Psychedelics promising in addiction treatment
Dr. Evan Wood has been on the leading edge of addiction research for almost two decades. He was the principal investigator evaluating Insite, which was North America’s first legal supervised-injection site. It’s in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
In addition, Wood is an adviser to the Global Commission on Drug Policy and the founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (now the Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation).
In recent years, he’s been focusing more attention on a growing body of research showing the benefits of psychedelic substances, such as MDMA and psilocybin, in the treatment of mental illness, addiction, and posttraumatic stress disorder.
In a phone interview with the Straight, Wood said that a group in New York has conducted several trials on the efficacy of psychedelics in the treatment of alcohol misuse. At Johns Hopkins University, another group is focusing on the effects of psychedelics in helping people kick the smoking habit.
“It’s not a cure for everybody,” Wood cautioned, “but in comparison to the best available treatments we have for alcohol or nicotine addition—and there’s some work being done in cocaine addiction as well— the rates of remission are pretty dramatic over the best available standard of care that we have to offer for those conditions. So it really looks like something is there.”
In addition, he said, a Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies phase-three trial of MDMA showed that it “had a greater than 90 percent likelihood of showing a statistically significant benefit on treatment of PTSD”.
“The other phase-three trial is the Compass [Pathways] trial of psilocybin for treatment-refractory depression, which, to my understanding, is also in the late stages,” Wood noted.
On May 21, Wood was named chief medical officer of Vancouver-based Numinus Wellness Inc., which is licensed by Health Canada to test, sell, and distribute psychedelic substances.
He explained that psychedelic molecules do not behave like antiviral drugs that might target a receptor to induce a physiological change. Rather, Wood described it as a therapeutic process that involves taking people through an experience, which can lead to long-lasting personality changes.
According to Wood, neuroimaging studies suggest that when people are under the influence of certain psychedelics, like LSD, the prefrontal cortex—a.k.a. the brain’s CEO—and more primitive parts of the brain interact in ways that they wouldn’t do ordinarily.
And he suggested that when these new connections are forged, it can lead to the creation of more neurons in the brain. (Neurons are nerve cells that transmit information.)
“It’s a promising area, from a scientific perspective,” Wood said. “I’m really excited about it.”
The Numinus website lists the devastating toll of mental illness by the numbers: a $51-billion burden on the Canadian economy; a halfmillion Canadians unable to work due to mental-health problems; 4,000 suicides per year; more than nine percent of adults who will suffer from posttraumatic stress disorder in their lifetime; and one in two who will be affected by mental-health issues by their 40th birthday. The company went public on the Toronto Venture Exchange this month following a reverse takeover of Salvation Botanicals Ltd.
Most recently, Wood was executive director of the B.C. Centre on Substance Use, which conducts research, education, and training and offers clinical guidance around addiction to medical practitioners.
It’s not a cure for everybody, but.…it really looks like something is there.
– Dr. Evan Wood
In his new position with Numinus, Wood will help the company develop treatment centres. The first is planned in Vancouver next year.
Numinus CEO Payton Nyquvest told the Straight by phone that there are “really big opportunities” to use psychedelics in treating mental health.
“We’re talking to a number of other clinics that would be interested, potentially, in acquisition, and that’s where we will be doing some of our focusing in terms of growth: going out and acquiring other clinics that are looking to get into this space,” Nyquvest said.
The company’s licence from Health Canada has been amended to allow it to test several psychedelics, including MDMA and psilocybin, in addition to testing cannabis. The licence does not authorize Numinus to produce psychedelic substances.
“But it does set us up to be able to distribute not only for our own trial work that we would like to be doing but also to be a distributor for other groups that are looking for the materials as well,” Nyquvest said.
Wood suspects that in the future, society will look back and wonder why these treatments took so long to be developed.
“I think this intervention would be commonplace if it weren’t for the historical cultural baggage, given how promising the research has been to date,” he said.