Well worth a read if only for the FOI document they managed to get hold of…
Here’s the introduction
For-profit companies want psychedelics to be treated as medicine; others want them to just be legal. They’ll have to learn to get along.
In March, David Bronner, the “Cosmic Engagement Officer” of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, wrote that it was “time to publicly call out the for-profit psychedelic pharma company Compass Pathways, for their monopolistic and shady behavior.”
Bronner alleged that George Goldsmith, CEO and co-founder of mental health company Compass Pathways, had been reaching out to researchers at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) “in an attempt to drum up concern and mobilize opposition to implementing 109 in Oregon.” (Oregon Measure 109 passed in November 2020 and outlines a path to legalizing psilocybin services in Oregon by 2023.)
Until now, what exactly Goldsmith was emailing to researchers in Oregon was unknown outside of what was outlined in Bronner’s post. Through a Public Records Law request, Motherboard obtained an email that Goldsmith sent to a professor of psychiatry at OHSU on November 19, 2020. In it, Goldsmith summarized what Compass Pathways does and noted, “We are also the largest funder of psilocybin preclinical and clinical research.”
He emphasized that psilocybin therapy would be best developed in the medical model. “While we agree that there is a need for innovation in mental health care, we firmly believe that this should be developed along existing regulatory standards with FDA oversight,” he wrote. “Clearly, a majority of Oregon voters think differently.”
EMAIL SENT BY GEORGE GOLDSMITH OBTAINED THROUGH PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST.
“Monopolistic behavior that attempts to block other entities from bringing medicines to market, or even worse, shut down Oregon’s Measure 109 model and attempt to lock up psychedelic therapy inside the FDA medical pharma model for narrow qualifying diagnoses only, is harmful to the healing we as a movement want to bring to the world,” Bronner wrote.
Read the full article https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqgdy/psychedelics-are-a-billion-dollar-business-and-no-one-can-agree-who-should-control-it
