Psyched Wellness with Jeff Stevens

Jeff: We’re certainly the only public company, because it’s easy to find that information. We’re the only company that has a grass approved extract of this mushroom that is legal for human consumption. The mushroom, again, was never scheduled as a drug. The mushroom is legal, but it’s not legal to sell products for consumption. So you’re not legally allowed to take this mushroom and turn it into a product and sell it, except for us. So we did that. We, again, we did two years of all those preclinical studies, toxicology, neurobehavioral, everything to, to ensure that we have a safe extract.

Further to that, we work with the CGMP manufacturing facility. We have all the standardization procedures in place, even when we pick the mushroom the foragers that we work with, they have very strict protocols in which we ask them to pick them pick them in a sustainable fashion so that the spores will drop as they’re going through, and then package them , the day that they’re picked, rather than waiting and taking them back, so that it has the best result for the composition of the mushroom.

Bruce: 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’re going to be focused on an alternative treatment option commonly called magic mushrooms or amanita muscaria.

Today we have Jeff Stevens. He’s a CEO and co-founder of Psyched Wellness. Psyched Wellness is a Canadian company that is dedicated to researching and producing products made from the medicinal properties of the amanita muscaria mushroom. On the website, it says that it could soothe the body, provide a restoring feeling of calm wellness, and also can reduce anxiety, diminish depression, and help reduce insomnia, and make you feel more energized. And we’re going to get to a lot of that, what a patient will experience when consuming the Amanita muscaria mushroom. And today we have Jeff Stevens. 

Welcome Jeff.

Jeff: Thanks very much, Bruce. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Bruce: So before we get to the mushroom itself, I’m sure a lot of people are curious about that. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here.

Jeff: Sure. My journey started actually on the capital raising side of things. I’ve worked institutional sales and trading at Boutique Investment Banks in Toronto for many years, working with micro cap small cap companies helping them raise money, helping them go public introducing them to portfolio managers.

And about… Eight, nine years ago, I took the leap to the dark side as it’s commonly called on Bay Street where I left the desk and started working with issuers directly, initially working with them in roles where I would assist them with interest capital and helping them to go public.

And about three years ago, myself and a group of people that I’ve worked with previously started Psyched Wellness with the goal of, bringing to market. alternative options to regulated psychedelics. And that was what we were focused on.

Amanita muscaria is the mushroom that you mentioned, that we identified. My colleague and co founder, David Schiesel, identified it. And it was never scheduled as a drug. So we were able to work with it as a food supplement, which is quite unique in this sector, where our peers are generally working with these regulated substances and yeah, we started it three years ago. We did a ton of work, scientific, preclinical studies all the scientific studies that you would be required to do to bring a product to market safely. And then we took that and we received what’s called the self grass. We’re an independent review of scientists, reviewed all of that data and approved it.

It’s an FDA path to market for food supplements. So if you think of Red Bull, for example, when they bring a new market, a new product to market, they’ll go that route as well.

Bruce: Do you have any guesses or assumptions as to why it’s considered a supplement and not a medication or a more regulated substance like psilocybin

Jeff: Yeah, for sure. It’s a mushroom, very interesting. , has been mislabeled for years. People recognize it because it’s that red and white mushroom cap, Alice in Wonderland, Super Mario Brothers, the emoji on your phone. So everyone recognizes it and it’s often used as the image for psychedelics.

So magic mushrooms, for example, with psilocybin, they’ll use that. However, the main compound is muscimol. Very different from psilocybin., the effect is very different as well. , But if you were just to pick it and eat it, you’d get quite sick. And I think that’s the reason it was never scheduled as a drug, because it took an extra step.

You had to boil, you had to do a decarb, and in order to do that, you know, it took time and effort and, realistically on the recreational side, to just go pick something and eat it, I think people would go that route. It just never made the radar screen because there weren’t enough people using it in a recreational form.

Bruce: Gotcha. Do you think that could change in the future or likely not at this point?

Jeff: Personally, I don’t think so. I think the trend is moving towards, decriminalizing and legalizing these various substances because this was never scheduled. I don’t think so. We’re certainly doing everything we can as a public company and the pioneer with this mushroom to bring up to market in a safe standardized fashion, so that people are, you know, consuming a product that is known and safe and, less risk of that happening as a result of it.

Bruce: Gotcha. So you mentioned boiling it and doing a decarboxylation, I think, of the compound that we were mentioning. And then how close does that make it in terms of its effects to psilocybin? Can you compare the two?

Jeff: Yeah, again, very different. To put it into terms, you know, if you’re psilocybin, you’re having that sensory experience, the visuals and going through that with muscimol, which is the main compound that we isolate through our extraction. Although it’s a full spectrum muscimol is the predominant compound in the end, and that gives a sense of, you know, in smaller doses, a calming effect. Hence the name “Calm” of our flagship product. In larger doses, it’s going to feel like being inebriated. So much like alcohol. The reason for that, Bruce, is it works on your, it’s a GABA A agonist. So it hits that receptor similar to alcohol. And that’s the effect that you’ll have with it.

Bruce: gotcha. Interesting. So can people have any withdrawal effects? Like alcohol? I’m sure a lot of clinicians are probably first thinking of that when, you know, they think of the effects of alcohol.

Jeff: Well, Maybe this is well put in the, sort of, the general statement warning, we haven’t done any clinical trials. We’ve done preclinical studies on that and all the safety, toxicology, We have done interaction studies, to be at the position that we’re at now.

 But we Don’t make any claims. We don’t make any claims to this based on han trials because we just the opportunity to do them I can tell you I can provide you a lot of anecdotal experience that , myself as a co founder and probably the longest user of our extract , also what we receive from our consumers, when they share with us that, how they’ve been using it and and the benefits that they’ve had.

Bruce: Thank you for giving us that background information that we’re not talking about any patients here, but consumers of the substance and So if somebody were to be using it, say, for a month straight  and they stopped , what could they expect

 Jeff: I’ll use myself as an example for this. When we first started, I was using our raw extract and now our more refined final version that we’re selling. And I used to take it every day initially, and then I would take it every other day. I’m now at a point where I’m taking it once or twice a month, really, when I notice that I’m not falling asleep as easily as I would if I had another sort of, not dose, but if I took calm again. So the reason for that, I think, is my body has gotten into a rhythm, where I’m sort of back in a sleep rhythm where I, when I lie down and my intention is to fall asleep, it’s easy to do so. And then when I notice that I’m not falling asleep as easily, I’ll take some calm. , and that’s over the course of about a year. When that sort of took that time for my body to get into a rhythm and feel it. I think if you really listen to your body, you’ll know, and when we talk to people, you give a range and you say two milliliters is, is what we recommend for the dose. Take it 30 minutes before you sleep and it’ll provide that calming effect. And if your intention is to fall asleep, it makes it easy to fall asleep. So it’s not a sleeping pill. It doesn’t knock you out. But if your intention is to do so. . you’ll, you’ll feel it. And I did like, I just noticed that, geez, I’m falling asleep easily, I don’t need it. and then I just sort of decrease it and then use it when I feel that I need a little bit to help me.

Bruce: Interesting. So a good reminder that we’re not making any sort of medical advice. We’re not giving advice to any patients, but , imagine a lot of clinicians aren’t really familiar with how to recommend dosing. To individuals do you guys have a directory of providers or practitioners, clinicians who those individuals, those consumers can go to who might be a little bit more educated on how to make recommendations about dosage?

Jeff: Listen, Hey Bruce I would love to, if any of your listeners are interested in learning more and working with us, we would love to do so.

It’s just really been the scientific review panel that provided us with the dossier for our grass approval.

You know, we are at the very low range of what our dosage range would be. So, again, with our flagship product, we didn’t want it to be too strong that people felt an effect that they were uncomfortable with. And so we dialed it back to a point where it’s like, okay, this will work for the largest group of population, you know. The people that have used Amanita previously, that are purchasing it online in the gray market, , this is probably not the product for them. They’ll have a higher tolerance to it, they’ll, they have been using it and they’ll be wanting something different. People who have never tried it before and who are looking for an alternative to say melatonin or CBD, you know, this should be right in range where it’s going to be beneficial to them. , and that’s certainly sort of the feedback we’ve had.

Bruce: Maybe We could talk about the safety of the product. I’m sure a lot of people want to know about that. I know you’re one of the only companies I wanna say that distributes this to consumers. Is that correct?

Jeff: We’re certainly the only public company, because it’s easy to find that information. We’re the only company that has a grass approved extract of this mushroom that is legal for human consumption. The mushroom, again, was never scheduled as a drug, but in all states, Louisiana’s the only state that you can’t sell the product. Outside of that the mushroom is legal, but it’s not legal to sell products for consumption. So you’re not legally allowed to take this mushroom and turn it into a product and sell it, except for us. So we did that. We, again, we did two years of all those preclinical studies, toxicology, neurobehavioral, everything to, to ensure that we have a safe extract.

Further to that, we work with the CGMP manufacturing facility. We have all the standardization procedures in place, even when we pick the mushroom the foragers that we work with, they have very strict protocols in which we ask them to pick them pick them in a sustainable fashion so that the spores will drop as they’re going through, and then package them as they’re, the day that they’re picked, waiting it has the best best result for the composition of the mushroom.

Bruce: And what kind of regulation is done on the consistency of the substance or compound from batch to batch or how to standardize that? Or is it too complicated to explain?

Jeff: Yeah, so that’s all self regulated ourselves, and again, as a public company, we hold ourselves to standard on that, so we do batch testing. When the raw material arrives, we do batch testing when the extract is done. And what we’re looking for in that response, Bruce, is Amanita muscaria is part of the Amanita genus of mushrooms. And there are, you know, some of the most poisonous mushrooms in the world in that family. So it’s very important to make sure that you’re working with foragers that they understand what they’re picking and know the difference, but also that you’ve got procedures in place to test batch testing of the raw material, batch testing of the extract, and testing for those other toxic mushrooms, testing for heavy metals, and making sure that you’ve got that. So, Those are all procedures that are in place. We work with a third party lab. We don’t do that testing in house. We want to have arm’s length on that, so know, , if people can trust that it’s done properly. And that is done with each batch.

Bruce: Very interesting. Just Out of curiosity, where do you actually source these from?

Jeff: Currently, we are working with a group of foragers, mostly in Poland. We have been working in Russia, Ukraine, and we have enough raw material right now that we haven’t had to source in a while. So, we hope to work with those foragers in the other countries as well.

But for the time being, it’s mostly, in Poland that we’re, Poland, I think Latvia as well. So we’ve been testing them. We’re the largest importer of this mushroom into the United States ever. Again, it just wasn’t a commercial reason for it previously. In the last year, we’ve started to see a lot happen in the gray market, where people are trying to chase the legal, use this as a Trojan horse for a legal psychedelic product, and you know, you’ll see in health shops and stuff, these gummies, Amanita muscaria gummies.

We’ve actually purchased 10, 15 of these various gummies and had them tested at our third party lab. And they don’t have amanita in them. If they do, they have more ibotenic acid than they have muscimol. Oftentimes it’s going to be psilocybin or ketamine that’s inside them. And they’re just trying to, use amanita to, to circumvent and get it out. So, you know, We’re really focused on just bringing a wellness product to market for people. We think that opportunity is far greater than any recreational opportunity that exists. If you can demonstrate to people that you can help them with sleep anxiousness.

Personally, I can tell you again, anecdotally, the anti-inflammatory quality of this mushroom is incredible. Last year, waking up in the morning and walking down my stairs, I’d have to hold on to the railing because my knees are so stiff. This year, I take them two at a time. And the only thing that’s changed in my routine has been the introduction of Calm and our extract AME-1, which predominantly is muscimol. So, you know, scientifically, we know that it’s good for inflammation. We know the GABA receptors are good for pain. , and we’d love to be at a point where we can make those claims and do those studies, but it’s just a factor of time and money and getting there. But certainly, that’s something we’d like to do down the road because…

We think with being able to make claims, we can then offer this product a little more legitimately to consumers working with groups, like yourselves where you feel more comfortable with it, recommending it and, and having a dosage that you can recommend. , so it’s just steps. It’s, you know, it’s not a, it’s not a hundred meter dash. This is a marathon and we’re just in that first round in that first corner.

Bruce: What would be some benefits that you would describe to a friend or family member of why they should consider this over any other option, really for conditions of chronic pain, pro inflammatory condition, or, insomnia, anxiety?

Jeff: A lot of people when they’re using, I’ll use melatonin again, or CBD for example, when they’re using those products, or products using those compounds, they find that they wake up the next morning feeling groggy. So they’ll sleep, but they’re feeling, you know, you often feel like you’ve got a little bit of a… Melatonin hangover and what we find with our product is that most of our consumers wake up refreshed I certainly do we have some of our consumers that have been wearing the aura ring and sharing that data with us and we think that they’re likely in it in that  REM sleep longer and that could be attributed to it again We can’t make those claims. It’s just information that we’re gathering and you know putting it together which sort of gives us direction on okay, when when capital is available and we want to do some studies, we’ve got this field data that we’ve collected. So, from that perspective, I would definitely say if you’re, if you’re looking for something to help you, , you know, fall asleep, stay asleep, , it’s certainly the, the feedback’s been phenomenal. But again, I think because you have those other benefits that are with it. Inflammation is the root cause of disease, and everybody with their western diet probably has inflammation, if you’re trying to help yourself fall asleep, and a side benefit could be a reduction in some inflammation, perhaps, you may as well go for the two for one if you can.

Bruce: Gotcha. Interesting. Are there any common side effects? Stomach upset, or other than drowsiness, imbalance maybe, that people should be on the lookout for?

Jeff: Not if you take it in the range that we suggest on the box. If you were to triple the, double, triple the dose, you might feel that sort of inebriated effect, like you would feel, one glass of wine versus three. So, you know, the intention is to help  you calm down, relax and set a stage where it’s easy to fall asleep, as prescribed, or not prescribed, but as suggested in the dosage. If your intention is to try it for something different, and we certainly have, as the founder, we’ve sort of gone to extremes with it and, there’s an enjoyable experience with that. If you go too far, that could be not so enjoyable like anything. So, but as we suggest the usage, we haven’t, there have been, you know, safe from say a thousand units sold. the number of people that have come back to us, , that, that have had a negative experience with it, I would say it would be five to seven people and, and that is from what we infer from the way that they’re writing to us, and it’s usually by email, there’s some underlying conditions, , that in, our return policy is we don’t have one, but in situations like that, if someone takes the time, they come to us, they explain to us, this hasn’t worked or this, experience was awful. We asked them to stop taking it, consult your physician and we will refund you for that bottle. Because they took the time and they talked to us and it helps us as well with that to try and understand it. We have had a number of consumers that use it to wean themselves off of benzo alcohol. Some people have said it helps them with smoking. I think because it hits the GABA receptor, it sort of makes it easier to wean off those, but we don’t have any clinical data to support that. It’s just been what people have been telling us and they, there are some on the benzo community side where they have been actively using this from vendors in the gray market for that purpose.

 I guess there’s a desperation where they’re looking for anything that can help. And so they come to us oftentimes, I don’t know if our dosage is strong enough for them to have that effect. Those are sometimes the people that have said, Hey, I go through a bottle in five days as opposed to 15 and it’s too expensive. And what can you do for us? And sadly, we just can’t be the solution for everyone. Right.

Bruce: Interesting. Very interesting. So there’s some people who just don’t quite see any effect to it. And it sounds like you have a really high satisfaction rate among your customers. But every once in a while, maybe they metabolize it more quickly? Do you have any hypotheses for how that happen?

Jeff: You know, I just the only thing I can think of is similar to say alcohol. You and I could have a drink, and you know, I’m 5’10 230 pounds. You and I have a glass of scotch, you might feel a buzz, and I’ll just think I had a glass of scotch. So, I think it comes down to how every individual body interacts with it. And then also what the expectations are. You know, some people might have an expectation that they take this and it’s going to change their life. And one, one time is going to be this incredible, you know, staples easy button, red pill that changes everything. So I think, continued use, give it some time, let it into your system, you’ll feel that difference and some people, you know, don’t, don’t have that, ability to, to give something a week or, you know, let, let alone three weeks to, to feel, a regular use and feel that benefit. But you take it, Bruce, we’ll send a bottle to you. I’m sure that most people, when they take it, feel it within 30 minutes. And that’s been our best sales tool.  when people have the opportunity to try the product and they go, Wow, I, I felt that and I slept really well. You know, that’s, that, that says it all. And then it’s about word of mouth and sharing that. We just like to be transparent. You know, it doesn’t work for everyone.

Like there is a small portion of our consumers that have taken the time to come back to us and tell them, Hey, you know, this did not work for me. And we say, okay, you know,  sorry.

Bruce: And it comes as a liquid in a kind of an eyedropper type of bottle solution. Do you just put it under your tongue, and swallow it directly? Does it, or do you need to add it to something to mask any taste to it?

Jeff: So, it has a slight corn flavoring to it, because mushrooms are, you know, not everybody’s palate.  so we did that for ease of consumption. Especially because you ideally are taking this in the evening, before you intend to fall asleep. So yeah, it’s two milliliters, so two full droppers. And sometimes that gets confused too, because they think two drops as opposed to two full droppers. So it’s at two milliliters, and you take it about a half hour before you intend to fall asleep. I take it directly, and just swallow it. My wife will put it in a glass of water, and drink it before she goes to bed. It’s entirely up to you.

Bruce: I know the topic of addiction, I’m sure we could spend a lot of time talking about that and the nuances of it, and the spectrum of addiction. Anything that really works well for people is going to have some habit forming properties to it. But, is that something that’s of concern or should be of concern to clinicians who might be recommending it to consumers or patients?

Jeff: Yeah, so, to the best of our knowledge. Professor David Nutt sits on our board. He’s a professor at Imperial College. he’s done quite a bit of work. He was Robin Carhart Harris professor that led him towards studying psilocybin. So he’s one of the sought after experts in the field of psychedelics and pharmacology. And when we talked about it, he said, Listen, these are not compounds that are going to make people addicted. , you know, psychedelics are not addictive habits. So people could get into a habit where they do that. But, we have not done clinical trials to support that. So I wouldn’t, you know, plant my flagpole on it. I’d just say that from the conversations that we’ve had.

And again, certainly, I’ve been using it the longest, I think, out of anyone. Maybe my co-founder as well, going from daily to a couple days to only when I feel the need for it versus feeling a need for it. So, you know, I think from our experience, yes, it’s not an issue.

Bruce: Anything really that has a benefit to people obviously can lead to continued usage and habit forming properties because you’re depending on something that is helpful. You know when it’s an addiction, I think it’s causing some sort of untoward issue and problem and uncontrolled use, compulsive use that they can’t cut back, but it sounds , for most people they’re able to control their intake of this, but I’m sure a lot of clinicians out there listening to this conversation, they say, Oh, kind of similar to alcohol. The effects are similar to alcohol. I wonder if some of my patients who have alcohol history are kind of contraindicated. or should not be advised to use it.

Jeff: For sure. And, you know, again, there’s a lot that we would like to do with this, with our extract AME-1, which is our proprietary extract of this mushroom. The three main compounds are ibotenic acid, muscimol, and muscarine. And we convert ibotenic acid into muscimol, and then we reduce the muscarine to a point that both of those compounds have a vanilla effect on hans in consumption based on our extract. And so everything we do is based on our extract. It’s full spectrum because it doesn’t remove them entirely. But it, you know, you’re left with a predominantly muscimol effect, so we, you know, it’s, I think it’s important to distinguish that because, muscimol itself is an isolate. There’s synthetic muscimol that people are making and stuff. It has a very different effect than ours because you’re removing those other compounds. Doing a decarb, and just boiling it. You’ll convert some ibotenic acid but you’ll be left with a larger percentage than what we would be comfortable with. It’s interesting as we move forward with it and have more entrance into the market because one Amanita product will be different than the other as a result of how they do that.

And I think that the extraction process is key to this and key to having safe products in the market for people. Let’s talk about the company in terms of challenges that you see. I can see various domains. Here individual awareness and Wanting to reduce the black market consumption, public education, awareness of this, and then there’s the quality control side of things and business marketing what’s kind of on your plate these days? What kind of challenges do you see moving forward in the near term?

Jeff: that’s a loaded question because, because all of them, the CBD market as an example to explain this, so say 10 years ago, 12 years ago now, maybe when, when that push for cannabis and CBD products as an alternative to health and wellness alternative for people, you had, you know, three, 500 companies. talking about it, coming to market with products, doing studies, lobbying,  you know, for the last three years, we’ve been the pioneers of doing that. And for the first two years, we were probably the only ones talking about Amanita Muscaria and the benefits of it and how this can be a product to help people in their health and wellness pursuits.

So, you know, there was one voice trying to educate and get a message out, which, which is a lot. And, it’s expensive and it’s cumbersome. it’s also harder to remove a stigma when it’s just one voice. And so what we’ve done as a company, what we’ve decided to do is offer, you know, we will sell our extract in bulk to some other companies that we feel are aligned with us, with how they want to bring a responsible product to market because that helps us if there’s more voices amplifying the message and they’re doing so with what we know to be a safe product because it’s our extract.

That gives us comfort to do so. So those are challenges, the various social media platforms have been challenging because our image of the mushroom has been used in the psychedelic space. So when they see that image, they think it’s a recreational drug. Even though we have our dossier that has our grass approval and we show them all that information.

So those have just been challenges that we’ve had. We’ve been able to overcome them. We, you know, it takes time. Sometimes  you lose your instagram account. You have to start from scratch, which is frustrating because it costs time and money and effort to build that up. And it’s also where people go to determine if they think a product is legitimate or not.

You know, the number of followers is a real issue when it comes both for brick and mortar and for D to C when people are going online and looking at your product. So those have been challenges that we’ve had to work through. But nothing no red flags, nothing that you can’t, you know, roll up your sleeves and keep going.

It’s just, doing it yourselves. So we’re happy to see others come into the market. We think more people talking about it, , in a responsible fashion will be beneficial for consumers everywhere. And, for us, we’re, we were the lead, but we don’t need to hog the puck. We’re happy to be part of the voice and part of the growth of this.

Bruce: Sounds like the lack of competition, relatively speaking, compared to cannabis, is somewhat of a double edged sword for you. I mean, it could be good to not have that much competition, but it also doesn’t help in terms of public awareness, it sounds like, from what you’re saying. Why do you think it’s not just a booming industry similar to cannabis?

Jeff: I think we are just… at the beginning stages of that happening. I think you are always in these sectors, the black market, gray market leads, right? So the cannabis sector, that was happening. The shops were opening up and Getting shut down and opening up and getting shut down. We’re starting to see that now with psychedelic shops, mushroom shops.

And that’s part of removing stigma, where people say, Okay, I’m open to this now. I’m starting to see it in mainstream media. I’m starting to see people like Psyched Wellness on a podcast like yours. These are all those steps that go towards legitimizing, removing the stigma, where people, consumers feel more comfortable giving it a shot.

I think we’ll see that continue to happen. Right now we’re seeing a lot in the gray market, black market, which scares me because, you know, if something bad happens. And then it’s on the front page of the paper that that is very negative for all of us. So, again, that’s why we made that decision.

We want to offer our bulk extract to companies that we feel are aligned and wanting to bring a safe and responsible product to market. because that just helps reduce the risk of bad actors effectively bringing just crushed powdered caps from the Ukraine that they have no testing done and they just turn them into gummies.

And you hope. Because the guy told you that’s what they are, that’s what they are. you know, versus ours, we’re batch testing, heavy metal testing, all  just being sure. So, it, it will happen. Again, we’re, we’re not looking at this as a hundred meter dash. We’re not just trying to make some money quickly.

We, we think that this is our first product and this is our first,  studies that we’ve done, but as we grow, when we bring more products to market and we are able to, you know, allocate more capital to do more clinical studies to be in a place where we can make some claims, I think that opens up the market for us considerably as well.

Bruce: I haven’t heard of the phrase gray market before, but I’m imagining it’s a public facing company that sells something that just isn’t what it’s supposed to be or isn’t it truly is.

Jeff: Well, Using that in the sense that the mushroom’s legal, but product consumption aren’t, so some people will sell the product, for religious purposes or for scientific purposes. a lot of online vendors will say not for hand consumption. Then they’ll directly message me for information on how to use it. So those are where I say sort of gray market where they’re up front talking about the fashion, and again, when the market is being decriminalized, it’s kind of gray as well, right? So if the police aren’t going to enforce something because the general indication is that we are decriminalizing this, it’s not a priority.

We’re focused on opioids and fentanyl, and 100 percent I think they should, right? Those are the ones that are killing people. Then you create this environment where, you know, the pseudo legal vendors can exist without fear of being shut down or being prosecuted. And I think we see that in cannabis right now in the United States where, you know, the legal… Cannabis companies have been doing everything, following the letter of the law, bringing it to market, but they just can’t compete on price because the government didn’t shut down the illegal cannabis retailers and as a result, you know, you have this challenging environment where they’re trying, they’re waiting for safe banking, they’re waiting for these at the regulatory but if you don’t get rid of the black market, the gray market, then, you know, from a price perspective, it’s hard to compete.

Bruce: Interesting. Do you have any advice for clinicians who are interested in learning more? Where can they go to, educate themselves from some reputable source, any sort of call to action for clinicians who are interested in seeing how these types of supplements can help patients?

Jeff: Sure. We would love to speak with them for sure. If you’re interested in this and you think that this is tool that you’d like to introduce and offer to your clients, your patients, we would love to talk to you more about that. We’d be happy to arrange a call with Professor David Nutt. If there was, Something on the scientific side that goes above my head, which happens very often. I don’t claim to be an expert, we work with the groups and hire the professionals. But we, yeah, we’d love to, we’d love to chat their third way, for example, is a group that does a lot of psychedelics and talks about it. We’ve, We’ve been on many interviews with them and highlighting sort of our product and the benefits there that we see from it.

So there’s a lot of it’s starting to happen more to actually see more scientific studies with the mushroom as well and not just ourselves. So we’re excited to see that when we see third party studies coming out it just helps validate it . But yeah, we would love to speak with them. We have an Affiliate program set where if they introduce people there’s a way that benefits from that. about the legalities of your sector and how that works. And we’d also like to talk about providing some samples. If there’s an interest there and you’d like to try it, we’d love to get some samples for you and share it with your groups.

Bruce: And in terms of the word psychedelic, do you correct people and say that Amanita muscaria is not a psychedelic or like, what is there an advantage to kind of drawing that distinction apart from a psychedelic in terms of its effectiveness or effect on people?

Jeff: So it’s actually, yeah, it’s a great question. It’s not a psychedelic mushroom. We purposefully took advantage of the attention and moment that psychedelics were getting. , you know, When we went public to raise money, to raise awareness. And then about a year and a half ago, we really started pivoting as we recognized all the challenges that we were having.

The social media platforms, etc. even retailers. And the reality is our product is a wellness product. It’s not. It’s not something using in a recreational fashion for that. we’ve Really made a pivot, corporately, where we’ve sort of said, Okay, our identity, It was psychedelics and it was that because we needed the awareness, we needed eyeballs, we needed to raise capital and do that.

But once we completed our R&D and we moved towards having a product and bringing it to market, it didn’t serve us to piggyback on that. And so yeah, we really just sort of focus on the wellness side and how Amanita muscaria, and we talk about our AME-1 which is our proprietary extract. We actually talk about the Amanita mushroom.

So that people. Aren’t put off or, you know, because if you were to Google right now, still, you go into Google, Amanita muscaria mushroom, you know, that first page is going to talk about poisonous mushroom and, you know, all those reasons that people say, Oh, I’m not touching this. And as I did too, when my co-founder brought it to us, I said, are you crazy? We’re a public company. There’s no way we’re going to work with this poisonous mushroom. He said, Jeff, it’s been used for 5.000 years, there’s a safe way to use this. This is our opportunity. Let’s roll up our sleeves. Let’s do the work. Let’s make this happen. And so to his credit, he pushed us to do that work and allowed us to be that first mover and pioneer with it.

Bruce:  I guess a lot of compounds just get put on the back burner and then get a second wind based on some new data out there and publicity.

Jeff: Translate this into Russian and have it broadcast and there’d be a bunch of people saying, What is This guy talking about? This isn’t new. Like were picking it and, you know, making topical ointments and, Oh, for sure, you know, Siberian shamans used it. There’s a, lot of suggestion that the, the mushroom and the Siberian shamans are actually where the story of Santa Claus came from cause he would wear a red robe, generally speaking he was an elder in the community with a beard. And they, they would collect, it’s actually not the most, this story is a little weird because they would actually collect reindeer urine. So the reindeers, they would pick the mushrooms, hang them in pine trees.

And then the reindeer would chew them cause they liked the intoxicating effect that it gave them. But their liver would process the ibotenic acid. And then… The shaman would collect the reindeer urine, and then they would go around to the various villagers, and this would be part of their celebration.

Oftentimes in Siberia in the winter, when that would happen, they were snowed in, so they would come through a chimney. So, You start looking at a lot of these similarities, people go, oh, perhaps the story of Santa Claus with the reindeer and the man in the red robe. Joe Rogan did a really interesting podcast where he talked about that, and many similarities there are.

For our purposes, you know, we think it’s great. It’d be incredible if there was some tie into that, but it’s the fact that this has been used for, you know, 5, 000 plus years through ceremonial purposes. My grandparents used it and they would make a balm that they would put on it for a cut or, you know, if they had sore muscles, they would make this cream and put it on. We would make tea and drink tea. And so there’s, there’s a lot of historical use of the mushroom, which, yeah. Today, we talk about a novel. This has come to America, and we’re the first to bring it here.but there’s a long history of use of it, for sure.

Bruce: Well, I’m thinking this is probably some sort of marketing strategy for a stocking stuffer coming up soon for people. You could tie in some sort of interesting videos.

Jeff: we’re also, you know, we’re at a point right now, Bruce, where, from a marketing and a sampling perspective, , if there are any, any of your listeners who, who work with underprivileged, marginalized communities, you know, we, we do have a sampling program where we would donate, , units for that purpose. You know, Although it’s not, in our opinion, by comparison to the peer group in the psychedelic sector, it’s relatively inexpensive at 49. 95 a bottle,but we do recognize that that is still a prohibited number for some. And, so if there’s an opportunity where there’s some of your listeners perhaps that have clinics in those areas and they’d like to offer it and that they’d like to see, we’d be happy to have a discussion and see about donating some bottles, to that for that purpose.

Bruce: Interesting. It’s about the same price point as SAMe or L methylfolate and other, , well validated naturopathic supplements for mental health space.

Jeff: Yeah, we, we did our homework to make sure we were sort of in line, with other similar products in the space. , but again, you know, it is in, in times of inflation and, and such, , you know, we do recognize that there are some that is prohibited for, you know, we, we think everybody should have a sense of calm and a good night’s sleep. So we’d, yeah, we’d be happy to have a conversation about that.

Bruce: Any sort of new novel treatments that are out there that excite you, that you think are particularly interesting, that you’ve come across, even if you’re not an expert on it, something that you feel particularly interesting

Jeff: I’m really excited, you know, Obviously We’re We’re not exactly a psychedelic company, but we’re in the space and, you know, one of my board members, Nick Kadysh, runs a company called PharmAla Biotech, which is, they do clinical grade MDMA production and they use that, that’s sold and used in clinical trials.

And as we’re starting to see more and more countries open up for the use of MDMA, for example, you know, I’m very excited about that. I think that a lot of these compounds have been Treated as recreational drugs as opposed to medication. I think we’re going to see some very exciting things come through from the results of their studies.

And I think, we’re going to see a tremendous amount of benefit to, to patients who need that PTSD related mental health issues, traumatic brain injury. certainly you see, , a lot happening on the veteran side where, , there’s advocacy groups. pushing for it, where anecdotally they’ve used these compounds and they’ve had success and now they want to make it open for a broader audience.

So that to me is exciting because I think plant medicine. You know, it’s been around forever. We just commercially haven’t, you know, Big Pharma hasn’t been able to patent it per se and so it’s not been something that they’ve been focused on. But there seems to be a push and a change in the trends where, you know, concerns are looking for natural remedies to their health and wellness and, and even on the medication side when you want to go that far. So, I think it’s going to be exciting and, and that to me, I’m excited to be in the sector to watch it. Although we’re not directly in that lane, but,  you know, we see it and I think we’re going to see a lot of exciting things and people are going to benefit from it.

Bruce: You know, that’s absolutely true. There’s definitely a shift over the past five, 10 years of people who are interested in more naturopathic wellness options. Everything I do is really with the focus of trying to help patients and I started a, I had to keep track of all of these recommendations in a spreadsheet and I learned the most from my patients.

And, you know, I asked them how they benefited from that or how a medication or supplement had benefited them and put it into that spreadsheet. And it’s just grown over the last five years. There’s a lot of stuff out there that I never knew but, you know, patients are very good researchers when they want to be, when they’re looking for something that could be a, solution to their problem. And It’s like even though that, even though there’s not very many studies on something, you can always learn from a patient these alternative treatment options

Jeff: 100%. Yeah. Well, listen, I, I hope you put us on your list.

Bruce: Definitely. Yeah, it definitely will. Jeff, it was really nice talking to you. I really appreciate you being on today and telling us more about Amanita muscaria and how it could benefit people, the common side effects, how you process it, how you keep it safe. All of this background regarding the company challenges that lie ahead. And yeah, I really appreciate it.

Jeff: Yeah, well, listen, It was my pleasure. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your audience. I think it’s the first time that we’ve had an opportunity to sort of go the clinician side. So, you know, fantastic. Again, any of your listeners, if they’d like to get in touch with us, I’m sure there’ll be a link on your page, but we’d love to talk to you, and see if there’s a way that we can assist, , you learning about our product and, and also feeling comfortable with, , this as an option that you recommend because we, We know from our own anecdotal experience and what our concerns are sharing with us that has been beneficial. And we just like to spread the word and get it out to more people.

Bruce: Very nice. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for being on and, take care.

I’d appreciate it if you please like and share the podcast with your colleagues. It would be especially helpful for us. And if you’d like, please leave us a rating on your favorite podcatcher. If you’re a clinician, I developed a course on how to start a private practice. And for patients, I’ve also developed a course on ACT and CBT based lessons for treating and helping anxiety.

And you can find those all on our website as well. Thank you so much. And I’ll see you in the next episode.