David Nickles contributed to the reporting of this story.

Update 6/18/2023: This story has been updated to reflect statements made by MAPS after publication.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is preparing to host what is being dubbed “the largest psychedelic gathering in history” — the Denver-based Psychedelic Science 2023 conference — from June 19-23. 

In preparation for this conference, organizers are asking presenters to sign a 30-clause contract with requirements that many presenters and reviewers have told Psymposia they find concerning. Among some standard contract clauses covering things like presentation duration and speaker materials, two clauses have concerning implications for a conference that claims to represent the interests of psychedelic scholarship and evidence-based science. 

The first clause in question is titled “Exclusivity Window” and reads:

“16. Exclusivity Window. To ensure that the Conference remains the focus of the Denver region and meets its 2022 attendance goals:

1. Presenter agrees to not perform or participate in any public or ticketed live event, seminar, conference, class, workshop, or similar related to psychedelics in or within 500 miles of Denver from April 15, 2023  1 [sic] – August 15, 2023 without written agreement from MAPS.
2. Presenter shall notify MAPS prior to booking confirmation of any pre-existing conflicts to discuss, and notify MAPS promptly of new requests for approval.

MAPS will typically grant permission for Presenter’s participation in non-MAPS produced events hosted by partner organizations (e.g. fundraisers, conference afterparties) during the Conference time period. But Presenters must seek MAPS’ approval in advance.”

This clause essentially grants MAPS the final say on any presenter’s psychedelic-related speaking engagements for two months before and after Psychedelic Science 2023. 

Although the contract states that “MAPS will typically grant permission for Presenter’s participation in non-MAPS produced events,” the nature of the clause also gives MAPS explicit permission to deny participation in those events. 

The psychedelic conference Horizons, in New York City, included a similar clause in its 2022 presenter contract, but the window of exclusivity was notably shorter. Where MAPS is asking for four months of exclusivity on presentation content, Horizons’ contract only stipulated exclusivity for the month of the conference — October — and half of the following month. 

A psychedelic researcher who spoke with Psymposia anonymously said that they have given poster presentations and talks at other science conferences and were never asked to agree to an exclusivity window. Multiple other psychedelic conference organizers who preferred to remain anonymous said that this type of exclusivity period was not included in the contracts that speakers signed for their conferences. The author of this article presented a poster at the 2022 Psychedemia conference at The Ohio State University and was also not required to agree to an exclusivity period in a presenter contract.

The researcher who spoke to Psymposia worried about how this could impact early-career academics looking to present their research in 2023 anywhere within 500 miles of Denver. As one example, this clause could interfere with anyone looking to present at the annual College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) conference taking place in Denver between June 17-21. This conference is expected to draw at least 1,200 attendees according to organizers.

The second, and more controversial clause, which is titled “MAPS’ reputation,”  reads:

“18. MAPS’ reputation. MAPS may cancel this Agreement and rescind Presenter’s invitation to participate in the Conference if MAPS determines, in its sole discretion, that Presenter, or any organization to which Presenter is associated: (i) discredits MAPS or tarnishes its reputation and goodwill; (ii) promotes false or misleading information; (iii) violates the rights of others; (iv) violates any law regulation, or public policy; or (v) mischaracterizes the relationship between MAPS and Presenter.”

On its face, a clause penalizing a presenter for discrediting the host of a conference seems potentially reasonable. 

However, MAPS — the conference host — is also the sponsor of the most advanced FDA clinical trials in the psychedelic industry and the subject of a number of legitimate criticisms. These criticisms have been directed at MAPS’ research by academics, therapists, trial participants, journalists, and more for methodological issues and the abusive behavior of MAPS-contracted trial therapists. 

It is unclear whether engagement with controversies involving MAPS — such as sexual abuse in MAPS trials; data inconsistencies across clinical trial sites; or the death of Bailey Gatlin while under the care of MAPS’ harm reduction services — would qualify as behavior which “discredits MAPS or tarnishes its reputation or goodwill.” The language of the contract seems to leave the choice to ban presenters for engagement with this material to MAPS’ “sole discretion.”

The researcher who spoke with Psymposia asked, “How can you claim to be the biggest gathering for psychedelic science when you’re not allowing freedom of the scientists to share information?”

By potentially forbidding speakers from citing research that conflicts with MAPS’ preferred narratives, this clause seems to contradict the following contract clause, titled “Scientific and medical compliance,” which states that presentations “must be of scholarly quality and consistent with the conventions and practices of evidence-based science.” 

How a presenter could provide scholarly commentary about topics like psychedelic harm reduction, clinical trial design, or ethics without acknowledging the many controversies involving MAPS — arguably the industry’s most prominent organization — is unclear. 

Psymposia has confirmed with multiple Psychedelic Science 2023 presenters who preferred to remain anonymous that they all received contracts with this language. Multiple presenters expressed surprise and concern about the inclusion of these clauses. 

Psymposia presented the clauses to multiple lawyers, most of whom said that they had never seen clauses like this in a speaker’s agreement for a conference. One of the lawyers did note that radius clauses — like the “Exclusivity Window” clause above — are fairly common (“and quite controversial,” this source notes) for large music festivals like Coachella.

“[I’m] not [concerned] from a legal basis [about this clause], but in my honest opinion [these clauses] are inappropriate to use and shouldn’t be in an agreement like this. The speakers aren’t performers. They’re sharing knowledge which should be widely shared. And no speaker individually is enough of a draw to do this for,” this lawyer said. 

In the case of a music festival like Coachella, the festival would want to assure that a headlining act like Beyonce wasn’t playing in the same general area around the time of the festival. This is because the festival producers expect to sell tickets based on a regionally-exclusive appearance of (in this hypothetical) Beyonce.

“For nearly every speaker but maybe [someone like] Paul Stamets, having [a radius clause] is pointless to MAPS, there’s no real concern, but having it in the contract nevertheless can serve a real chilling effect on presenters that want to abide by what they signed,” the lawyer said. 

Some of this “chilling effect” can be observed in the fact that all the presenters who spoke with Psymposia about these clauses were only willing to have their comments published if they could remain anonymous.

Another scientist presenting at Psychedelic Science 2023 who spoke to Psymposia anonymously said that spokespeople from MAPS have reportedly told some presenters who reached out that MAPS disagrees with the need for these clauses and that the clauses will not be enforced. 

Psymposia has reviewed contracts from multiple presenters and has confirmed that they were sent by Momentum Events “on behalf of MAPS’ Psychedelic Science 2023” and signed off with “Momentum Events, Official production partner of MAPS.org.” Momentum Events is the production company collaborating with MAPS to produce Psychedelic Science 2023, and MAPS presumably read the finalized contract before it was sent to presenters.

If MAPS is telling presenters that they disagree with these clauses, that does not change the fact that this is a legally-binding contract. Such verbal assurances are explicitly overridden by Clause 25, which says that statements like the ones allegedly made by MAPS are superseded by the contract. This clause reads:

“25. Integrated agreement. This agreement supersedes all prior oral or written agreements, discussions, negotiations, understandings, and proposals regarding the subject matter of the Agreement. In entering into this Agreement, neither Presenter nor MAPS has relied upon or is relying upon any oral or written statement, promise, or representation made by the other party, or by any employee, agent, or representative of the other party, except those expressly set forth in this Agreement. No part of this Agreement shall be considered to have been modified or waived unless the modification or waiver is agreed to in writing and signed by Presenter and an authorized officer of MAPS” (emphasis added).

MAPS’ Director of Communications Betty Aldworth said that MAPS has granted waivers for every request for exemption from the radius clause. This willingness to waive the agreement calls into question why the radius clause was included in the contract to begin with. 

Psymposia asked whether these waivers were presented in writing and signed by the presenter and an officer of MAPS, as required by the contract. Aldworth responded, “Not sure what that process looks like and doubt that I can get the answer timely. Sorry!”

Aldworth also claimed that the event is platforming a number of speakers who have been critical of MAPS, but did not identify any of them. She said that the reputation clause was in place in case “a speaker is no longer considered of good character, particularly with regard to credible allegations of social, professional, sexual, or serious criminal misconduct.” What “good character” entails and how “serious criminal misconduct” would be interpreted in the context of a conference centered on currently-illegal drugs and their advocates was not elaborated on. 

If these specific issues were indeed important to MAPS, it is unclear why this language was not included in the contract. Aldworth avoided answering the question of what MAPS would consider “discrediting or tarnishing MAPS’ reputation,” as the actual language in the contract states. As the contract is written, these ambiguities allow for MAPS to deplatform presenters at its “sole discretion.”

MAPS appears to recognize that presenters are uncomfortable with a number of the contract clauses and is dealing with these concerns on an ad hoc basis. Speakers with concerns about the contract, Aldworth said, should reach out to their primary Psychedelic Science or MAPS contact. 

A Broader Trend of Limiting Discourse

These contract clauses represent a broader and concerning trend of limitations on the free and open exchange of ideas at events billing themselves as premier academic conferences while, in reality, behaving like industry-sponsored gatherings. 

At the end of last year, it was revealed that MicrodoseHQ’s Wonderland Miami 2022 conference — sold as “the biggest event in the psychedelic medicine industry” — banned a number of individuals within the psychedelic field without announcing the decision. This list included all members of Psymposia; independent journalist Sasha Sisko; and two former staff members of the Conscious Fund, which funds MicrodoseHQ. 

#Wonderbanned: Dr. Joseph Lichter addresses the decision by #WonderlandMiami organizers @MicrodoseHQ to secretly ban academics and journalists with diverging views, saying this “is not a responsible way forward in the psychedelic space.” 1/11 pic.twitter.com/8H5yJw6bB7

— Psymposia (@psymposia) November 6, 2022

None of these parties were informed of this ban list until it was anonymously leaked online. Sisko — who was gifted a ticket to the event by a MAPS researcher — entered the conference and was immediately forced to leave by security.

MicrodoseHQ claimed (in a statement which has since been removed) that it had assessed a number of individuals and organizations who contributed to concerns of “physical safety” at the event. Psymposia was also informed that individuals were told that those on the list had “openly threatened to physically harm [MAPS Founder and President] Rick Doblin.” 

All of these claims were false, and no evidence was ever provided to support MicrodoseHQ’s claims of “physical safety” concerns. Doblin, himself, confirmed with Psymposia that he did not fear for his safety, nor did he request any individuals be banned from the event. 

What all of the individuals on this list truly had in common was a history of critiquing the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry, presenting consequential holes in psychedelic research, and standing up to unethical employers in the industry.

The Psychedelic Science 2023 Presenter’s contract clauses may not seem as obviously egregious as Wonderland Miami’s secret ban list. But the clauses represent something just as corrosive to the quality of ideas circulating in the field: the formalization of discourse-limiting behavior at psychedelic conferences. This trend is especially worrying at this moment in time, as hype and financial conflicts are widely acknowledged as rampant issues throughout the industry.

Much of the psychedelic field rallied around the banned individuals when it was discovered that MicrodoseHQ had secretly limited discourse, without even informing participating speakers. But hardly anyone will publicly criticize powerful organizations like MAPS (which also conducts research and business that should be scrutinized) when they write limitations on discourse directly into their legal contracts. 

Many individuals who spoke with Psymposia did not believe the clauses in question would be particularly easy to enforce. But the fact remains that the clauses are part of a legally-binding contract and could be enforced (or not) at MAPS’ “sole discretion.” While some may be comfortable assuming these kinds of agreements will not be enforced, many — likely those early in their career and not looking to make waves — will nevertheless be thinking twice about what they say or write about organizations requiring contracts like these.

Update 6/18/2023: Psymposia was informed by a Psychedelic Science 2023 presenter that, following Psymposia’s reporting, MAPS announced that all presenters would be released from the radius clause of the contract. Concerns with the “MAPS reputation” clause were not acknowledged.

“The intention of this [radius] clause, which is common in ticketed events with very large financial liabilities, was to help protect against the possibility of PS2023’s attendance being diluted by a glut of similar regional events, as well as potential confusion about which events are officially part of the conference,” MAPS’ statement reads. “In this case, your feedback helped us recognize that the business concerns about financial risk were not adequately weighed against community concerns — and we’re excited to announce that our attendance goals have certainly been met.” 

While it is commendable for the organization to reassess its actions in response to community concerns, it cannot be ignored that this clause was lifted just days before the conference is set to begin, and only after assuring “attendance goals have certainly been met.” 

On October 2, 2022, psychedelic therapy training provider Fluence filed a trademark for the phrase “Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration.” In response to criticism of this decision, the organization has walked back their attempt to trademark the phrase.

When word spread about the attempted trademark, people online expressed surprise that Fluence would attempt to trademark such basic language. The terms “harm reduction” and “integration” are commonly used when discussing psychedelics and other drugs.

Harm reduction refers to practices, such as drug testing or having a trip sitter, which help lessen the chances of negative social and physical consequences of using drugs. Integration refers to intentional processing of emotions and experiences that come up while using a drug.

President of the Australian Psychedelic Society, Samuel Douglas, tweeted on October 26, “Everyone working in psychedelic harm reduction, give up and go home: @Fluencetraining has, apparently, trademarked ‘Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration’  – PHRI”. Douglas followed up with a note that the trademark appeared to still be pending. 

It was not entirely clear that this trademark was pending, however, as Fluence had listed a certification course on its website called “Postgraduate Certificate in Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration”, which included the “” before the trademark was even filed in October.

Brad Burge, Fluence’s Director of Communication, claimed the trademark application was only intended to be used with Fluence’s specific training program and not intended to restrict others’ use of the terms “harm reduction” or “integration.” 

“Fluence realizes [the trademark] may lead to confusion among practitioners who use these terms, or some combination of them, to describe their clinical practices,” Burge said. “Recognizing this, Fluence is in the process of revising its trademark application for a term with increased specificity and clarity.”

Why a training program composed of commonly used terms would require a trademark was not made explicit, but Burge followed up on November 1, stating, “As of today, Fluence has decided not to pursue a trademark for psychedelic harm reduction and integration as the name of its training program.”

The budding psychedelics industry is full of individuals and organizations ideologically and financially invested in presenting the field as rooted in rigorous, buttoned-up science. However, the entrance of these drugs onto the mainstream stage has already spawned a number of questionable media and marketing stunts. These have included collaborations between psychedelic research groups and various “crunchy” businesses (such as Goop and Dr. Bronner’s); uncritical news segments on networks like Fox and CNN; and endless celebrity endorsements. One executive has even gone as far as claiming that psychedelic pharma will usher in a new “spiritualized humanity” by 2070.

More often than not, these approaches have oversimplified psychedelic science for the sake of an attractive narrative. But — over the last year or so — a number of online promotions from prominent psychedelic organizations have gone above and beyond, pushing the discourse even further from any kind of measured discussion, with results verging on parodying the cultures and science in which these drugs are rooted. 

 

DoubleBlind Magazine claims to be an educational outlet with “a commitment to fact-checking,” proceeds to repackage and promote understudied science

Last year, I published a story through Psymposia about a billboard advertisement that DoubleBlind Magazine and a number of other wellness brands purchased together. DoubleBlind took to social media, boasting about it as the “first-ever billboard campaign in the U.S. devoted to plant medicines” that was “[disrupting] the profit-driven advertising we often see in places like Times Square to fuel a conversation about healing.” 

Spoiler: It was not the first campaign of its kind and it was advertising products that DoubleBlind and its partners sold (just like any other advertising in Times Square).

At the end of that article, I made the argument that any outlet declaring that it provides the “most trustworthy information on psychedelics” and seeks to educate the public about growing and ingesting illegal drugs has a responsibility to its readers to uphold the highest standards of accuracy.

Since then, it has come to my attention that DoubleBlind charges hundreds of dollars for classes based around generally-disproven (and unproven) claims about microdosing for mental health, and information about psychedelics that could otherwise be found for free online.

For $399, DoubleBlind offers a “30-Day Live Microdosing Program,” taught by Adam Bramlage — a “microdosing coach” and founder of the company, Flow State Micro. The decision for the “most trustworthy” source on psychedelic information to sell a course on microdosing is dubious, considering the largest placebo-controlled trial on microdosing recently concluded that microdosing either a psychedelic or a placebo for cognitive enhancement provided essentially the same benefits.

“In the largest placebo-controlled trial into psychedelics to date, they found that small doses of LSD indeed boosted the psychology in all manner of ways,” Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian. “[But] when the researchers examined what trial volunteers took, they found placebos worked equally as well as the drug.”

Genuine question: As a journalistic outlet which claims to promote psychedelic education, how do you square selling microdosing classes with the growing body of research indicating no meaningful difference between microdosing and placebo for psychological improvements? https://t.co/HtK9VLSDbN

— Russell (@RussellHausfeld) February 17, 2022

DoubleBlind co-founder Madison Margolin has gone on record about microdosing’s lack of effect. On the CelebStoner blog, writer Steve Bloom reported that when “asked about microdosing psychedelics, Margolin scoffs, ‘Microdosing is the CBD of psychedelics. (It’s) for people who are afraid to get high. People do CBD and microdose for similar reasons.’”

DoubleBlind producer and host of the organization’s “How To Use Psychedelics” class, Zeus Tipado, has also written a number of articles noting that microdosing placebos seems to have the same effect as microdosing psychedelics (which generally cost a lot more than a sugar pill, especially when paired with $399 classes). 

Tipado even seemed to acknowledge the issues of microdosing classes and coaching in a recent article, stating, “On social media, a potpourri of enticing microdosing courses are available. These often come with pricey memberships hovering around promises of ‘life improvement’ and ‘mental sharpening.’” DoubleBlind even offers a membership service called DoubleBlind+, which it describes as “a definitive resource online for psychedelic education and community building.”

Tipado concludes that article by stating that if someone feels like microdosing truly does help them, he is in no position to tell them to stop. But, he writes, “It would be equally dismissive for me to not inform you that the marketing claims of microdosing are severely misleading. Some are even downright false when compared to the current science surrounding it.” DoubleBlind advertises microdosing for Lyme disease and irregular periods. 

Beyond selling classes on techniques that its own organization’s members seem skeptical of, DoubleBlind’s marketing may strike some as predatory. 

Navigating DoubleBlind’s website, readers are bombarded with pop-up discount ads and offered “free” guides, which ultimately recommend buying classes. The “free” microdosing guide offer, for example, auto-redirected anyone who signed up for it to a $149.99 microdosing course. 

Sigh…

Last month, I wrote about @doubleblindmag's billboard ad, which was marketed as a "first-ever" plant med destigmatization campaign. It wasn't.

Yesterday, I came across these ads for "free" guides which immediately redirect to a $149 class… 1/4#corporadelic pic.twitter.com/XoyL0pqrpk

— Russell (@RussellHausfeld) November 12, 2021

While writing this article, I scrolled through DoubleBlind’s class offerings and received an email almost immediately titled, “Get Our Free Microdosing Guide!” which began with the line, “I noticed you were checking out our course.” 

During my scroll through DoubleBlind’s course offerings, I did not give them my email address or ask for a free guide, which begs the question: How did they “notice” I was checking out their course?

I asked DoubleBlind co-founder Shelby Hartman this question and she told me that I input my email months ago, on November 11, 2021 (when I originally signed up to receive the free microdosing guide via email) and that my “cookies are saved on [the] website for two years.”

Aside from DoubleBlind’s microdosing courses, its offerings include topics such as “How to Grow Mushrooms” ($149.99 for the beginner course and $159.99 for the intermediate course),  “How to Trip-Sit” ($119.99), and “How to Use Psychedelics” ($74.99) — all information that has been generally accessible for free online through websites like Erowid, Bluelight, the DMT Nexus, the Shroomery, and even Reddit. 

Another downside to DoubleBlind selling information on illegal substances is that — unlike the websites which list this information freely — it requires you to relinquish personal identifying information in exchange. DoubleBlind’s privacy policy clearly states it will hand over your information to other entities “to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to a subpoena, search warrant or other lawful request for information we receive.”

Averaging all of DoubleBlind’s current course prices (excluding course bundles) equates to a figure of around $180, and DoubleBlind claims that over 7,000 people have taken their courses. A little back-of-the-napkin math with those figures and it looks like DoubleBlind could have made hundreds of thousands of dollars from trafficking in otherwise freely accessible information and understudied science. 

DoubleBlind markets itself as “provocative” and its founders, Shelby Hartman and Madison Margolin, are often framed as media-savvy veterans of the War on Drugs, writing about “living psychedelically” in venues such as LA Weekly, High Times, and Rolling Stone. 

But as the publication ages, it appears to be adopting many similar approaches to the psychedelic pharmaceutical companies it shares investors with — accepting venture capital funding, choosing to ignore science in favor of profits, and monetizing previously-free and open-source community knowledge. 

Although DoubleBlind does produce some free content (which often acts as a funnel to its paid classes), its main products pollute the field with paywalled content that seems more committed to capitalizing on the current hype around psychedelics than to scientific rigor.

For more psychedelic marketing missteps from DoubleBlind Magazine, see “DoubleBlind Claims Its Ad Was the ‘First-Ever’ U.S. Psychedelic Destigmatization Campaign — It Wasn’t”

 

Field Trip creates an “educational” social media campaign, stereotypes and appropriates Indigenous cultures

Field Trip, a for-profit venture currently offering ketamine infusions with plans to expand into classical psychedelics, released a mobile application in September of 2020 called “Trip.” 

Through the social media accounts created for the app, Field Trip launched an “educational” campaign that incorporated elements of corporate redwashing — the use of Indigenous American depictions for public relations gains. 

The campaign billed itself as “shedding light on time-tested wisdom of native cultures and lands that have brought psychedelic plant medicine work and practices to the world.” However, the exaggerated imagery and stereotyped summaries of Indigenous cultures ultimately resulted in a tone-deaf ad campaign attempting to direct viewers to Field Trip’s app platform. 

Hi @RonanDLevy @tripapp @fieldtriphealth,

We need to talk.

-Psymposia pic.twitter.com/cyP5wwsE1S

— Psymposia (@psymposia) October 6, 2021

One tweet, defining the word “Shaman,” read: “Indigenous cultures regard shamans as the seers , the healers , the prophets . They are believed to have an open connection to the spirit world, which allows them to “see beyond the veil,” or beyond reality as most know it. Head to @tripapp on instagram to read more.” 

This was accompanied by an image of a model in a headdress playing a flute. Not only was this photo depicting an individual in plains tribe clothing (a group not historically associated with classical psychedelic use) but a reverse image search revealed that it was a stock photo taken by a Slovakian photographer titled, “beautiful shamanic girl playing on shaman flute in the nature.”

If viewers were to take the bait and visit Trip app’s Instagram page, they’d find a post which concludes, “We remember the OGs that paved this path for us, and invite indigenous voices forth to hear guidance that stems from generations of learning.”

This statement was paired with images offering brief descriptions of a few (so-called by Field Trip) Indigenous cultures: Shipibo, Mazatec, Huichol (who actually call themselves “Wixárika” and were called “Huichol” by Spanish colonists), and Bwiti (which is a syncretic spiritual practice created in the 20th century, not an Indigenous group).

This is a hot ass mess, but can we talk about how terms like "shaman" "seers" don't come from Indigenous cultures in the Americas? This whole series homogenized Indigenous cultures. https://t.co/6kUCZQlZCN

— Gullah Jack (@if3tay0) October 6, 2021

Trip’s Indigenous tokenization is compounded by the fact that leadership at Field Trip has, in the past, made statements dismissing concepts like “sacred reciprocity,” or the idea that companies should give back to the “OGs that paved this path.” 

At the 2020 Green Market Summit on the Economics of Psychedelic Investing, Field Trip co-founder Ronan Levy said that the company had no plans for implementing “sacred reciprocity” into its business model.

“From our perspective, we are focused on healthcare outcomes,” Levy said. “Our immediate focus, now and when we give back, is to make sure that we are creating pools of money and capital, but make sure that we can make these treatments — which are not inexpensive — available to more people. The marginalized people who might be excluded from accessing this care, because it is going to be expensive. It is very high touch point. So, I don’t have a great answer in terms of addressing the sacred reciprocity, but our focus, in terms of our commitment, is on patient outcomes and making sure people get access to clinical care.”

The offensive copy and generic stock imagery of this “educational” campaign, paired with past comments from Field Trip’s leadership, diminishes any authenticity it may have hoped to claim. Instead, it reads as the hollow attempt of a pharmaceutical company to pander to marginalized communities and promote a new app without doing anything substantive for the communities to which it’s pandering. 

For more psychedelic marketing missteps from Field Trip, see “Field Trip Announces ‘World’s First’ Virtual Psychedelic Therapy, But Forgets To Mention They Aren’t The First And No Psychedelics Are Involved”

 

Awakn Co-Founder Ben Sessa admits a graph is misleading and made for hype, later spins possible patent legal action into company PR

In December of 2020, Ben Sessa, Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of UK-based Awakn Life Sciences Corp, shared a graph on Twitter he made comparing two different studies on the same graph. 

I can't stop thinking about the potential for harms resulting from overeager (& self-interested) researchers hyping psychedelic therapies & instilling unrealistic expectations in potential patients.

The (rare) cases of study participant suicide underscore these concerns. pic.twitter.com/f4PkzRqtOF

— David Nickles (@D__Nickles) December 10, 2020

“When it comes to human psychopharmacology research, you don’t often see results like this,” Sessa tweeted, referencing a graph he created which compared MDMA treatment to abstinence treatment for alcohol addiction. The graph seemed to depict what Sessa wrote next: “Our MDMA-assisted psychotherapy study BLOWS OUT OF THE WATER the current best medical treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder.”

But when questioned about these seemingly-exciting results, Sessa backpedaled.

“Its a bit hyped, fosho, in that these are two separate studies superimposed on one graph,” Sessa wrote. He then responded to another question about the graph: “Its not possible to compare the two groups statistically as this is a superimposed pic of two non-randomized studies to illustrate MDMA vs Treatment as Usual. But it looks good on Twitter…” (emphasis added).

Like I could use HbA1c to measure how exercise effects people w/ pre-diabetes & how metformin works for people w/Type2 diabetes if I put those things on graph together then Metformin will look hugely different. studies don’t have the same populations, goals or designs….

— Emma Tumilty, PhD (@EmTumilty) December 2, 2021

Apparently Awakn thought this graph could be put to use outside of Twitter. The company currently displays the results of a small, 14-person Phase IIa study of MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder (data collected by researchers at Imperial College London, including Sessa and David Nutt, and acquired by Awakn) on its official website, using the graph that Sessa tweeted as an illustration.  The comparison study was also a small, 12-person “observational, questionnaire based, follow-up study [also conducted by Ben Sessa, David Nutt, et al.] in patients undergoing a community alcohol detoxification at Bristol Drug and Alcohol services.”

Notable differences between the two studies include that the Phase IIa study for MDMA included patients being dosed up to two times with MDMA and receiving 10 psychotherapy sessions, whereas it is unclear what kind of therapeutic care participants in the observational, questionnaire-based study received. Also notable: only half (or six) participants in the observational study provided “full datasets at the 9-month follow-up point.” As Sessa noted, “Its not possible to compare the two groups statistically.”

While the study results of the Phase IIa MDMA study were generally positive, with about three-quarters of the 14 subjects (so maybe 10 people) showing some improvement nine months after treatment, the graph is misleading and presumably does not represent data that any legitimate medical professional or scientist would point to as proof that MDMA is more effective than current treatments for Alcohol Use Disorder. 

When presented with Sessa’s comments regarding this graph, a spokesperson from Awakn told Psymposia, “the graph you have pointed out was published in the journal of psychopharmacology [sic], and both we and the journal thought it was clear they were from different studies; however, it seems that is not the case from your email. Therefore, we have updated this on our website to ensure the clarity is there.”

Awakn’s Chief Research Officer, David Nutt, was the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychopharmacology for over two decades, including at the time the MDMA for alcoholism paper was published, and he remains listed as an “editor emeritus.” Nutt was also a co-author on that  paper during his tenure as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychopharmacology (a practice which some academics consider questionable). 

“I’d like psychedelics to work out — the idea that there might be something really effective for intractable depression or PTSD is amazing. The seeming inability of those pursuing this to do any well-designed RCTs [randomized controlled trials] and talk about them accurately is hampering progress,” said bioethicist Emma Tumilty, regarding Sessa’s graph. 

I’d like psychedelics to work out – the idea that they’re might be something really effective for intractable depression or PTSD is amazing. The seeming inability of those pursuing this to do any well-designed RCTs and talk about them accurately is hampering progress IMHO

— Emma Tumilty, PhD (@EmTumilty) December 2, 2021

Tumilty added: “The pattern of talking about results in misleading and overhyped ways, pooling heterogenous data, selective reporting of results, or comparing apples and oranges gives the impression that results are weak or poor and need manipulation to be impressive or persuasive. Robust design and analysis with clear, transparent, and honest reporting is what is needed in this space urgently.”

In another example of how information can be spun and presented for hype, Sessa has taken to describing Awakn as “world leaders” in “MDMA-alcoholism” (based on a 14-person study) and boasting about a seemingly-friendly “Memorandum of Understanding” the company signed with the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) to license MAPS’ preclinical data. 

Another huge announcement from @awakn_ls

MAPS are world leaders in MDMA-PTSD, & Awakn are world leaders in MDMA-alcoholism.

I've been buddies with Rick & MAPS for >15 years.
Its fab to now be cementing this with a formal collaboration. MDMA is a wonderful medicine.
Onwards https://t.co/EarNDTl6KS pic.twitter.com/gMoAHpTYB0

— Dr Ben Sessa MBBS (MD) BSc MRCPsych (@BenSessa) January 19, 2022

While a number of questions and concerns about MAPS have recently come to light, organizational partnerships with MAPS (essentially the most well-established psychedelic organization) have tended to make headlines and inspire investor confidence. 

What goes unsaid is that, according to MAPS Executive Director Rick Doblin, Awakn had tried to undercut MAPS and this “Memorandum of Understanding” was only developed after MAPS threatened legal action. 

Our CEO @AnthonyTennyson reflects on Awakn's MOU with @MAPS to explore a partnership to utilize #MDMA-assisted therapy to treat #AlcoholUseDisorder (AUD) in Europe. For more information visit: https://t.co/yN8vkCrMkp $AWKN $AWKNF pic.twitter.com/eiTK9GFcOs

— Awakn Life Sciences (@awakn_ls) January 19, 2022

In a March 2021 meeting with the Boston Psychedelics Research Group, Doblin explained how MAPS “had a situation with David Nutt [Awakn’s Chief Research Officer]…and Ben Sessa who just did this MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder study.”

“We got them the MDMA, we trained them, we worked with them on the protocol, we let them cross-reference all of our data, and then we find out that they are trying to patent MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder,” Doblin said. “They have their for-profit, Awakn, and they thought the only way they could get investment money was if they patented MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder. So I told Ben that we’re going to challenge their patent. And not only that, they have absolutely no right to do that.”

Doblin went on to cite early writing on MDMA from 1986 which had already identified MDMA’s usefulness for alcohol use reduction. 

“So, for all these years later — 35 years later — for them to say they’re going to try to patent MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder like it’s a new, original invention…it’s ridiculous,” Doblin said.

In the span of a few months, Awakn seemingly walked back their plans to patent MDMA for Alcohol Use Disorder (although the company has filed patents for “MDMA-derived new chemical entities”) and spun the narrative from one of undercutting the organization that supported them, to a positive story about a “Memorandum of Understanding” that was featured in the headlines of a number of investing news websites. 

When asked about Doblin’s comments, a spokesperson from Awakn told Psymposia, “we are not aware of any comments from MAPS in regard to this.”

 

Mind Medicine Australia erases criticism of “Shroom Boom” music video, demonstrates concerning pattern of engagement with criticism

On February 19, Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) — a nonprofit organization attempting to introduce medicalized psychedelic treatments in Australia — released a music video for the song, “Shroom Boom,” written and performed by MMA Executive Director Tania de Jong. The video was released to MMA’s YouTube channel, as well as the YouTube channel “mtaose” which hosts a number of other performances of de Jong and her band, Pot-Pourri. 

Posted without comment.

Full video here: https://t.co/bd5Y7kQUS0 pic.twitter.com/27HDVtq25B

— David Nickles (@D__Nickles) February 20, 2022

The song has been criticized by many psychedelic advocates for depicting psilocybin mushrooms as a miracle cure, demonizing other antidepressant drugs, and being generally cringe-worthy (one Twitter user likened it to a mix between Teletubbies, Hillsong church songs, and budget pharma ads). 

The song begins with the lyrics:

Why can’t I get out of bed?
It’s not because I am dead
And yet the pain never stops
Antidepressants and side effects
So I tried magic mushrooms
And now I’m feeling so great
Now I’m changing my brain waves
And I’m changing my state

This oversimplification of psychedelic treatment comes at a time when many worry that the current hype around psychedelics may lead depressed people (especially those who have tried other treatments unsuccessfully) to approach psychedelics with unrealistic expectations or as a desperate final attempt at healing. 

Dr. Rosalind Watts, the former Clinical Lead at Imperial College’s Centre for Psychedelic Research, commented on this video that the song made her sad and was “irresponsible.”

“Taking magic mushrooms to treat depression is a high risk therapy that requires ongoing support from trained professionals. Psychedelic trips can uncover trauma and very painful emotions. They often require many therapy sessions just to process some of the raw stuff that comes up. They do not magically reset the depressed brain, or heal the world, or the soul,” Watts wrote, responding to the above lyrics as well as the later song lyrics: “Shroom boom, come into the mushroom, healing our planet, healing our souls.”

She continued her comment, stating that psilocybin mushrooms can be very helpful for some people, but that they can also be unpredictable. 

“If you are taking antidepressants, please do not stop taking them and eat loads of magic mushrooms. Please do not consider this song to be a health message from a responsible organization, it is most certainly not that,” Watts concluded.

Watts’ concerned YouTube comment — along with a number of other comments presenting criticism of the song — has since been removed. 

At the same time that critical comments such as Watts’ were being removed from the video, MMA announced a competition asking people to leave them comments about the video, and like and share the organization’s Twitter post about the video for the chance to win $99-worth of MMA merchandise. 

This is not the first time that MMA has received criticism from psychedelic advocates. In November of 2021, a letter was sent to advisors and board members of MMA from “concerned members of the psychedelic community” who claimed to be ex-MMA staff and volunteers. The letter accused de Jong of “bullying, abusive control, and cruel treatment of those she is responsible for, is representing, or has power over.” 

De Jong’s husband and co-founder of MMA, Peter Hunt, responded to the anonymous letter by asserting that de Jong is an “incredibly talented and caring human being,” characterizing the letter writers as a “small group” of hypocrites, and painting their concerns as “unnecessary challenges that we constantly have from a small group of spiteful, selfish and rather sad people.” He continued by stating that he worried letters voicing harms regarding psychedelic organizations may send a message to regulators that “we are a community divided by pettiness and that we are incapable of coherent and professional discussion of differences.”

Hunt asked anyone who knew the letter writers to “insist that they behave decently and in a caring and respectful way. Ask them to consider the importance of the work that we [MMA] are doing and to consider the implications before posting small-minded and defamatory material. Please ask them to behave as professionals and bring concerns into the clear and open air where we can assess differences and hopefully come to some form of understanding.” 

The writers of the letter state that their choice to remain anonymous was out of fear of litigation from MMA. This fear is not unfounded, as MMA has responded to other online criticism by calling it harassment, calling the police, and — in one case — attempting to get an anonymous Twitter user identified. Psymposia has been informed, by a source who would prefer to remain anonymous, that MMA leadership has also attempted to get an internet forum owner to identify users of their forum who criticized MMA. 

Psymposia has also been on the receiving end of defensive responses to criticism of MMA.

During an investigation into MMA’s Certification in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy program, Psymposia reached out to de Jong, Hunt, and a number of MMA advisors with concerns about accreditation claims and faculty listed on MMA’s website. 

Psymposia Managing Editor, David Nickles, laid out these concerns in episode 8 of the podcast Cover Story: Power Trip.

In the episode, Nickles notes that it is “worth pointing out that they [MMA] list Francoise Bourzat [who has been accused — along with her husband — of harming multiple clients] as the first trainer on their psychedelic certificate page.”

This was the first concern that Psymposia reached out about. The second issue was regarding MMA’s representations of professional organizations accrediting its therapist training program. 

“On their website, at the time, they had the logos of several Australian professional organizations under the headline ‘Accreditations.’ The Australian Association for Social Workers, the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists, the Australian Psychological Society,” Nickles said. “And so I reached out to all of these organizations and it turned out that not a single one of them had accredited MMA’s certificate. When I reached out, they said things along the lines of: ‘We don’t know what you’re talking about. Whose website are we listed on?’ In other cases, they had explicitly told MMA ‘no,’ or they actually weren’t accrediting any outside training programs. And once those organizations were made aware of the listings, they asked MMA to remove their logos, which they did.”

In response to Psymposia’s inquiries of MMA and its advisors, someone using de Jong’s email account sent an email to MMA’s board and advisors calling Psymposia a “tiny fringe publication” and characterizing our inquiries as “defamatory statements.”

“These statements [about accreditation and faculty] are incorrect [editors’ note: they were correct] and are a result of prejudice and malicious intent,” wrote someone from an email account that matches one de Jong has listed publicly as her own. The email continued: “These are underground psychedelics people who resent the psychedelic renaissance and the need for these treatments to be conducted in medically controlled clinical environments to treat a range of serious mental illnesses. They are also anti-capitalist and post a lot of vitriol about many leading organizations (NFPs and commercial) in the space.” 

This same language had appeared in a prior email to an accrediting organization, which was anonymously leaked to Psymposia. When Psymposia inquired about this email, de Jong denied sending it, telling Nickles, “I don’t know. Like, that is very strange,” even though it was sent from her personal email and signed “Tania de Jong.” 

De Jong and Hunt’s rebuttal-of-choice to criticism appears to be to attack the character of their critics; emphasize that their critics are “small,” “tiny,” or “fringe”; and, when possible, erase the criticism altogether, as they did with a number of critical YouTube comments. 

As MMA continues to assert itself as the leading organization attempting to bring psychedelic treatments to Australia, its lack of engagement with (and often outright dismissal of) criticism is concerning. 

Any entity attempting to claim that level of authority might be expected to have patients’ best interest in mind and be cautious about promoting overblown claims and dangerous practitioners — especially when MMA boasts an advisory panel and “Ambassador” list of over 75 individuals working in psychedelic research fields. 

These individuals include, but are not limited to, Rick Doblin (Executive Director of MAPS), Roland Griffiths (Johns Hopkins University), David Nutt (Imperial College London), Ben Sessa (AWAKN Clinics), Bill Richards (Johns Hopkins University), Robin Carhartt-Harris (University of California San Francisco, formerly Imperial College London), James Fadiman (author of “The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide”), Wade Davis (anthropologist and author of “One River”), Albert Garcia-Romeu (Johns Hopkins University), Ingmar Gorman (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and Fluence), Matthew Johnson (Johns Hopkins University), Gabor Maté (renowned writer on addiction), David Caldicott (Cavalry Hospital), Dan Engle (writer of “A Dose of Hope: A Story of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy”), Lynn Marie Morski (host of the “Plant Medicine Podcast”),  Rachel Yehuda (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Johann Hari (author of “Chasing the Scream: the First and Last Days of the War on Drugs”), David Nichols (Purdue), Reid Robison (Chief Medical Officer at Novamind), and Ronald D. Siegel (Harvard Medical School). 

[Update 5/25/2022: Since the publication of this article, Lynn Marie Morski and Rachel Yehuda have been removed from the MMA Advisory Panel. Update 7/21/2022: Johann Hari has been removed from the MMA Advisory Panel.]

What does it mean when some of the world’s most respected researchers of psychedelic drugs make common cause with those broadcasting irresponsible or overblown claims to the public? As we have seen, some will speak out against inaccuracies and blatant lies, but others seem more than happy to stick around and lend organizations like MMA their credibility.

Psymposia has contacted MMA’s advisors with concerns about the organization and the information it promotes (well before “Shroom Boom” dropped). At least one advisor requested removal from MMA’s website but remains listed as an advisor. Beckley Foundation Executive Director Amanda Feilding, for example, made a statement in January of 2021 distancing herself from her advisory position at MMA, but still remains listed on the “Advisory Panel” section of the organization’s website. The vast majority of advisors, however, have chosen to remain affiliated with MMA despite the concerns shared with them — some going as far as dismissing Psymposia’s inquiries about accreditation and abusive faculty as “‘tabloid-like’ allegations.”

We are associated with Mind Medicine Australia in their capacity as advocates of psychedelic therapy.

As a scientific research organisation, we do not agree with Tania's views on this particular issue, as they appear to be contrary to the current scientific evidence. pic.twitter.com/1miOdcTCX7

— Beckley Foundation | Psychedelic Research (@BeckleyResearch) January 8, 2021

The Comedown 

All of the organizations in this article share a concerning desire to hold the hands and shape the minds of the next generation of psychedelic users. 

DoubleBlind’s “About” page reads, “We’re not speaking to the veteran tripper nor evangelizing to the anti-drug square. We are speaking to everyone who is curious about psychedelics.” And if one were to read that sentence on DoubleBlind’s website, they’d likely be interrupted before the end by a pop-up ad for how to avoid “Newbie” psychedelic mistakes.

Organizations like Field Trip, Awakn, and MMA — those looking to medicalize psychedelics — often identify their ideal customers as those who appreciate going to their doctors and might be too nervous to try psychedelics on their own.

Both media-based and clinic-based businesses have identified an influx of interest in psychedelic drugs from an increasingly mainstream crowd. Whether these new folks are struggling with untreatable PTSD or just happen to live in a state where psychedelic drugs are newly decriminalized, many businesses have deemed the most effective sales pitch to be marketing miracles; demonizing other forms of treatment; fronting as cultural experts; or overstating research.

To date, much of the data being trumpeted in online advertising has been garnered from small-scale studies. For example, Enthea — a non-profit benefit plan administrator promoting psychedelic healthcare and partnering with companies like Dr. Bronner’s — references a 15-person smoking cessation study on its website to claim that psilocybin-assisted therapy has resulted “in 80% successful abstinence compared to 10-20% with other interventions.” 

Even in the paper where Enthea found these numbers, the authors note: “Additional, carefully controlled research in larger, more diverse samples is necessary to determine efficacy.” And yet, these study results (excluding numbers of participants) are already being used as promotional material for, in this case, a company that wants to sell you and your employer access to networks of psychedelic providers.

It seems that too few of these companies and media outlets are interested in moving slowly and mitigating unrealistic expectations, potential dangers, and oversights around psychedelics. And while plenty of entities participating in the newly-mainstreamed psychedelic industry may state that patient safety and risk management are important to them, they still seem willing to stretch the science and complicated cultural histories of these substances in search of a profit. In doing so, these organizations disregard the well-being of the very customers they are so eagerly pursuing.

On November 10, 2021, a group of concerned individuals published the website, whoisjoeschraube.com, detailing alleged misconduct and harms caused by two men involved in the German psychedelic scene: Joe Schraube and Miguel Delgado (also known as Miguel Martinez). 

Delgado, who leads psychedelic retreats that he describes as “entheogen sexual balancing,” appears to be creating his own retreat space in Mexico and has allegedly abused a number of clients. Schraube — who has been involved in a number of European psychedelic organizations including Psychedelic Society Germany — has been accused of using psychedelics and his positions of power to coerce women into sexual relations. Schraube has also promoted Delgado’s retreats and created a campaign attempting to discredit an individual who came forward about Delgado’s abusive behavior.

Testimonies shared with Psymposia prior to the publication of this website detailed a number of disturbing instances in which Delgado is said to have led unprofessional ceremonies and abused participants. 

The reports presented to Psymposia detailed Delgado verbally abusing ceremony participants; allowing minors to participate in drug ceremonies; making sexual advances towards participants (including minors); serving large doses of psychedelics to minors; losing track of participants during ceremony and not bothering to look for them; taking drugs like ayahuasca and rapé in large doses with participants; discrediting participants’ negative experiences; and interpreting participants’ psychedelic experiences for them, before they’d had time to process their own experiences. 

One of the website creators, Nadja Schollenberger, was introduced to Delgado through one of Schraube’s events. After having a negative experience at an ayahuasca retreat hosted by Delgado in 2018 — in which the organizers used psychedelics, lost control of the situation, and left Schollenberger completely unattended (she spent the “whole night outdoors without anyone ever checking on [her]”) — Schollenberger spoke out on Facebook. 

She approached Schraube with her own testimony and the testimonies of others who had shared their negative experiences about Delgado, but she said Schraube seemed to want nothing to do with the issue.

It was not until two years later — when Schollenberger and a few other organizers started a new group called Psychedelic Society Berlin, without Schraube — that Schraube decided to investigate Delgado. According to Schollenberger, the individuals whose testimonies she had presented to Schraube in confidence two years earlier were contacted by Schraube out of the blue and asked to detail their abuse. Schraube also passed some individuals’ contact information on to Delgado, who contacted them.

The result of Schraube’s investigation was turned into a web page — hosted by Psychedelic Society Germany and titled “Protected: criticism or projection? The case of Nadja Schollenberger vs Miguel Martinez” (translated from German) — attempting to discredit Schollenberger’s claims and defending Delgado. The page contains a number of positive testimonies from people close to Delgado, including his romantic partner. 

The site includes a meme at the top of the homepage which depicts a bicyclist, captioned “taking a psychedelic,” sabotaging himself by jamming a stick (representing his “unwillingness” to change his “toxic behavior patterns”) into the spokes of his bike. The final panel shows the bicyclist on the ground, clutching his leg, proclaiming, “I HAD A BAD TRIP.” This meme is essentially saying that people’s bad trips result from their unwillingness to change  their own “toxic behavior patterns.” In the context of the web page, this appears to place blame on those claiming to have had bad experiences and dismiss their allegations.

The creators of the Psychedelic Society Germany web page also criticize Schollenberger’s approach to exposing abuse, implying that the matter of abuse should have been dealt with in private, not online, stating, “Something like this should be clarified among the two, why is this here on the net?”

The Psychedelic Society Germany investigation concluded by stating that “not a single witness confirms Nadia’s reports.” 

However, based on the testimonies reviewed by Psymposia and now available on whoisjoeschraube.com, this is untrue. There are a number of testimonies backing up Schollenberger’s accusations about Delgado’s behavior. Schollenberger told Psymposia that people who did speak to Schraube about negative experiences with Delgado were left off the Psychedelic Society Germany web page. This claim is supported by testimony on whoisjoeschraube.com. 

The creators of whoisjoeschraube.com articulate their respect for the time Schraube has put in to create space for conversations about psychedelics in Germany. They note, “It is not our intention to dismiss all that he has done for the psychedelic scene.” But they have had experiences with Schraube and heard “several common allegations against Joe Schraube” which they cannot remain silent about any longer. 

This website was created as an act of harm reduction after years of attempting to discuss and expose the behaviors of Schraube and Delgado through other channels and after repeated attempts to discredit abuse victims by the two men. 

“We established this website as a vehicle for telling the truth: a sharing platform which serves as a channel to give voice to those that have been harmed, provide a record of past abuse, and a container for personal recognition, collective healing and community building,” the website states. 

The creators of whoisjoeschraube.com believe that allegations like those being raised about Schraube and Delgado — both of whom act as gatekeepers to psychedelic drugs and social networks — should be taken very seriously as psychedelic medicine becomes more popular and mainstream. 

“Renewed possibilities in research, increased interest and acceptance in broader society, and political advancement in certain regions of the world are contributing to [what is deemed a psychedelic renaissance],” the whoisjoeschraube.com website states. “This surge in interest also increases the likelihood of encountering issues within the community; more people means more perspectives, more ways of behaving, and a greater diversity of beliefs. Though this is something that is desired and needed for the inclusion of all, as well as inspiring development, it also opens the floor to adverse encounters or social predicaments. We believe that in order for the psychedelic community to flourish, criticality and the willingness to learn from mistakes is crucial, as is the integration of social justice principles.”

Psymposia reached out to Schraube and Delgado for comment. As of publishing, neither of them have responded.

Schraube did respond to the Facebook post of a member of the Psychedelic Society Berlin who was involved with the whoisjoeschraube.com project. 

Schraube referenced his investigation into Delgado, and claimed he “made it [his] job to investigate these cases and heard over 30 witness reports. Surprisingly, they all agreed, Nadia is a bit crazy, there may be these rapes on Aya, but only in her head (Translated from German).” Schraube claims no one he interviewed could back up Schollenberger’s claims about Delgado’s bad behavior—particularly allegations of rape. However, as noted above, there is now a whole website of testimonies which corroborate Schollenberger’s claims about Delagado’s behavior. Schollenberger said that she raised concerns about Delgado’s inappropriate sexual behavior and misuse of power, but never specifically about rape. 

Concluding his statement, Schraube writes: “Why have I spent several days / now weeks with this shit? Why has this topic been busy for 3 years ( ! ) so many people ? Why do so few simply ask: is that true? A court will now have to clarify it and Nadia can then finally name her witnesses…I’m excited and happy to not have anything to do with this anymore (Translated from German).”

Schollenberger responded: “We are very happy to clarify all this in court Joe. I’m looking forward to it (Translated from German).” 

Full testimonies about abuse and misconduct by Schraube and Delgado may be found here. 

At the beginning of 2020, I attended the Green Market Summit on the Economics of Psychedelic Investing in New York City. After leaving the summit — which featured some of the first public discussions of for-profit psychedelic investing — I took a walk through Times Square, where a massive LED billboard displayed an ad for the meditation app Calm. 

Reflecting on this billboard in an article for Psymposia, I wrote that it seemed like the antithesis of where one might expect to find an ad for a meditation app. I wondered: “Will we see ads for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy in Times Square one day?” 

Well, it appears that psychedelic lifestyle brands beat psychedelic pharma companies to the billboard space.

It’s official. We’re running the first-ever campaign in the U.S. devoted to destigmatizing plant medicines. If you’re in New York, it’s running from 9/26 at midnight to 10/3 at midnight at 719 7th Ave. Help us amplify the movement by seeing it! #celebrateplantmedicine pic.twitter.com/GKtWCPLZkN

— DoubleBlind (@doubleblindmag) September 29, 2021

DoubleBlind Magazine — a psychedelic-focused publication which shares venture capitalist investors with a number of psychedelic pharma companies like Atai Life Sciences, MindMed, and Field Trip — recently concluded what they call a “first-ever billboard campaign in the U.S. devoted to plant medicines” which aims to destigmatize plant medicine and “disrupt the profit-driven advertising we often see in places like Times Square to fuel a conversation about healing.”

“Why?” A DoubleBlind Instagram post reads. “Because we live in a world where we’re surrounded by advertisements trying to sell us things — from our phones and computers to our highways and even the skies. So, even if for one moment, we wanted to take up some of this space with a counter-message: one of the incredible healing potential of plant medicines.”

The billboard advertisement consisted of the message, “Are you ready to wake up? Witness the SCIENTIFIC Renaissance. Witness the CULTURAL Renaissance. Witness the MEDICINAL Renaissance.” 

Following this message, brand names appeared descending down the billboard for mushroom supplement company, Rainbo; digital magazine and CBD “neck potion” retailer, Muses; DoubleBlind Magazine; and “Cannabis/Sexiness/Culture” magazine, Honeysuckle. The ad concluded with flashing images of each brand’s products, and the lines: “Dive Deep Into Plant Medicine. Join The Movement. #celebrateplantmedicine.”

#CelebratePlantMedicine w/ us now thru 10/3! We've got Times Square's 1st ever #psychedelics billboard at 719 7th Ave w/ @doubleblindmag @MusingsMagazine #RainboMushrooms.

Join us to grow the #plantbased #health movement. #NYC #TimesSquareBillboard pic.twitter.com/hUYfV6AFuI

— Honeysuckle Magazine (@HoneysuckleMag) September 28, 2021

Nowhere in these brands’ public statements about the billboard did they mention the word “advertisement.” Instead, they called this a “campaign” (notably without the modifier: “ad”) and encouraged their followers to “go visit the billboard: take photos, videos, and go live in front of the billboard using #celebrateplantmedicine. Follow and tag us and our partners so we can reshare your posts! If you feel called, we encourage you to include information in the caption of your posts about how plant medicines have transformed your life.” 

In essence, this language asked DoubleBlind’s followers to take pictures of its advertisement and carry out viral marketing for the company.

According to DoubleBlind’s CEO, Shelby Hartman, DoubleBlind’s advertising partner, Honeysuckle, proposed this billboard campaign for September 20 (a day when people celebrate psilocybin mushrooms). But the ad campaign was not able to run until September 27 due to negotiations with the billboard owner. 

Honeysuckle has pulled this stunt before on multiple occasions — buying billboard space and promoting it to followers as a conscious campaign to gain cultural cachet. 

Earlier this year, the magazine managed to wrap three progressive-signaling topics into one “policy-changing” billboard advertisement campaign. 

“As the United Nations issued its most dire report on climate change yet between National CBD Day and International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, Honeysuckle Magazine, was at the heart honoring the First Nations, and female-led cannabis brands with the latest Times Square billboard campaign,” Honeysuckle’s press release read. 

The campaign featured a number of billboards with Honeysuckle’s logo occasionally accompanied by lines like “Honors First Nations in Plant Medicine” or “Salutes Indigenous + Women + Organics” along with codes for 20% off CBD supplements. Honeysuckle has run a number of similar campaigns in New York City under the façade of bringing awareness to issues, while really promoting themselves and their ad partners.

In light of a daunting #ClimateReport, Honeysuckle held up #organicfarming and #natural medicine in NYC on #NationalCBDday, honoring those protecting the planet @frannysfarmacy @Legacy420store @corerootsforlife @maryjane_flowergirl
@samuelclemenslong pic.twitter.com/uAFPb0V7Ft

— Honeysuckle Magazine (@HoneysuckleMag) August 11, 2021

Hartman told Psymposia that she believes their advertisement campaign differs from “profit-driven” advertisements because DoubleBlind and its advertising partners are all “impact-oriented businesses.” 

Hartman said that all of DoubleBlind’s profits go directly to funding its journalism and “simply keeping the lights on,” but she can’t speak specifically for her advertising partners. It is unclear how DoubleBlind‘s approach differs from standard industry practices of media companies that advertise their products in the interest of generating profits.

“In regards to the billboard creative itself, it’s important to note that we only wanted the billboard to be about the destigmatization of psychedelics,” Hartman said. “But, crazily enough, we discovered that the companies who own the billboards required that our ad had a physical product in it and that it was clear who was behind it. To us, it was just an exemplification of the problematic system we’re a part of, and why advertising is so backwards in this country. We discussed it internally and decided that as long as we could still get messaging into the billboard about plant medicines and we could tie the campaign to a hashtag that would allow people to share their stories of transformation that it was still worth doing. So what you see as the final creative — which includes messaging [“Join The Movement”, “Dive Into Plant Medicine”] and a hashtag [“#celebrateplantmedicine”] — but also flashes through some of the things we sell (i.e. our magazines, the mushroom tincture) was the compromise.”

Psymposia noted that, in light of this compromise to drop educational messaging and replace it with product displays, it seemed incongruous to describe this advertisement as a “campaign to disrupt profit-driven advertising.”

“I’d like to acknowledge here that I understand and respect why you feel the words ‘campaign’ and ‘movement’ were misleading, given that there were physical products that are sold in the creative,” Hartman said. “Our opinion is that the context as to why we did that — simply because there was no other way to get the creative approved — and we still believed the billboard itself would drive people to our online journalism, which is all free, is important.”

Although she notes that the billboard may help these companies generate profits and drive people to DoubleBlind’s website (where it sells classes, magazines, and oil tinctures), Hartman does not think it is fair to categorize this advertisement campaign as “profit-driven.”

“To us, ‘profit-driven’ means that we are first and foremost motivated by profit, that our primary goal is to make money for money’s sake,” Hartman said. “That was not our incentive for running the billboard. Intention gets tricky when it comes to ethics — as there is no way for us to prove our intention to you — but we are not motivated by profit… Any profit we generate is in service of our work and our mission.”

This is true of any business. Hartman is essentially noting that DoubleBlind — a venture capital-backed media company — operates like a regular business.

As it ultimately appeared, the billboard campaign was a prime display of “conscious capitalist” advertising at work. “Conscious capitalism” is essentially when brands claim to represent an ethical, higher social purpose but continue to behave exactly like capitalist entities, hiding behind a corporate responsibility façade of “doing well by doing good.”

“Conscious capitalism’s role is to prop up the existing order by modifying its more minor attributes, while keeping its essential nature intact,” writer Alnoor Ladha wrote in a DoubleBlind article from 2020. “It is the desperate strategy of a dying system trying to keep our thinking within the narrow band of logic that makes it [the system] appear inevitable and necessary. This entirely false belief is what gives us the license to act as if we can continue human activity as we have been. In fact, it tells us that the world will be better for it. It is a strategy of business as usual, with the addition of a moral incentive.”

What are these billboard campaigns if not “business as usual, with the addition of a moral incentive”? 

The only way this campaign differed from the “profit-driven advertising” it claimed to disrupt is because the brands said so. In reality, these brands spent money to get their names and products out in front of people, just like every other brand on a billboard in New York City. (For reference, the “Feeling Fat and Lazy” billboard behind the DoubleBlind billboard cost about $13,000 per month, or $3,250 per week). 

One could argue that it would have been a much more radical move to have just donated the money they spent on the billboard campaign to the causes they claim to be representing. Instead, this ad campaign ends up appearing closer in line with Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad or Budweiser’s 2018 Super Bowl ads ⁠— which capitalized on protests for racial justice and disaster relief efforts, respectively, to sell their products.

In fact, grassroots campaigns to destigmatize plant medicine (some with strikingly similar names to #celebrateplantmedicine) have existed well before what DoubleBlind calls its “first-ever campaign in the U.S. devoted to destigmatizing plant medicine.” And they existed without the self promotion or expensive advertising fees.

In 2016, Psymposia and a coalition of psychedelic societies and nonprofit research groups ran an online psychedelic destigmatization campaign called #psychedelicsbecause.

More recently, Thank You Plant Medicine (TYPM) — a social media movement founded two years ago by David Grillot and Jonathan Glazer — asks people to publicly share healing experiences they’ve had with plant medicines. While there are criticisms of psychedelic exceptionalism to be made about this movement — such as not including plants like coca and poppy in their definition of “plant medicines” — one thing they do not appear to be doing is advertising supplements alongside their messaging. 

Grillot told Psymposia that he was initially surprised to see DoubleBlind’s advertisement feature language so close to the language used by TYPM. But, ultimately, TYPM was supportive of DoubleBlind’s efforts.

Other billboards in the US have also featured psychedelics, such as the billboard for the band LSD’s self-titled album or any number of billboards for ketamine clinics. DoubleBlind’s own advertising partner, Honeysuckle, as well as medical cannabis guide creator, WeedMaps, have both run destigmatization billboard campaigns for cannabis — a plant medicine.

None of this is to say that DoubleBlind and Honeysuckle don’t produce valuable content. As noted above, DoubleBlind has published articles that serve as great critiques to its own recent advertising strategy. The magazine also claims to set aside a portion of its budget specifically for scholarships for its classes and the promotion and publication of BIPOC writers and journalists. And Honeysuckle has produced reporting which aided the compassionate release of California inmate DaReta Gail Steverson.

DoubleBlind claims to provide the “most trustworthy information on psychedelics,” and advertises that it has graduated over 5000 students. Given that DoubleBlind produces journalism and educational courses for novices on growing psilocybin mushrooms and microdosing with psychedelics, maintaining a relationship of authenticity and trust is essential. Any outlet that seeks to educate the public about growing and ingesting illegal drugs has a responsibility to uphold the highest standards of accuracy. It is misleading and a disservice to readers who trust the magazine not to call this billboard campaign what it is. It’s an advertisement, not a movement.

COMPASS Pathways’ United Kingdom psilocybin patent, GB2572023B, is under scrutiny in a new opinion, which was released by UK Intellectual Property Office patent examiner Jason Bellia on July 28, 2021. 

The UK patent in question lays out the preparation and use of psilocybin Polymorph A — a crystalline form of psilocybin defined by its X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) diffractogram peaks and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) thermogram measurements. 

The novelty of COMPASS Pathways’ patents for Polymorph A have been previously called into question by Freedom to Operate Inc. (FTO), a nonprofit founded by Carey Turnbull — a board member of Usona Institute, President of the Heffter Research Institute, and CEO of Ceruvia Lifesciences. 

COMPASS Pathways’ international patent applications have also been criticized for attempting to patent psilocybin therapy for an overly-broad range of conditions. 

Bellia’s recent opinion concluded that he does not think that certain claims in the UK patent are inventive or novel, based on prior art. 

“In summary I consider that claims 1, 3 and 10-20 are not inventive, based on Folen and Nichols [relevant prior art presented by Freedom to Operate Inc.],” Bellia wrote. 

Claims 1, 3, and 10-20 — which Bellia deemed “not inventive” — define aspects and uses of Polymorph A based on XRPD and DSC thermogram measurements; color; purity; batch size; dosage forms and sizes; and uses such as treatment of a central nervous system disorder or treatment-resistant depression. 

According to Graham Pechenik, a patent attorney with Calyx Law and Editor-at-Large for Psilocybin Alpha, “not inventive” in this context means “to lack an ‘inventive step’ or that any purported ‘inventive concept’ over the state of the art ‘would have been obvious to the person skilled in the art.’ In simpler terms, it just means the supposed invention is obvious.” 

Pechenik said that in layman’s terms, Bellia’s conclusion “means that the UK patent examiner believes that those claims are not inventive, and should be invalid, but the opinion is not binding and does not have any immediate effect on Compass’ patent, although it could subsequently be revoked.”

Of interest to those following Compass Pathways' patents on psilocybin: On July 28 an examiner at the UK IP Office issued an opinion on Compass' UK patent: "I consider that claims 1, 3 and 10-20 are not inventive, based on Folen and Nichols." 1/ https://t.co/lLyB7WcS8w pic.twitter.com/xj1oZP1k4P

— Shayla Love (@shayla__love) August 2, 2021

Regarding Bellia’s opinion, COMPASS Pathways wrote to Psilocybin Alpha: “We have received a non-binding opinion from the UK IP Office, questioning aspects of some of the claims in our granted UK patents. The opinion came in response to a ‘Request for opinion’ from a third party [Kohn & Associates PLLC, on behalf of FTO] and is just that: a non-binding opinion. The opinion does not invalidate our patent or any of its claims. We remain confident in the strength and defensibility of our patents.”

However, Dr. David Nichols, a co-inventor of COMPASS Pathways’ GB2572023B patent, told Psymposia that he believes Bellia’s opinion could be accurate.

“The opinion is very comprehensive,” Nichols said. “I am not a patent attorney, so I cannot opine on whether it is precisely correct. I assume that examiner Bellia is well versed on patents and that his opinion is a valid one.”

Pechenik noted that COMPASS Pathways and its patent attorneys in the United States have a “duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the [Patent] Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability.”

This duty of disclosure means that COMPASS Pathways and its patent attorneys “may need to alert its US patent examiners about the opinion, in its pending US prosecutions. Failure to do so could be inequitable conduct that renders any subsequently issued US patents unenforceable, but it would be up to a US patent examiner to determine if the Opinion is reason to reject any currently pending claims,” Pechenik said. 

According to Pechenik, only a small number of these UK opinions have ever been issued. And he is not aware of any being notably dispositive or significant in any US litigations or proceedings in the past.

The Third Wave—which bills itself as a psychedelic education outlet run by “microdosing coach,” Paul Austin—has been accused of stealing information from Psychedelic.Support’s provider directory and MAPS’ Psychedelic Integration List.

This adds to the growing list of questionable behaviors from the Third Wave which Psymposia has previously reported on. In 2019, Psymposia published an open letter from members of the Third Wave staff who resigned over a Third Wave event with admitted sexual predator, Daniel Pinchbeck. In 2020, Psymposia reported on how Austin duped the BBC into marketing his microdose coaching program: “Becoming Superhuman” or alternately, “Become Bodhisattva.”

“The entire Psychedelic.Support community was aghast to learn on March 12, 2021 that all of the copyrighted information in our leading provider directory—names, bios, profiles, photographs—had been taken from our site without permission and published on another online platform [the Third Wave],” said Allison Feduccia, PhD, the co-founder and CEO of Psychedelic.Support.

The public link to the Third Wave directory (archived here) was sent to Feduccia by Austin, who later claimed that the directory was “still in beta mode” and that he had only wanted her feedback. But Feduccia noted that she could trace the upload of Psychedelic.Support’s content to the Third Wave’s site back to December 2020.

“No matter how you mince words, a line was crossed when information was downloaded from our site without permission and uploaded [to the Third Wave’s site] in December of 2020 for all to see,” Feduccia told Psymposia.

Psychedelic.Support’s directory provides information and profiles on vetted psychedelic-assisted therapy providers. These providers have all consented to having their information presented on the platform.

Providers did not consent to having their information copied and used on the Third Wave’s directory.

“I am incredibly disappointed in Paul Austin and Thirdwave [sic] for this violation,” said Emma Knighton, a mental health counselor listed in the Psychedelic.Support directory. “More than running into issues of copyright, this is a consent violation. I did not consent to having my name associated with Thirdwave [sic] (nor would I have if I were asked). This is an issue of entitlement, lack of ownership around systems of power, and misrepresentation of the spirit of psychedelics which so many of us are fighting to preserve in a field becoming increasingly colonized.”

Austin said in a March 12 email to members of Psychedelic.Support (seen by Psymposia), “I wanted to assure you that we don’t intend to make this directory publicly available until we’ve received explicit authorization from every individual listed.”

However, this statement appears to be false. To the knowledge of Psychedelic.Support and Psymposia, none of the individuals included on the the Third Wave site had been contacted by Austin or anyone at the Third Wave about inclusion in their directory.

According to a tweet from Austin, the directory has been public since at least January. The first snapshot of the directory on Internet Archive from January 29 confirms this. And the link Feduccia was given in March wasn’t password-protected until she voiced her concerns about the theft.

After Feduccia made providers aware of the Third Wave’s behavior, Austin emailed her, “I would have been grateful if you had reached out to me directly to express your concerns [instead of sharing the link with providers].”

Feduccia said she reached out to her network of providers first because she saw Austin’s actions as a huge breach of trust.

“We rigorously vet every one of our providers prior to allowing them to join our network,” Feduccia said. “Psychedelic.Support exists for healing and positive transformation. Trust is paramount in this mission, which is why we immediately reached out to all of our providers to inform them of this breach of trust.”

The Third Wave also copied content from MAPS’ Psychedelic Integration List, which catalogs providers willing to help integrate clients’ psychedelic experiences.

Screenshots seen by Psymposia show images and text on the Third Wave’s directory that are identical to the MAPS Psychedelic Integration List.

MAPS Director of Communications, Betty Aldworth, originally said that MAPS had no comment on this. Aldworth referred Psymposia to the Creative Commons license at the bottom of the Integration List page, which stated that anyone could share or adapt the page’s content with appropriate attribution.

Aldworth later clarified that, “Apparently the Creative Commons doesn’t apply to this information, so I redact [sic] that comment,” and said she would look into the situation.

Following this statement, the Creative Commons link—which had been at the bottom of MAPS’ list since at least March 4, 2019—was removed.

In a later email, when asked why the link was removed, Aldworth stated that Psymposia’s question flagged the error, so MAPS removed the link. Following up on the Third Wave situation, Aldworth restated, “We have no comment on this matter otherwise.”

Noting that the information on the page was incorrectly labeled as Creative Commons for two years has a range of implications, including that providers’ information may have been copied from MAPS and used without their consent (as long as MAPS was attributed). The license linked from the page stated that anyone could “remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.”

Regardless of MAPS’ Creative Commons license mistake, the Third Wave directory did not properly attribute MAPS, meaning it was still violating the (incorrect, according to MAPS) terms of use.

A source informed Psymposia that Austin had used the Third Wave directory, populated with stolen information, in a pitch at a private investor meeting in March. Psymposia asked Austin to confirm or deny this twice, but did not receive a response.

It is unclear if Austin plans to continue using stolen information from MAPS and Psychedelic.Support to court investors.

Austin has not replied to multiple requests for comment from Psymposia.

Kile Ortigo, PhD—a clinical psychologist and content editor at Psychedelic.Support—said that, as more players enter the psychedelic therapy scene, he thinks it is important to respect the work that others have already done and to carefully vet who he works with.

“As a psychologist, I’m extra careful about where I publish my professional profile and what boards I serve on. If the values espoused and demonstrated by a group misalign with my own, including my professional ethics, I abstain from associating myself with that group,” Ortigo said. “In order for me to do that, I have to know where my information is being shared. Plagiarism and other dishonest practices have no place in a field focused on authentic healing and transformation.”

In recent weeks, scrutiny of COMPASS Pathways’ international patent applications has caused debates over patents to break out between a collection of influential voices across the psychedelic landscape.

Tim Ferriss’s critique of psychedelic patent land-grabs—posted nearly three years after the issue was initially raised—erupted into a cross-platform open letter duel between himself and ATAI Life Sciences’ Co-Founder and COMPASS investor, Christian Angermayer—with the occasional high-profile response from Rick Doblin, the Executive Director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). 

Following this, MAPS Board member David Bronner—of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps fame—chimed in with a blog post entitled, “Sounding the Alarm on Compass’s Interference with Oregon’s Psilocybin Therapy Program.” 

Bronner begins by expressing alarm at a recent Vice article from Shayla Love, which details COMPASS’s application to patent “a clinical setting with mood lighting, soft furniture, subdued colors and a good sound system.” Details like these—along with allegations that COMPASS has started mobilizing opposition to Measure 109 in Oregon—inspired Bronner to come out against COMPASS’s “monopolistic and shady behavior.”

@nu.hippie

How Compass Pathways envisions the future of psych3d3l1c therapy

♬ original sound – nu hippie

This high-profile back and forth between millionaire elites and psychedelic executives offered a number of questionable takes. Angermayer declared, “Capitalism…is by far the best economic system tried to date,” (on the heels of both lethal power outages in Texas due to the state’s free market fantasies and a new study on the grim realities of climate change). Ferriss preened over his role as “an early investor or advisor” in companies such as Uber and Facebook, each of which has had demonstrably corrosive effects on global society (including facilitating political violence up to and including the incitement of genocide). 

In a LinkedIn post in response to Ferriss, Angermayer stated, “Let me summarize my position as follows: The patents in question only protect very specific, synthetic, isolated compounds and associated processes, and – in my view – they represent the best means of accelerating patient access and optionality in the midst of a mental health crisis.”

Commenting on Angermayer’s post, Doblin wrote, “Your clarification is reassuring that Compass’ patent application on therapeutic methods for psilocybin is only meant to apply to the use of Compass’ specific psilocybin.” 

While Doblin’s comment—and Angerymayer’s claims—have flown under the radar and received little-to-no scrutiny, they present the most fascinating part of this online firestorm: the fact that so little of what COMPASS is actually trying to patent has been explored. While attempts to patent room specifications and therapist behaviors are certainly worth discussing, the yet-to-be-discussed components of COMPASS’s patent applications are arguably more alarming. 

COMPASS’s patents focus on “psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof,” not just COMP360 (Polymorph A)

Between COMPASS’s three (1,2,3) international Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications, the company is attempting to patent psilocybin treatment for almost every mental health condition you might think of. Not only that, the applications’ claims include treatment with “psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof.” According to Graham Pechenik, a patent lawyer with Calyx Law, “Depending on how the ultimate claims are construed, such language may arguably cover administration of any compound that is converted to the active metabolite in the body, not only administration of the active metabolite itself.”

If claims like these are approved—which is not guaranteed—they could include drugs such as 4-AcO-DMT, or CaaMTech’s recently announced novel psilocin prodrugs: 4-AcO-MET hydrofumarate, 4-AcO-MALT hydrofumarate, and 4-AcO-DALT fumarate.

Notably, these applications reach as broadly as possible and do not limit themselves to COMPASS’s already-granted COMP360 psilocybin formulation. Instead, they include a wide range of claims to “psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof,” and then also include narrower claims to their COMP360 Polymorph A—presumably as an option in the event patent examiners reject their broader “psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof” claims.

Looking at the most extensive PCT application in question—WO 2020/212952 A1—COMPASS is attempting to patent:

• Virtually all routes of administration of psilocybin—including vaginal and rectal administration;
• Specifications of psilocybin therapy settings including soft furniture, muted colors, high-resolution sound systems, couches or beds;
• Specifications for patient-therapist interactions ranging from the use of breathing exercises to calm subjects; to holding a subject’s hand, arm or shoulder; to a therapist reminding a patient of at least one therapeutic intention;
• The ability for therapists to provide psychological support remotely through a mobile phone app or website.
• Psilocybin Treatment for subjects with Depression. This includes treatment with psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof in subjects with major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder 1 and 2, atypical depression, catatonic depression, a depressive disorder due to a medical condition, postpartum depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, seasonal affective disorder, treatment-resistant depression, and depression in subjects with at least one or more comorbidity such as alcoholism, anxiety disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, or cancer.
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Autism Spectrum Disorder or Antisocial Personality Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with ADHD;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Schizotypal (Personality) Disorder, Delusional Disorder, Schizophrenia, or Schizoaffective Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder, Male Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, or Excessive Sexual Drive;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Bipolar Disorder 1 and 2, and Cyclothymic Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Insomnia Disorder, Hypersomnolence Disorder, Narcolepsy, or Primary Central Sleep Apnea;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Schizoid Personality Disorder, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, or Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Age-Related Hearing Loss or Tinnitus;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects who Suffer From Pain;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Multiple Sclerosis, Cranial Nerve Disorder, Neuromyelitis Optica, Bell’s Palsy, Guillain Barre Syndrome, Demyelinating Disease of Central Nervous System, or Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuritis;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Myelopathy, Traumatic Brain Injury, Intellectual Disabilities, Mania, Neurodegeneration, Paraphilic disorders, Suicidal Behavior Disorder, Nonsuicidal Self-Injury, Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder, Gl Tract Related Diseases, Epilepsy, Sickle Cell Disease, locked-in syndrome, restless leg syndrome, stroke, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS);
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Major Depressive Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with Treatment Resistant Depression;
• Psilocybin treatment for subjects with 61 “Diseases, Disorders, or Conditions”: In Claim 111 of application ‘952 Compass enumerates 61 different diseases, disorders, and conditions it would like to treat with psilocybin. These include—but are not even close to limited to—Pyromania; Selective Mutism; Cannabis-Related Disorders; Skin-Picking; and Agoraphobia; 
• Psilocybin treatment for Neurocognitive Disorders due to Alzheimer’s, Lewy Bodies, Traumatic Brain Injury, Prion Disease, HIV Infection, Parkinson’s, or Huntington’s.
• Psilocybin treatment for concussion. 
• Psilocybin treatment for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE);
• Psilocybin treatment for Language Disorder, Speech Sound Disorder (Phonological Disorder);
• Psilocybin treatment for Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder (Stuttering);
• Psilocybin treatment for Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for Tourette’s Disorder;
• Psilocybin treatment for Persistent (Chronic) Motor or Vocal Tic Disorder; 
• Psilocybin treatment for Amnestic Disorder Due to Known Physiological Condition;
• Psilocybin treatment for Transient Cerebral Ischemic Attack, Cerebral Infarction, Cerebral Bleeding, Progressive Supranuclear Ophthalmoplegia, or Retrograde Amnesia.
• This application includes all of the above claims specifically with treatment using COMPASS’s proprietary psilocybin Polymorph A, as well.

The other two PCT applications—WO 2020/212948 A1 and WO 2020/212951 A1—include a range of other conditions COMPASS is attempting to patent with psilocybin or an active metabolite thereof, including eating disorders; cluster headaches; anxiety disorders; stroke; inflammatory bowel disease; inflammation; sleep-wake disorders; and epilepsy.

The implications of these PCT applications run counter to public statements COMPASS and Angermayer have made in defense of the company’s patent strategy.

COMPASS’s website states, “The patent protection we are seeking does not cover naturally occurring mushrooms, it would not prevent others from creating different solutions for their own psilocybin synthesis, nor would it restrict others researching in this field.” In his recent response to Ferriss, Angermayer wrote that, “[COMPASS’s patents] do not infringe upon new scientific research or the rights of indigenous/sacred practice.” [Emphasis added]

Contrary to these statements, if the claims laid out in these PCT applications are granted, they would absolutely restrict others from working with psilocybin or its active metabolites for an overwhelmingly broad range of mental illnesses and conditions. 

If COMPASS’s applications for the use of psilocybin and its metabolites were to be granted as patents, it would mean that patients would need to seek permission from COMPASS for those specific treatments, or that companies would have to license the right to use psilocybin for certain treatments from COMPASS.

“These three PCT applications may become as many as ten patents or twelve patents once they hit the US in prosecution,” said Pechenik. “Companies can keep filing continuation applications with new claims, as long as there’s support in the original application. They may be willing to pay for all that because they know the outcome of getting something like psilocybin for anorexia could be millions of dollars in licensing or expanding into a market that nobody else has access to.”

Filing PCT applications fast tracks the patent application process in any of the 153 PCT contracting countries. When a PCT application is filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), it acts as a placeholder in these contracting countries for 30 months from the date of filing. Within that time, a company can use their PCT filing as priority documents for filing individual patents in PCT countries—saving the company from having to prepare separate applications for each different country. 

Scorched Earth

Filing broad patent applications primarily serves two strategic purposes—the first being the potential to secure approval for more claims, and the second being to interfere with competition.

“It’s now much harder for others to file their own application on treating, for example, hoarding disorder or pyromania with psilocybin, [because COMPASS has filed for that]. It scorches the earth around them and keeps others from entering the space with their own applications,” Pechenik said. 

Such strategies create an atmosphere of fear, uncertainty, and doubt for other players in the field. For example, because COMPASS has treatment of pyromania with psilocybin covered in their PCT application, this signals that they may file patents for this indication in any of the PCT countries. In turn, other companies and inventors may stay away from that practice or avoid pursuing their own patents and/or research on that indication. “It just kind of scares everybody off,” Pechenik said.

Circling back to the first strategic reason for filing broad patent claims—securing approval for more claims—one unique issue in budding industries like the psychedelic pharmaceutical space is the likelihood that many patent examiners will be looking at their very first psychedelic patents. To determine the novelty of a patent, examiners must judge its claims against the relevant prior art in its field. The chance that an average patent examiner would be familiar with prior psychedelic art is slim. 

According to Vice, patent lawyer David Casimir said that “filing broad patent applications is a common tactic—even including claims that companies know aren’t patentable. But it can lead to bad patents…If the patent office doesn’t do a good job, then they’ll say, ‘Okay, you can have this broad claim.’”

“Bad patents are bad for everyone,” Casimir told Vice. “Except maybe the patent owner who owns them. They’re just a drag on the system and an increase in cost. It slows down access to the market. It makes things more expensive.”

To avoid these situations, some organizations are attempting to make it easier for patent examiners to access information on psychedelics prior art.

Porta Sophia: A line of defense?

One effort currently underway—in which Casimir is involved as a team member—is a resource for patent examiners that work in the psychedelic space called Porta Sophia (Latin and Greek for “doorway to wisdom”). This information portal will make it easier for patent reviewers around the world to find relevant prior art, Casimir told Psymposia.

The Porta Sophia project will seek to identify all publicly available patents and applications in the space, focusing on major topics such as compositions of matter, methods of use, manufacturing, delivery systems, care protocols, and drug combinations.

Casimir notes this “is doable now, but will be more challenging in the future.”

Following their collection, highly trained reviewers will curate these applications and identify relevant prior art. This prior art will then be provided via the portal and made available through an easy-to-use interface. The project will also curate, and make searchable, information from many existing databases that will include prior art that might otherwise be challenging to find. Over time, Casimir said that Porta Sophia will seek feedback from patent reviewers to develop the system in a manner that makes their jobs easier and more efficient.

Though there is no set date for the launch of Porta Sophia, Casimir said that the team hopes to have a first version out soon.

Doblin told Psymposia that MAPS has also recently begun preparing documents to make available to the repositories that patent examiners use to review prior art.

COMPASS Investors Support Monopolies 

As shocking as COMPASS’s international patent applications may be, none of this should come as a surprise. COMPASS’s most notorious investor, Peter Thiel, has publicly stated, “You shouldn’t compete, you should try to have a monopoly.” Christian Angermayer recently declared that “If a monopoly/duopoly emerged…Then it would be a sign of quality and constitutional reward. In that case, you should not blame them, but blame the rest, who then clearly would have not done a good job.” Perhaps blame would actually lie with COMPASS’s business strategies and its executives who publicly state it will “absolutely not” interfere with researchers’ ability to conduct research while privately assuring investors that “many psychedelic companies out there will never be able to bring a product to market, as they will hit the patents of Compass and Atai.”

The reality is that no corporadelic monopoly or duopoly currently exists, although there appears to be an increasing likelihood of such a development. In order to understand how we wound up here—and why organizations are scrambling to construct prior art repositories like Porta Sophia as lines of defense against would-be monopolists and the forces of MarketWorld—we must acknowledge widespread complicity in allowing this to happen. Consider the overly credulous individuals and organizations who have believed COMPASS’s assertions since MAPS first started providing it with legitimacy and support dating back to at least 2016—even after it pivoted from a non-profit to a for-profit. As Nikita Alexandrov, observed in his 2020 Psychedelic Industry Insights Report, “The $300M worth of investable deals have only existed since the public formation of Compass Pathways in 2016.” 

In an effort to acquire mainstream acceptance, credibility, and fundraising dollars, many researchers and advocates of psychedelics believed that the field was immune to capitalist logic, or that incoming flows of capital were, in fact, a “sign of our success,” as Doblin likes to repeat. 

Similarly, in a rush to embrace feelgood narratives about the future of psychedelic mainstreaming, some media organizations have laundered COMPASS’s reputation. Rather than fact-checking or engaging in research, they’ve used their platforms to uncritically promote Doblin’s rose-colored narrative that, with regards to “the easy criticism of ‘Oh capitalism is bad, for-profit companies are bad and they are trying to do evil things with psychedelics to monopolize the market’- I don’t think that’s really happening.”

The belief that “capitalism is a good way to scale things up,” as proclaimed by Michael Pollan, has pervaded subsets of the “psychedelic community” despite all evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, Angermayer’s assertions that capitalism is “the best economic system,” and that “None of the for-profit companies will ever come knocking on somebody’s door to confiscate homegrown plants,” are red herrings intended to distract from the issue at hand: monopolistic intellectual property strategies by the world’s largest psychedelic pharmaceutical company.

We shouldn’t be surprised that COMPASS has once again demonstrated a large gap between its words and actions. This isn’t a unique situation; it’s business as usual for big pharma and psychedelic pharmaceuticals alike. Rather than assuming that psychedelic corporations will (or even can) act in the public good, proponents of mainstreaming must prove that firms can function as “exceptions” to capitalist logic (think Mondragon). But until such actors truly display a willingness and ability to swim against the tides of corporadelia, the words of COMPASS investor Peter Thiel continue to echo across the psychedelic terrain: “You shouldn’t compete, you should try to have a monopoly.”