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UCL To Lead First-Ever Brain Imaging Study Among Psychedelic Retreat Participants
University College London has planned to collaborate with Tandava Retreats and F.I.V.E. to study psychedelic medicine and the brain.
Despite naysayers and prevailing attitudes echoing into the present day, it’s clear today that psychedelic medicine at the very least carries potential in treating mental health conditions and symptoms that have otherwise been difficult to treat or entirely resistant to treatment.
The model for legal psychedelic therapy, and most research looking at the efficacy of psychedelics for mental health treatments, is generally understood through psychedelic therapy centers. For states that have legalized psychedelic substances like psilocybin, or any number of ketamine clinics already operating in the U.S., this typically involves a combination of talk therapy, a controlled psychedelic dose, and supervision/guidance from a licensed professional.
But what about psychedelic retreats? These tailor-made psychedelic getaways typically take place in countries where psychedelic substances are allowed, similarly helping patients seeking symptom relief, or often a general mental reset, in a luxurious setting.
Now, the public psychedelics practitioner training program F.I.V.E. has announced plans to collaborate with Tandava Retreats and University College London (UCL) on the first-ever EEG brain imaging study of 5-MeO-DMT among retreat center participants, Benzinga reports.
Study collaborators are generally looking to uncover more information on 5-MeO-DMT’s mechanism of action and specifically within naturalistic settings over medical/clinical settings, along with how retreat participants could be better served as they use the substance in this setting.
The study’s principal investigator Jeremy Skipper said it’s important to look at the actual contexts these psychedelics are used in order to best understand the effects of such substances.
“We hope to contribute not only to a better scientific understanding of how 5-MeO-DMT works in the brain, but also to enabling individualized approaches that maximize the efficacy of 5-MeO-DMT therapies and retreats,” Skipper told Benzinga.
Tandava CEO Joel Brierre, who is also the CEO of F.I.V.E., will coordinate the study along with F.I.V.E. President Victoria Wueschner. It will gather both qualitative and quantitative data from Tandava participants, assessing changes in well-being, beliefs, and personality. The study will use spontaneous neural imagery electroencephalography (EEG) on participants both before and during the psychoactive experience.
“These retreats allow you to explore the deepest realms of your innermost being, address behavioral habits that no longer serve you, and give you the freedom of life that you seek,” the Tandava website states. “We believe that no one should be a victim of their own mental patterning.”
Tandava is located in Tepoztlan, Mexico, and has the amenities anyone might expect on a tropical vacation: a hot jacuzzi, sauna, communal spaces, plenty of food and drink and private rooms for all visitors. With practitioners and integration specialists with varying backgrounds, Tandava offers a number of options, including a “transcultural” framework, an Indigenous/Shamanic approach, even a journey grounded by yoga.
The site also mentions that each Tandava guide has been on their own psychedelic journey.
Research has already affirmed that 5-MeO-DMT used in a naturalistic group setting can improve depression and anxiety, though of course there’s still a lot of catching up to do to fully understand its impacts, and the impacts of other psychedelic substances. The compound generally comes from the Sonoran Desert toad, Bufo alvarius, though Tandava Retreats uses synthetic 5-MeO-DMT to support species conservation and sourcing sustainability.
“We have found the experience of synthetic 5-MeO-DMT to be identical in nature to the toad secretion, which is important to note during the rise in popularity of this medicine,” Brierre told Benzinga. “Not only is synthetic safer and more effective to use with participants, but it has the repeatable consistency and precision dosage needed for proper research to be done.”
The study will cost about $108,437, though a U.K.-based charity has already donated $40,898 to the cause. Tandava will also match any funds raised and will donate retreat and integration costs for 15 of the 30 participants. There is also a crowdfund available for those interested in supporting the study.
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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