Does microdosing magic mushrooms help people with mental health issues? Science is trying to find out
CBC
WARNING: This story contains mentions of suicide
"Microdosing saved my life," says Andrina Stan.
Stan, 35, works as an integrated therapist in Toronto and has struggled with her mental health at times. Stan says she believes it was psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in magic mushrooms, that helped her turn her life around.
"In December 2020 I found myself in the middle of this living space, curled up in a ball," she explains. "It was a very dark space. So I was contemplating suicide."
Stan says she tried different therapies but nothing really helped until she found magic mushrooms — which are illegal to produce, possess and sell in Canada without special permission.
"I'm not sure that I would still be here if it weren't for microdosing," Stan says.
Stan has been microdosing psilocybin for three years.
She says she is aware that using that psilocybin can pose health risks, and deciding to microdose is not something she took lightly.
"I think that there's a bit of a craze with psychedelics, and I know a lot of people, especially people my age, they just think it's a fun thing to do," she says. "I don't see it as something that you should just pick up and try."
What microdosing psilocybin allowed her to do, Stan says, is work through her issues. "It slowly brings that pain up so you can safely deal with it."
Stan's experience with microdosing psilocybin is a powerful anecdotal story, but what does the science say about the practice as a potential mental health treatment?
Neuroscientist Rotem Petranker kneels in front of a safe in a nondescript medical building in midtown Toronto. He punches a code into the safe, opens it and takes out a bottle of pills. There's a security camera attached to the wall nearby.
When your clinical trial involves an illegal substance like psilocybin, this is how the drugs are stored.
Through the University of Toronto, Petranker is leading the first clinical trial examining the effects of microdosing psilocybin on major depressive disorder.
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