Jacob S. Aday

Drug Science, Policy and Law Screenshot of title page and abstract

Reframing Psychedelic Regulation: Tools, not Treatments

In this new article, we propose to regulate psychedelics as psychotherapeutic treatment tools rather than as treatments in their own right.

The use of anesthetics as treatment tools in surgery is a useful analogy.

Last year, @jacobsaday.bsky.social and @trpr-ucsf.bsky.social asked: "Psychedelic assisted psychotherapy: where is the psychotherapy research?"

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How soon can we say "here it comes"?

Opinion | How the American Right Learned to Love Psychedelics (Gift Article) A once left-wing psychedelic movement has become tightly entwined with the Trump administration.

Psychedelics could play a leading role in mental health care. But if approval is rushed without necessary guardrails in place, there will be a backlash, and these drugs will be relegated to the fringes of alternative health. That would be a tragic missed opportunity. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/28/o...

Absolutely! It seems like an active placebo that does that could help elucidate mechanisms of action with psychedelics (i.e., whether the subjective effects are necessary/sufficient for therapeutic benefits)

🚨 Postdoc Opportunity in Psychedelic Science

Join a leading psychedelic research team at Johns Hopkins @jhpsychedelics.bsky.social. Design and lead experimental studies & clinical trials.

Work with David Yaden, PhD & Sandeep Nayak, MD & others

-Salary: Middling
-Apply: dyaden1@jh.edu
-Pls share!

It might turn out that it’s not possible to blind psychedelic studies, but certainly there are stronger, good faith efforts (including ancillary strategies to active placebos) to be explored before we can conclude that.

Here, we outline the ideal characteristics of active placebos for psychedelic studies and review substances that may putatively fit these criteria for micro, low, and high dose studies.

Addressing blinding in classic psychedelic studies with innovative active placebos AbstractRationale. Classic psychedelics show promise as a treatment for various neuropsychiatric disorders. However, weak blinding integrity in trials has

“Addressing blinding in classic psychedelic studies with innovative active placebos” is out now in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Co-first authored with Otto Simonsson, alongside Cyril D’Souza and Emmanuelle Schindler
academic.oup.com/ijnp/advance...

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the 2025 Psychedelic Community Survey, a research project for the psychedelic community. Participation is completely anonymous. Please share the survey invitation and link with anyone you think might be interested in participating.

New pre-print out 🌍✨🌌
'Learning from Boundlessness: Psychedelic induced awe and epistemic shifts towards a holistic worldview'

doi.org/10.21203/rs....
We explored how awe during psychedelic experiences relates to lasting shifts in sense of self, other, and reality

Frontiers | Preliminary safety and effectiveness of psilocybin-assisted therapy in adults with fibromyalgia: an open-label pilot clinical trial

Our pilot clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy for fibromyalgia was published today in Frontiers in Pain Research 🙂🍄
www.frontiersin.org/journals/pai...

My lab has a position for a programmer--if you have programming skills and have recently left the NIH please contact me.

Tripping into Treatment: Comparing Initial and Current Motivations for Psychedelic Use Psychedelic drugs are currently being explored for their therapeutic potential for a variety of health conditions. The recent increased public interest in psychedelics necessitates empirical invest...

Newest paper: #PsychedelicScience #Psychedelics

Tripping into Treatment: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Psychedelics and chronic pain: www.researchgate.net/publication/...

In the second study, we analyzed a subsample from the 2023 Global Psychedelic Survey who reported having chronic pain. We found that perceptions of health benefits were generally positive in this sample, with many reducing use of non-psychedelic substances after psychedelic use.

Similarly, those who initiated psychedelic use as an adult were likely to use for health purposes, whereas those initiating use as adolescents were more likely to use for fun/curiosity.

In the first study, we found motivations for using psychedelics differed between individual's first and subsequent uses, with first use most often being for recreation or exploration, and later uses more for therapeutic or personal growth reasons (i.e., tripping into treatment).

New articles from the Michigan Psychedelic Center:
"Tripping into Treatment: Comparing Initial and Current Motivations for Psychedelic Use"

"Psychedelics and chronic pain: self-reported outcomes on changed substance use patterns and health following naturalistic psychedelic use"

Just came across this fascinating 2024 DMT study I missed - participants who were interrupted during their DMT experience (by having to give ratings) showed significantly less reduction in depressive symptoms compared to those left undisturbed. Important implications for psychedelic therapy. 🧵

The ole “burnt turkey” method

Very interesting. He was sitting front row at the Bay Area Psychedelics Symposium a couple years back.

Billionaire Investor Antonio Gracias Plots $100M Lykos Takeover with Doblin’s Backing - Psychedelic Alpha This latest twist in the Lykos Therapeutics saga threatens a major overhaul of the company’s strategy and direction, with Musk ally and billionaire investor Antonio Gracias appearing to want to take…

Latest twist in Lykos saga has it all:

✅ Takeover bid led by billionaire who took drugs with Elon + helped him buy X

✅ Potential involvement of biotech exec widely accused of price gouging

✅ But also the potential to return Lykos to its public benefit mission

psychedelicalpha.com/news/billion...

Modifying Informed Consent to Help Address Functional Unmasking in Psychedelic Clinical Trials This narrative review describes clinical trials of psychedelic or MDMA therapy and reports from the investigators on the use of modifications to informed consent in these studies.

Big co-1st/corresponding author paper just published in
@JAMAPsychiatry!

I just can't thank our team enough for their unwavering support on this project.

Modifying Informed Consent to Help Address Functional Unmasking in Psychedelic Clinical Trials

jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Therapeutic Potential of MDMA- and Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy for Adolescent Depression and Trauma - PubMed There have been encouraging data supporting the use of psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy for depression, including previously treatment-resistant symptoms. MDMA-assisted psychotherapy is showing simil...

Jamarie Geller (jageller@med.umich.edu) just published this paper yesterday and I bet would be happy to talk!

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39699759/

Inside the FDA’s Psychedelics Journey: Javier Muniz, MD on Breakthroughs, Challenges, and the Future of the Field - Psychedelic Alpha In our latest Pα+ interview, our Editor Josh Hardman speaks with Javier Muniz, MD, who recently left his post as Associate Director at the FDA’s Division of Psychiatry. In that role, Muniz was at the…

I spoke with Javier Muniz, MD, who just left his role as Associate Director at FDA's Division of Psychiatry, about all things psychedelics.

psychedelicalpha.com/news/inside-...

Psychopharmacology gets lots of criticism from psychotherapy/adjacent folks.

But if someone could send me therapy trials that
1. Are double-triple blind
2. Carefully document/report AEs
3. Pre-register an SAP with ITT

I would appreciate.

I will wait ….

Much appreciated, Jason!!

Much appreciated, Samuel! Would love to hear your thoughts 🙂

This is an area of psychedelic research that I have wanted to address for quite some time and it was a fun paper to write, so please do give it a read!