Canadian Senator Admits Taking Psilocybin for Depression

Last week, Canadian Senator Larry Campbell stepped out of the psychedelics basement in the opening remarks at the Catalyst Psychedelics Summit in the UK. He admitted that he microdosed psilocybin to relieve his depression.

Campbell, who has long worked on drug reform both as mayor of Vancouver and as a member of the Canadian Senate, says Campbell suffers from PTSD, depression and the issues of “aging.” However, his normal cocktail of antidepressants still left him with symptoms, making him “grumpy.”

Suddenly during the pandemic, he noticed his mood steadily improving. He couldn’t find the cause.

After a few weeks he mentioned the same thing to his wife.

She then admitted that she spiked his coffee with microdoses of psilocybin.

Admission is particularly timely.

Right now the Canadian government is trying to figure out how to regulate the coming wave of psychedelics, starting with psilocybin. So far, it has allowed several depression patients to use psilocybin under an experimental program called the Special Access Program, which allows the use of drugs that aren’t currently legal in Canada. Before this is legalized on a larger scale, however, Canadian authorities want to see evidence of clinical trials.

In the US, then-President Donald Trump signed into law similar “right-to-try” legislation in May 2018, allowing critically ill patients to bypass the FDA for experimental drugs. Presumably both cannabis and psilocybin could fall under this.

The state of psychedelic drug reform worldwide

Even as Canada considers legalizing its medicinal use, the issue is now seeping through to all levels in the US. Several cities have already made progress. That includes Denver, Colorado, which decriminalized it three years ago in May. Several other cities followed suit, including several cities in California, Massachusetts, and Washington State, as well as Washington, DC

Oregon remains the only state to have decriminalized psilocybin and legalized it for medical use.

There is also a significant movement in the UK to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use.

Canada is the first country to move forward with discussions about the substance’s possible legitimacy as a legal medical device at the federal level.

Sound familiar?

The magic mushroom boom?

Psilocybin is also known as “magic mushrooms”. It is a naturally occurring psychedelic drug that was traditionally used by Mesoamerican societies for religious and spiritual purposes. It was first mentioned in European medical literature in 1799 in the London Medical and Physical Journal.

In the 1950s and ’60s, magic mushrooms were first hailed as a miracle drug that could treat everything from addiction to anxiety. Not surprisingly, the substance was banned as a Schedule I drug in the United States by the Controlled Substances Act in 1970.

Around the same time that the modern campaign against medicinal cannabis use became a political force at the state level in the US, the campaign to at least decriminalize psilocybin also began.

The most recent court battle between the state of New Mexico and David Ray Pratt in 2015 found that the defendant did not manufacture the substance by simply growing the mushrooms on his property for personal use.

In 2018, the Food and Drug Administration granted psilocybin “breakthrough therapy” designation for research use.

Psilocybin appears to make the brain more adaptive

According to the admittedly little research currently available, psilocybin makes the brain more flexible. Depressed people’s brains appear to “ruminate” — or spin in circles, making negative thinking a ingrained mental state. Psilocybin appears to improve the integration of brain networks, allowing people to break out of this self-destructive thought pattern.

Psilocybin also works differently than regular antidepressants. In fact, there is evidence that it could be a viable alternative to existing treatments for depression. Even more exciting, the research available so far seems to indicate that the effects of psilocybin last long after treatment has stopped – which is not the case with traditional medicines. In fact, results from a study at Johns Hopkins University show that psilocybin treatment for major depression lasts about a year for most patients.

As cannabis reform becomes mainstream, it is inevitable that discussion of other psychedelic drugs will advance. Psilocybin, in particular, has made this journey over the same period of time, albeit at a slower pace.

Now that cannabis reform is beginning to become a global reality, it is also evident that such drugs, which were also gaining prominence and were banned around the same time as cannabis, are entering the scene.

And that’s a seriously good thing. Especially for the patients who need them.