Preparing for the Psychedelic Revolution — Payton Nyquvest with Numinus

Bruce Bassi: All right. Welcome to the Future of Psychiatry podcast, where we explore novel technology and new innovations in mental health. I’m your host, Dr. Bassi, an addiction physician and biomedical engineer. Today we have Peyton Quest, who is the founder of numinous, which is a company that uses integrated model to explore the power and promise of psychedelic medicine, they offer psilocybin assisted therapy, M D M A assisted therapy.

Ketamine assisted therapy and psychedelic integration to help you process a challenging psychedelic experience, Or help you connect with experts to help unpack what you’ve learned about in that experience. There’s such a thirst for information on how psychedelics can help individuals with mental health issues.

I get asked about this all the time from clinicians and patients alike, so I thought it would be very helpful to have Peyton on the show to help educate us and tell us a little bit more about Newman and clear up any. Misconceptions that people might have about psychedelics. Peyton, welcome to the show.

Payton: Thank you so much for having me.

Bruce Bassi: Yeah, so let’s start off maybe talking about Numinous and how you got involved in this and why you started this company. I’d love to know more information about that. I.

Payton: Sure. You know, I, I, I kind of come to the space and, and uni’s formation came really from my own experience of being a patient first and foremost. And having really, I, and I, I don’t kind of say this lightly or passingly and you, you hear this a lot from people, but I was fortunate enough to have psychedelic therapy save my life.

And really that came from a, a lifelong. Challenge with severe chronic pain. But what what kind of happened for me through that process was in my sort of early to mid-teens became very, very passionate about mental health. I had a family member who my mom actually who, who struggled with substance use disorder and got sober when I was in my early teens.

And I watched somebody, you know, Into their own mental health. And then become, I always say, you know, sort of. Or, or I think was able to see themselves as the way that I always hoped that they could see themself. And that really inspired me because of the chronic pain that I was suffering with, really trying to look at, you know, what are the sort of maybe mental health challenges that are either associated with this or maybe causing it in the first place.

And that kinda led me on like a, I always call it like a, Kind of healing crusade of, of this intersection of mental health, physical health, call it spiritual health. And really got me to a point a number of years ago where no matter what I was trying to do I had felt like I’d exhausted all options and unfortunately got to a place where really Was at a place of last resort.

I was getting hospitalized about three, four days a week, and was out of options. And because I had come from a family that struggled with substance abuse, I’d actually never had a psychedelic experience before. I’d always kind of steered away from any sort of recreational drug use. But I’d researched and, and heard a lot.

A number of years and, and sort of, kind of as a last ditch effort turned to psychedelics to, to try and alleviate what was, what was happening for me. And not to paint the picture of a panacea. ’cause I usually say the, the, the work really started kind of after the psychedelic experience. But one week with, with psychedelics and I never had any chronic pain symptoms ever again.

And that really led me. I was fortunate enough that I’d had so much resourcing around mental health and support and you know, how to sort of, I would say live a life that’s sort of rooted or anchored in that. But coming back from that experience, really, I. Recognizing how much work is really associated with these, with these experiences.

They, They grant you this opportunity for alleviation, but it’s really up to you as to, you know, how well you want that, you know, to integrate and, and make a, a lasting impact in your life. And so that was sort of the path that I took and. Was really sort of an expression of that. While, you know, while we do, while we are kind of at our heart, Looking to offer an advanced psychedelic therapy.

We feel it’s, it’s equally or, or frankly, more important to build a solid infrastructure around these experiences that really help make it tangible for people. Just simply offering the experience, frankly is, is really not enough. And, And in particular in, in North America where. If you look at cultures really every, everywhere else in the world, there, there are, you know, there there’s cultures that have a historical use of psychedelic or some kind of state whether it’s some kind of group ceremony, even things like fasting or what have you, we have these transcendent states that are anchored in a lot of a lot of different cultures.

In, In North America, we don’t really have that, and so we need to make sure that while we’re making these different treatments available for people, We also have to make sure that there’s a place for these four people to prepare and to integrate and to connect with community, and to continue to again, you know, integrate these experiences so that they can actually make a lasting, a lasting impact.

So that’s the, that’s the very shortest version of a, of a very long story, but

Bruce Bassi: Well, I appreciate that thoughtful answer. And also I appreciate you opening up about your own mental health struggle as a person in a power and authority figure in this company in a leadership role opening up about their own mental health struggles to help alleviate stigma that we have.

To help alleviate the stigma about chronic pain.

I think chronic pain is particularly difficult if issue to deal with because there’s uncertainty revolving around what is causing this issue for me. Most of the time, especially early on in working through the diagnosis. Then there’s not one specialist for that person either to treat them.

It’s usually this team. And you feel like you’re not really well fitting into any one of those specialists roles. What, which was the psychedelic that you first started off with and were you scared? Were you interested? What do you know about it at the time?

Payton: Yeah. So Ayahuasca was actually the first, I kind of went to the, the deeper end of the, of the pool so to speak. But I, I went to a place that is legally able to offer in a country that’s legally able to offer ayahuasca. And I felt very safe. You know, I, I, as I was kind of saying regards, I was really at a, at a place of, of out of options. And so I, you know, I think I had some of the natural cons. The, The natural sort of, you hear about all different kinds of things from, you know, am I gonna throw up in a bucket for, for, for four days? Or, Or what was, you know, some of those concerns I definitely had.

But, But I was at very much at a place of just You know, a, a surrender place, I would say, yeah, I need, I need help and, and and at this point, I don’t care what, what form it, it comes in. So, So that was, you know, the kind of, the feelings going into it. You know, It’s interesting as someone with chronic pain, because there is a very physical aspect to obviously ayahuasca but, but really all psychedelics, so I did have this.

You know, There was an interesting kind of variable call it in regards to how is, you know, what is this going to mean for my chronic pain? And frankly, you know, as someone who was in the hospital as frequently as I was, it was, do I have access to, to the kind of care that maybe I need if I end up having a, a pain episode or something like that while I was there.

And, And so those were, those were some. You more targeted towards someone who was in the condition that I was in. But but other than that, you know, I, I think there’s, there’s such an overwhelming. Amount of, not just research, but obviously anecdotal information that’s out there. So I think frankly, I maybe, maybe more than we need, I think you can go down a lot of rabbit holes and create a lot of, of expectations that I think can be challenging.

But I felt I was well informed and, and and going to a, a place that, that was safe. Yeah.

Bruce Bassi: . Sounds like you had a very positive first initial experience with Ayahuasca. I’m sure a lot of people benefit from it, but they don’t end up starting a company to help people. What made you want to take it that next step? Was it that it mean it was a life-changing experience? It changed your entire life around. did you feel that passionately about it, that you wanted to bring it to other people who needed that help?

Payton: You know, It, to be honest, it was actually kind of the opposite experience. You know, I, I think, and you see this a lot in people who have gone through these kinds of experiences where there’s this real like volition to, they come out of these experiences and they, and they, I think sometimes there’s this feeling of like, do I need to alter almost my identity to you know, be more cohesive maybe with this experience. And I, And I think that’s a challenge that we run into a little bit, that we have to be cautious of. For, For me, I came out of the experience and, and actually there was this very sort of clear intuition that I had around This is, this is something that that demands and deserves a lot of reverence, and it’s something that really needs to be approached really intentionally and thoughtfully.

When I came outta that experience, really what I was looking to do is just give back to something that saved my life. I, I felt like there needed to be some kind of reciprocity for this, you know, experience that I had. And so initially what I was doing was just kind of looking around, whether it was a non-for-profit or a research group or some, you know, something that I could do to contribute to this This. kind of lifesaving opportunity that I had. But the thing that I recognized early was that. You know, Philanthropy just wasn’t gonna cut it. It felt a little bit like a shallow or a bit of a hollow kind of contribution. And you know, I was never smart enough to be a doctor or a, or a healthcare professional, but but I, you know, I.

I was meeting with a lot of different groups and, and kind of regardless of who I met with, I, you know, very quickly met with people like maps who, who people who are listening might know, or a lot of research groups, a lot of academic groups. And when I was asking them like, you know, what do you need? What, what, what, What is the, the kind of thing that’s needed here?

The, The feedback that I actually continued to hear was that nobody was really looking at sort of, The infrastructure or application of these different therapies that were in a research context, who was building that infrastructure to actually transition it from a research context and into. A model centered around accessibility.

And so that’s really where Luminus was formed from, was, you know, okay, we can, you know, that’s maybe a place that, that I can help contribute is let’s go and try and help build that model. And so we’ve sort of done that by, you know, as, as we, as you mentioned at the top of, of the call, we have a number of clinic centers across both Canada and down into the United States, where we offer a host of, of just traditional mental health services, as well as psychedelic therapy as well, primarily through the form of ketamine, but also able to start to provide access for mni and psilocybin assisted therapy. And we’re also a, a, a contract research site organization.

So we’re the clinical trial sites for pretty much every major psychedelic clinical study at the moment. And what that’s kind of given us the opportunity to do is. Start to implement these different protocols into our clinical infrastructure so that we can really ideate and fine tune that clinical infrastructure based off of what we’re seeing in the research and what we know is coming.

And that I think is really important. And, And kind of what we spoke about and, and really, you know, why Numan exists is, you know, we obviously have this firm belief that psychedelic therapies are going available. There’s a very big delta between call it just psychedelic therapy and really well-informed offerings and support that are centered around psychedelic therapy.

And I think that’s something we really need to be cognizant of is you know, it’s kind of just saying like, Surgery is surgery and it doesn’t matter who you get surgery from, as long as you get surgery, it’s gonna be good. You know, While we wanna believe that there’s a lot that goes into that kind of an intervention inclusive of.

How well you prepare for that surgery, how well you take care of your body, how well you, you kind of do everything that you can to make sure your body is in the, in the best position possible to go through that surgery successfully. And then coming out the other side of that if you really take care of your body, if you do rehabilitation well, if.

That really help advance that healing as much as possible, then the percentage chance of success of that surgery is gonna be much higher if you, you know, go into that surgery saying well, I’m, you know, I’m gonna bang this thing up as much as possible before going in for a knee surgery, and I’m gonna downhill mountain bike every day and I’m not gonna take care of myself.

And then you go in for the surgery and then you come out and you say well, I’m gonna keep downhill mountain biking and I’m not gonna take care of myself very well. The chances of you maybe needing another surgery are, are much higher. And I think when we think about the integration and implementation of psychedelic therapy, that’s the same.

Lens that really I think we need to, to see this through. And, And again, while there can be a lot of excitement and, and volition around the conversation of just psychedelic therapy, I think we really need to make sure that we’re, we’re helping educate and inform, you know, what really needs to go into that in order for these different interventions to, to be successful.

Bruce Bassi: I like that analogy. I think that’s one a lot of people can relate to and understand fairly well. Let, Let’s start at the beginning. Say, Say, I’m a patient who has depression and anxiety. I. Maybe rough upbringing, no substance issues. And I am interested, I’ve tried other SSRIs before I tried therapy, don’t feel like it’s quite helped me.

I wanna try something different and I’m interested in M D M A versus psilocybin versus ketamine. Where do I start? Does Numinous help me? And maybe provide a suggestion. How would they know which one to use or, or look up more information about.

Payton: Yeah, I think the, the question around which one to use is a, is an interesting one. Obviously, you know, we’re talking about things like M D M A and psilocybin and other psychedelic compounds. These are still drugs that are in clinical trials at the moment, so we don’t have f d a approval of, of these compounds yet.

But if we sort of fast forward a little bit to maybe a post-approval setting I, I, I think, you know, the one thing that research obviously has done an exceptional job of. You know, Really helping define And different drugs for particular indications. And you know, I think probably best highlighted by the work that Maps, which for, for anybody who doesn’t know who MAPS is, maps is stands for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies.

They’re really, you know, the, the reason why psychedelics are where they are in the west at the moment. They’ve been doing clinical trials on M D M A assisted psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder for about 37 years now, and they’ve now completed their, their second successful phase three clinical trial.

They’re, we’re waiting for the, the readout from those results. The first phase three. Results were astounding. And these were people with treatment resistant post-traumatic stress disorder. And what it showed was over 80% of participants saw significant clinical reduction in their symptoms, and 67% actually no longer met the P T S D criteria after just three treatments.

So really a astounding result. Question. I, I think research is doing a good job of helping us answer some of those questions as to which drug for which indication. But I think as a, as a, as a client of wanting to get access, there’s tons of clinical trial Information that is out there on a, on a number of different compounds, on a number of different indications.

I think as we look at this and, and maybe I’ll use, you know, ketamine, which is legally of much more broadly available at the moment, but as we look at clients, I think what’s really important is there’s, there are some very significant sort of safety profiles that we have to move through. These drugs are.

And and in particular even if they are for somebody, It’s the right time and they have the right preparation is really important. Everything from depending if you are on SSRIs, you know, for many of these different therapies, you do have to come off of a number of, of medications that someone might be on mental health medications.

So depending on which drug and which indication you’re working for, we would help that person come off of whatever medications they would need to come off of so that they’re safe. And then again it, it really comes down to trying to help really get to the root, and this is where psychedelics we believe are really effective is they do help get to the root cause.

You know, You mentioned you, someone who, who might have a couple of different. Indications or presentations who, where that, that might be rooted in something like a childhood trauma. And I, And I think, you know, that’s really what psychedelics are helping do is they’re helping get to the root cause of what is creating that indication in the first place.

And depending on how you’re presenting some of the data, as I mentioned, M D M A seems to be really effective for P T S D. And, And kind of that, that P T S D trauma response depression right now there’s is, is a lot of what ketamine is being used for is the treatment of depression. Same similarly with psilocybin.

Psilocybin is being researched for depression as well. So I think if I think about the future, I, I think where we’re gonna be able to get to, Identify which drug for which indication at which time and, and be able to help people through that. But I think for us we, we spend a lot of time trying to. Not just prepare someone in regards to helping them identify maybe where the root cause of where some of their mental health challenges may be, but also education on, you know, some of the things that we feel are very important to resource yourself. Going into a psychedelic experience, being able to breathe you know, an understanding of what might entail.

Not so much we. I not try and explain the psychedelic exper, you know, it’s kind, it’s kind of like trying to explain that you’re, you’re explaining an ineffable sort of thing that is so personal to the individual. So we try not to create any expectations for people, but this is the set and setting, this is the length of time this is and, and then, you know, subsequently to that, and this is what we believe you really need to.

And, And understand as a integration process as well. Because I think that’s something. As in as, and it’s, it feels strange to call the psychedelic industry and industry, but but as we, as we’re talking so much about, you know, the potential effects of psychedelic therapy and I’m, I’m maybe returning to this frequently, but really making sure that people understand.

Before they have a psychedelics experience, you know, what after could look like for somebody. It can take, you know, six months to really work through the material that comes up in these experiences. And you have to be able to contribute the time and effort to really do that. And, And it’s important that people know that before going into an experience.

Bruce Bassi: Hmm. Interesting. Thank you. And can you speak to another decision point that a lot of people ask about is. Microdosing versus the experience with say, let’s choose ketamine for example, since that’s more available. What would you counsel somebody on as to the advantages and disadvantages of each? Or, Or does Numin do one only or, and not the other?

Payton: Yeah, so our, our focus is, is on. Call it psychedelic assisted therapy, which is a, a larger dose of a psychedelic compound used in conjunction with therapy. There’s this kind of there’s been a lot of conversation about microdosing. Microdosing is still not a, a legal activity. And to be honest there’s, there’s.

There’s very little research data about microdosing at the moment. Pretty much all of the research that’s out there right now is, is more on larger doses associated with therapy. I’m, I’m very interested to see more research come out in regards to microdosing. But I think, you know, again, going back to what we were talking about before, I think the thing we have to the, maybe the mindset shift as well is I, I think we’ve gotten really kind of, Stuck in this, in this thinking that mental health indications are a lifelong diagnosis that we symptom manage instead of try and treat and, and cure people of.

And you know, I think a lot of that ca and SSRIs and antidepressants, most certainly. Regards to helping people, but those are more symptom psychedelic. We do approach it with curative intent. Our, Our hope is that someone is going to come and do these treatments and, and actually cure and alleviate their, their mental health challenges, which is again a, a big mindset shift.

That at the moment because, you know, typically someone who has a diagnosis of depression or anxiety, the kind of expectation is that this is something that, you know, they’re gonna have to try and manage for the rest of their lives now. And we don’t believe that to be true.

Bruce Bassi: Interesting. That’s interesting. I think that certainly appeals to a lot of people and gives a lot of people hope.

Payton: Mm-hmm.

Bruce Bassi: Yeah I, I think certainly we would want to strive for that as the ideal. 

Payton: Yeah.

Bruce Bassi: Absolutely. I mean, Nobody wants to live with anything long-term. And there are some instances where people can take a S S R I for something that they’re going through.

So maybe it’s, it’s more psychosocial in terms of its impact and cause, and this helps kind of get them to the next phase in their life. And I can also certainly relate to a number of individuals who have repeated episodes of depression that. Seem to pop up when everything in their life is going great, which kind of speaks to more of the underlying biology.

I think it’s a really good point and question that you have brought up is, can ketamine help with this curative aspect of chronic mental illness? I would love to see the data on that. I would, I hope as a clinician that it is much better than our current treatment options.

Payton: Yeah I, I think, you know, ketamine is an interesting one. When we think about durability of the experiences, Keta, ketamine does present some, some challenges in regards to the d the durability of, of these experiences. And we’ve seen data that that does show that there may need to be, you know, kind of repeating of, of.

Those different therapies. And, And I think that’s kind of more substance dependent. We, you know, but also I think it’s, if you look at the ways in which we’ve administered ketamine you know, everything. And, And fortunately we’ve seen this kind of. Tightening up a little bit again, but especially through Covid, we saw everything from, you know, mail order, ketamine that was coming to people’s houses and they were getting very little support.

Which, you know, I’m to happy to talk, talk a little bit more about,

Bruce Bassi: was my next question.

Payton: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we, yeah. Maybe, but also we’ve seen ketamine used intravenously with very little therapeutic support for the treatment of depression. So I, I think what, what I’m hoping to see more so from just ketamine in particular over the next little bit is.

You know, The use of ketamine in conjunction with therapy and how does that affect durability versus just ketamine, the drug itself? Because I, I think that’s something that, that hasn’t gotten enough research is, is really helping. Spell that out, and and I think we’re gonna probably see more of that in the next little bit.

But the thing that we find people coming to us over and over and over again are typically people who have had ketamine experiences somewhere else. You know, Whether it’s IV or whether it’s a, a. Mail to home ketamine product that they’ve gotten and they’ve had really challenging experiences and they find themselves in, you know, sometimes the same position they were in before the Ketamine experience and, and frankly, sometimes even worse.

And they’re looking to try and work with somebody who can really help ’em process and. And make sense of or, or maybe make sense is the wrong word, but at least, you know, be able to take that experience and, and turn it into something that’s positively impacting their lives. And so that, that for us is really why we take the approach to ketamine assisted therapy that we do, we don’t offer We don’t do any mail order ketamine.

We, we have a very, very select few clients who have worked with us for quite some time that do that do benefit from a take home Ketamine every once in a while. But we don’t, that’s not something that we offer really as a service. I think, you know, just kind of moving to.

Do it yourself, ketamine model. I think that’s, that’s fraught with a lot of challenges. And that’s not to say that, that it doesn’t have its place, but you know, to, on a more personal level, to me that’s almost the, the same as like mailing somebody a scalpel to their. Do some brain surgery on yourself, and don’t worry, we’ll have somebody over zoom there maybe for you.

And and we’re gonna, we’re gonna give you some information. I think it’s, I think it’s dangerous. I, again I, I think for some people most certainly has its place, but I think we do have to be really, really cautious with that. And, you know, The other psychedelic compounds don’t have, frankly, is ketamine does have the potential for abuse. There is a, there are cases of people becoming dependent on ketamine. And so I, I think that’s something we need to speak much more openly about and, and be much more cautious of up.

Bruce Bassi: Yeah, I’ve certainly had individuals in the past who have admitted to feeling addicted to ketamine before. And I to comment on what you were saying, I think the, whenever there’s. Whenever we’re at the beginning of an industry, there’s so much excitement and growth. It’s at warp speed and it becomes this divergence of ideas, maybe, which is a good thing and a bad thing at the same time, because it introduces new novel.

Approaches to integrating ketamine into mental health, but also at the same time, there might be individuals who aren’t very judicious and cautious and follow many rules and look at profit perhaps. And they have different intentions and I think it. It behooves us and other leaders in this field to think about could we have some sort of standardization in terms of safety protocols revolving around.

These psychedelics because they are new, I think, and we don’t know everything about them as well. What are your thoughts on, in terms of potentially helping with the address, the safety factor, and how heterogeneous all of these clinics are, as from what you’re describing?

Payton: Yeah I, I, I couldn’t agree more also, You know, as you, as you pointed out as a new industry with, you know, the many different motives, whether it’s profit motives, whether it’s, you know, motives of, of trying to alleviate, you know, mental health challenges. I, I think there’s a, and I, and I think what’s really interesting is, is this is kind of this intersection of.

Drug plus therapy where you know the, I think for a lot of people, you know, who have had challenges, whether with different prescription medications or what have you, I think we really need to. Not just, Not just provide best practices, but I think there also really needs to be good sources of truth and information and education.

Maybe speaking even more broadly than just this is the safe protocol, but also, you know, really laying out like what are the true facts about these compounds and what have seen be successful or not successful and what.

And, And especially around you know, mental healthcare as, as we, as we all know, that there’s this, you know, I think the largest societal issue we have at the moment is, is how we’re treating mental healthcare. And it really, you know, it doesn’t matter which indication you look at at the moment, they all continue to go up.

And we need to there’s, there’s such a, a needing or a yearning for, you know, new solutions. Psychedelics are exciting and they present a lot of promise. But you know, I always, I always kind of akin they’re, they’re just tools. And if you think about a, a hammer, you know, a, a hammer can be used to build a beautiful house, or a hammer can be used to hit yourself in the hand with, depending on who’s, who’s swinging it.

And, And I think we just really have to be cautious of that. And, That goes both ways. I, I think, you know, these are very, very powerful tools, which used in the wrong hands can cause a lot of abuse. That doesn’t mean that the tool is to blame. And I think we have to really make sure that we make people aware of that as well.

Is that it, it really does come down to who is, who is using these different tools and how are they using them in order to, to try and get people to where they’re trying to get to.

Bruce Bassi: I think if clinics and practices are too cavalier in their usage of ketamine, I think people can have a bad experience. And patients all talk to each other and they post online and they talk about their experiences. And I think as a whole, as an industry that could in fact hurt us in the long run by spreading stigma about how maybe dangerous these things are now, and we need to now.

Regulate them and make them illegal. And I, I think that’s kind of what the, what SSRIs had been exposed to and subject to is this embrace and then usage. And then maybe people have these certain myths and misperceptions about, and then lo and behold you have a lot of stigma about them too.

Payton: Yeah. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

Bruce Bassi: W do you think what, what do you think are some factors that attribute to why psychedelics are so widely embraced now? Is it partially because they’re not associated with pharmaceutical company? Because I, I know a lot of patients, they don’t trust pharmaceutical companies after the opioid epidemic or we’re in the midst of it.

But after that publicity, I should say, and. You know, When people say Ketamine not, no company comes to mind, although there’s a company that markets the Sova now, but Ketamine is ketamine. It’s been around since what, the thirties. So what, why do you think it is that people embrace these? I.

Payton: You know, I, I think it’s, I think it’s a combination of factors. I, I definitely think there’s this This, this thing with pharmaceutical companies that, that people are, are seeing the, again, you know, where some of the challenges have have been and there’s this kind of wanting to try something different or go along a different path.

I think. You know, as, As we spoke about already I, I think we are at this, this kind of tipping point and, and I think we’ve been there for a long time, but there’s just this recognition of we need something different or, or we need to, frankly maybe even be approaching mental health care differently.

And I think there’s a, a, a very broad recognition of that. And, you know, maybe more recently I, I think Covid was really sort of, a. A moment for where people really recognize, oh, that, you know, we’re, we’re struggling maybe more than we’re even recognizing at the moment in regards to mental healthcare. And and so I think those are factors that play into it. Obviously, you know, from a, a cultural perspective, there’s been a lot of. Resurgence of psychedelic use in culture lately. So I think that that’s been a part of it. And, And then, you know, to be honest, as I, as I kind of mentioned with the maps results, is the amount of, of clinical promise we’ve seen is, is really quite quite astounding in, in the research, so I think that’s contributed to it as well.

But I don’t think it’s, I don’t think it’s one sort of factor. I think it’s, I think it’s the collection of a, of a lot of factors and I think the one thing that maybe to be considered as well and, and it’s, it’s a completely different sort of area and I don’t like to try too many similarities to. The role of cannabis and the sort of process that it’s gone through, I think opened people’s minds just to the fact of like, oh, you know, a drug that was used to be assumed as this, or scheduled as this can go through a rescheduling process and, and, and change.

And so I think from just a, a, a drug policy change perspective, I think that opened people’s awareness a little bit.

Bruce Bassi: Hmm. Our collective. I’m glad you brought up cannabis because I feel like as our collective conscious, Experiences these new. Substances that are now becoming legal, that were previously shunned. We, in our mind will compare what we have now to what was just recently available. And so I think cannabis, there was this acceptance of it because it’s, I hear that people say it’s, it’s better than being intoxicated in alcohol.

It’s better than SSRIs and. People tend maybe to lose sight of how it can cause and contribute to psychosis and scary panic attacks and and weight gain and all the, the bad things that, you know, if it, if you’re really benefiting from it. And you like that experience as a escape mechanism, I think a lot, it’s very easy to overlook some of the drawbacks to it because we’re so excited about it.

Do you feel people compare psychedelics to other things as, as now these are like the safer alternative? Do you think that’s a sound argument to make?

Payton: Yeah I, I think people do. And I, And I agree with you. I think we have to be very cautious of that as well. You know, I, I think cannabis you know, especially I’m, I’m from Canada, and so cannabis has gone through a sort of interesting pathway in, in Canada and, and that it’s been interesting to watch what’s happened in the United States.

But, you know, I. To me, there’s a little bit there of the cart getting a little bit ahead of the horse as well. You know when, when the sort of regulation change conversation first? Up in regards to cannabis, at least up in Canada, was, oh, this, you know, has some, some medical promises and benefits to it and that’s why it should be made accessible.

And then very, very quickly, that sort of flipped into more of a recreational sort of model. And what happened unfortunately with that is there just wasn’t a lot of research that was done. In regards to cannabis for a number of, of health indications. And and I think that that’s unfortunate because I do think we, we maybe lost the opportunity to highlight where cannabis can be useful for different health benefits and instead, you know, it got more focused on recreational profit models and things like that.

Cannabis become very widely accessible for people, but frankly, the products got you know, quite bizarre. And very powerful as, as

Bruce Bassi: way of putting it.

Payton: yeah. Yeah, and so I, I think, you know, I, I definitely think that there’s a lot to learn there from You know, the, the path that cannabis has taken. And I think, again, with psychedelics it’s, it’s, I think it’s much maybe less of a case of how do we get psychedelic therapy to as many people as possible, as fast as possible.

And I think the, the focus really needs to be how do we ensure the best outcomes for people and. As possible in the beginning knowing that there is such a large demand that’s out there, but let’s make sure that we’re, we’re able to contribute to, and make good on, you know, the, the representations that we’ve continued to make with research and now moving into more accessible clinical practice.

Bruce Bassi: Mm. Interesting. So we’ve, we’ve talked quite a bit in this episode about historical shifts and acceptance and how to use ketamine safely, properly. Where do you see things going down the road? What does the future hold for us? And when, do you have any speculation as to when psilocybin and M D M A might get approval from the F D A?

I’ve always, I keep hearing, every time somebody says a date, it’s like usually three months

Payton: Yeah, 

Bruce Bassi: From the present date.

Payton: yeah, Yeah. You know, We’ve and, and hopefully I don’t jinx it and hopefully we don’t have to stretch out the date, another three to six months, but we’ve worked really closely with maps over the last number of years and, you know, they’re at a very exciting. Point as I mentioned their, their second phase three is complete.

We’re waiting for the readout results of those which should be last, last I heard is, is sometime late summer, early fall. So we’re, we’re kind of expecting in the sort of next 30 to 90 days. And they anticipate. Sort of, Early or late spring, early summer of next year the f d a approving m DMA assisted therapy.

And so, when I think about that, for us, the, I think the biggest challenge we have at the moment is training. And we’ve spoken a lot about, you know, making sure that these, these different compounds are being used in a good way. And training is, is really the way that we ensure that You know, there’s such a huge, we have huge amounts of people calling us daily asking, you know, when can I get access to M D M A assisted therapy?

When can I get access, access to psilocybin assisted therapy? And, And, you know, the demand is so large. But training people takes time. And it’s, it’s not something you can do in a weekend. It’s, It’s not a kind of just bolt on thing that you do. And so I think the next 12 months, next 12, you know, not just the next 12 months, but really continuing thereafter, but I think there’s a lot of, of training that’s needed to be provided.

And that’s a, another area that Numan has spent a lot of time and resources towards is training. And, And we offer a, a host of different training programs for people. But I think that’s going to be imperative that not only do we offer training to as many people who are looking for access to training, but we offer good training.

And there’s a very big difference between the two. And that’s gonna be, you know, as I, as I look towards the future, I think that’s gonna be really important to get prepared for M D M A assisted therapy in particular.

Bruce Bassi: so the training is geared towards clinicians who are interested in utilizing that modality. Is it a certification that they get after completing your training, and how do they go about finding that?

Payton: Yeah, so if you go on our website, we do offer some, some kind of certification pathways, primarily obviously, around ketamine assisted therapy at the moment. But we also do have training for M D M A and psilocybin assisted therapy. We actually most recently announced a partnership with MAPS to be able to offer experiential training.

With M D M A through a, a training trial that that we’ll be launching in the, the latter half of this year. We’re just waiting for approval on that, but so that’s something that, that we do offer. And, And we’ll continue to. I just to, to kind of get back to your other question, OC. M D M A will will probably get a lot of the attention over the next 12 months.

Psilocybin is probably a year or so behind that, but obviously what’s interesting about psilocybin is it’s kind of going a, a little bit of a more unique regulatory pathway as well. You’ve had states like Oregon and now Colorado just moved to a legal access model for psilocybin assisted therapy, which.

A recreational framework for psilocybin. It’s a, It’s a therapeutic framework for it. So, you could, You could see access start to broaden maybe quickly and maybe a little bit more uniquely with, with psilocybin.

Bruce Bassi: So would that fall into a similar status as cannabis, where federally, it’s still schedule one, but is on a state level. They’re not going to enforce restrictions, at least for the clinical aspects of it.

Payton: That, That seems to be the case for the time being, although psilocybin is.

Compass Pathways being one who has completed a, a phase two, and they, they’ve now launched their phase three clinical trials for psilocybin, for N D D. And we’re actually the clinical trial sites for for some of that research work that’s happening. So you, you could see kind of two pathways there.

One is, is kind of the state by state. Availability of, of psilocybin assisted therapy in the short term while, you know, clinical trials are being complete and, and f d a approval happens for, for psilocybin in the next couple years. M D M A is a, an f d A process, so that will be a, an f d a change not just a state by state change.

Bruce Bassi: Cool.

Payton: Yeah.

Bruce Bassi: I appreciate all that insight. Do you have any other thoughts about future directions of mental health care, mental health treatment as a whole? Given the theme of the podcast show or.

Payton: Yeah I, I, I, you know, I think what psychedelics, again represent is this idea of, of curative intent. And, you know, that that means different things for different people. And, And certainly, you know, the, that call it Healing Journey is, is one that Representation of curative intent. It’s a lifelong commitment to continuing to be dedicated to whether it’s practices or, or different modalities to continue to ensure Your mental wellness continues to stay strong and, and I think maybe what we’re continuing to shift more towards is the idea of yes, curative intent for really severe mental health indications, but also shifting the conversation and landscape to one of Mental wellness and preventative mental health care.

We shouldn’t have to wait until we’re anxious or depressed. Or suicidal or addicted to start taking care of our mental health. And that’s really, you know, a big hope for us is, is that we, you know, we start to move and shift and. Frankly allocate resources to you know, being more preventative with, with how we treat and think about mental health care.

You know, Dentistry is an interesting one. Everybody goes, you know, as long as you have good dental care, you go to the dentist, you know, once or twice a year, even if you have perfect teeth should, should treat our mental health the same way. Dedicated and, and caring about how our mental health is doing. And again, not waiting until it’s, you know, something that’s more severe in order to, to start to do something about it.

Bruce Bassi: Yeah, I agree with that completely. I’m thinking back to my childhood experiences in elementary school and thinking about how. You know, Gym and recess and our physical health is so well incorporated into our curriculum. We talk about nutrition and the food pyramid and eating healthy, and we don’t really talk about, there’s no, there was no course on mental health and how to express emotions unfortunately, but maybe that should start to change in the future.

To give it a little bit more weight and attention that it deserves because obviously it plays a, a big impact on people’s lives later on in their lives.

Payton: Mm-hmm. Agreed.

Bruce Bassi: Well, Peyton, it was really nice talking to you about this topic. I appreciated both the microscopic and macroscopic conversation here about the landscape of psychedelics in general, both at Newin and across the country and, and Canada as well the continent, I should say. And it was a really nice conversation.

I appreciate your company’s thoughtful approach to psychedelic assisted therapy. So that we can take a more judicious and cautious approach to trying to balance helping the most number of patients, but also not unnecessarily adding to any stigma about things that we don’t know enough information about.

Payton: Yeah. Agreed. Well,

Bruce Bassi: That’s pretty cool that you also offer the training programs to clinicians as well. I wasn’t aware of that. So hopefully any clinicians who are interested in that can click the link in the description and find more information about that if they’re interested in taking that training course.

Payton: That’s great. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Bruce Bassi: You’re welcome and I’m sure we’ll talk again soon. All right, let’s stop.