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Study Finds up to 9% of Psilocybin, LSD Experiences Result in Flashbacks
New research published in the journal Psychopharmacology further explores psychedelic flashbacks from LSD and psilocybin.
Those who have used psilocybin or LSD may be familiar with the experience: The day following your trip, it’s back to reality, yet there are still glimmers of your previous day’s journey, a fleeting visual cue borrowing from the more intense hallucinogenic effects you just experienced.
These spontaneously recurring, drug-like effects following hallucinogenic exposure are referred to as flashback phenomena; symptoms can include vision changes, mood changes and derealization/depersonalization. Those with persistent recurring flashbacks causing significant distress or impairment may have hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (HPPD), which is considered extremely rare.
New research published in the journal Psychopharmacology further explores psychedelic flashbacks, with results from six placebo-controlled studies revealing that the phenomena occurred for up to 9.2% of participants after LSD or psilocybin exposure.
The authors note that data and current knowledge on both flashbacks and HPPD is “very limited,” even though they are assumed to be among “the most relevant side effects of hallucinogenic drugs.” For the study, researchers analyzed data pulled from multiple clinical trials in order to better describe flashback phenomena and HPPD.
Researchers used data from six double-blinded, placebo-controlled studies with a total of 142 participants aged 25 to 65. In total, 90 participants received LSD, 24 received psilocybin and 28 received both substances. The doses varied depending on the trial; participants received one to five LSD doses ranging from 0.025 and 0.2mg, and/or between one to two doses of psilocybin ranging from 15 to 30mg.
Subjects were asked at each study session to report any adverse events since their last contact with the study team, and any event, including flashbacks, was recorded. All studies also included an end-of-study visit after the last study session, where all subjects were asked for the occurrence of flashback phenomena throughout the entire course of the study. Those who reported flashbacks were asked to describe the phenomenon, specifically the quality, quantity, impairment level and time of occurrence.
Those who reported flashbacks at the end of the study were then conducted via email for follow-up, specifically to assess the occurrence of continued flashbacks of HPPD. Those who reported further flashbacks were again asked to describe them (with the terms of the end-of-study visit) along with any potential triggers to the flashbacks.
During the final study visit, 13 participants (9.2%) described a flashback experience; seven instances occurred after taking LSD, two after psilocybin and four after taking both substances. Most of the flashbacks were visual alterations (for 11 of the 13 participants), and three participants experienced other phenomena (such as auditory/cognitive effects or a feeling of disintegration). Two participants exclusively reported emotional alterations.
Researchers also noted that flashbacks were limited to the week after the last drug administration in all but two cases.
For most subjects, the flashbacks lasted for seconds (69.2%) to minutes (23.1%), though one case (7.7%) reported alterations persisting for hours. The subject specified that this involved intensified perception of colors and slowed thinking the day following three study sessions.
For most of these cases (53.8%), the phenomena only occurred once. In two cases (15.4%), symptoms persisted more than five times. One of these subjects reported around 20 visual flashbacks within a short period roughly 24 hours after drug administration. The other subject experienced approximately 30 visual flashbacks within a seven-month period after drug administration. This was the only patient who clearly reported flashbacks after the end-of-study visit. Though, researchers noted that flashbacks lasted just seconds, were experienced as benign and did not impair daily life in both cases.
More than 50% of participants said the flashbacks occurred while relaxing or shortly before sleep (meaning 1.4% of all 142 subjects reported distressing flashback experiences). While two participants said the flashbacks were experienced as unpleasant, 10 cases said they were neutral or positive. The remaining case was not sufficiently documented. In all, none of the subjects reported impairment in their daily life due to these symptoms.
Researchers also determined that none of the participants met the criteria for HPPD at any time point, though they noted the rarity of the disorder and the small sample size as factors.
“Drug-like experiences after the administration of LSD and psilocybin seem to be a relatively common phenomenon in clinical trials with healthy participants,” the authors concluded, clarifying that those flashbacks that occurred were mostly benign and didn’t impair daily life. “Overall, our data suggests that flashbacks are not a clinically relevant problem in controlled studies with healthy participants.”
Could honing in on flashback symptoms hold greater potential in a therapeutic setting? While the study reveals new insights that could help to inform further research on the topic, especially as the West continues to embrace psychedelic medicine, there’s still a lot more to uncover.
The study, “Flashback phenomena after administration of LSD and psilocybin in controlled studies with healthy participants,” was authored by Felix Müller, Elias Kraus, Friederike Holze, Anna Becker, Laura Ley, Yasmin Schmid, Patrick Vizeli, Matthias E. Liechti and Stefan Borgwardt.
Source: https://hightimes.com/news/study-finds-up-to-9-of-psilocybin-lsd-experiences-result-in-flashbacks/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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