one person who has attempted suicideunsuccessfullyduring our trials. The therapist thinks that was a person who was in the placebo group and was so disappointed she wasn't randomized to the MDMA group that she lost hope.

We have to be very careful not to exaggerate the benefits or minimize the risks. I think what happened with Timothy Leary and others in the '60s is that the government was exaggerating the risks and denying the benefits. And Tim and others, I think, did the opposite: exaggerated the benefits and minimized the risks.

We try to be clear that this doesn't work for everybody. This is not a panacea. It's not a one-dose miracle cure. What we're really doing is psychotherapy. It's not that you just take this pill and something changes for the better. That provides a level of comfort, when people understand that it's done in a therapeutic context.

The best way to think about drugs is that they're tools. Psychedelics are tools. They're not good or bad in and of themselves. It's how they are used. It's the relationship you have with them.

The government's survey data indicate that nearly half of Americans 12 or older have tried marijuana at least once, while about 10 percent have used it in the last month. With hallucinogens, which includes LSD, psilocybin, and mescaline, about 16 percent of Americans say they have tried them, and less than 1 percent report using them in the last month. Assuming everything is medicalized or legalized in the way you want, do you think psychedelics will ever be a mass phenomenon?

No. I think it will be something that more people will want to use, because it helps you with core aspects of being human: What's the meaning of my life? What do I think about death? Why do I have social anxiety? How do I deal with trauma? I think larger numbers of people will use psychedelics, but it's not going to be like weed. Psychedelics are used intermittently, and the emphasis is on what you bring back from the experience. There won't be a lot of frequent users, but there will be more occasional users.

Are you optimistic about the future? Not just for psychedelics, but for a broader vision of self-guided mental health?

I'm very optimistic. This idea of unification, of a common mystical core, of shared humanity and global spiritualityit also permits greater individuality. Sometimes people think that when you talk about global spirituality or shared mystical experiences, all the differences are washed out. I think it works both ways. The more we can understand our commonality, the more we will appreciate our differences and our uniqueness.

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity. For an audio version, subscribe toThe Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie.

Excerpt from:

'People Should Have the Fundamental Right To Change Their Consciousness' - Reason

Brain scans show psilocybin reduces activity in the claustrum, a thin sheet of neurons deep within the cortex considered by some to be the seat of consciousness, awareness, and sense of self, according to a study published online in the journal NeuroImage.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, reached the finding after developing a way to access the claustrum and detect activity in the deep-rooted location. For the study, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to observe the claustrum in 15 participants after taking psilocybin, the hallucinogenic chemical found in certain mushrooms, and compared them with fMRI scans obtained after the participants took a placebo.

After psilocybin use, neural activity in the claustrum slowed by 15% to 30%, according to the study. Simply put, the area of the brain believed to be responsible for setting attention and switching tasks was turned down. The reduced neural activity, researchers added, appeared to be linked with stronger subjective effects in participants, such as emotional and mystical experiences.

Psychedelics and Wellness: Whats the Connection?

In addition, psilocybin changed how the claustrum communicated with brain regions involved in hearing, attention, decision-making, and remembering, according to the study.

The findings, researchers observed, mesh with first-hand reports on the typical effects of psychedelic drugs, such as feeling connected with everything and experiencing a reduced sense of the self or ego.

Our findings move us one step closer to understanding mechanisms underlying how psilocybin works in the brain, said researcher Frederick Barrett, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, and a member of the school's Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research.

This will hopefully enable us to better understand why its an effective therapy for certain psychiatric disorders, which might help us tailor therapies to help people more.

Jolynn Tumolo

References

Barrett FS, Krimmel SR, Griffiths RR, Seminowicz DA, Mathur BN. Psilocybin acutely alters the functional connectivity of the claustrum with brain networks that support perception, memory, and attention. NeuroImage. 2020 May 23;[Epub ahead of print].

Research story tip: psychedelic drug psilocybin tamps down brains ego center [press release]. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins Medicine; June 4, 2020.

Excerpt from:

Psilocybin Dulls Activity in Brain Region Linked With Consciousness - Psych Congress Network

Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. (OTC: MYCOF) (CSE: MYCO) is pleased to announce that it has signed a definitive share exchange agreement with Mindleap Health Inc. (Mindleap) for the acquisition of a 100% interest in MindLeaps Digital Telehealth Platform focused on the emerging psychedelics industry.

Pursuant to the share exchange agreement, Mydecine will acquire 100% of the issued and outstanding shares of Mindleap in exchange for: (i) 6,363,636 common shares in the capital of the Company, and (ii) the binding commitment to advance CAD$500,000in working capital to Mindleap upon closing of the transaction and an additional CAD$500,000on or beforeSeptember 1, 2020. Certain principals of Mindleap will be subject to resale restrictions on the sale of the Mydecine shares for the periods ending 4, 12, 18, and 24 months from closing. Closing of the acquisition is subject to the receipt by Mindleap of the signatures of all of its shareholders on the share exchange agreement.

Mental health has been a big issue and is a major focus for the Mydecine Group of companies. Currently the World Health Organization estimates that there are more than450 million peoplesuffer from mental health disorders worldwide placing mental disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide. The US has the highest prevalence of mental health disorders in the world with27 percent of adults, yet only41 percentof the people who had a mental disorder in the past year received professional health care or other mental health services due to convenience and cost associated.

Mydecine Director and CEO,Josh Bartch, stated: This acquisition brings Mydecine an elite team drawn from tech, mental health, and science, paired with innovative technology with a strong USP and large addressable market. The scalability of the platform means high potential return on investment especially given Mindleaps 1stmover advantage in the rapidly emerging psychedelic medicine sector.

Mindleap is focused on making a considerable difference in peoples lives by improving access to mental health services and providing more personalized and effective treatments utilizing the latest technology. The Mindleap Platform upon launch will provide:

The team of mental health professionals that led the product design at Mindleap comprise of four PHDs including leading neuroscientists, psychotherapists, and clinical psychologists. Mindleaps CTOSimon Abou-Antounhas 10+ years of technical leadership, managing large projects and developing custom solutions for companies including Amazon, Scotia Bank and Fiat Chrysler. Simon commented: We have gathered a strong team with different sets of skills ranging from software developers, UX/UI designers and IOS and Android experts. Our full stack, frontend, backend, Cloud and QA specialists are currently focused on ensuring all requirements are met so we can launch Mindleap by the end of summer.

Mindleaps founder and CEONikolai Vassevbrings a unique skillset to the company as he has proven experience driving top line software licensing and SAAS revenue into some of the largest organizations in the world. During his career he has sold millions of dollars worth of cybersecurity and data analytics solutions and understands the intricacies of successfully implementing software solutions that are bringing value to customers, partners, and end users. Nikolai will be representing Mindleap and Mydecine at the Investing in Psychedelics event put together by the Canadian Securities Exchange, and CFN Media along with other industry executives and experts. You can register to attend for freehereand can tune in onJune 17starting at12:00pm PDT.

Nikolai Vassev, Mindleap Founder and CEO commented: The intense anxiety and fear that many people are feeling has led to social instabilities as the virus crisis and economic collapse continues to worsen and compound already existing problems. Mindleaps platform is set to launch in a few short months and will provide much needed support to those people suffering from depression, addiction and other mental health issues.

Mindleap is currently accepting applications from mental health provides. If you are interested in applying to be a specialist or getting on the wait list to use the platform, you can sign up here:https://mindleap.health/contact

About Mydecine Innovations Group

Mydecine Innovations Group is a life sciences company focused on the development and commercialization of products and services that contribute to improving overall health and wellbeing. The companys mission is to create a healthier world through advanced technologies, natural products, and psychedelic derived medicines. Mydecine Innovations Group owns a group of trailblazing companies that are focused on helping millions of people live better lives and our portfolio includes:

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Breaking News: Mydecine Innovations Group Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Mindleap Health's Advanced Digital Telehealth Platform -...

Houston, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - June 19, 2020) - The global obesity epidemic is only growing in size.

"New federal data show that the obesity rate in the U.S. has hit 42.4%, up from 30.5% in 1999-2000," according to The Wall Street Journal. Worse, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) obesity has tripled in size over the last 50 years.

By 2030, almost half of U.S. adults will be considered obese.

Unfortunately, with obesity comes issues such as heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and several types of cancer. Even worse, according to Energy Balance and Obesity: What are the Main Drivers? "There is convincing evidence for a role of obesity as a causal factor for many types of cancer including colorectum, endometrium, kidney, oesophagus, postmenopausal breast, gallbladder, pancreas, gastric cardia, liver, ovary, thyroid, meningioma, multiple myeloma, and prostate cancers."

However, a solution may be found in psychedelics such as DMT and psilocybin, both of which activate serotonin receptors, or "nature's own appetite suppressant," as noted by Psychology Today. "This powerful brain chemical curbs cravings and shuts off appetite. It makes you feel satisfied even if your stomach is not full. The result is eating less and losing weight."

Psychedelics, Like DMT Could Help Treat Eating Disorders

The Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) announced that its majority owned subsidiary NeonMind has filed an additional provisional patent application related to using psychedelics as medicine. The most recent patent application, filed on June 17, 2020 covers the administration of DMT to treat compulsive eating disorder and other illnesses.

DMT, or N,N-Dimethyltryptamine, is a derivative and structural analog of tryptamine, known for its hallucinogenic properties. It currently has no approved medical use, though DMT-containing plants are commonly used in indigenous Amazonian shamanic practice, and are sometimes found in the drink ayahuasca. DMT is found naturally in several plants including Mimosa tenuiflora, Diplopterys cabrerana, and Psychotria viridis. It is structurally similar to psilocin and its precursor psilocybin, a chemical found in so-called "magic mushrooms."

"DMT is a very interesting molecule that acts on the same type of serotonin receptors which are known to regulate appetite," says Dr. William Panenka, Chair of the NeonMind Scientific Advisory Board. "As part of our overall patent strategy, we are establishing defensible intellectual property around multiple compounds that act on these receptors and intend to follow this with rigorous clinical trial work to establish efficacy."

Psilocybin May be Key to Treating Obesity

NeonMind also filed a U.S. provisional patent application in the U.S. for the invention relating to therapeutic administration of psilocybin or psilocin, combined with supportive therapeutic treatment for a patient to provide weight loss benefits and treatment for related health issues.

The provisional patent is for a proposed guided psychedelic psilocybin therapy protocol using psychotherapy prior to, during and after the psychoactive effects of the Psilocybin are felt by the patient. The psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is designed to assist in gaining insights from positive psychedelic experiences, to be integrated into everyday life and to help plan, prepare and make sense of psychedelic experiences for a therapeutic result.

In addition, NeonMind has retained contract research organization Translational Life Sciences Inc. to design and plan an initial preclinical study using psilocybin which is anticipated to begin in the fall of 2020. The preclinical study is anticipated to provide data to design phase 2 human clinical trials to test Psilocybin as a weight loss treatment. The phase 2 clinical trials are anticipated to begin in 2021, subject to receiving all required regulatory approvals.

For more information, visit the company's website at https://yieldgrowth.com.

About MarijuanaStox

MarijuanaStox.com is a leading web destination for all cannabis related companies. Investors can also find current marijuana-related quality financial, medical, legal and social news. MarijuanaStox.com is a media agency in North America dedicated to the cannabis industry, helping companies that operate in the space to attract quality investors, working capital and real publicity. Since 2005, we have had public companies in the US and Canada have rely on us to grow and succeed.

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Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this article contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Winning Media which has a partnership with http://www.MarijuanaStox.com is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release.

For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Winning Media, which has a partnership with http://www.MarijuanaStox.com, is only compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation. Pursuant to an agreement between Winning Media (partners of MarijuanaStox.com) and The Yield Growth Corp, Winning Media has been paid three thousand five hundred dollars for advertising and marketing services for The Yield Growth Corp. We own ZERO shares of The Yield Growth Corp. Please click here for full disclaimer.

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These Psychedelic Drugs May Be Key to Revolutionizing Weight Loss Treatment - Yahoo Finance

The articles, looking at safety and efficacy of ketamine as a mental health therapy, were co-authored in conjunction with the Canadian Rapid Treatment Centre of Excellence

Champignon Brands Inc (CSE:SHRM) (OTCQB:SHRMF) said its CEO Dr Roger McIntyre and the Canadian Rapid Treatment Centre of Excellence (CRTCE) have authored two articles on the safety and efficacy of ketamine in major peer-reviewed journals.

The research-driven company studies psilocybin and other psychedelics as treatments for mental health conditions and addiction disorders.

The first article, Safety and tolerability of IV ketamine in adults with major depressive or bipolar disorder: Results from the Canadian rapid treatment center of excellence, was published in Expert Opinion on Drug Safetys latest edition.

Another study, The Effectiveness of Ketamine on Anxiety, Irritability, and Agitation: Implications for Treating Mixed Features in Adults with Major Depressive or Bipolar Disorder, appeared in the journal Bipolar Disorders.

McIntyre is a widely-renowned researcher on depression and founded the CRTCE, the first facility in Canada to provide rapid onset treatments for people with mood disorders.

The publications of data as it relates to ketamine treatment at the CRTCE continues to demonstrate the rapid and robust efficacy of ketamine in persons with depression and related disorders, Champignons CEO said in a statement.

Our data, for the first time in the field of psychiatry, shows that ketamine can improve a persons ability to function in their role and return to work within a few weeks. The significant efficacy of ketamine at our centre is also matched by stable side-effect profiles, as well as the acceptability of ketamine in people who are benefitting from this novel treatment, he added.

Champignon specializes in the formulation of a suite of medicinal mushrooms health products as well as novel ketamine, anaesthetics and adaptogenic delivery platforms for the nutritional, wellness and alternative medicine industries.

Contact Angela at [emailprotected]

Follow her on Twitter @AHarmantas

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Champignon Brands CEO Dr Roger McIntyre authors studies appearing in two leading scientific journals - Proactive Investors USA & Canada

Houston, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - June 11, 2020) - Psychedelics may soon disrupt traditional medicine.

It's part of the reason Eight Capital estimate the total market for mental health treatment could be valued at up to $100 billion. "The addressable market is incredibly large, and we're still in the early innings of what any sort of psychedelic treatment could do to resolve some of these important issues," notes the firm, as quoted by Business Insider.

With plenty of clinical trials supporting psychedelic treatments, like psilocybin mushrooms for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder, PTSD, opioid addiction, alcoholism, eating disorders, depression, anxiety, it's only a matter of time before big pharmaceutical companies begin to invest heavily, and incorporate psychedelics into their own drug pipelines.

Psilocybin may also help treat eating disorders and obesity, too.

That's because psilocybin activates serotonin receptors, or "nature's own appetite suppressant," as noted by Psychology Today. "This powerful brain chemical curbs cravings and shuts off appetite. It makes you feel satisfied even if your stomach is not full. The result is eating less and losing weight."

In short, psilocybin may be able to meet a very large unmet need for compounds that can potentially lead to safe weight loss, and help improve metabolic health for millions. After all, there's quite a large, demanding market.

Right now, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), obesity has tripled in size over the last 50 years. In 2016, they note, 1.9 billion adults were overweight around the world. Of those, 650 million were considered obese. Just in the U.S., nearly 34% of adults and up to 20% of children are obese. It's greatly out of control.

Psilocybin May be a Miracle Weight Loss Drug

In fact, Yield Growth Corp.'s (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) majority owned subsidiary NeonMind filed a U.S. provisional patent application in the U.S. for the invention relating to therapeutic administration of psilocybin or psilocin, combined with supportive therapeutic treatment for a patient to provide weight loss benefits and treatment for related health issues.

The provisional patent is for a proposed guided psychedelic psilocybin therapy protocol using psychotherapy prior to, during and after the psychoactive effects of the psilocybin are felt by the patient. The psychedelic assisted psychotherapy is designed to assist in gaining insights from positive psychedelic experiences, to be integrated into everyday life and to help plan, prepare and make sense of psychedelic experiences for a therapeutic result.

In addition, NeonMind has retained contract research organization Translational Life Sciences Inc. to design and plan an initial preclinical study using psilocybin which is anticipated to begin in the fall of 2020. The preclinical study is anticipated to provide data to design phase 2 human clinical trials to test psilocybin as a weight loss treatment. The phase 2 clinical trials are anticipated to begin in 2021, subject to receiving all required regulatory approvals.

For more information, visit the company's website at https://yieldgrowth.com.

About MarijuanaStox

MarijuanaStox.com is a leading web destination for all cannabis related companies. Investors can also find current marijuana-related quality financial, medical, legal and social news. MarijuanaStox.com is a media agency in North America dedicated to the cannabis industry, helping companies that operate in the space to attract quality investors, working capital and real publicity. Since 2005, we have had public companies in the US and Canada have rely on us to grow and succeed.

Legal Disclaimer

Except for the historical information presented herein, matters discussed in this article contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. Winning Media which has a partnership with http://www.MarijuanaStox.com is not registered with any financial or securities regulatory authority and does not provide nor claims to provide investment advice or recommendations to readers of this release.

For making specific investment decisions, readers should seek their own advice. Winning Media, which has a partnership with http://www.MarijuanaStox.com, is only compensated for its services in the form of cash-based compensation. Pursuant to an agreement between Winning Media (partners of MarijuanaStox.com) and The Yield Growth Corp, Winning Media has been paid three thousand five hundred dollars for advertising and marketing services for The Yield Growth Corp. We own ZERO shares of The Yield Growth Corp. Please click here for full disclaimer.

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The Future of Mental Health Care Will be Driven by Psychedelics - Yahoo Finance

2020 is the year of many things: global conflict, devastating fires, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now civil unrest in response to racism and police brutality in the United States.

It’s been a tough year for everyone, but it has also brought about renewed conversations on societal progress. How can we improve, where do we go from here, and what changes can we start to make?

Strangely to some, one of those changes is coming in the normalization of psychedelics to treat medical conditions. What was once a stigmatized and prohibited class of substances is quickly having a second wind as a treatment for depression, PTSD, and substance-abuse disorders amongst a handful of many other potential therapeutic needs.

We’re also now starting to deal with a wave of new (and previously undiagnosed) cases of depression and anxiety on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic. One week into June, we’re quickly approaching a point where many people have been at home with limited social interaction (or physical activity) for months on end.

As if on queue, the market for psychedelics companies has started to open up in a big way. More and more companies directly and indirectly invested in psychedelics are coming to public markets, and others are starting to make their moves into psychedelics widely known. 2020 is the year of many things, and it’s looking like psychedelics is one of them.

Back in May, we highlighted the impressive rise of a few of the companies involved in the psychedelics market. Those included the recently-public psychedelics companies Champignon Brands Inc. (CSE:SHRM) and Mind Medicine Inc. (NEO:MMED), as well as indirect investments like those of Yield Growth Corp. (CSE:BOSS) and Revive Therapeutics Ltd. (CSE:RVV).

Fast-forward a few weeks and we’ve seen even more companies enter the fray. On May 20, fully-integrated psychedelics company Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX-V:NUMI) went public, with business arms in clinic and therapy operation, research and development, and direct selling and distribution of psychedelics. On May 28, Ontario-based Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE:TRIP) also began listing with a plan to produce and sale psilocybin in the legal Netherlands market for the time being.

We’re also seeing an increasing wave of acquisitions and pivots into psychedelics from companies previously invested in healthcare, cannabis, and even technology. German medical cannabis distributor Pharmadrug Inc. (CSE:BUZZ) acquired Dutch psychedelics retailer Super Smart, California cannabis company Hollister Biosciences Inc. (CSE:HOLL) closed their acquisition of mushroom-based health product developer AlphaMind Brands Inc., and eCommerce CBD provider Mota Ventures Corp. (CSE:MOTA) acquired pharmaceutical psilocybin manufacturer Verrian Ontario Ltd.

And that’s not including the previous moves of companies like New Wave Holdings Corp. (CSE:SPOR) in psychedelics and esports, Empower Clinics Inc. (CSE:CBDT) in creating its own psilocybin and psychedelics division, and NewLeaf Brands Inc. recently adding a focus on psychedelics and rebranding as Mydecine Innovations Group Inc. (CSE:MYCO).

No matter where you look, people and companies are getting invested in psychedelics. Though this has been a somewhat comprehensive list, there are too many to include and more are continuing to pile in. With more excitement about psychedelics and their importance on one hand, and more viable investing options entering the markets on the other, the future for these alternative medicines seems bright.

New to investing in Healthcare? Check out Stockhouse tips on How to Invest in Healthcare Stocks and some of our Top Healthcare Stocks.

For more of the latest info on Cannabis, check out the Healthcare Trending News hub on Stockhouse.

FULL DISCLOSURE: Yield Growth Corp. is a client of Stockhouse Publishing

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New Psychedelics Stocks and Acquisitions | 2020-06-08 | Investing News - Stockhouse

SAN DIEGO, CA, June 10, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Global Trac Solutions, Inc. (OTCPink: PSYC) (Global” PSYC” or the Company”) is pleased to announce that in an effort to provide its growing base of Psychedelic Spotlight newsletter subscribers with exclusive content surrounding the ongoing boom within the medicinal psychedelics space, the Company plans to launch a series of exclusive interviews with some of today’s industry-leading advocates, pioneers, and trail blazers.

Immersing ourselves within this industry and becoming a true ally for those who are currently advocating for a variety of psychedelic-related treatments is a very important objective of ours,” said Vanessa Luna Global Trac Solutions, Inc. CEO. There are a multitude of individuals across the globe who are working incredibly hard to shed an important and valuable light on the benefits of incorporating certain psychedelics such as psilocybin into therapeutic treatments for those suffering from depression, anxiety, and addiction. It is our goal to leverage the platform we are creating with Psychedelic Spotlight and utilize it as a sounding board to help amplify the relevant initiatives, perspectives, stories, and insights from the individuals who are dedicated to highlighting the many reasons why psychedelics should be regarded as the breakthrough therapy it truly is.”

In the coming weeks and months, the Company intends to reach out and speak with a variety of individuals within the growing psychedelic community in an attempt to share their unique thoughts and perspectives related to the benefits of specific psychedelics as a therapeutic treatment for certain mental disorders and will incorporate these interactions into the content it shares through its monthly Psychedelic Spotlight newsletter and website (www.psychedelicspotlight.com).

About Global Trac Solutions, Inc. (OTC Pink:PSYC)

Global Trac Solutions is a diversified holding company dedicated to identifying new and emerging industries. By utilizing our years of business development expertise our diverse team of innovators continuously leverages our experience to effectively execute go-to-market strategies in order to position ourselves for rapid growth through the creation of an evolving business foundation to enhance profitability potential.

Since 2017, PSYC has been a pioneer in the emerging software and payment processing sector of the cannabis industry and has established itself as a trusted resource for businesses operating within the industry. Today, PSYC through its network of partners and affiliates, continues to connect businesses throughout the cannabis industry with critical solutions and services ranging from payment processing technology, cutting-edge software, and ancillary services vital to compliant and effective business operations.

Most recently, PSYC has expressed its intent and commitment to positioning itself at the forefront of the psychedelic revolution and as a resource center for discovering and understanding the latest research and business opportunities surrounding psychedelic inspired medicines. In conjunction with the FDA’s more open-minded approach to psychedelic medicines, and as several major U.S. cities continue to approve the decriminalization of psilocybin, investors are speculating that the psychedelic boom could be bigger than that of cannabis. PSYC is your source for current investment related news specific to psychedelic medicines and cutting-edge research improving overall health, moving this sector into the mainstream.

We believe in a forward-thinking approach that embraces groundbreaking new technology and innovations and through the vision of business development we intend to continue to evolve into these unchartered territories as the industry leaders of the future. We truly are the right TRAC to follow.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer:

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by the following words: "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "ongoing," "plan," "potential," "predict," "project," "should," "will," "would," or the negative of these terms or other comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words. Forward-looking statements are not a guarantee of future performance or results and will not necessarily be accurate indications of the times at, or by, which such performance or results will be achieved. Forward-looking statements are based on information available at the time the statements are made and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainty and other factors that may cause our results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from the information expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements in this press release. This press release should be considered in light of all filings of the Company that are disclosed on the OTC Markets.com website.

Corporate Contact:

Global Trac Solutions, Inc. (PSYC) http://www.globaltracsolutions.com (619) 925-3202 info@globaltracsolutions.com

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PSYC Expanding Their Global Reach To Showcase Psychedelic Industry Leaders and Pioneers - Stockhouse

There was a lot of excitement when the FDA fast-tracked ketamine trials for depression treatment in 2016. The announcement marked a major turning point in our understanding of psychedelics, which were deemed a Schedule 1 substance as part of Richard Nixon's racist 1970 "War on Drugs." Ketamine was approved for use as an anesthetic that same year; due to increasing recreational usage in the 1990s, however, it was deemed Schedule III in America in 1999.

Though ketamine is not a traditional psychedelicthey have an agonist (or partial agonist) effect at brain serotonin 5-HT2A receptorsit falls into this class due to its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects. Recently it has been referred to as a "party psychedelic." Psychedelic therapy advocates were pleased when the FDA approved a nasal spray medication for treatment-resistant depression known as esketamine in 2019. Janssen Pharmaceuticals launched Spravato shortly after.

This move is exciting. Trials of two types of ketamineracemic ketamine and esketamineshowed early positive results, even though researchers are not exactly sure how it functions in depression treatment. We do know antidepressants and antipsychotics are showing less efficacy and more chronic side effects than previously believed, however.

There is precedent in the psychedelic realm. Psilocybin, ayahuasca, ibogaine, MDMA, and LSD are showing early positive results in treating anxiety, depression, addiction, and PTSD. This does not mean we should rush blindly ahead, however.

That's the consensus reached by Mark Horowitz (writer) and Joanna Moncrieff (editor), whose recent analysis, published in The British Journal of Psychiatry, concludes that we're moving too fast in clinically adopting ketamine. As their data shows, caution is necessary.

Since its discovery in 1962, ketamine has been used broadly as a sedative and anesthetic; to aid in emergency surgeries in war zones; as a bronchodilator for severe asthmatics; to treat certain type of seizures; in postoperative pain management; and now, as a nasal spray to treat depression. Unlike SSRIs and SNRIs, esketamine works immediatelyin as little as two hoursmaking it more attractive to patients and clinicians.

While treatment-resistant depression sounds extreme, Horowitz notes the definition: patients unsuccessful with two different antidepressants, a low bar for the term "resistant." The problem with trying esketamine, he writes, falls back on the FDA fast-tracking of the drug.

"Out of the three short-term trials conducted by Janssen only one showed a statistically significant difference between esketamine and placebo. These were even shorter than the 68 week trials the FDA usually requires for drug licensing."

Each trial lasted only four weeks. The FDA normally requires that two such trials show better results than the placebo; in this case, only one achieved this goal. The successful trial showed a four-point margin on a scale that goes to 60.

Failing to provide two effective trials, the FDA allowed Janssen to submit a discontinuation trial as evidence. This 16-week trial let patients either continue or stop treatment. The problem: side effects were treated as evidence of relapse, not withdrawal symptoms.

Ketamine users have a long history of withdrawal issues, including anxiety, poor appetite, delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, addiction, rage, and craving. The discontinuation trial considers such effects as proof of ketamine's efficacy, not as symptoms of withdrawal.

Science writer Peter Simons explains why this is worrisome:

"Perhaps even more concerning is the fact that, within the discontinuation trial, a single site in Poland drove the apparent finding of efficacy. Data from this site suggested that 100% of the placebo group supposedly relapsed (compared with about 33% of the placebo group in all the other sites)an unlikely result. When data from this suspicious outlier was removed, the study analysis showed no evidence that esketamine was better than the placebo."

Add to this that six people in the esketamine group died during the trials, including three by suicidetwo of whom had previously shown no signs of suicidal ideationsand a troubling picture emerges. The FDA accepted Janssen's explanation: the problem wasn't esketamine, but their underlying condition. This is possible, but the company did not provide conclusive evidence.

Jennifer Taubert, executive vice president and worldwide chairman of Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Johnson & Johnson, testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on "Drug Pricing in America: A Prescription for Change, Part II" February 26, 2019 in Washington, DC. The committee heard testimony from a panel of pharmaceutical company CEOs on the reasons for rising costs of prescription drugs.

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

According to Horowitz, this is a chronic problem with clinical trials and governing agencies.

"It would seem that themes from history are repeating: a known drug of misuse, associated with significant harm, is increasingly promoted despite scant evidence of efficacy and without adequate longterm safety studies."

He also notes that half of the patients experienced disassociation and one-third experienced dizziness. On this point, allow me to break the fourth wall. I've been experimenting with psychedelics since 1994 and am writing a book on psychedelics in ritual and therapy. I ingested a range of substances during my college years. By far, the most troublesome was ketamine. While I'm now aware of Parecelsus's dictumwhat is beneficial in small doses is toxic in large dosesI wasn't measuring it out in the 1990s.

Administered doses in Janssen's trials were considered similar to recreational usage. I recall that a bump provided an energetic lift, yet when I'd occasionally snort a line, all bets were off. After a hearty dose one evening, I laid down, sat up, and stood in succession. I couldn't tell the difference between those three physical positions. Ketamine is the most dissociative substance I've ever taken, and I stopped shortly after that last instance.

Psychedelics are the next wave of mental health treatmentscall it a continuation, given their role in traditional rituals. We came to rely on pharmacology too much in the twentieth century; hopefully we're learning from those mistakes. As Horowitz points out, however, it appears we're not.

The important word in psychedelic therapy is ritual. There are environmental and social factors entwined with our health. In the right context, psychedelics have tremendous healing power. And to be fair, some ketamine clinics are taking proper right safety precautions as well as designing treatment rooms to be more conducive to healing than sterile white rooms. Patients are anecdotally reporting success in depression treatment with ketamine. This isn't an either-or situation.

But we cannot make the same mistake we've made with CBD and believe these substances are cure-alls. We also can't afford to designate ketamine under the umbrella term "psychedelics." As Alan Watts wrote, hallucinogen is not a proper definition of the psychedelic experience, though it's fitting when describing ketamine. Conflating substances will only further confusion during a time when we need clarity. If the addictive properties and dangerous side effects of ketamine play out widely, it endangers the entire psychedelic therapy model.

We can hope for a clinically-effective dosage and delivery mechanism of ketamine. We can't, as Horowitz's analysis shows, make the same mistakes over. Pharmacological intervention has a place in psychiatry, but it's come to dominate the industry, often no better than placebo and psychotherapy. We need healing, not more side effects.

--

Stay in touch with Derek on Twitter, Facebook and Substack. His next book is "Hero's Dose: The Case For Psychedelics in Ritual and Therapy."

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New analysis claims the FDA rushed ketamine's approval for depression treatment - Big Think

A Vancouver Island University (VIU) Nursing professor developing a psychedelic medicine-assisted therapy and resilience training program has received a sizeable federal government grant.

Dr. ShannonDames has been awarded a $50,000 Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)Knowledge Synthesis grantto support her research, which aims to helphealth-care providers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and/or treatment-resistant mental health issues related to depression.

The CIHR grant is part of the governments rapid research response to COVID-19 and is aimed at addressing and improving mental health outcomes during the pandemic response and beyond.

By age 40, 50% of the population will have or have had a mental illness, according to theCanadian Mental Health Association. Dames says health-care professionals are at greater risk of experiencing psychological stress due to their trauma-laden careers.

Rates of depression and PTSD were already high amongst front-line caregivers and international trends are showing us that the COVID-19 pandemic is contributing to widespread emotional distress for those on the front lines, she says.

Dames is working with a multi-disciplinary team of health professionals, including the BC SUPPORT Unit Vancouver Island Centre, an initiative that supports patient-oriented research in the region, researchers from VIU, the University of Victoria (UVic), the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Numinus Wellness Inc. to develop what could be the first of its kind in Canada a publicly offered platform that combines resilience development programming with Ketamine-assistedtherapy.Ketamine is commonly used by health-care professionals in a variety of medical settings, including for the treatment of depression. It is also currently the only legal medicine that produces psychedelic effects.

The current projects foundation is a resilience-building program calledRoots to Thrive, co-created by Dames with contributions from numerous academics and health professionals. The evidence-informed communities of practice program aims to enhance mindfulness and self-compassion to reduce stress and has resulted in significant positive wellness impacts for participants. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is integrated into the program as a tool to address barriers, relax defenses and facilitate insight.

Psychedelics like psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, stimulateserotoninin the brain,which contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness, says Dames.They all promote non-attachment, which is the ability to recognize old belief systems and uncomfortable emotions as short-lived messengers, rather than as deep-seated threats. Administered in a supportive, therapeutic environment, it helpscultivate the self-compassion necessary toheal old wounds and work through current fears.

With a $30,000 grant from a private philanthropist, matching funds from VIUsRegional Initiatives Fund, and the CIHR operating grant, the research team is developing a programtodeliver this innovative treatment to health-care providers suffering from PTSD and treatment-resistant mental health issues related to depression, anxiety, trauma and emotional exhaustion.

The team hopesto build capacity and infrastructure within the BC Health Authority system for the program and once established it will be expanded to include people beyond first responders.

Dr. Wei Yi Song, a Vancouver Island-based Physician/Psychiatrist, saysKetamine infusion therapy has shown promising results for difficult to treat depression.

However, this type of treatment requires critical care medical practitioners limiting its accessibility, he says. Aninnovative, effective treatment strategy that can be implemented outside hospital/acute care centres would improve access to this type of remedy for those who need it most.

VIU Psychology Professor Dr. Lindsay McCunn is also involved in the research. She says the project is an opportunity to use the applied and interdisciplinary body of environmental psychology literature in the development of a psychedelic-assisted therapy program and also examine some of the interactions between social and psychological factors of working in high-stress jobs on the front lines of the public health sector.

As an environmental psychologist, I study how individuals are psychologically affected by architectural features in places such as offices and hospital settings, explains McCunn. Exposure to nature is critical to human health and thisproject will allow me to study how people respond to an innovative form of therapy and to what extent certain aspects of thephysical environment of a treatment facility as well as its surrounding natural featureshave an impact on them.

-30-

MEDIA CONTACT:

Annette Lucas, Communications Officer, Vancouver Island University

C:250.618.7296 | E:Annette.Lucas@viu.ca

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Supporting Health-Care Professionals Suffering From Emotional Distress - Vancouver Island University News

MIAMI, June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ehave, Inc. (OTC Pink: EHVVF) (the Company”), and its subsidiary PsyTech, announced an upcoming Psychedelic Industry Webinar. The complimentary virtual investor webinar is open to individual investors, institutional investors, advisors and analysts, and the psychedelic community. The program opens at 12:00 PM ET on Wednesday, June 17th.

This webinar is considered one of the top events in the Psychedelic Industry with more than 1400 registered attendees from 25 countries and five paid sponsors. Mr. Todd Shapiro of Red Light Holland will moderate the PsyTech webinar on the intersection of psychedelics, technology, and human consciousness. Each panelist is at the forefront of their field, utilizing techniques as varied as AI, biomimicry, predictive coding, cognitive neuroscience, microbiology, and journaling to improve psychedelic research and therapy. Join us to understand the future of psychedelics from a technological perspective, as well as how these technologies will influence mental health.

Speakers and panelists at past Psychedelic Industry Webinars include: Saul Kaye, Founder & CEO of iCAN: Israel Cannabis; Shlomi Raz, Chairman and Founder of Eleusis; JR Rahn, Co-Founder and Director of MindMed; Hayim Raclaw, Managing Director of PsyTech; Matthew Johnson, PhD., Professor of Psychiatry and Behavior at Johns Hopkins; Christian Angermayer, Founder of ATAI Life Sciences; Dr. Rosalid Watts, Clinical Psychologist at the Psychedelic Research Group at Imperial College London; Rick Doblin, Executive Director of Multidisciplanary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS); and Dr. Mark Braunstein, The Cannabis Psychiatrist and PsyTech Medical Advisor.

Todd Shapiro, CEO of Red Light Holland said, I’m grateful to take on a small role with PsyTech to help their entire team and this entire sector reach new levels. It’s my belief, much like psychedelics anecdotally promote - NO EGO - that everyone in this space, from pioneers and advocates to scientists and doctors to even the capital markets/investors and the corporate side, work synergistically to highlight and further study psychedelics while in hopes of ending stigmas and advancing research and development to hopefully help humans all over the world.”

"Our forum has grown as we have more and more events. Our participants are leaders in the Psychedelic sector and are excited to share their knowledge with the psychedelic community. " stated Ben Kaplan, CEO of Ehave, Inc.

Speakers for the June 17th PsyTech Conference include:

Moderator: Todd Shapiro CEO: Red Light Holland (CSE: TRIP)

Tyler Bryden Founder Speak Ai & Sessions

Sarah Hashkes CEO Radix Motion

James Stephens Chief Science Office and Co-Founder Aurelius Data

For full lineup of participants and their bios, to pre-register and receive event updates click on our Webinar link. There are no fees to log-in, or attend the live presentations.

REGISTER NOW AT https://www.psytech.biz/psytech-webinar-series-june-17-registration/

Learn how you can support non-profit research to make psychedelic therapy a legal treatment at https://maps.org. Meet the challenge of donating to MAPS and Christian Angermayer founder of ATAI life Scientific will match your donation.

Ehave Inc. is proud to support and sponsor The Ketamine Fund, https://ketaminefund.org/ The Ketamine Fund is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization dedicated to providing free treatments to veterans and those who need help now.

About Ehave, Inc.

Ehave, Inc. is a provider of digital therapeutics delivering evidence-based therapeutic interventions to patients. Our primary focus is on improving the standard care in therapeutics to prevent or treat brain disorders or diseases through the use of digital therapeutics, psychedelics, independently or together, with medications, devices, and other therapies to optimize patient care and health outcomes meeting privacy and HIPAA & GDPR Compliant. Our main product is the Ehave Dashboard which is a mental health informatics platform that allows clinicians to make objective and intelligent decisions through data insight using Blockchain technology. The Ehave dashboard offers Offline Encrypted Digital Records Empowering Healthcare providers and patients and it’s a powerful machine learning and artificial intelligence platform using artificial intelligence to extract deep insights from audio, video and text to improve research with a growing set of advanced tools and applications developed by Ehave and its leading partners. This empowers patients, healthcare providers, and payers to address a wide range of conditions through high quality, safe, and effective data-driven involvement with intelligent and accessible tools.

About PsyTech

PsyTech is building a vibrant community designed to explore psychedelic health and wellness, combat stigma, and accelerate innovation. PsyTech operates two matrix divisions that deliver revenue and build an equity portfolio: PsyTech Connect and PsyTech Discovery. PsyTech Connect is a premier psychedelic community platform for live and virtual conferences and an online portal for psychedelics content. PsyTech Discovery will develop ventures in psychedelic therapeutics and education. Learn more aboutPsyTech at http://www.psytech.biz

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This press release contains forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements may be preceded by the words intends,” may,” will,” plans,” expects,” anticipates,” projects,” predicts,” estimates,” aims,” believes,” hopes,” potential” or similar words. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions and are subject to various known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's control, and cannot be predicted or quantified and consequently, actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements: (i) the initiation, timing, progress and results of the Company’s research, manufacturing and other development efforts; (ii) the Company’s ability to advance its products to successfully complete development and commercialization; (iii) the manufacturing, development, commercialization, and market acceptance of the Company’s products; (iv) the lack of sufficient funding to finance the product development and business operations; (v) competitive companies and technologies within the Company’s industry and introduction of competing products; (vi) the Company’s ability to establish and maintain corporate collaborations; (vii) loss of key management personnel; (viii) the scope of protection the Company is able to establish and maintain for intellectual property rights covering its products and its ability to operate its business without infringing the intellectual property rights of others; (ix) potential failure to comply with applicable health information privacy and security laws and other state and federal privacy and security laws; and (x) the difficulty of predicting actions of the USA FDA and its regulations. All forward-looking statements included in this press release are made only as of the date of this press release. The Company assumes no obligation to update any written or oral forward-looking statement unless required by law. More detailed information about the Company and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward-looking statements is contained under the heading "Risk Factors" in Ehave, Inc.’s Registration Statement on Form F-1 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on September 24, 2015, as amended, which is available on the SEC's website, http://www.sec.gov.

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Ehave, Inc. PsyTech Welcomes Todd Shapiro of Red Light Holland as Moderator in the June 17th Webinar The Future of Psychedelics: A TECHNOLOGY...

VANCOUVER, BC, June 11, 2020 /CNW/ - Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX-V: NUMI) ("Numinus" or the "Company") wishes to correct the original news release dated June 11, 2020 that contained the following errors:

Below is the corrected news release in its entirety with the updated information.

Numinus receives Health Canada licence amendment to produce and extract psilocybin from mushrooms

Numinus becomes first publicly traded company in Canada approved to conduct research of this kind under a Health Canada licence

VANCOUVER (June 11, 2020)Numinus Wellness Inc. (TSX-V: NUMI) ("Numinus" or the "Company") has received Health Canada approval to amend the Company's existing Licence under the Controlled Drug and Substances Act to allow Numinus researchers to conduct research to standardize the extraction of psilocybin from mushrooms. The amendment means Numinus is the first publicly traded company in Canada to be granted a licence by Health Canada to conduct research of this kind.

With this regulatory approval, Numinus is able to proceed with the production of naturally sourced, sustainable psilocybin for research purposes that will support the emerging field of psychedelic assisted therapy and research, at lower costs to currently produced synthetic psilocybin. The licence also allows Numinus to develop and licence its own exclusive IP for further product development in partnership with leading research organizations something the research community has been seeking to secure. The work will be eligible for the Government of Canada's Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program and will lay a foundation for grant applications.

"We are proud to be at the forefront of a new therapeutic category by advancing evidence-based science focused on wellness and personal connection at its core," says Numinus CEO Payton Nyquvest. "Numinus is the only publicly traded company in Canada approved to develop a consistent psilocybin extraction method from naturally-produced mushrooms at a time when alternative therapeutic methods are increasingly being investigated and demand from clinical research is growing."

Working from the 7,000 square-foot Numinus Bioscience research facility and laboratory, senior research scientists Dr. Kristina Grotzinger and Dr. Bernd Keller will focus on developing a proprietary extraction method from mushrooms to allow for consistent dosing and application of naturally produced psilocybin. Once a proprietary method has been developed, the Company intends to explore supply agreements with leading research organizations to make use of the product in their clinical and therapeutic work.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and other leading researchers have published studies showing the benefits of psychedelic substances in treating a range of mental health issues. Further, the US Food and Drug Administration has granted breakthrough therapy status for psilocybin for the treatment of depression illustrating the growing demand for therapeutic access to psilocybin.

"In most cases, the creation of synthetic compounds are less pure than those found in nature, which is the case with psilocybin," says Dr. Grotzinger. "There is risk of contamination from solvents, gases and other chemicals, which makes them less safe to work with and requires added safety and processing expense. By working directly with the mushroom in its natural state, these risks are reduced, as is the cost to extract the psilocybin." Grotzinger added that standardized plant or fungi extracts are accepted by European standards and are a common dosage form in Europe.

About NuminusNuminus is a Vancouver-based health care company helping to support the universal desire to heal and be well. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Salvation Botanicals, Numinus has a Health Canada cannabis testing licence that allows the Company to test and analyze cannabis products from licensed producers. In addition, it is a late-stage applicant to receive a Health Canada standard processing licence to produce cannabis products. Numinus, through the same subsidiary, also has a dealer's licence which allows the Company to test, possess, buy and sell MDMA, psilocybin, psilocin, DMT and mescaline. The Health Canada license also allows import/export, testing and R&D of these substances. The expanded licence will allow Numinus to support the growing number of studies on the potential benefits of psychedelic therapies through research projects, product development, and the supply and distribution of these substances. Numinus Wellness is dedicated to therapies that enhance and supplement existing options for people wanting lasting physical, mental and emotional health with psychedelic treatments at its core when approved for therapeutic and research use. Psychedelics will be part of this offering but will only be available for treatment once approved by regulators and governing bodies a process Numinus is helping to support. For more information, visit http://www.numinus.ca.

Forward Looking StatementsThis news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimates, plans, programs, forecasts, projections, objectives, assumptions, expectations or beliefs of future performance, are "forward-looking statements." Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "is expected", "estimates", "intends", "anticipates" or "does not anticipate", or "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, events or developments to be materially different from any future results, events or developments expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, dependence on obtaining and maintaining regulatory approvals, including acquiring and renewing federal, provincial, municipal, local or other licenses and any inability to obtain all necessary governmental approvals licenses and permits to operate and expand the Company's facilities; regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including federal and provincial legalization, due to inconsistent public opinion, perception of the medical-use and adult-use marijuana industry, bureaucratic delays or inefficiencies or any other reasons; any other factors or developments which may hinder market growth; the Company's limited operating history and lack of historical profits; reliance on management; the Company's requirements for additional financing, and the effect of capital market conditions and other factors on capital availability; competition, including from more established or better financed competitors; and the need to secure and maintain corporate alliances and partnerships, including with research and development institutions, customers and suppliers. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other risk factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements. The Company has no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, even if new information becomes available as a result of future events, new information or for any other reason except as required by law.

SOURCE Numinus Wellness Inc.

For further information: Investor Inquiries: [emailprotected]; Media Inquiries: Emily Edwards, NATIONAL, [emailprotected], 604-842-6490; General Inquiries: [emailprotected], 1-833-NUM-INUS (1-833-686-4687); Pour investir et obtenir des renseignements gnraux en franais: Remy Scalabrini, Maricom, [emailprotected], 888-585-6274

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CORRECTION: Numinus receives Health Canada licence amendment to produce and extract psilocybin from mushrooms - Canada NewsWire

As people face their issues, Vasquez is there to call out trauma responses so they know to soothe those reactions and keep working through it. While the cannabis, journaling, and talk therapy work helps soothe and process triggers, the psychedelic element can allow you to go deeper into the cause of that trigger.

"In small amounts, on a controlled schedule, you can process a lot of trauma very quickly with psychedelics," says Vasquez. Even those small amounts can shine a light on dark corners of your memory. You dont always know what you will find in those corners. I just let my clients know that they are safe and that I am here for them on the other side of it. When they come back for our next session, we unpack it together.

One thing Vasquez is clear about is that there is no one perfect dose. And there is often trial and error when first laying down dosing guidelines and a schedule. But thats why the communication and journaling are as important an element as the treatments themselves.

Oftentimes, her clients are on the right track when she meets them. They are on their way to getting to the root of their issues, and what she does can help expedite that process by lifting some of the barriers halting their progress. She explains how unresolved trauma can be a distracting burden in this internal work. How living with trauma is like trying unsuccessfully to sleep soundly every night and going through days half exhausted and half awake.

When you acknowledge what triggers your reactions and the feelings that are rooted in trauma, it can free up space in your life, says Vasquez.

"One of my clients is a medium and a mom, she continues. Mediums already kind of live on two planes, and you have to make a LOT of boundaries with ghosts. It can take a lot of energy. She came to me because she was having problems being fully present in both her day-to-day life and her spirit work.

After six weeks of work with Vasquez, on a regimen that included microdosing mushrooms and CBD with low doses of THC on a controlled schedule, the client reported an enormous difference in her day-to-day clarity. In that case, her client just needed help utilizing her time on both planes more efficiently. And Vasquez helped her do so.

Right now, were all doing more internal work during quarantine. If youre experimenting with different modes of wellness, Vasquez recommending everyone start by journaling every step of the way.

When you're starting any new journey in plant-based medicine, or even a new diet, you must be gentle with yourself, explains Vasquez. Start by microdosing once a month, and listen to your mind and your body as you go. Cannabis and psychedelics can affect your psyche so it is important to note your observations and effects in order to make those judgment calls about dose and schedule.

Vasquez also highly recommends having someone to talk to. As a sort of safety net that helps you process the experience, the talk therapy is as important as the substances themselves. Her favorite part of her work is being that perspective; that ally at her clients side as they work through those triggers.

"Helping others with trauma helps me understand my own trauma, she says. When you live with PTSD, and help people with PTSD, there is just no feeling like it. Its validating. I feel like I have truly stepped into my power.

See more here:

How Liv Vasquez Uses Plants & Food for Wellness and Healing - Thrillist

Our Brains Byte Back podcast co-host, Mags Tanev, kicks off her new seriesThe New Era of Psychedelics,exploring scientific research, therapies, and the potential benefits of psychedelic compounds and plant medicines in our societies.

In this first installment, Tanev interviews Jackee Stang, the founder of Delic Corp,the first-ever psychedelics corporation that specializes in education, content, and events about psychedelic substances.

In addition to this, she is also the former VP of content and programming at High Times.

Listen to this podcast onSpotify,Anchor,Apple Podcasts,Breaker,Google Podcasts,Stitcher,Overcast,Listen Notes, andRadio Public.

In this episode, they discuss Jackees journey with psychedelics, her motivation to start Delic Corp, and the challenges she has faced within the psychedelic community.

Magic mushrooms as a cyberdelic technology for hacking consciousness

How to biohack your body (Part 1) on Brains Byte Back

Biotech startup wants to make new short-acting psychedelic drugs more scalable & accessible

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The Psychedelic Renaissance with the former VP of content at High Times (Brains Byte Back podcast) - The Sociable

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the widespread disruption of our usual routines. The ambiguity of when it will end, how things will unfold and what will happen in the future has resulted in a collective liminal state, a kind of a waiting area on the threshold of change.

COVID-19 has undermined our usual expectations and assumptions. Evidence from my work on how our brains react to psychedelics tell me the transient anxiety which occurs when expectations collapse may yield benefits. To gain the benefits, we must be intentional in the viewing of this era as a transformational opportunity.

I have looked at how medium-to-high doses of psychedelics can help reset the brain, shaking it out of old patterns. I wonder if our current state of uncertainty could have similar impacts on the brain a metaphorical psychedelic dose for new insights, values clarification and a collective reset.

A recent study shows experiences with psychedelics such as psilocybin (also known as magic mushrooms) can have disruptive impacts on our brains. Neuroimaging of the brain on psychedelics have revealed a state of chaos, or entropy and a loss of synchronization of brain waves.

Entropy is a measure of uncertainty and randomness or disorder. British neuroscientist Karl Friston defines entropy as a measure of uncertainty, the average surprise. Low entropy means, on average, that outcomes are relatively predictable.

In Fristons view, the brain is a prediction machine. We construct the future from the past. We make predictive inferences (conscious and unconscious) to conserve energy and simplify the interpretation of a continuous input of stimuli.

We gain mastery, but at the expense of novelty.

Poor mental health often revolves around excessive rumination and repetition. Rumination is rigid, repetitive and negative thinking characterized by low entropy.

In 1949, McGill University psychologist Donald Hebb predicted much of what modern neuroscience would go on to prove with neuroimaging technologies. Hebbs postulate that the neurons that fire together, wire together provides a summary of the way synaptic pathways bond and are reinforced by repetition.

This repetition and rumination robs the mind of flexibility, especially when attached to memories with heightened (positive or negative) emotional resonance. Repetition-habituated brains marinate in a soup of low novelty and lack of surprise, forecasting tomorrow to be much the same as today.

Psychedelics disrupt our repetitive or ruminative ways of thinking and rewire brain communication patterns. The result is often an altered state of consciousness marked by transient confusion, followed by a high probability of novel, meaningful and possibly even mystical experiences.

When the rigid, top-down control of the ego is loosened, the anarchy of the creative unconscious blooms.

Our research group at Queens University recently completed a review of existing studies on psilocybin-assisted therapy. From over 2,000 records, we found nine completed clinical trials with a total of 169 participants.

Overall, the trials showed that most subjects safely tolerated these interventions and showed improved mental health. However, some experienced transient distress and post-treatment headaches. The trend suggests positive outcomes in various conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction, depression, psychological distress associated with life-threatening cancers and demoralization among long-term AIDS survivors.

In short, although psychedelics can be accompanied by known adverse experiences, trials seem to indicate that psilocybin is relatively safe (with the right supports and in a supportive setting) and has a marked ability to interrupt psychopathologies.

To ensure safety and support, the majority of psilocybin trials used the PSI model (preparation, session, integration) with multiple moderate-to-high-doses sessions happening in the company of trained therapists.

Participants report experiences of transient anxiety, distress and confusion, states of joy, interconnectedness, catharsis, forgiveness and wisdom experiences. In contrast to talk therapy, psychedelic sessions are experiential, meaning that we experience changed ways of both seeing and being in the world.

Mystical experiences have been reported both by clinical trial subjects and by recreational psilocybin users. Mysticism can be thought of as an experience of absorption, a dissolution of separateness and a sense of deep connection. Absorption is the opposite of rumination.

Rumination carries you away on an eddy of self-referential and self-containing thoughts, while when experiencing absorption, you leave behind your narrow sense of self, experiencing something greater that is both inside and outside of you.

The psychedelic experience is a classic heros journey. The hero leaves the comforts of home, faces disruption and challenges to their previous way of thinking and being, has profound and transformative experiences, and returns a changed person.

Leaving predictability and entering into uncertainty is a threshold to transformation.

In one study, psilocybin trial subjects reported feeling more deeply connected, open and relational as a result of their entropic, and often difficult, psychedelic experiences. In another study, they have been found to hold less authoritarian political views and be more in touch with nature.

Participants in collective psychedelic rituals commonly experience feelings of deep bond, kinship and even telepathy with other participants. I believe we may be in a similar moment during COVID-19.

COVID-19 has disrupted the normative habits of society. It has forced the economic machine to pause. It has forced many to reevaluate practices and priorities. In some cases, I believe it is dissolving our normal sense of human separateness (even though we are physically distanced).

Perhaps, like the liminal psychedelic state, the uncertainty in which we find ourselves in this moment will lead to more visions of what can be.

The future does not have to remain in the past.

Those of us with the luxury of space and time have an opportunity to reset, unbind our minds, quit repeating old patterns, experience anew what life can hold and to do better.

Continued here:

Psychedelic experiences disrupt routine thinking and so has the coronavirus pandemic - The Conversation CA

Irony, of course, is the main line to Have A Good Trips target audience: nostalgic Gen Xers and elder millennials whose interest in high-power hallucinogens has likely been piqued by the so-called psychedelic renaissance. There is, I suspect, a certain level of knowing irony in other quarters of the psychedelic revival, be it in the popularity of neo-psychedelic rock bands like Tame Impala or King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (whose names alone suggest forked tongues firmly in cheek) or the elevation of pilled Grateful Dead tie-dye tour shirts to pricy, haute couture attire. Modern psychedelic explorers engage with the culture but avoid the effusions of earnestness that made the fizzled cultural revolutions of the boomer generation feel so embarrassing. The third eye is awakened and already rolling.

But can you really remove sincerity from the psychedelic experience, which has long been vaunted for its ability to facilitate beautiful insights about the power of capital-l Love; insights that may scan like mush when the drugs effects have faded but feel, in that exalted moment, absolutely real? And more to the point, should you want to? After all, one of the characteristics of the psychedelic trip is its capacity to obliterate what Pollan calls the pitiless glare of irony. Its that feeling of openness or a universal oneness that reoccurs in psychedelic literature, cinema, and even the woolly anecdotes of friends. Irony has become a de facto cultural defense mechanism and is rendered vulnerable by drugs renowned for opening (or totally shattering) our psychic defenses.

Irony is perhaps useful in tempering a bit of the cultural bitterness associated with the movements of psychedelias last major saturation period: the 1960s. Psychedelic drugs fueled the artistic and political upheavals of America in the Age of Aquarius, which collapsed under the bummer-trip heaviness of Altamont, the Manson murders, and the national trauma of the Vietnam War. As author Tom ONeill puts it in Chaos, his recent history that rethinks the era, The decades subversive spirit had come on with too much fervor. Some reckoning was bound to come, or so it seemed in retrospect; the latent violence couldnt contain itself forever. This cultural comedown is often framed, in distinctly druggy terms, as a form of punishment for the ecstasies that preceded itlike a long, blue Monday of the American spirit.

The psychedelic revivals ironic edge cuts some of this, allowing the curious-minded to savor the hallucinatory fruits of the era without getting swept up in its politics, which, as we all know, were tainted and stupid and hopelessly nave. (New reporting about the period, including ONeills book, strongly suggests that this sense of hopelessness and navet was a deliberate strategy by the powers-that-be to neutralize the energized leftist movements of the 1960s, but thats another discussion altogether.) A veil of wizened, weary cynicism permits engagement in psychedelia without having to feel all that engaged with its history or its deeper, metaphysical implications.

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Have a Good Trip Demystifies Psychedelics - The New Republic

Houston, Texas--(Newsfile Corp. - May 19, 2020) - Psychedelics may soon alter the way we address mental and health issues.

That may be especially true when it comes to treating obesity, which has been recognized by the World Health Organization as a global epidemic, with at least 2.8 million people dying each year as a result. In addition, according to the World Health Organization, more than 1.9 billion adults, 18 years and older, are overweight. Of these over 650 million are obese.

Those are startling statistics. However, there may be a psychedelic solution.

Psilocybin Could Help Solve that Global Obesity Epidemic

One of the key psychedelics that may assist with treating obesity are psilocybin mushrooms, which can also assist with issues such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, and even chronic pain.

Even Johns Hopkins Medicine's Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, for example, is focusing on psychedelics, including psilocybin for the treatment of eating disorders.

Companies like Yield Growth Corp. (CSE: BOSS) (OTCQB: BOSQF) subsidiary NeonMind Biosciences Inc. are also nearing studies to confirm that is an effective treatment for weight loss and food craving. The goal of this study is to use preclinical models to confirm that psilocybin is an effective treatment for weight loss and food craving.

NeonMind will use models that have been widely adopted by the pharmaceutical industry to identify compounds with therapeutic efficacy. It plans to use results from this study as part of the requirements for a Health Canada clinical trial application to demonstrate potential efficacy and safety for novel compounds.

NeoMind Biosciences Ltd. Files U.S. for Patent

NeonMind also filed a U.S. provisional patent application to protect intellectual property relating to the use of compounds found in psychedelic mushrooms to lose weight.

NeonMind's pending patent includes the use of psilocybin to help with weight loss, reduce food cravings, counter compulsive eating, improve quality of diet, increase metabolism, treat diabetes, regulate blood glucose levels, and help reduce susceptibility to cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and other issues associated with diabetes.

The company hopes to tap into multi-billion-dollar market opportunities, including the $245 billion weight loss and management market, $64 billion cardiovascular disease treatments, the $156 billion depression market, and the $87 billion diabetes treatment market.

For more information, visit the company's website at https://yieldgrowth.com.

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Psilocybin: An Effective Treatment for Weight Loss and Food Craving? - Yahoo Finance

My most vivid childhood memories of Enchanted Forest are of Storybrook Lane, the parks original attraction. It takes you down a leafy path full of storybook oddities: fairytale figurines that appear poised to come alive; a jumbo Humpty Dumpty grinning atop a wall; a dark, dank Alice In Wonderland tunnel carved out of a faux tree stump; and an anthropomorphic caterpillar perched on a larger-than-life neon pink mushroom.

While my perspective hasnt changed much in the 22 years since, I now have the precise words to describe the place: trippy as shit.

In theme and physical size, this peculiar amusement park in Turner, Oregon -- which turns 50 this year -- caters to small children. But over the years, it's also become a low-key psychedelic playground for grownups thanks to a combination of social media, nostalgia, legal cannabis, and hallucinogens. In a state that fully embraces weirdness, Enchanted Forest is a jewel perfectly at home among the trees just off the highway.

For Sara Rudolph, Enchanted Forest is a reversion to childhood, one thats typically facilitated by psychedelic mushrooms.Rudolph has been going to the park since she was three. She remembers being thrilled and a little alarmed by the folksy handmade attractions -- among them a giant slide you enter through a witch's gnarled maw and a rickety haunted house.

Her last visit to the park was last year, at the age of 43. She says she hasnt gone to Enchanted Forest entirely sober since she was about 16, and as an adult, 'shrooms help her recreate moments of adolescent wonder.

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"There are all these little alcoves with puppets that definitely look like they come alive at night."

Its an immersive experience, something that we are very there for as children, but less so as adults," she says. "If you're high, you have more levels of that [childhood] experience. It's not just visual: You're actually more involved and more affected by the tactile nature of it.

Enchanted Forest can be trippy in a fun way -- or terrifying, depending on how high you are.

Its sort of homemade, which makes it extra creepy, Rudolph says. It's definitely not Disneyland. You're not sitting safe in a little cart. You're walking through it and it's kind of unpredictable and there are '70s-style, weird, lurid colors.

Enchanted Forest dates back to 1964, when Roger Tofte began building it on a 20-acre forested hill outside of Salem, according to the website. The park officially opened in 1971, with a piece of butcher paper that read OPEN alerting people to its existence.

Tofte, an artist and tinkerer who is now 90 years old, wanted to give kids in the sleepy city of Salem (the state capital, about an hour south of Portland) something to do. He built the park by hand with his wife, Mavis, and four kids.

Susan Vaslev, Toftes oldest daughter who now helps run Enchanted Forest, says there have been a couple of dips in attendance throughout the years that threatened the parks survival. The first was in the 1970s, when oil crises led to nationwide gas shortages, and the second was after 9/11. Currently, attendance is at a standstill as nonessential businesses are shuttered. Its 50th anniversary celebration is a big question mark.

Our biggest business is repeat visitors, Vaslev says. We're very thankful to them because that's what keeps us going.

The parks official Instagram -- which features photos of a smiling, wizened Tofte still repairing and shoring up the park by hand -- has over 10,000 followers. On it, youll find collections of fan art, vintage photos, and promos from the time the park was the subject of Travel Channels Ghost Adventures (the crew believed it was haunted). Threads on Twitter and Reddit, though, highlight the more underground aspects of the park.

Venture deep enough down the internet rabbit hole and youll find fan reviews of the Music From Enchanted Forest album, a collection of storybook-synth tunes composed by Vaslev that play on loop throughout the park. Search Reddit and youll find an Ask Me Anything thread with somebody claiming to be an employee in 2018.

What's the strangest thing you've caught visitors doing who didn't know you were watching? a user called IronicallyZen asked.

Definitely pot smoking! the employee responded. Young people think they could come in and sneak a smoke in the dwarf caves or bathrooms, but employees roam around constantly and they are for sure not getting away with it.

I couldnt imagine not going high.

Douglas Elkins, co-owner of Salems OG Collective Dispensary, says cannabis isn't necessarily the drug of choice for Enchanted Forest Visitors, but hes certainly heard of people doing acid and 'shrooms and going to Enchanted Forest.

Vaslev, however, vehemently denies the parks reputation as a destination for psychedelic enthusiasts.Rumors are rumors and not what we see in the park. We're very family-oriented, Vaslev says. If people come intoxicated, on alcohol or drugs or cannabis, we will ask them to leave or call the police.

I couldnt imagine not going high, says Crystal Contreras. It would seem kind of sad.

Contreras, 37, learned about Enchanted Forest after moving to Oregon as an adult.I heard that [taking psychedelics before going to the park] was a thing people do from a friend who grew up here, Contreras says.

Her inaugural visit was with a group of friends, who all took mushrooms. Because it was a sweltering summer day, Contreras opted to be the relatively sober friend and go very, very high on cannabis instead. She learned it was beneficial to have a high tolerance for spookiness.

Theres definitely a contrast between it being cute and fun and really creepy, Contreras says. It has a weird acid-trip aesthetic. There are all these little alcoves with puppets depicting scenes from fairy tales that definitely look like they come alive at night.

At one point, going through one of the little houses, Contreras says she, got a feeling that if I let my friends out of my sight they would disappear forever and Id never find them.

Contreras and Rudolph have advice for adults who decide to microdose before their trip to Enchanted Forest. The best ride, they both agree, is the new Challenge of Mondor, a target-shooting game that winds slowly through a dark tavern.

You get to chill out and shoot targets with a laser gun, who wouldnt like that? Contreras says.

Rudolph also recommends the Fantasy Fountains Water-Light Show -- a beautiful, dazzling water and light show that has 359 water jets, according to the parks website.

But she warns against the Ice Mountain Bobsled Roller Coaster, a Matterhorn knock-off that was the parks first ride.They put you in a little plastic capsule and it is incredibly claustrophobic, Rudolph says. If you're over five foot four, especially on drugs, maybe skip out.

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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Champignon Brands Inc. (Champignon or the Company) (SHRM.CN) (496.F) (SHRMF), a human optimization sciences Company with an emphasis on ketamine and psychedelic medicine, is pleased to sponsor TheraPsil, a BC-based non-profit coalition of healthcare professionals, policy-makers and community leaders (the TheraPsil Coalition) seeking legal access to psilocybin for British Columbians with a palliative diagnosis and psychological distress.

Operating at highest standards of clinical competence and ethical integrity, the TheraPsil coalition is starting in 2020 with seeking legal access to psilocybin for British Columbians with a palliative diagnosis and psychological distress.

Based in Victoria, British Columbia and established in 2019, TheraPsil is focused on:

Were really happy to have this support to get the ball rolling on this project to help palliative Canadians. We are dedicated to giving those at end-of-life the treatment options they deserve - and that includes psilocybin. We believe that as a non-profit, and with the right support, we can get these patients their right to treatment with psilocybin in a timely manner, Dr. Bruce Tobin, founder of TheraPsil.

Through our sponsorship, the Champignon team and board are extremely proud to begin collaborating alongside TheraPsil, helping patients in palliative care access new and effective therapies, said Pat McCutcheon, Director, Champignon. Together we will work to provide countless Canadians facing a palliative cancer diagnosis, along with their families, who also face severe psychological distress, with the treatment options, compassion and hope they deserve.

For information about the TheraPsils medical team and program, visit http://www.therapsil.ca.

About Champignon Brands Inc.

Champignon Brands (SHRM.CN) is focused on the formulation and manufacturing of novel ketamine, anaesthetics and adaptogenic delivery platforms for the nutraceutical and psychedelic medicine while being supported by a leading psychedelics medicines clinic platform. The Company is pursuing the development and commercialization of rapid onset treatments capable of improving health outcomes, such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as substance and alcohol use disorders. Under a collaborative research agreement with the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine, the Company is conducting preclinical studies and eventual human clinical trials, with the objective of demonstrating safety and efficacy of the combination of psilocybin and cannabidiol in treating mTBI with PTSD or stand-alone PTSD. Champignon continues to be inspired by sustainability, as its medicinal mushroom-infused SKUs are organic, non-GMO and vegan certified. For more information, visit the Companys website at: https://champignonbrands.com/.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Dr. Roger McIntyreChief Executive Officer T: +1(613) 967-9655E:info@champignonbrands.com

FOR INVESTOR INQUIRIES:

Tyler TroupCircadian GroupE:SHRM@champignonbrands.com

FOR CHAMPIGNON BRANDS FRENCH INQUIRIES:

Remy ScalabriniMaricom Inc.E: rs@maricom.ca T: (888) 585-MARI

The CSE and Information Service Provider have not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the accuracy or adequacy of this release.

Forward-looking Information Cautionary Statement

Except for statements of historic fact, this news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities law. Forward-looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements including, but not limited to delays or uncertainties with regulatory approvals, including that of the CSE. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Companys control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Champignon Brands described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties that could affect financial results is contained in the Companys filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are available at http://www.sedar.com.

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REPEAT - Champignon Sponsors Non-profit Coalition, TheraPsil - Medical Psilocybin Access Project for Palliative Cancer Patients and Health...