Athletes, first responders and veterans have all reported using psychedelic mushrooms to help treat a variety of mental health disorders.
This Arizona Legislative session put money toward more research into the medicine, making it the first time in the state’s history for psychedelic mushrooms to be approved for research by lawmakers.
The key demographic for the study aims to benefit veterans and first responders.
There’s only one place in Arizona where the DEA has allowed psilocybin mushrooms to be grown and it’s inside Scottsdale Research Institute.
“What we’re aiming for is a consistently potent mushroom,” said Russell Turley, showing off a contraption that measures potency for substances.
Turley is a volunteer at the Scottsdale Research Institute.
He helps the federally regulated lab conduct FDA clinical trials on the potential medical benefits of different plant drugs.
He also credits psilocybin mushrooms in part to helping him beat his addiction to one of the most harmful drugs in our society.
”With the help of psilocybin, I’ve been off heroin for five and a half years,” he said.
Stories like these were heard by Arizona lawmakers this session, but mostly from veterans and first responders.
The state approved $5 million in the budget to research how psychedelic mushrooms can help with PTSD, addiction and other ailments.
Distinguished veterans like Lt. General Martin Steele who served in the Obama Administration as an advocate for veteran mental health hopes more states follow in Arizona’s path.
“(There are) over a thousand men and women that had to go outside the country to get these lifesaving medicinal treatments, we can do this legally inside the United States,” he said.
Dr. Sue Sisley heads the Scottsdale Research Institute. She hopes to use the allocated state money to start human trials with psilocybin mushrooms for veterans and first responders who want to work out things like internal trauma or addiction.
“Real natural psilocybin mushrooms have never been evaluated in a controlled trial, can you believe that?” she said.
Once ingested through a capsule, tea or chocolate, the trip could be 5-7 hours, she says.
”It works it’s way into that part of the brain and activates some of the neurocircuits that haven’t been enlivened in a while. It starts to enable the brain to kind of be recalibrated,” she said.
Dr. Sisley said it’s understandable to see state leaders realize pharmaceutical companies don’t have all the solutions and plant medicine needs more research.
She hopes to start trials within the year if approved by an advisory council overseeing who conducts the research.
”We intend to publish all of the data. The good and bad of psilocybin mushrooms will all be made available in medical journals later so that people can scrutinize it and form their own opinions,” she said.
