Earlier quoted context omitted.
If psilocybin has some success in early clinical trials then companies will begin work on metabolites and similar compounds that purportedly have less side effects. That is what is happening with Ketamine right now.
What people seem to miss is that it’s the psychedelic experience itself that holds the healing potential. We most likely won’t see a pill derived from mushrooms that cures depression but doesn’t get you high. The altered state of conciousness is the thing.
Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
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Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#72Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#73I’m reminded of the “New-Path” rehabilitation centers in A Scanner Darkly. Not only does New-Path produce Substance D, they distribute it and run rehab centers with burnt out addicts to grow the stuff. Truly scary when you think about it.
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'll be hard pressed to find people in the US who think that someone (legally) immigrating to the US and starting a business is a bad thing.
You'd think, especially with U.S. population growth and fertility rates being so low. In reality, the current administration is actively working to reduce legal immigration as well.[1][2] Although the policies are opposed by most, it's not difficult to find people who support reducing legal immigration as well. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policy_of_Donald_T... [2] https://www.cato.org/blog/house-gop…
the chart in that second link shows the family based, diversity and asylee immigration being cut, but all of the employment/skill-based immigration being boosted.
that strikes me as at least trying to reflect approval of business-starting immigrants, though with a preference for younger ones.
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#75This is a natural product. One can grow it in the basement of one's home. One can gather it where it grows wild. (Ask me how I know!) No user of this product has ever harmed anyone else as a result of using it. Any restrictions at all on this product could only ever be tyrannical. Let's not abide tyranny, ok?
The blind spot here is that no one really understands how it works or the long term implications. It may have a use for patients with treatment resistant medical conditions where the alternatives have failed or side-effects are intolerable. Why should healthy adults take this substance? Many of the so-called experts interviewed in Michel Pollan's new book took psilocybin and believed the experience revealed the inner…
Anecdotally, mushrooms are about as likely to disrupt existing patterns of magical thinking as they are to inspire new ones.
The experience of being absolutely certain that your friend in the other room can read your thoughts and the discovery when you come down that no, he was thinking something completely different than you thought is sobering.
The experience of realizing how large the world is, how many people are in it talking at all times, can undermine conspiracy theories that depend on a tiny cabal of people keeping a secret while using hundreds of workers to accomplish a task, like faking the moon landing.
The "inner truths of the universe" that people feel are exposed by mushrooms are so abstract that they're not likely to actually interfere with rational thought. Mushrooms induce a metaphoric mode of thought. Realistically, we are all connected, by atmosphere, ecosphere, society and economy.
It's true that we don't have a solid scientific understanding of the long term implications, but we have a pretty solid population of people who've done mushrooms casually. It's not an uncommon drug.
All that aside, we have an FDA review process so that we can evaluate the safety of a drug. No drug is ever evaluated to see if it has a long-term negative societal effect because of how it alters your world-view. The effects that Depakote, Prozac and Ambien have had on society are likely significant and are largely unknown.
On "metamagical thinking":
I just spent some significant time trying to find out what "metamagical thinking" is supposed to be.
Try it yourself. You'll find many people quoting Sapolsky thus: "It's the shamans who are moving separate from everyone else, living alone, who talk with the dead, who speak in tongues, who go out with the full moon and turn into a hyena overnight, and that sort of stuff. It's the shamans who have all this metamagical thinking." What you won't find is any kind of formal definition of metamagical processes or arguments for the term.
You'll find two places in his book "Biology and Human Behavior" but in each case it is only used as an adjective describing the symptoms of schizotypal personality disorder. In the DSM this is instead described as "magical thinking," no meta involved. In "Trouble with Testosterone" Sapolsky only refers to "magical thinking."
Sapolsky appears to have just added the "meta" as a sort of unthinking affectation for a period of time and to have dropped it later. I'd be interested in evidence to the contrary.
I say all this because Hofstadter invented the term "metamagical" to describe a certain kind of highly intellectual examination of the edges of analogy and meaning in rational systems and it's a hell of a phrase. It's a shame to have Sapolsky's non-use replicating across the internet.
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
What people seem to miss is that it’s the psychedelic experience itself that holds the healing potential. We most likely won’t see a pill derived from mushrooms that cures depression but doesn’t get you high. The altered state of conciousness is the thing.
I'm not saying you're wrong per se but what evidence do you have that there are no beneficial analogs and triggers for similar biochemical pathways that perhaps are not marked by a substantial or profound classically psychedelic experience?
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#77This is an interesting article for HN. It's spun as a negative, using terms like "threatening", "monopoly", "controversial", and "retribution". You could write it the other way, where an immigrant-founded[1] startup is disrupting the mental health industry. Frankly, most of this seems like par for the course. Of course the company is seeking to push their product to market and commercial viability--and the potential…
> These experts are further troubled by the company’s business structure: Having first registered as a charity, Goldsmith and Malievskaia set up a for-profit corporation working towards the same ends just one year later, and closed their non-profit less than two years after that. And all 9 of these critics charge that Compass Pathways has relied on conventional pharmaceutical-industry tactics that could help them dominate the field, including blocking potential rivals’ ability to purchase drugs, filing an application for a manufacturing patent, and requiring contracts that give Compass power over academics’ research and are restrictive even by pharmaceutical-industry standards.
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#78You'd think with that mission statement, their headlines would reflect global and not regional information. AFAICT there are many legal providers of psilocybin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_status_of_psilocybin_mus...
"Below the fold", past the infinite scroll "edge", many of the articles have country-specific headlines that include "US" in them. Maybe the legality of psilocybin is too marginal to worry about that, but this article does seem to be US-specific and not globally oriented. I do wish that there was a brief intro about legal providers elsewhere in the world. It would add useful context.
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right - so Compass the for-profit has only filed an application for patent. But it's likely they're trying to patent a method of manufacturing the compound, rather than the compound itself (which, as you say, is publicly know.) As for the IP owned by Compass the non-profit, they didn't respond to comments on what that is, so it's not clear what exactly it entails.
Thanks. I also really appreciate the opportunity to ask questions of a writer whose (very well written) essay one has just read. I have a feeling their patent application will be blocked because the process was not COMPASS’s to begin with. It seems that third parry experts in your article provided them with this knowledge - and it would be abuse of the patent system for them to claim property rights over something no…
Re: Compass Pathways has set itself up to be the first legal provider of psilocybin
#80This is a natural product. One can grow it in the basement of one's home. One can gather it where it grows wild. (Ask me how I know!) No user of this product has ever harmed anyone else as a result of using it. Any restrictions at all on this product could only ever be tyrannical. Let's not abide tyranny, ok?
I'm a huge advocate for and fan of psilocybin but I'd suggest taking some time to read through the Erowid psilocybin trip reports, there are many reports of people inadvertently causing a great deal of grief for others while tripping.