Treating symptoms of PTSD with MDMA and psilocybin isn’t news. As a matter of fact, it was the Swiss chemist, Albert Hofmann, who accidentally developed LSD in the late 1930s, and later discovered its psychotherapeutic effects.
Since then, researchers have conducted many studies with several other psychedelics.
Research and methods of treatments are evolving every day. People can now join free medical trials to help cure their mental illness. Organizations such as the Beckley Foundation enable people to utilize psychedelic microdosing, along with psychedelic therapy, to treat mental disorders.
Microdose Nasal Spray
As research increases, so do new methods of treatments involving psychedelics. Most recently, a start-up based in Oregon called Silo Wellness has developed a nasal spray comprising psilocybin. This new little device is meant to microdose psilocybin and to help manage symptoms of anxiety, PTSD, and depression.
The company owns retreats in Jamaica in addition to conducting magic mushroom cultivation. Silo Wellness has described its new product as a “game-changing technology” which “allows users to bypass the gut completely, entirely eliminating the queasy stomach or nausea side effects sometimes associated with oral dosing.”
The company’s website also explains how “there is no question of the consistency of dosing” as “every single time you spray a dose, you get virtually the same active pharmacological ingredients.”
Providing sufferers of PTSD and other mental illnesses with microdosages of psilocybin under the format of a nasal spray might help fight the stigma of alternative treatments and psychedelics. Indeed, a nasal spray not only helps solve issues relating to the dosage, but it might also contribute to giving a more medically valid aspect to the product, not to mention discretion for the user.
Moreover, the company affirms that this could be a stepping-stone into decriminalizing psychedelics in the United States. In an article published by GeekWire, the potential legalization of psychedelic mushrooms in Oregon is discussed. This would mean that it would become the first state to decriminalize the substance.
Push to Decriminalize
The article also reveals that Silo Wellness is in favor of activists pushing for statewide decriminalization of magic mushrooms for therapeutic use this year. Mike Arnold, the start-up’s founder who also happens to be a former trial attorney, has expressed his goal to “get psychedelics in the hands of as many people as quickly and inexpensively as possible.”
People, in particular Americans, are often left with no other option but to use addictive medications to treat their mental illness. The use of psychedelics is argued to be a safer and overall better option in the long term to treat mental illnesses.
MAPS and other institutions have revealed that therapy involving substances like Psilocybin and MDMA, better known as ecstasy, shows 80 percent success rates years after treatment. These are promising results for people seeking an alternative to benzos, which are highly addictive and should in principle only be used for up to six weeks.
Silo Wellness’s nasal spray could especially help those who want a product to work fast. The psilocybin spray has a quicker onset speed than traditional oral methods, allowing users to feel the effects more quickly.
The website states that this speed can prevent the dosage “stacking” problem that is seen when users are impatient after a first dose, and take the second dose before the effects of the prior one have fully been realized.
