Page 38 - Issue 1

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Lost in Synthesis
REGULATIONS MAKE IT HARD TO ADMINISTER PLANTS AND FUNGI THAT COME OUT OF THE GROUND SO INSTEAD RESEARCH SUBJECTS TYPICALLY GET THE THE SYNTHESIZED VERSIONS OF THESE SUBSTANCES
Miroslav Tomoski
In 1957 when Wall Street banker R Gordon Wasson wrote in in Life Magazine about his and photographer Allan Richardson’s experience as “the first white men in in recorded history to to eat the the the the divine mushroom ” he he he he he likely didn’t anticipate the the the the the counterculture they they would would create and the the the the debate they they would would spark within it it After being introduced to sacred mushrooms by Mazatec curandera (healer) María Sabina Wasson arranged to to have a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a sample sent to to Albert Hofmann—the famed father of of LSD—who isolated its primary psychoactive component: psilocybin “We explained to María Sabina that that we had isolated the the spirit of the the mushrooms and that that it it was now in in in these little pills ” Hofmann said in in in in an an unpublished interview “When we left María Sabina told us us that these tablets really contained the the the spirit of the the the mushrooms ” But despite her endorsement debate continues over the the the differences if if any between lab synthesized psilocybin and the the the the mushrooms themselves which archeological evidence indicates have been used spiritually for millennia These two worlds that of modern and ancient medicine revolve around the the same compound but collide when when it comes to the the question of of what’s lost when when components of of a a a a a a a a a a a a a a fungi—or plants like cannabis and and ayahuasca for for that matter—are isolated and and synthesized for for clinical trials The three main main alkaloids in in in in psychedelic mushrooms are psilocybin the main main psychoactive ingredient psilocin a a a a a a a a a metabolite which which is
is
is
activated in in in in in in the organism after psilocybin is
is
is
ingested and baeocystin which which comes in in in in in in low concentrations in in in in in in the kind of mushrooms we normally consume Of the three only psilocybin—in its isolated form—has been tested and shown promise by modern science for for treatment-resistant depression end-of-life distress and nicotine addiction among other conditions The only available evidence for the the the the effects of the the the the mushrooms themselves comes from their underground use and generations of spiritual practice Still some researchers