Fadiman considers his project to be a form of crowd-sourced field research, similar to a Phase Two clinical study, attempting to determine if the drug at this dose level provides any benefits. But what’s missing, of course, is a Phase One clinical study, to assess safety. Fadiman feels that the established safety of LSD and psilocybin at much more significant doses makes this less of a concern. I’m conservative and anxious by nature, and though I’m not worried enough not to do the experiment (or perhaps it’s better to say that I’m desperate enough to do it), I’m still not entirely comfortable. Furthermore, especially given the lack of controls, it’s possible that all these reports prove for certain is the power of the placebo effect. I wish I could participate in a formal double-blind control-group study, not this ad-hoc crowd-sourced experience.*4
Fadiman is eager for formal medical and psychiatric research into microdosing, both with psilocybin and with LSD. He has recently been contacted by two individuals, one in Australia and one in Europe, who seek to carry out just this research. The Australian, a graduate student, wants simply to systematize the same kind of self-reporting that Fadiman is doing, with people following a common reporting system, though still sourcing their own drugs and operating independently of clinical supervision. The student cannot, he says, get governmental permission for anything else. The European researcher, however, plans a formalized clinical study of the possible benefits of microdosing, using a double-blind model with a control group. This researcher believes that the current European resurgence of interest in psychedelic research makes approval likely.
Some American scientists with whom I spoke doubt the likelihood of having such a study approved in the United States. The FDA would be troubled, they say, by any such study’s “ambulatory” nature. They don’t believe that an institution would be willing to seek approval for a study that dosed participants with a Schedule I substance and then sent them out into the world effectively under the influence. Other American scientists, however, disagree. They point out that researchers send people out into the world dosed with medications that we know compromise their abilities to function in all sorts of ways. We give people high doses of opioids, for example, sometimes sending them home with supplies of the drugs to self-administer. Furthermore, were that the only issue, an inpatient study could easily be crafted. These scientists believe that, given the success of the psilocybin studies at UCLA, NYU, and Johns Hopkins, it is possible, even likely, that we will see a microdosing study in the future. I hope so, and I hope my family history and my own ad-hoc experiment don’t preclude my participation.
The psychedelic researchers I interviewed expressed more interest in how microdosing can increase functioning and well-being in healthy people than in its potential antidepressant benefits. Their curiosity has been piqued by reports of Silicon Valley executives and engineers who have started microdosing as a way to improve productivity and encourage creative thinking at work. Microdosing has become something of a performance-enhancing mini-trend in the tech world, enough of one to justify an inundation of articles in magazines and online extolling its virtues.*5 According to Rolling Stone magazine, the typical microdoser is not, in fact, a middle-aged mom of four hoping to be less of a raging bitch, but an “übersmart twentysomething curious to see whether microdosing will help him or her work through technical problems and become more innovative.”*6
Users have begun to embrace microdosing as an alternative to the cognitive-enhancing drugs that are ubiquitous on college campuses and in Silicon Valley.*7 Stimulants such as Ritalin, Adderall, and modafinil are popular because they do in fact increase productivity and focus. However, they’ve been linked to decreases in neuroplasticity, likely as a result of the way they flood neural networks with dopamine, glutamate, and norepinephrine. Psychedelics enhance neuroplasticity, which makes them a compelling alternative. According to one of Rolling Stone’s übersmart twentysomething microdosers, “Microdosing has helped me come up with some new designs to explore and new ways of thinking.”
Hey, I was a techbro all along, and just didn’t know it! Next time you see me, I’ll be wearing a hoodie, sipping a steaming mug of “bulletproof butter coffee,” and railing about the gross homeless dude pissing in the doorway of my four-and-a-half-million-dollar condo in the Mission.
All joking aside, 1960s-era research, though inconclusive and anecdotal, did seem to indicate that psychedelic drugs can improve cognition and creativity. According to Fadiman, his study showed that, for his subjects, “in almost every case, new or unnoticed aspects of their problems opened up novel avenues toward solutions. Emotional residue from prior unsuccessful attempts no longer hindered their creative flexibility.” The question certainly bears further research, though as someone who came to this experience from a place of suffering, who has sought and failed to get help using established treatment models, and who, moreover, has little interest in the recreational use of drugs or even their performance-enhancing qualities, I hope that the therapeutic value of microdosing doesn’t get muffled beneath the desperate hysteria to work better, stronger, faster.
* * *
*1 ?Frustrated at never being able to figure out which silver Prius was mine, I put a second Obama sticker on the bumper, because having only one made it indistinguishable from the rest. I suppose, if I really wanted to make it easier to find, I’d slap a National Rifle Association sticker on it.
*2 ?Interestingly, research shows that walking in nature, especially among tall trees, reduces anxiety and depression as effectively as SSRIs (Rachel Hine, Carly Wood, and Jo Barton, Ecominds: Effects on Mental Wellbeing, an Evaluation for Mind [London: Mind, 2013]). The Japanese even have a name for this: shinrin-yoku, or “forest bathing.” Their Ministry of Health encourages it as a stress reliever; to my knowledge, they’ve yet to weigh in on the added benefit of a tiny dose of a psychedelic drug.
*3 ?In an odd coincidence, on the way home from Fadiman’s house, I just happened to be listening to an episode of a podcast called Reply All, in which a producer and one of the hosts attempted their own weeklong microdose experiment, with decidedly mixed results. They initially experienced some benefits, but soon became anxious and uncomfortable about keeping the protocol a secret from their colleagues. If my kids are suspicious of my newfound good spirits, I can only imagine how quickly grown podcast employees might catch on. One of the producers became more animated than normal, even hypomanic. He also managed, one day, to take a double dose, which meant he was out of the range of the sub-perceptual and into the perceptual. He did this on a day when he was taking a long and dull road trip. Set and setting, people—they’re everything when it comes to drug experimentation.
*4 ?Of course, government approval and clinical supervision hardly guarantee safety, as we learned in January 2016, when one person died and five others were hospitalized during a clinical trial of a French pharmaceutical meant to treat anxiety, motor disorders, and chronic pain.
*5 ?See, e.g., Robert Glatter, M.D., “LSD Microdosing: The New Job Enhancer in Silicon Valley and Beyond?”; Chris Gayomali, “Forget Coffee, Silicon Valley’s New Productivity Hack Is ‘Microdoses’ of LSD”; etc., etc., ad nauseam.
*6 ?Andrew Leonard, “How LSD Microdosing Became the Hot New Business Trip.”
*7 ?What some people call “nootropics.”
Day 17
Transition Day