#33: Psychedelics in Mental Health - what you need to know (Part I)

Hi friends,

What do you know about psychedelics?

I first got interested in psychedelics a few years ago. I know what you’re thinking, but no, not for recreational purposes.

Everywhere I looked, someone was telling me about how psychedelics were increasingly being used to treat mental disorders.

I looked into the research and got excited. They had a lot of potential and seemed to be gaining momentum.

In Australia (where I live), the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) had even authorised MDMA in the treatment of PTSD and psilocybin for use in treatment-resistant depression. And just this week, The American Journal of Psychiatry released a 132-page special issue dedicated to psychedelics and the APA included the psychedelics as one of their top 10 trends to watch in 2025.

We desperately need better treatments and here is a class of drugs promising profound improvements. I got excited. But I also had a lot of questions.

How much evidence is there behind these drugs? How do they work? How are they being regulated? How should we think about separating their medical use from their recreational use? 

I started researching. But I ended up getting incredibly frustrated.

You see, this industry is as controversial as it is exciting. People on all sides of the psychedelics debate have strong opinions and incentives. That makes it hard to find objective data. And I hate that. 

One week, I read an article from a pro-psychedelics organisation telling me how they are changing outcomes for treatment-resistant depression. The next week, I attended a talk from a well-respected mental health researcher who poked holes in that same research. 

Would someone just tell me the truth here?

I wanted to know what is actually going on and have an objective, high-level overview of the state of these drugs and their ability to treat mental disorders. 

I couldn’t find it, so I decided to make it. 

That’s the motivation behind this new series - a three-part discussion on the role of psychedelics in mental health, providing an objective introduction to psychedelics, the research behind them, the businesses creating them and the market in which they operate. 

By the end of this series, you’ll understand how these drugs work (at least at a basic level), what level of evidence exists, who the major players are, the regulatory stances of major agencies, the industry challenges and how to think about the role of psychedelics in mental health.

Pharmacology is far from my area of expertise or my core focus in these reports, but considering the potential for improvement in MH outcomes and the hype surrounding psychedelics, I feel we should at least have a basic understanding of what they are, how they work and what level of evidence exists.

Also, it’s just a fun topic to debate with friends and it’s always good to come to these dinner table debates armed with some cold hard facts!

To write this series, I’ve teamed up with Valentine Assal. Val is a Life Sciences Strategy Consultant based in Zurich who has spent the last few years deep-diving into the topic of psychedelics, the regulatory landscape and the businesses operating in the industry. She knows this space deeply and has been incredibly helpful in the research for this piece and in educating me on the market. 

Today, in Part I of this series, we’ll cover;

1. Psychedelics 101: what exactly are psychedelics?

2. The history of psychedelics

3. The current state of psychedelics. What do we know?

4. The major questions and challenges of the field

Let’s get into it.

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