It’s turning into a really bad year for psychedelic medicine. It suffered another loss Tuesday, when Massachusetts voters soundly rejected a ballot measure to legalize certain plant-based psychedelics for adults. The tally this morning was 57 percent opposed to 43 percent in favor, according to the Associated Press, a difference of more than 400,000 votes. Question 4 would have allowed adults 21 and older to grow, possess and use a personal amount of natural psychedelic substances, including psilocybin and psilocyn, both found in mushrooms, and mescaline, ibogaine, and dimethyltryptamine, or DMT, which are derived from plants. It also would have set up a commission and state advisory board for regulating psychedelics. Psychedelics advocates, including the CEO of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, David Bronner, who donated $1 million toward the Massachusetts campaign, believe psychedelics are a promising treatment for intractable mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder, treatment-resistant depression and alcohol-use disorder. Opponents included the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, a state branch of the American Psychiatric Association, which represents 1,500 psychiatrists in Massachusetts. Had the measure passed, it would have made Massachusetts the third state to legalize psilocybin after Oregon and Colorado, which approved their own ballot measures in 2020 and 2022. Psychedelic movement losses mount: In August, the FDA rejected drugmaker Lykos Therapeutics’ application to treat PTSD with the psychedelic drug MDMA and therapy after the agency’s outside advisers said Lykos’ regimen wasn’t effective and the company hadn’t shown that its benefits outweighed its risks. Lykos subsequently laid off 75 percent of its staff, and its top leaders left. The FDA told the company it would need to conduct an additional Phase III clinical trial to have its application reconsidered. The stringent regulatory environment put a chill on the sector. Last week, Lykos competitor Compass Pathways announced it was delaying results from its late-stage synthetic psilocybin trial and laying off 30 percent of its staff. What's next? The VA, which in addition to being the nation's largest health system serves a population with disproportionately high PTSD rates, remains bullish on psychedelic research. "The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs must lead on this encouraging area of investigation so that we can continue to build trust with Veterans contending with these severe health conditions," Dr. Shereef Elnahal, the VA undersecretary for health, wrote on LinkedIn late last month, adding: "And we will."
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