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Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
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Inside the $10 billion boom in psychedelic medicine
Tim, a doctor in Atlanta, was reviewing new clinical research into psilocybin when he decided to try shrooms for himself. A hallucinogen derived from mushrooms, psilocybin was making its way through the drug approval process, and medical professionals viewed its mind-and mood-altering properties as a promising treatment for everything from PTSD to end-of-life anxiety. Tim was hoping to get more involved in the emerging field of psychedelic medicine. "If I'm going to operate this roller coaster," he recalls thinking, "I should ride it at least once so I know what it's like." To take his first dose of mushrooms, Tim went to the EAST Institute, an organization in Atlanta that described itself as a center for psychedelic healing. Run by a local tech founder named Jeff Glattstein and his wife, Lena Franklin, a social worker and Yoga Magazine cover star, EAST promoted "personal healing and transformation" through a combination of plant medicine, meditation, and "vibrational sound therapy." Similar facilities have been sprouting up across the country, part of an entrepreneurial shroom boom spurred by the growing movement to legalize psilocybin for use in therapeutic settings, and a belief that these drugs could be the future of mental health treatment. Tim found his first trip, in 2022, life-altering. It helped him let go of his feelings of shame about his sexuality and to heal the trauma from a sexual assault he had suffered years earlier. "It sounds trite, but I felt so connected to everything," he recalls. "I felt this light burst out from me in the form of these rainbow bullets. They pushed the predator away. I felt bathed in this light and energy and power that was simply beyond my own agency, beyond my own personal narrative, and beyond my own body." Toward the end of the session, Tim looked over at Glattstein, who'd been facilitating the trip. In his 60s, wearing a woven poncho and a dazzling array of giant turquoise rings, the older man struck Tim as a guru, a healer who could deliver him from his guilt and pain. Still experiencing the trip's euphoric afterglow, he dubbed Glattstein the Light Keeper. "I was ready to latch on to a savior at that moment," Tim recalls. (He and other trainees spoke on the condition that they be identified with pseudonyms, since they could suffer professional consequences for using illegal drugs outside a clinical setting. Glattstein declined to comment for this story.) To get a head start in the exciting new field of hallucinogenic healing, Tim paid $25,000 to enroll in EAST's signature offering: a six-month course to train students to serve as facilitators of psilocybin-assisted therapy. During the sessions — which included weekend ceremonies in which trainees would take turns tripping on high doses of mushrooms — Tim developed what he called an "eternal bond" with his fellow students and EAST's staff. He imagined a future where they would all take care of one another's children. ("It was the mushrooms talking, of course," he says.) Halfway through the training, Tim's personal life imploded when his boyfriend of four years broke up with him. In his fragile state, he told two EAST employees that he thought he should take the weekend off from taking mushrooms. But when Glattstein handed him a high dose, Tim says, he took it. "There was always this feeling that they must know something I don't know," he says. Later that night, and while he was still under the influence of the mushrooms, Tim says he was sexually assaulted by Scott, an EAST staff member responsible for ensuring that trainees got home safely from the ceremony. (Business Insider is referring to him by a pseudonym; he was never criminally charged. He denies Tim's allegation.) Tim says he hoped to work with EAST to develop an ethics policy and roll out better safeguards. He set up a Zoom meeting with Glattstein and Franklin, and asked two of his closest confidants in the training council, Beth and Lisa, to join the call. "I knew I had been taken advantage of by someone who was supposed to take care of me," says Tim. "I was very concerned with ensuring something like this didn't happen again." Initially, according to an audio recording of the meeting reviewed by Business Insider, the two founders said they "believed" Tim. But when Beth suggested that the incident represented an institutional failure at EAST, Glattstein jumped in. "As far as EAST being culpable," he said, "we had a person on our staff who stepped over the line." Glattstein and Franklin hired a law firm to conduct an independent investigation, and Scott was ultimately fired. Franklin declined to share the resulting report with Business Insider. But in an email to the council, she wrote that the report concluded that EAST had "no culpability in the alleged events." This is a new field, and there are no real regulations. It's sort of the Wild West phenomenon where the most kind of aggressive, entrepreneurial people can take advantage of that. Dominic Sisti, an associate professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania But things at EAST were about to get even more complicated, as multiple women came forward to accuse Glattstein of touching them inappropriately during healing sessions — accusations he denies. And such accusations aren't isolated to EAST. Over the past few years, as drugs like MDMA and mushrooms have turned into a lucrative business, accusations of abuse have begun to surface at a host of leading centers for psychedelic medicine. In the wake of decriminalizing psilocybin, cities and states have implemented few ground rules to govern the sudden explosion of "consciousness medicine." And the same properties that make mushrooms so effective in repelling destructive thoughts can also render users highly suggestible, making them vulnerable to the cultlike dynamic that has long pervaded the world of psychedelic healing. As a result, a growing number of people who have signed up to get care or serve as caregivers in the budding new industry say they've been harmed while taking the very drugs whose healing powers they were being taught to harness. "This is a new field, and there are no real regulations," says Dominic Sisti, an associate professor of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania who has researched the ethical dilemmas involved in psychedelics. "It's sort of the Wild West phenomenon where the most kind of aggressive, entrepreneurial people can take advantage of that." Humans have been getting high on magic mushrooms for almost as long as there have been humans. Popularized in the United States during the 1960s, psychedelics came under fire during the Nixon administration's "war on drugs." In 1970, they were classified as Schedule 1 substances, rendering possession illegal, even for research purposes. Then, in 2000, scientists at Johns Hopkins University received permission from the Food and Drug Administration to conduct research into psilocybin. As studies began to show that the substance had significant benefits for patients with chronic mental illness, voters started to see it more as medicine than menace. From Burning Man to luxury retreats, experimenting with psychedelics has become common among tech founders and executives like Elon Musk and Sam Altman, who credit the drugs with quieting their nerves, boosting productivity, and allowing them to better harness their creativity. The global market for psychedelic medicine could hit $10 billion by 2028, according to the Business Research Company. Oregon and Colorado have legalized psilocybin for therapeutic use, and more than 20 cities have decriminalized it. With the hope that federal regulators will follow suit, venture capital firms have been financing shroom startups, and scores of training programs have sprung up to meet the growing demand for psychedelic facilitators who can administer the drugs in a safe environment. In the San Francisco area, where psychedelics have a long and checkered history, at least six training programs now operate, even though psilocybin remains illegal for medicinal use. Regulations have not changed with the psychedelic gold rush. In Oregon, there's little government or medical oversight of the 20 training programs authorized by the state. Those certified to administer psychedelics are required to receive 160 hours of training — compared with the 625 hours mandated for licensed massage therapists. Franklin had an aesthetic perfectly suited to psychedelic medicine in the Instagram era. Glattstein, once a tech entrepreneur, had reinvented himself as a shaman. EAST — short for Entheogenic Assisted Spiritual Transformation — was founded in the fall of 2021. Located on the ground floor of an office park in northwest Atlanta, its ceremonial space had the look of an ashram outfitted from an Anthropologie catalog. White sheepskin rugs were arranged in a circle; Buddhist statues adorned an altar lined with candles and a large geode. The veneer of curated calm was periodically pierced by the racket coming from Insight Virtual Ballistics, a bar and "virtual shooting" arcade next door. The initial draw for many of the trainees at EAST was Franklin, who ran a therapy and mindfulness business in Atlanta before meeting Glattstein. An ethereal beauty with long, dark hair and a radiant smile, Franklin has an aesthetic perfectly suited to psychedelic medicine in the Instagram era. Her look — a seemingly endless rotation of hand-dyed silk dresses and turquoise jewelry — was at least partially attainable: A gift shop in EAST's entryway sold brightly hued dresses and robes for hundreds of dollars a pop. If Franklin, 40, was the draw, it was Glattstein, 65, who ran the show. He spent years in the up-and-down world of tech startups. In 1997, he cofounded an internet services company called Virtual Resources that raised $25 million in venture capital, only to sell for $6 million two years later. In 2018, after several subsequent startups also flopped, Glattstein turned the page. Instead of pitching companies, he was now pitching his own rebirth. The story, as he's told it in various interviews, is that he had fallen terribly ill — with what, he doesn't say — and despite being given "all of the Western medical treatments, all the therapies, all the drugs," his mysterious condition only got worse. "They had given me three months to live," he recounted on the "Psychedelic Conversations" podcast. "All my systems were shutting down." All that changed, he said, when he heard a voice command him, "Heal yourself." Glattstein says he stopped his medications, cut ties with his doctors, and started practicing with a shaman. His hair grew back and his body grew fit: His illness was gone. He started teaching, and Franklin was one of his early students. The two became a couple, bound by a passion for Eastern medicine and, they've said, their shared feeling as outsiders in Atlanta — Glattstein, the child of New York Jews in a predominantly Southern Baptist area; Franklin, whose mother was Vietnamese. They soon began hosting mini "medicine" retreats with friends at a cabin in the woods outside Atlanta. "It was just a small group of us doing mushrooms," said a friend who asked not to be identified for fear of professional repercussions. After founding EAST, Glattstein and Franklin proved to be gifted promoters of their new venture. Latching on to reality TV as a pulpit for their psychedelic gospel, they appeared as spiritual healers on Lifetime's "Little Women: Atlanta" and Bravo's "Real Housewives of Atlanta" spinoff, "Porsha's Family Matters." They trademarked the "EAST Method," which they said provided "profound healing benefits for depression, anxiety, PTSD, addiction, compulsive conditions, pain management, and end-of-life demoralization" — though it's never been proven to be a treatment for any condition. Once they welcomed their first "council" of facilitator trainees, Glattstein — now calling himself a "world-renowned shaman" — took on the roles of teaching classes, sourcing the medicine, and setting the dos Before long, Glattstein was surrounded by a following of true believers. His supreme self-confidence, Beth says, made it hard to resist his instructions. "There were moments where I did feel connected to him," she says, "because of the drugs." On ceremony weekends at EAST, Friday and Saturday nights were reserved for psilocybin "journeys." On the first night, half of the council would take a high dose of mushrooms of up to 4.5 grams, according to six of the trainees. The other half would be given a relatively low dose, up to 1.5 grams, so they could help facilitate the others' experiences, they say. Franklin says that the doses were lower: 3.5 grams "was at a much higher end," she told Business Insider, while the low dose would be "up to one gram." The next night, they'd swap roles. As the students waited for the drugs to take effect, Franklin and the other lead facilitators would don dresses and ceremonial robes, play music, and dance. "I will always regret not saying, 'Wait a minute, Jeff, she's telling you that her intuition, her body, her spirit, is saying that she shouldn't do this. Why would we override that? We're here to learn how to be facilitators." The next day, the trainees would talk about their experiences from the night before. Glattstein would also lead sessions on topics like neuroscience and shamanic healing. The trainees, some of them healthcare professionals, said they found the lectures light on science. "Jeff gave some very basic information about the limbic system," recalls Sarah, a trainee in the third council. "I was like, 'Are we not going to get into serotonin receptors and how psychedelics interact with the brain?'" There was also no discussion about the boundaries between the facilitator and the subject, trainees say. "There was never anything about ethics, or what we should do as facilitators if we found ourselves attracted to somebody who was doing the medicine work with us," says Beth. As psychedelics move into the fields of medicine and therapy, the training in how to handle them is, in many cases, being conducted by spiritual healers who are intensely critical of Western medicine. Trainees say Glattstein could be openly hostile to the medical establishment. Zoe, a former employee of EAST, says she started to see a shift in the center's attitude that she wasn't comfortable with. "Their messaging was becoming increasingly, explicitly anti-mental-health treatment," she says. "Like, how you shouldn't go to therapy, and take mushrooms instead." At one ceremony in February 2023, a psychologist named Joan, who was part of Tim's council, was experiencing what she described as "serious insomnia and unrelenting anxiety." She says she asked Glattstein if she could skip the mushrooms that weekend and stick to facilitating. But Joan says Glattstein insisted she go ahead with the ceremony as planned, and she ultimately agreed. Two trainees recalled the interaction and say they wish they'd spoken up for Joan at the time. "I will always regret not saying, 'Wait a minute, Jeff, she's telling you that her intuition, her body, her spirit, is saying that she shouldn't do this," says Beth. "Why would we override that? We're here to learn how to be facilitators." Franklin says she knew Joan was struggling, but denies Glattstein pressured her to take mushrooms. As the course progressed, Joan's symptoms got worse. By the time it was over, she was a wreck. "I couldn't sleep. I couldn't work," she says. "I stopped doing pretty much anything." Her husband admitted her to the hospital, and she remained in the psych ward for two weeks. The same weekend that Joan asked to skip the mushrooms, Tim also tried to scale back his dosage after his bad breakup. Ahead of the ceremony, he says he went to two of EAST's employees, one of whom was Scott, and told them, "It may not be appropriate for me to take a high dose of psilocybin this weekend." When Glattstein proceeded as normal, Tim agreed to take the high dose. He remembers his trip that night as healing, helping him to view the breakup as "just a blip in our cosmic story." He was filled with a sense of "overwhelming love" for his ex, and was certain they would meet again in future lives. As the ceremony wound down, Tim was still tripping. Trainees say this was a common issue at EAST. The medicine ceremonies ended after three hours, and the effects of a high dose of psilocybin might last up to eight hours. It took so long to come down that trainees would make arrangements for someone to drive them home. Tim and Scott knew each other from years earlier, when they'd gone on a few dates, but both say it never turned sexual. That night, Scott was already due to give Tim a ride home from the ceremony, along with another trainee who was staying at Scott's home that weekend. Now, Tim says that Scott suggested Tim stay over, too. Wouldn't that be better, he said, than returning to the home Tim shared with his ex-boyfriend? Oh, Tim thought as he stared out the window, gazing at the passing lights amplified by the psilocybin. How lovely that this person would offer me a place to sleep. After several months of psilocybin use, he felt a deep affection for everyone involved with EAST, including Scott. Since the other trainee would be staying on the couch, Tim says Scott suggested that they could share his bed. (The other trainee did not respond to requests for comment.) Still feeling the effects of the psilocybin, Tim agreed. But as Scott crawled into bed with him, the feeling of love and connection Tim had felt on the ride home dissolved into confusion. He "kind of turned into this archetype of a tiger," Tim recalls, "with the growling and these half-closed eyes." As Tim recalls it, Scott tried to undress him and physically force him to perform oral sex. "I put my underwear back on at least three times," Tim says. Finally, Tim says he gave up trying to resist. In a telephone interview with Business Insider, Scott denied having "any sexual contact" with Tim. According to Tim, they wound up having one more sexual encounter with another man, though Scott says he was present but didn't participate. Business Insider has reviewed text messages between Tim and Scott, in which they exchanged friendly banter and, on one occasion, Scott sent Tim an explicit photo. A few months after the alleged assault, and after Tim had opened up to his therapist, Tim says he came to believe that EAST had taken his money and put him in the care of someone who took advantage of him while he was in a suggestible state. In retrospect, he puts much of the blame for what happened on Glattstein and Franklin. After all, they were the ones who put Scott in charge of getting him home safely. "How," he began to wonder, "are these people running a training program?" The lack of clear guidelines is a widespread problem in facilitator training. The gold standard for centers like EAST is a manual developed by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the country's leading psychedelic and research advocacy organization. But the guidelines provided by MAPS are murky at best. For example, the manual states that facilitators must "always ask for permission regarding any kind of physical contact." The guidelines don't address the fact that a person under the influence of psychedelics may not be in a position to consent. Suggesting physical contact with someone who is on psychedelic drugs, by its very nature, fosters an environment that is ripe for abuse. "It goes against everything we know about therapeutic boundaries and ethics when the facilitator or therapist leans heavily into touch," says Neşe Devenot, a researcher at the Project on Psychedelics Law and Regulation at Harvard. "And when the client is on these suggestible substances, that touch creates a feeling of intimacy that can be exploited." Betty Aldworth, the director of communications and education at MAPS, said the organization's guidelines are clear. She says the MAPS manual stresses that touch is optional and that consent for touch can be revoked at any time and in different ways, including nonverbally. She added that proper training and sound clinical judgment are crucial to the process. 200 psychedelic practitioners and advocates have signed an open letter calling for accountability and transparency in the psychedelic community. In 2019, MAPS acknowledged that Richard Yensen, an unlicensed therapist in one of its clinical trials, "substantially deviated" from its manual while treating Meaghan Buisson, a trial participant who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder stemming in part from sexual abuse. Video footage of the treatment showed Yensen and another therapist cuddling, hugging, and aggressively restraining Buisson while she was on MDMA. In a lawsuit, Buisson alleges that following the treatment, Yensen continued to act as her therapist and repeatedly sexually abused her for more than a year after the initial incident. After Buisson sued him for sexual abuse, Yensen argued in a legal filing that the relationship was consensual and, because his therapy license had lapsed, he was not under a "duty of care" as a medical professional. The case was settled out of court. In 2022, California's Board of Behavioral Science brought eight "causes for discipline" against Eyal Goren, a therapist who trained with the Center for Consciousness Medicine. The claims included sexual misconduct, gross negligence, and emotional harm against trainees who had taken psilocybin, MDMA, and ayahuasca. Goren denied the allegations, but agreed to surrender his license for at least three years. Goren declined to comment. In 2021, 200 psychedelic practitioners and advocates signed an open letter calling for accountability and transparency in the psychedelic community. A healthcare blog published by Harvard Law School, and co-authored by Devenot, concluded that the accounts of abuse throughout the rapidly growing ecosystem of psychedelic medicine "align with the familiar social dynamics that make up destructive cults." Franklin says EAST did consider ethics when setting up the program, but she concedes they could have done more. "EAST was not perfect, obviously, and there's a lot of growth area for sure," she says. "But we definitely did our best." Still, she adds, the institute can't be blamed for what happened outside its training. "What people did when they stepped outside of the doors, we just don't have control over that," she says. Members of Tim's council were shell-shocked by his allegations. As they debated what to do, more allegations surfaced — this time about Glattstein. In October 2023, two women from EAST's first facilitator training sued Glattstein, alleging that he had sexually abused them during private "energy healing" sessions. One of the women, Mica Davis, said Glattstein would touch her breasts and vagina over her clothing, ostensibly to help clear her "root chakra" — energy that resides in the groin area. Doing so, he told her, would "make her husband happy." The second woman, Jacqueline Wigder, who had come to EAST in part to work through trauma stemming from childhood sexual abuse, said that Glattstein would press his hands on her pubic bone and reach under her bra to run his hands between her breasts. Her sexual energy, he allegedly told her, was "like a caged tiger that needed to be released." Glattstein and EAST have denied the allegations. In a blog post on his personal website, Glattstein says the women signed informed consents specifically for "hands on" energy work. "The reputation of an incredibly gifted healer that has dedicated his life to helping humanity was severely damaged," he wrote. The case is still pending. In December, EAST filed for bankruptcy. The EAST website is now blank, and all posts have been deleted from the group's social media accounts. Franklin, meanwhile, has migrated some of EAST's offerings to her personal website. Earlier this year, she offered a six-day trip to Egypt called "The Awakening," which she advertised as a "reclamation journey of the powerful Priestess within" that will unlock "dormant cellular DNA." Today, she says, her goal is "to share what it really means to be an impactful, courageous, conscious leader in the healing and psychedelic spaces." As for Tim, he hopes for a day when psilocybin therapy is fully professionalized, with credentials and oversight boards. In a sense, it's not that different from the process that Western medicine underwent at the turn of the 20th century. Back then, medical schools were required to implement standardized curricula and training requirements to counteract widespread public dissatisfaction over snake-oil salesmen and other medical "quacks." Properly regulated, Tim believes, shrooms and other psychedelics could one day be as commonplace as talk therapy — a trusted treatment for the traumas and anxieties of modern life. Getting there will mean establishing appropriate boundaries between patients and practitioners, ensuring proper oversight, and moving beyond the field's anything-goes roots in the New Age counterculture. "I still believe this is the future of medicine," Tim says. "But you can't just have some tech guy walk in and call himself a shaman." Katie MacBride is a freelance writer. Read the original article on Business Insider Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Magic Mushrooms Might Be the Key to Longevity, Study Finds
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Psilocybin, the hallucinogen in some mushroom species, has now been shown to increase the lifespan of both cells and mice. The magic happens because psilocybin slows down the senescence, or degradation, of telomeres—the DNA at the ends of our chromosomes that affects aging. These results may mean that psilocybin could someday slow down the progression of cancer and other diseases. Shelves in stores all over the world are already overstocked with supplements, skin creams, retinal serums, self-help books, and questionable potions that promise to hold off the effects of aging as long as possible. But... have we tried magic mushrooms? Psilocybin is what puts the 'magic' in some species of mushrooms (such as Psilocybe cubensis)—when it's metabolized, it releases the hallucinogen alkaloid psilocin. Most clinical studies involving psilocybin and psilocin have, understandably, focused on its interactions with the brain. And we've learned a lot from these studies. Psilocin has been shown, for example, to have a positive impact on people with psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions. But now, it seems that scientists have discovered that there is also an association between psilocybin treatment and the slowing of cell aging. Telomeres are repeated DNA sequences at the end of our chromosomes that influence how we age. The shortening of telomeres leads to senescence (aging) and, eventually, cell death. Clinical depression and other negative mental and psychological states have been known to fast-forward aging by causing the telomeres of cells to shorten sooner, and positive mental states are associated with longer telomeres. This knowledge led to the 'psilocybin-telomere hypothesis,' which suggests that psilocybin might slow down aging by keeping telomeres longer beyond the point when they would usually start to degrade. This hypothesis is why Kosuke Kato, assistant professor of pulmonary medicine at Baylor University, wanted to focus in on the anti-aging effects of psilocybin. He was the first to do so, and when he and his research team carried out a series of experiments on adult mice and human cells, the results were pretty trippy. It turned out that the psilocin in psilocybin can indeed increase lifespans of cells—and even entire organisms. 'Our study provides the first experimental evidence demonstrating that psilocybin impacts hallmarks of aging, supporting the previously proposed 'psilocybin-telomere hypothesis,'' the researchers said in a study recently published in Nature Partnering Journal (NPI) Aging. Kato started with an in vitro study on human lung stem cells. Those treated with a low dose of psilocin had extended lifespans, allowing them to multiply faster and for longer than controls. With a higher dose, the psilocin-treated cells held out for even longer before succumbing to senescence. They also had higher levels of SIRT1—a gene that regulates DNA damage and regulates the metabolism, stress responses, and the aging of cells. Lower levels of the GADD45a gene (which repairs DNA damage) meant there was less cell damage, and levels of oxidative stress (which also causes cell damage) were also reduced. The same experiments were carried out on adult human skin cells, and produced similar results. After the success of the in vitro experiments, Kato treated mice with psilocybin once a month over a period of ten months. He purposely chose older mice, whose age equivalent in human years was about 60 to 65 at the beginning of the experiment. And the treatment worked—survival rates ended up being an astounding 80% higher than controls. The mice even looked looked younger. Their fur quality improved, and some graying was reversed (though they did experience psychotropic effects right after treatment as a predictable side effect). The results of these experiments have important implications not just for aging, but for potentially slowing down and even halting the progress of cancer. 'Our findings suggest that psilocybin influences systemic aging processes, potentially explaining its long-lasting therapeutic effects across multiple disease indications,' Kato said. 'Although the impact of psilocybin on peripheral organs remains largely unexplored, these studies implicate untapped therapeutic potential for psilocybin's systemic impacts.' Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue Get the Issue You Might Also Like Can Apple Cider Vinegar Lead to Weight Loss? Bobbi Brown Shares Her Top Face-Transforming Makeup Tips for Women Over 50 Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Is it safe to use magic mushrooms while pregnant? One woman's quest raises questions
When Mikaela found out she was pregnant six years ago, she knew she needed to stop drinking. What she wasn't sure about was how she would manage the cravings. As a teenager, she had discovered that alcohol and opiates could dull traumatic memories, including recurrent sexual assaults that played in her mind nonstop and led to suicidal thoughts. But as she entered her 20s, eager to address her mental health, she realized what helped most was psilocybin. Mikaela had found her way to psilocybin, the psychedelic compound active in 'magic' mushrooms, with close friends at the age of 19. A few large doses a year, with smaller microdoses in between, helped her achieve a sense of calm, like the bad trip that had been her whole life before mushrooms had ended. She also noticed they lessened her cravings for alcohol. Instead of picking up a beer when she would crave one, she tried microdosing. Indeed, recent research has shown that psilocybin may be a promising treatment for alcohol use disorder: in a 2022 study, psilocybin combined with therapy helped trial participants significantly reduce their drinking for the eight months researchers conducted follow-ups. She scoured the internet for information, unsure those mushrooms were safe for her pregnancy. At the same time, she knew she needed to stop drinking. Under no circumstances did she want her child to grow up with an alcoholic parent – like she had. As her Google searches brought up dead end after dead end, Mikaela, who has Indigenous Mexican ancestry, reached out to an Indigenous woman-led group that conducted ceremonies using plant medicines such as tobacco and peyote. The group was coordinating a psilocybin ceremony, where participants were planning to ingest mushrooms under the guidance of an elder, a few hours north of her in California in a few weeks' time. Mikaela asked if the woman who was leading it, a grandmother from Jalisco, Mexico, had any insight into whether participating would be harmful to her pregnancy. The woman told Mikaela that in her tradition, mothers continued consuming plant medicines such as psilocybin throughout their pregnancies and into motherhood. Mikaela packed up her car and drove out to the gathering. Under the canopy of a redwood grove, Mikaela accepted the fresh mushrooms the grandmother had prepared for her. As the sun began to set, Mikaela's gaze wandered from the campfire before her to the stars above, and she fell into an hours-long meditation. Sitting around a campfire the next day, the grandmother placed her hands on Mikaela's visibly pregnant belly and shared a message with her and the other participants. 'She talked very openly about the meaningfulness of carrying children and our responsibility as parents and mothers, and what it means to choose to be a mom at this time,' said Mikaela, now 31. Mikaela went on to use psilocybin, in both microdoses and full doses, throughout her pregnancy and since. She credits it with helping her develop 'a repulsion to the alcohol', she said, and to the social spaces where it was consumed. Soon after she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, she set out to find the answers she had been looking for. She knew researchers did not usually look like her or ask questions like hers, but she wondered if Indigenous knowledge about plant medicines could be transmitted to other mothers battling mental health challenges during pregnancy – and were struggling to find answers. 'Ethical constraints have limited clinical studies on psilocybin use among individuals in childbearing years, particularly during pregnancy and breastfeeding,' she wrote in a 'community research paper' surveying 411 people who used psilocybin before, during or after their pregnancies published earlier this year. 'This gap in research, compounded by the lingering stigma surrounding psychedelics, has left mothers to navigate their choices in isolation.' In the paper, Mikaela uses the pseudonym 'de la Myco', or 'of the mushroom', in place of her last name, citing the stigma and legal concerns associated with psychedelic use. (Psilocybin is still classified as a schedule one drug under federal law, though it has been decriminalized by several states.) She also uses the pseudonym on social media, where she has upwards of 200,000 followers and has built a brand discussing psychedelics, selling herbal birth control remedies and sharing her parenting experience. Alongside posts describing how to use a Queen Anne's Lace tincture and other herbs, she describes her preparations for ingesting mushrooms and how they have deepened her spirituality. She also shares videos showing her playing, cooking and talking about feelings with her son, in response to comments that she 'better pray that doing that has no long-term effects on your child'. Mikaela's work seeks to inject the concerns and knowledge of communities – particularly women and Indigenous peoples – that have often been excluded from scientific research, but are central to the history of psychedelic use. At the same time, it comes alongside a growing movement that is mistrustful of modern medicine – and more likely to seek advice from accessible social media platforms than unaffordable or distant doctors' offices. And it makes some medical professionals nervous. Over the past two decades, psychedelics have returned to the public eye as a growing body of research shows their potential benefits in treating mental health conditions such as PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, alcoholism and other disorders. In the United States, hundreds of clinical trials have investigated the medical benefits of psilocybin. Some researchers remain skeptical of the drugs' potential, citing the biases of researchers and poor study designs. In August last year the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to approve the use of another psychedelic, MDMA, in the treatment of PTSD. (In December, the VA announced that it will still fund new research into MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of PTSD and alcoholism.) Given the setback, it's possible that psilocybin-assisted therapy will gain FDA approval ahead of MDMA. Three states have already legalized the use of psilocybin at licensed therapeutic centers – Oregon first in 2020, followed by Colorado in 2022 and New Mexico this year – while dozens of other cities have decriminalized it. While ongoing clinical trials indicate that psychedelics, including psilocybin, may have important applications to the treatment of postpartum depression, very little is known about their safety during pregnancy. Emerging research into the health benefits of psychedelics has omitted pregnant people – as has most research on medication safety. Regarding psilocybin, 'If we don't have information, as scientists and as medical people, we would say it's not safe until we know that it is,' said Anita Clayton, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia school of medicine who is currently studying the use of a drug with a similar chemical structure to psilocybin in the treatment of postpartum depression. 'Because the facts we have are limited, people fill the gaps with what they want to be true,' Clayton added. 'Women also need to know about potential treatment options' for mental health conditions. Drug researchers have long taken a protectionist approach to studying medication safety during pregnancy. Their caution can be traced to the thalidomide crisis of the 1950s and early 1960s, when more than 10,000 babies were born with severe birth defects after their mothers took a widely prescribed tranquilizer for nausea while pregnant. In the aftermath, rather than studying the impacts of medications on pregnancy, researchers broadly excluded pregnant people from clinical trials. Less than 10% of medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration since 1980 have enough data to determine whether they cause birth defects. In the absence of data from clinical trials, researchers have found other ways to monitor medication safety during pregnancy. One of those methods is the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System and other large data registries. When medications are taken widely during pregnancy – whether a painkiller such as Tylenol or an antidepressant such as Prozac – researchers assess safety through observational data. Because of that, scientists know that many antidepressants, including most SSRIs, 'do not appear to cause significant problems in babies exposed to them', said Clayton. 'Certainly not as much as untreated depression in pregnancy.' Researchers have a sense of the hazards of certain more commonly used illicit drugs – such as cannabis (studies suggest that frequent use may be connected with an increased chance of adverse outcomes) and fentanyl (which can cause withdrawal symptoms in newborns). But the existing research into the effects of using psilocybin during pregnancy is extremely limited. Studies have not been done to see if taking magic mushrooms can increase the chance of pregnancy-related problems or birth defects, notes a fact sheet from MotherToBaby, a network of university and hospital researchers who track information on medication use during pregnancy. One animal study did show that psilocybin crossed the placental barrier and accumulated in fetal tissue in rats, but research hasn't been done to assess whether that's true in humans and if it could result in developmental issues. Because psilocybin interacts with serotonin receptors in the brain, some have also theorized that if it crosses the placental barrier it could affect fetal brain development. When Oregon legalized the use of psilocybin in licensed centers in 2020, it bumped up against this gap in knowledge. Rather than prohibiting pregnant people from ingesting psilocybin, it decided to require centers to complete an informed consent protocol with patients, which alerts them that 'the risks of consuming psilocybin while pregnant or feeding with breast milk are unknown'. After she gave birth to her son, Mikaela began collecting the limited information she could find about psychedelics and parenting, and sharing that information on social media, including Instagram and TikTok. Eventually, the Microdosing Institute, a psychedelics education network focused on the practice of taking a dose of psychedelics much smaller than one might ingest recreationally – to enhance creativity or relieve pain, for example – reached out to hear more about her work. There, she met James Fadiman, a psychologist and writer, often called the 'father of microdosing'. Since 2010, Fadiman has interviewed thousands of people who have microdosed psilocybin in an effort to develop a protocol for using mushrooms to treat common psychological and physical complaints. He published what he found in The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide in 2011. Neither Fadiman nor Mikaela have psychiatric training – Fadiman holds a PhD in psychology and Mikaela a bachelor's in English literature – but his strategy would inform her own research. In 2023, she and a UK-based doula publicized a survey across their networks and social media platforms. The aim was to collect the stories of people who had used any amount of psilocybin while pregnant or parenting. In recognition of the ethical complexity of conducting research during pregnancy, they were clear that they were not encouraging them to ingest mushrooms, but simply documenting their experience if they already had. 'They already made the choice,' said Wendy Shoef, a California-based life coach who later joined the team. 'You're not a part of the process. You just want to get the information from them after the fact.' Earlier this year, the women released a collection of the stories they received so far. The survey includes the experiences of 178 people who used psilocybin during pregnancy and 237 who used it while breastfeeding. After a round of initial responses, Mikaela and her colleagues began asking mothers to report their birth outcomes, but ultimately were only able to gather data from 14. (All reported healthy, full-term births, but the small number of responses, along with the methodology of the survey, mean the results should not be extrapolated more broadly.) Still, the project represents one of the largest collections of experiences on psilocybin and pregnancy to date. But not everyone has embraced it. 'I'm sure you're doing a great job of collecting as much data as possible and when you have published this data in a scientific journal we might be interested in having you share these results with the public,' a representative of the Atlanta Mushroom Festival wrote back when Mikaela applied to speak at the annual gathering in 2024. 'Claiming that it's OK to consume any psychedelics during pregnancy is a very sensitive claim and is not something we want to promote without better scientific backing.' Clayton, the University of Virginia professor, worries 'the type of data that they're trying to collect may not be informative' because it's not coming from 'a general population' but a network of regular psychedelic users with links to Mikaela and her colleagues, which could skew any conclusions. Nor does the survey control for other health-related behaviors on the part of the participants. She also notes that it's difficult to estimate how much psilocybin a person is consuming when those mushrooms are purchased outside of a legal setting. Instead, she said, scientists need to conduct rigorous animal studies first – and that those might reveal whether psilocybin has any impact on metrics like birth weight or developmental milestones. Mikaela's own biases are clear: she is a vocal proponent of psilocybin's benefits, as are many of the women she surveyed, so it's not surprising that the survey's results would be positive, and she knows they cannot be extrapolated more broadly. She calls her work 'an anthropological inquiry' focused less on western standards of science and more on storytelling as a way to understand people's experiences. Charles Schauberger, a Wisconsin-based physician board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and addiction medicine, echoes the idea. He thinks that with a willingness to follow certain guidelines, the group could produce an important qualitative study – focused on subjective experiences rather than statistical outcomes or objective markers of infant health. 'You have to be careful not to try to quantify results in a qualitative study because you can't be sure' whether the survey participants are truly representative, he said. Instead, he said, researchers might ask: 'Did you feel like your depression was better? Who did you consult to feel comfortable that it was safe to use psilocybin in your pregnancy? Did you use it just once? Did you use it multiple times? What are your feelings now that your baby's born and you're no longer pregnant?' The answers to those questions might help researchers design future quantitative studies, giving them insight on where to focus their inquiries. And in a field with a severe shortage of information, that addition to the literature could be helpful, he said. As Mikaela and her collaborators began distributing their survey, they noticed that a focus on mental health was a central thread through the responses they received. 'I mainly consumed mushrooms during my pregnancy with my second daughter because I was trying to escape an extremely toxic environment,' one woman wrote in her reply. 'I had a very troubled pregnancy emotionally. My relationship was decaying and I didn't have the support system I needed at the time,' another woman who ingested mushrooms while pregnant shared. 'I felt the calling to microdose to help me regulate my nervous system.' Many of the women reported that they preferred psychedelics to pharmaceuticals as a more natural alternative. 'I felt severe depression symptoms for months on end and decided I needed to microdose or take an antipsychotic,' another mother who used psilocybin during her pregnancy shared. 'The microdose felt safer to me.' In their report, Mikaela and her co-authors cite breastfeeding mothers who 'described feeling more emotionally connected to their babies and more capable of navigating the challenges of early parenthood with calm and clarity'. 'I was able to be present and appreciative of my life without stressing about all I 'should' or 'could' be getting done,' one mother wrote. Many parents also voiced fears that consuming mushrooms during pregnancy or while breastfeeding their children could land them in a police precinct. As one woman wrote, she felt great 'anxiety around getting my baby taken away if anyone found out'. The legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice has documented thousands of cases where pregnant people were criminalized over allegations of substance use between 1973 and 2022, though very few were related to psychedelics. Naomi Tolson, the UK-based doula who helped launch the study, said that fear of criminalization and stigma probably limited the responses they received. 'Even though the survey is anonymous, people still worry,' she said. Some scientists, such as Clayton and Anthony Scialli, a specialist in developmental and reproductive toxicology and director of the Reproductive Toxicology Center, worry about such DIY efforts playing into the Trump administration's full-frontal assault on the United States' scientific institutions. Scialli notes a growing wave of skepticism of pharmaceuticals – skepticism that has been championed by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. 'If there is research out there' about psilocybin and pregnancy, 'I haven't seen it,' he said, but, 'on most of the antidepressants there are many studies and very good studies'. Yet, he points to a growing conservative backlash against science: 'I understand it's fashionable for people not to believe scientific studies. After all, we have a whole bunch of people in the administration who don't believe in scientific studies.' For her part, Mikaela calls Kennedy 'a complete quack', but voices tentative appreciation that he has been 'open-minded to psychedelics'. At the same time, some psychedelic advocates and scholars argue that there is information out there on the safety of psychedelics during pregnancy – it's just not been formalized in the western canon. While completing her doctoral research in the 1980s, Stacy Schaefer, professor emerita in the department of anthropology at California State University, Chico, joined an Indigenous Mexican community, called the Wixárika, on their annual pilgrimage to the lands where they have long foraged peyote. 'I couldn't help but notice that there were several women in the group, at various stages of their pregnancy. And, some of them were nursing their babies,' said Schaefer. She learned that the women credited peyote with inducing lactation and easing labor pains. And the use of psychedelics during pregnancy was not limited to the Wixárika. She would later find that Brazilian women in the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal churches regularly consume ayahuasca during pregnancy. 'I am not advocating for western women to do this,' Schaefer said, emphasizing that, as psychedelics gain popularity, it's vital that practitioners conserve rare plants and avoid profiting off of Indigenous practices. But Indigenous communities have been using psychedelics during pregnancy 'for generations, perhaps centuries'. Schaefer believes that the scientific community has much to learn on women's health from Indigenous people, who possess expertise with various plant-based medicines and 'knowledge of the body that may not be in the same vocabulary and terms and concepts that we in western medicine have, but they're just as valid'. Two years into collecting survey responses, Mikaela and her colleagues know their work is nowhere near over. But she feels like they have reached an inflection point as they begin collaborating with a doctoral student to redo the survey structure and submit proposals to publish the work in a peer-reviewed research journal. The team aims to collect stories from twice as many mothers. Mikaela is also eager to continue following the families they have already connected with, to better understand their long-term experiences. Mikaela doesn't know whether the scientific community will come to embrace 'community research' on women's health that integrates Indigenous knowledge. At a moment where each of those subjects is tied up in complex political narratives and disinformation campaigns, the path ahead might be thorny. But she's pressing on all the same. Reporting for this story was supported by a Feriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship This article was amended on 16 July 2025 to clarify the nature of Mikaela de la Myco's social media presence.
The Independent
16-07-2025
- Health
- The Independent
Magic Mushrooms could lengthen your lifespan
A new study from Emory University suggests that psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, may extend your lifespan. Scientists at the university's department of medicine in Atlanta discovered that psilocybin increased cellular longevity and enhanced survival rates in aged mice. The study, published last week in the journal Nature, defined Psilocybin as the "naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by hallucinogenic mushrooms.' Researchers noted growing interest in psilocybin for treating psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions, but this study offers the first experimental evidence that psilocin, its active form, boosts longevity in aged mice. The study suggests psilocybin may be a powerful anti-aging agent, with data showing it reduces oxidative stress, prevents DNA damage and helps preserve telomere length, which all help slow the aging process. The older white-haired mice even appeared younger after treatment, regrowing black hair. "Psilocybin appears to slow the 'wear and tear' that accompanies aging," co-author of the study, Louise Hecker of Emory University, told Fox News Digital. "Mice and cells are healthier and live significantly longer." While the study suggests this could also work for humans, much more testing is needed. Hecker told the outlet that researchers need to answer questions such as, "What are the optimal dosing protocols for humans? What is the optimal age for treatment initiation for optimal benefits?" "Is there an age, beyond which point, when treatment does not provide efficacy?' she continued. 'Are there potential harms or adverse effects associated with long-term treatment? What are the mechanisms of its action? All these questions need to be rigorously tested." Gabe Charambides, founder of the U.S.' first legal psilocybin retreat in Oregon, called the findings 'compelling' but stressed that human use requires stricter screening, preparation and safety than in mice. He added that those who may benefit most from psilocybin therapy are people feeling 'stuck' after major life events, such as childhood trauma, divorce, job loss or bereavement, or those seeking to improve their mental health. Charambides said his retreat guests have reported relief from physical issues such as chronic pain and migraines, though no biological testing is conducted. Ryan Moss of Filament Health, a Canadian clinical-stage natural psychedelic drug development company, previously stressed to Fox News Digital that the use of psychedelics should be administered in a safe, controlled setting. "Psychedelic experiences can sometimes feature anxiety, hallucinations, and paranoia," Moss said. "Some patients using traditional psychedelics have reported experiencing adverse cardiovascular events during clinical trials." He recommends that clinical trial participants be well-prepared and closely monitored by trained professionals.
The Guardian
16-07-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
Is it safe to use magic mushrooms while pregnant? One woman's quest raises questions
When Mikaela found out she was pregnant six years ago, she knew she needed to stop drinking. What she wasn't sure about was how she would manage the cravings. As a teenager, she had discovered that alcohol and opiates could dull traumatic memories, including recurrent sexual assaults that played in her mind nonstop and led to suicidal thoughts. But as she entered her 20s, eager to address her mental health, she realized what helped most was psilocybin. Mikaela had found her way to psilocybin, the psychedelic compound active in 'magic' mushrooms, with close friends at the age of 19. A few large doses a year, with smaller microdoses in between, helped her achieve a sense of calm, like the bad trip that had been her whole life before mushrooms had ended. She also noticed they lessened her cravings for alcohol. Instead of picking up a beer when she would crave one, she tried microdosing. Indeed, recent research has shown that psilocybin may be a promising treatment for alcohol use disorder: in a 2022 study, psilocybin combined with therapy helped trial participants significantly reduce their drinking for the eight months researchers conducted follow-ups. She scoured the internet for information, unsure those mushrooms were safe for her pregnancy. At the same time, she knew she needed to stop drinking. Under no circumstances did she want her child to grow up with an alcoholic parent – like she had. As her Google searches brought up dead end after dead end, Mikaela, who has Indigenous Mexican ancestry, reached out to an Indigenous woman-led group that conducted ceremonies using plant medicines such as tobacco and peyote. The group was coordinating a psilocybin ceremony, where participants were planning to ingest mushrooms under the guidance of an elder, a few hours north of her in California in a few weeks' time. Mikaela asked if the woman who was leading it, a grandmother from Jalisco, Mexico, had any insight into whether participating would be harmful to her pregnancy. The woman told Mikaela that in her tradition, mothers continued consuming plant medicines such as psilocybin throughout their pregnancies and into motherhood. Mikaela packed up her car and drove out to the gathering. Under the canopy of a redwood grove, Mikaela accepted the fresh mushrooms the grandmother had prepared for her. As the sun began to set, Mikaela's gaze wandered from the campfire before her to the stars above, and she fell into an hours-long meditation. Sitting around a campfire the next day, the grandmother placed her hands on Mikaela's visibly pregnant belly and shared a message with her and the other participants. 'She talked very openly about the meaningfulness of carrying children and our responsibility as parents and mothers, and what it means to choose to be a mom at this time,' said Mikaela, now 31. Mikaela went on to use psilocybin, in both microdoses and full doses, throughout her pregnancy and since. She credits it with helping her develop 'a repulsion to the alcohol', she said, and to the social spaces where it was consumed. Soon after she gave birth to a healthy baby boy, she set out to find the answers she had been looking for. She knew researchers did not usually look like her or ask questions like hers, but she wondered if Indigenous knowledge about plant medicines could be transmitted to other mothers battling mental health challenges during pregnancy – and were struggling to find answers. 'Ethical constraints have limited clinical studies on psilocybin use among individuals in childbearing years, particularly during pregnancy and breastfeeding,' she wrote in a 'community research paper' surveying 411 people who used psilocybin before, during or after their pregnancies published earlier this year. 'This gap in research, compounded by the lingering stigma surrounding psychedelics, has left mothers to navigate their choices in isolation.' In the paper, Mikaela uses the pseudonym 'de la Myco', or 'of the mushroom', in place of her last name, citing the stigma and legal concerns associated with psychedelic use. (Psilocybin is still classified as a schedule one drug under federal law, though it has been decriminalized by several states.) She also uses the pseudonym on social media, where she has upwards of 200,000 followers and has built a brand offering guided psychedelic journeys, selling herbal birth control remedies and sharing her parenting experience. Alongside posts describing how to use a Queen Anne's Lace tincture and other herbs, she describes her preparations for ingesting mushrooms and how they have deepened her spirituality. She also shares videos showing her playing, cooking and talking about feelings with her son, in response to comments that she 'better pray that doing that has no long-term effects on your child'. Mikaela's work seeks to inject the concerns and knowledge of communities – particularly women and Indigenous peoples – that have often been excluded from scientific research, but are central to the history of psychedelic use. At the same time, it comes alongside a growing movement that is mistrustful of modern medicine – and more likely to seek advice from accessible social media platforms than unaffordable or distant doctors' offices. And it makes some medical professionals nervous. Over the past two decades, psychedelics have returned to the public eye as a growing body of research shows their potential benefits in treating mental health conditions such as PTSD, treatment-resistant depression, anxiety, alcoholism and other disorders. In the United States, hundreds of clinical trials have investigated the medical benefits of psilocybin. Some researchers remain skeptical of the drugs' potential, citing the biases of researchers and poor study designs. In August last year the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to approve the use of another psychedelic, MDMA, in the treatment of PTSD. (In December, the VA announced that it will still fund new research into MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of PTSD and alcoholism.) Given the setback, it's possible that psilocybin-assisted therapy will gain FDA approval ahead of MDMA. Three states have already legalized the use of psilocybin at licensed therapeutic centers – Oregon first in 2020, followed by Colorado in 2022 and New Mexico this year – while dozens of other cities have decriminalized it. While ongoing clinical trials indicate that psychedelics, including psilocybin, may have important applications to the treatment of postpartum depression, very little is known about their safety during pregnancy. Emerging research into the health benefits of psychedelics has omitted pregnant people – as has most research on medication safety. Regarding psilocybin, 'If we don't have information, as scientists and as medical people, we would say it's not safe until we know that it is,' said Anita Clayton, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia school of medicine who is currently studying the use of a drug with a similar chemical structure to psilocybin in the treatment of postpartum depression. 'Because the facts we have are limited, people fill the gaps with what they want to be true,' Clayton added. 'Women also need to know about potential treatment options' for mental health conditions. Drug researchers have long taken a protectionist approach to studying medication safety during pregnancy. Their caution can be traced to the thalidomide crisis of the 1950s and early 1960s, when more than 10,000 babies were born with severe birth defects after their mothers took a widely prescribed tranquilizer for nausea while pregnant. In the aftermath, rather than studying the impacts of medications on pregnancy, researchers broadly excluded pregnant people from clinical trials. Less than 10% of medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration since 1980 have enough data to determine whether they cause birth defects. In the absence of data from clinical trials, researchers have found other ways to monitor medication safety during pregnancy. One of those methods is the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System and other large data registries. When medications are taken widely during pregnancy – whether a painkiller such as Tylenol or an antidepressant such as Prozac – researchers assess safety through observational data. Because of that, scientists know that many antidepressants, including most SSRIs, 'do not appear to cause significant problems in babies exposed to them', said Clayton. 'Certainly not as much as untreated depression in pregnancy.' Researchers have a sense of the hazards of certain more commonly used illicit drugs – such as cannabis (studies suggest that frequent use may be connected with an increased chance of adverse outcomes) and fentanyl (which can cause withdrawal symptoms in newborns). But the existing research into the effects of using psilocybin during pregnancy is extremely limited. Studies have not been done to see if taking magic mushrooms can increase the chance of pregnancy-related problems or birth defects, notes a fact sheet from MotherToBaby, a network of university and hospital researchers who track information on medication use during pregnancy. One animal study did show that psilocybin crossed the placental barrier and accumulated in fetal tissue in rats, but research hasn't been done to assess whether that's true in humans and if it could result in developmental issues. Because psilocybin interacts with serotonin receptors in the brain, some have also theorized that if it crosses the placental barrier it could affect fetal brain development. When Oregon legalized the use of psilocybin in licensed centers in 2020, it bumped up against this gap in knowledge. Rather than prohibiting pregnant people from ingesting psilocybin, it decided to require centers to complete an informed consent protocol with patients, which alerts them that 'the risks of consuming psilocybin while pregnant or feeding with breast milk are unknown'. After she gave birth to her son, Mikaela began collecting the limited information she could find about psychedelics and parenting, and sharing that information on social media, including Instagram and TikTok. Eventually, the Microdosing Institute, a psychedelics education network focused on the practice of taking a dose of psychedelics much smaller than one might ingest recreationally – to enhance creativity or relieve pain, for example – reached out to hear more about her work. There, she met James Fadiman, a psychologist and writer, often called the 'father of microdosing'. Since 2010, Fadiman has interviewed thousands of people who have microdosed psilocybin in an effort to develop a protocol for using mushrooms to treat common psychological and physical complaints. He published what he found in The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide in 2011. Neither Fadiman nor Mikaela have psychiatric training – Fadiman holds a PhD in psychology and Mikaela a bachelor's in English literature – but his strategy would inform her own research. In 2023, she and a UK-based doula publicized a survey across their networks and social media platforms. The aim was to collect the stories of people who had used any amount of psilocybin while pregnant or parenting. In recognition of the ethical complexity of conducting research during pregnancy, they were clear that they were not encouraging them to ingest mushrooms, but simply documenting their experience if they already had. 'They already made the choice,' said Wendy Shoef, a California-based life coach who later joined the team. 'You're not a part of the process. You just want to get the information from them after the fact.' Earlier this year, the women released a collection of the stories they received so far. The survey includes the experiences of 178 people who used psilocybin during pregnancy and 237 who used it while breastfeeding. After a round of initial responses, Mikaela and her colleagues began asking mothers to report their birth outcomes, but ultimately were only able to gather data from 14. (All reported healthy, full-term births, but the small number of responses, along with the methodology of the survey, mean the results should not be extrapolated more broadly.) Still, the project represents one of the largest collections of experiences on psilocybin and pregnancy to date. But not everyone has embraced it. 'I'm sure you're doing a great job of collecting as much data as possible and when you have published this data in a scientific journal we might be interested in having you share these results with the public,' a representative of the Atlanta Mushroom Festival wrote back when Mikaela applied to speak at the annual gathering in 2024. 'Claiming that it's OK to consume any psychedelics during pregnancy is a very sensitive claim and is not something we want to promote without better scientific backing.' Clayton, the University of Virginia professor, worries 'the type of data that they're trying to collect may not be informative' because it's not coming from 'a general population' but a network of regular psychedelic users with links to Mikaela and her colleagues, which could skew any conclusions. Nor does the survey control for other health-related behaviors on the part of the participants. She also notes that it's difficult to estimate how much psilocybin a person is consuming when those mushrooms are purchased outside of a legal setting. Instead, she said, scientists need to conduct rigorous animal studies first – and that those might reveal whether psilocybin has any impact on metrics like birth weight or developmental milestones. Mikaela's own biases are clear: she is a vocal proponent of psilocybin's benefits, as are many of the women she surveyed, so it's not surprising that the survey's results would be positive, and she knows they cannot be extrapolated more broadly. She calls her work 'an anthropological inquiry' focused less on western standards of science and more on storytelling as a way to understand people's experiences. Charles Schauberger, a Wisconsin-based physician board certified in obstetrics and gynecology and addiction medicine, echoes the idea. He thinks that with a willingness to follow certain guidelines, the group could produce an important qualitative study – focused on subjective experiences rather than statistical outcomes or objective markers of infant health. 'You have to be careful not to try to quantify results in a qualitative study because you can't be sure' whether the survey participants are truly representative, he said. Instead, he said, researchers might ask: 'Did you feel like your depression was better? Who did you consult to feel comfortable that it was safe to use psilocybin in your pregnancy? Did you use it just once? Did you use it multiple times? What are your feelings now that your baby's born and you're no longer pregnant?' The answers to those questions might help researchers design future quantitative studies, giving them insight on where to focus their inquiries. And in a field with a severe shortage of information, that addition to the literature could be helpful, he said. As Mikaela and her collaborators began distributing their survey, they noticed that a focus on mental health was a central thread through the responses they received. 'I mainly consumed mushrooms during my pregnancy with my second daughter because I was trying to escape an extremely toxic environment,' one woman wrote in her reply. 'I had a very troubled pregnancy emotionally. My relationship was decaying and I didn't have the support system I needed at the time,' another woman who ingested mushrooms while pregnant shared. 'I felt the calling to microdose to help me regulate my nervous system.' Many of the women reported that they preferred psychedelics to pharmaceuticals as a more natural alternative. 'I felt severe depression symptoms for months on end and decided I needed to microdose or take an antipsychotic,' another mother who used psilocybin during her pregnancy shared. 'The microdose felt safer to me.' In their report, Mikaela and her co-authors cite breastfeeding mothers who 'described feeling more emotionally connected to their babies and more capable of navigating the challenges of early parenthood with calm and clarity'. 'I was able to be present and appreciative of my life without stressing about all I 'should' or 'could' be getting done,' one mother wrote. Many parents also voiced fears that consuming mushrooms during pregnancy or while breastfeeding their children could land them in a police precinct. As one woman wrote, she felt great 'anxiety around getting my baby taken away if anyone found out'. The legal advocacy group Pregnancy Justice has documented thousands of cases where pregnant people were criminalized over allegations of substance use between 1973 and 2022, though very few were related to psychedelics. Naomi Tolson, the UK-based doula who helped launch the study, said that fear of criminalization and stigma probably limited the responses they received. 'Even though the survey is anonymous, people still worry,' she said. Some scientists, such as Clayton and Anthony Scialli, a specialist in developmental and reproductive toxicology and director of the Reproductive Toxicology Center, worry about such efforts playing into the Trump administration's full-frontal assault on the United States' scientific institutions. Scialli notes a growing wave of skepticism of pharmaceuticals – skepticism that has been championed by the US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. 'If there is research out there' about psilocybin and pregnancy, 'I haven't seen it,' he said, but, 'on most of the antidepressants there are many studies and very good studies'. Yet, he points to a growing conservative backlash against science: 'I understand it's fashionable for people not to believe scientific studies. After all, we have a whole bunch of people in the administration who don't believe in scientific studies.' For her part, Mikaela calls Kennedy 'a complete quack', but voices tentative appreciation that he has been 'open-minded to psychedelics'. At the same time, some psychedelic advocates and scholars argue that there is information out there on the safety of psychedelics during pregnancy – it's just not been formalized in the western canon. While completing her doctoral research in the 1980s, Stacy Schaefer, professor emerita in the department of anthropology at California State University, Chico, joined an Indigenous Mexican community, called the Wixárika, on their annual pilgrimage to the lands where they have long foraged peyote. 'I couldn't help but notice that there were several women in the group, at various stages of their pregnancy. And, some of them were nursing their babies,' said Schaefer. She learned that the women credited peyote with inducing lactation and easing labor pains. And the use of psychedelics during pregnancy was not limited to the Wixárika. She would later find that Brazilian women in the Santo Daime and União do Vegetal churches regularly consume ayahuasca during pregnancy. 'I am not advocating for western women to do this,' Schaefer said, emphasizing that, as psychedelics gain popularity, it's vital that practitioners conserve rare plants and avoid profiting off of Indigenous practices. But Indigenous communities have been using psychedelics during pregnancy 'for generations, perhaps centuries'. Schaefer believes that the scientific community has much to learn on women's health from Indigenous people, who possess expertise with various plant-based medicines and 'knowledge of the body that may not be in the same vocabulary and terms and concepts that we in western medicine have, but they're just as valid'. Two years into collecting survey responses, Mikaela and her colleagues know their work is nowhere near over. But she feels like they have reached an inflection point as they begin collaborating with a doctoral student to redo the survey structure and submit proposals to publish the work in a peer-reviewed research journal. The team aims to collect stories from twice as many mothers. Mikaela is also eager to continue following the families they have already connected with, to better understand their long-term experiences. Mikaela doesn't know whether the scientific community will come to embrace 'community research' on women's health that integrates Indigenous knowledge. At a moment where each of those subjects is tied up in complex political narratives and disinformation campaigns, the path ahead might be thorny. But she's pressing on all the same. Reporting for this story was supported by a Feriss-UC Berkeley Psychedelic Journalism Fellowship
