Opioid

• A recent report from Insight Ace Analytic projected that the Psychedelic Therapeutics Market Size is valued at 3.94 Billion in 2022 and is predicted to reach 13.29 Billion by the year 2031 at a 14.92 % CAGR during the forecast period for 2023-2031.
• The report said: "The Global psychedelic therapeutics market is proliferating owing to the increasing incidence of depression cases across the world.
• Additionally, changed lifestyles and quality of living are supporting the growth of psychedelic medicine market.
• Worldwide has a track record of successful patient recruitment for psychedelic trials and global relationships with best-in-class investigative sites.

• Through the LAA, Ontra partners with 600 private equity customers to fund access to legal services in low-income communities.
• For every document processed on Ontra's platform, the LAA donates $1 to vetted non-profit legal aid organizations.
• "Through the Legal Aid Alliance, we've set our sights on closing this 'justice gap' by educating and mobilizing Ontra customers around this important cause and by delivering funds directly to the non-profits best equipped to provide critical legal aid.
• Globally, the World Justice Project ® (WJP) estimates that 1.5 billion people cannot obtain justice for civil, administrative, or criminal justice problems.

• Sparrow Ascent is a wearable neurostimulation device designed to provide safe, comfortable, drug-free relief for individuals experiencing opioid withdrawal symptoms.
• Spark’s original product, The Sparrow Therapy System, received FDA clearance in January of 2021 and was designed primarily for use within in-patient clinical settings.
• Daniel Powell, CEO of Spark Biomedical, stated, "This is a significant milestone for Spark Biomedical and a tremendous step forward in our mission to combat the opioid crisis.
• Sparrow Ascent represents a breakthrough in the treatment of opioid withdrawal symptoms, offering hope to those navigating the challenging path of recovery.

• Whether seeing the world through the eyes of a toad is an experience worth having is an open question.
• Toad juice (or bufotenine, its active ingredient) is currently experiencing a renaissance, albeit usually in smokable form.
• Mike Tyson, Hunter Biden and Joe Rogan credit it with life-changing insights that years of amphibian-free therapy could not provide.
• Review: Psychonauts: Drugs and the Making of the Modern Mind – Mike Jay (Yale University Press) Psychedelics are back in the news.

The early psychonauts

• Jay excavates a much deeper and more interesting history of early chemical adventurers.
• In the 1880s, for example, Sigmund Freud self-administered cocaine to test whether it could induce euphoria and recharge the cerebral battery as earlier psychonauts had suggested.
• Chastened by his colleague’s descent into a vortex of abuse, he set cocaine aside and airbrushed it from his life story.
• Read more:
  Friday essay: peyotes in suburbia – the secret world of Sydney's psychoactive cacti growers

Substances and society

• Much of Jay’s book lays out an absorbing history of psychoactive substances, but it is also rich with insights on the broader societal implications of substance use.
• Once an expansive category, it contracted when “medications” escaped into therapeutic legitimacy, leaving the remaining substances stigmatised and criminalised.
• More recently, psychedelics have attempted the same manoeuvre, trying to shed the taint of abused drugs to become seen as morally impeccable.
• Psychedelics have been stereotypically whiter than the substances against which the American war on drugs has primarily been fought, disproportionately targeting minority communities as a result.

Psychonautics and psychology

• Many early psychonauts were artists, writers and philosophers, but influential psychologists and neurologists were also well represented, notably Freud, James and, decades later, Harvard psychology professor Timothy Leary, a buttoned-down academic researcher before he turned on, tuned in and dropped out.
• These three writers all found inspiration in their experiences of intoxication, although Freud backed away from his own.
• Their explorations were supported by approaches to psychology that centred the study of subjectivity.
• William James worked at a time when subjective experience was central to the nascent field of academic psychology.
• New psychoactive substances – such as amphetamines, ecstasy and LSD – were synthesised during this period, but the tradition of self-experimentation had died within psychology.