What Cannabis and Psychedelics Industries can learn from each other

It is also the home of the psychedelics renaissance.  Denver, the most populous city and capital of Colorado, has become the first place in the United States to decriminalize magic mushrooms in 2019. 

Voters in Denver chose to decriminalize adult possession and use of psilocybin, a compound produced by more than 200 mushrooms. Psilocybin is a prodrug which means it is a compound that once it is taken is metabolised into a pharmacologically active drug. Its effects include psychedelic experiences, visual and mental hallucinations, variance perception, euphoria and a distorted sense of time. However, it can also have possible adverse reactions, such as nausea and panic attacks.

Psilocybin is illegal in the United States. It is listed as a Schedule I drugs under the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. But since ballots in Denver, other three cities followed decriminalization of psilocybin as well.

In recent years, psychedelic compounds are experiencing a renaissance. Their potential to treat mental health conditions became attractive for scientists and investors.

Medical experts and researchers see psychedelics compounds as an innovative method of treating several mental disorders. Over the years, researchers have studied the effects of several psychedelic compounds to treat mental conditions, including PTSD, anxiety and depression.

Investors understood that psychedelic drugs in mental health care can be a significant change for the industry. Thus, psychedelic companies popped up in recent years, and some are about to go public. Cannabis paved the way for the entry of psychedelic drugs into the market.

The process of normalization of cannabis helped psychedelics to garner interest for alternative methods to treat medical conditions. Also, it helped in terms of legal progress and changing public perception. On one hand, recreational cannabis boosted public debate, raised awareness among people striving to wash out cannabis taboo in society.

On the other hand, medical cannabis has become a valid treatment for many medical conditions over the years. Even the United Nations recognizes the medicinal and therapeutic potential of cannabis. Indeed, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) removed cannabis from Schedule IV of the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 2020. Cannabis had listed amongst those harmful substances with little to no therapeutic purposes, including heroin.

For these reasons, psychedelic drugs have found fertile ground to develop a market to attract investors and create curiosity and interest for medical experts.

Cannabis and psychedelics seem to share the same ground at first glance. Both have a long history in society and can be used for recreational and medical purposes. As with cannabis, psychedelics have a thriving black market.

However, most of the attention on cannabis is related to its recreational use, while investors interested in psychedelics are attracted by its medical purposes for the healthcare industry. Recreational use of cannabis and psychedelics is quite different in terms of effects and consumption.

Cannabis has the advantage to be the most used drugs around the world. Furthermore, it has got a legislative and regulatory framework on a national and international level. This helped commercialize and diversify cannabis-based products.

For instance, CBD can be used for wellness, edibles, and medical purposes. However, not all psychedelics are illegal. One of the best examples is ketamine, which is used in anaesthesia. Psychedelics are still in an embryonic stage in terms of legal progress and public perception. Nevertheless, the legal status of psychedelics is much clearer than cannabis.

Psychedelics have been driven by scientific and academic research seeking regulatory approvals, rather than political activism and advocacy as with cannabis legalization. Such a difference garnered attention from investors and medical companies.

For them, it’s all about science. This is one of the key differences between psychedelics and cannabis. While cannabis reached widespread popularity with its recreational use, psychedelics are following a narrower medical path. Psychedelics companies are going public, as cannabis companies did.

Some of them are involved only with psychedelics. Others produce dietary supplements from non-psychoactive mushrooms. Psychedelics companies are well-positioned to attract capital from healthcare investors. Research and development is the core of the psychedelics industry.

Companies like MindMed and Compass Pathways discover, develop and deploy psychedelic medicines to improve health, promote wellness and ease suffering.

This approach hasn’t gone unnoticed in the cannabis industry. Vic Neufeld, the former CEO of Aphria, one of the leading cannabis producers in the industry, founded Havn Life, a biotechnology company pursuing standardized extraction of psychoactive compounds and the development of natural healthcare products. But other

cannabis entrepreneurs are switching to psychedelics too. For instance, Bruce Linton, the former co-chief executive and founder of Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth Corp. has joined the psychedelics company MindMed as a board director.

It is physiological being euphoric for a new market like the psychedelics one. However, experts fear the psychedelics market could experience a bubble just like cannabis did. The psychedelics market can learn an important lesson from the cannabis industry.

The cannabis gold (green) rush created a stock market bubble that burst in 2019. Psychedelics investors should avoid the same mistake. Also, companies should look at the cannabis industry as an example in terms of product diversification, which is the key to master in the industry. However, striving to put on the market psychedelics products for recreational purposes seems hard to climb at the moment.

Furthermore, it doesn’t look like the business model that psychedelics companies want to run after all.Also, the psychedelics market can learn a lot from the cannabis world in terms of advocacy. Ballots in Denver has been a successful laboratory in terms of advocacy campaigns to decriminalize psilocybin. In the same way, the cannabis market can learn from the psychedelics with growing biotech influence.

Some cannabis biotech companies are already focusing on medicinal uses based on cannabinoids, and they are researching cannabis extracts. But much more can be done, considering that the use of cannabis for medical purposes is growing considerably in recent years, and researchers publish thousands of studies on cannabis regularly.

Cannabis and psychedelics markets seem to have a different pathway, although both can work synergetically in the mental healthcare industry. Both have great potential and can learn successes and mistakes from each other. Most of the cannabis companies focus their efforts on recreational, wellness and medical use at the moment. The psychedelics industry may have a future in the biotech industry.

Research and development can be the meeting point of these two industries because both aim to relieve patients suffering from mental and physical conditions. So, both can share expertise to achieve their common goals.