Depression + Psilocybin – Pt 2

Dr Piou-Brewer’s holistic retreats are held four times a year in St Ann and St Mary in locations including Boscobel, Tower Isle, Mammee Bay and Ocho Rios.

Also championing – monitored psilocybin dosing – is consultant psychiatrist and Government senator Dr Saphire Longmore. Based on individual patient assessment, she believes that there can be positive outcomes for persons afflicted with depression, post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance use and suicidality, who are vetted as approved candidates for psilocybin use.

“I am fulsomely an advocate for the safe availability of psilocybin in Jamaica and with its application to persons who have significant issues,” she explained, noting that the jury is still out on administering use for persons diagnosed with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Dr Longmore emphasised that any patient presenting with either of the two mental conditions would not have her seal of approval to take psilocybin.

Elaborating on patients given psilocybin, she said, “I apply it at varying doses to the clients who make desires of it, from microdoses which is very small doses which is comparable to what they use in clinical trials overseas, to also relatively large doses, which causes persons to almost have a dissociation process that I supervise to ensure they work through their psychological issues. My use of psilocybin is for persons who are seeking to address their issues in a way that addresses their spiritual growth and practice, so there is a distinction.”

SPIRITUAL HEALTH DEVELOPMENT

Longmore, who tabled a Private Member’s Motion in the Senate five years ago to increase public knowledge and access to psilocybin dosing, is also the chair of Jamaica Psilocybin

Industry Working Group. She feels that psilocybin is particularly beneficial to spiritual health development to its users. Speaking against her background as both a medical doctor and psychiatrist, said “what you recognise is on the line significant issues that we deal with is the sense of a broken spirit, a lack of spiritual evolution and development, it has been arrested ... [Someone] being controlled and manipulated in ways that they lose their value for themselves, that is the broken spirit. What psilocybin does is that it helps to restore that. It helps to create a psychic, psychological space that allows for the repair, healing, growth and enlightenment in one’s spiritual identity and spiritual practice. But also in doing so, it provides healing from some of these formal diagnoses that are associated with clinical practice.”Longmore has also found that psilocybin is also beneficial to persons battling losses in their lives. “There is also significant unrecognised grief in the loss of loved ones,” she said.

“Sometimes we go through a mourning process but we really don’t resolve. What I find psilocybin to be very effective for assisting persons with unrecognised grief and bereavement.”

Local psychiatrist Geoffrey Walcott, said he too, has administered psilocybin dosing selectively in patient cases, with a positive ratio of 70 per cent.

“I have been using psilocybin over the past three years to treat persons with depression, post traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorders,” divulged the 15-year practising health professional who operate Psychotherapy Associates, his private practice.

He pointed out that as is the case with all psychoactive substances, psilocybin use requires clearly established guidelines and regulatory systems in place to ensure safety.

On the flip side, he noted “a few haven’t responded and one patient had worsening anxiety after administration which was controlled on benzodiazepine and increasing his regular antidepressants.”

PASSION PROJECT

However, underscoring the general effectiveness of the psychedelic, Dr Walcott said “the majority of patients respond with some requiring a lower dose of their traditional medicine.”

Having himself switched from traditional to natural medicine, Cooke became not just a convert to psilocybin, he was keen on spreading the gospel of it, through entrepreneurial means.

“When I started self-medicating with mushrooms to treat my depression and ADHD, many folks noticed the changes in me and asked me what I had done, “ he shared. “When I told them ...many of them asked me to help them do the same. So I started dosing friends and friends of friends, some were grappling with depression, some had no affliction and just wanted the energy shift they saw in me. They got results and the referrals kept coming.”

Cooke leapt at the opportunity at hand, and would begin cultivating mushrooms on an acre of farmland in rural St. Andrew six years ago that birthed Psacred Therapeutics’

“It started as a passion project for us to give people the option of taking a different approach to their mental wellbeing, and it still is. We have gotten to the point now where the benefits of mushrooms are becoming universally recognised and accepted and the reception of our product

has been far greater than we expected when we started and Psacred Therapeutics has grown into a viable business where we offer retail products beginning in 0.1 to 0.25 grams for microdosing for mood improvement and concentration, up to 7+ grams for intense catharsis and transcendental experiences that has to be monitored, “ Cooke said of the transitory life arc from seeker to giver.