Is Elon Musk’s ketamine habit a problem for all of us?

Welcome back to The Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter serving up news, culture, and independent journalism about psychedelics straight to your inbox. 

Today’s featured stories are about the new ways scientists hope to maneuver around the issue of “functional unblinding.” The strategy? Administering psychedelics to study participants while they’re in a state of induced amnesia, preventing them from remembering the experience. Our other piece is about Elon Musk’s newest DOGE hire, who (OF COURSE) used to work at one of the leading ketamine companies in the U.S. If you scroll past these pieces, you’ll find stories on psychedelic fish, magic truffles, and how to work with kava as an alcohol alternative. 

Stay weird 🖖🏾

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Now Scientists Are Dosing Study Participants with Psychedelics While Sleeping

From dosing participants while unconscious to strategic deception, new studies are pushing the boundaries of clinical trial design — and raising thorny ethical questions along the way.

Functional unblinding. It’s an Achilles heel in psychedelic science. It’s among the reasons the FDA decided against approving Lykos Therapeutics’s application for MDMA-assisted therapy in August 2024. Their logic was that if a participant is tripping, they obviously know they got a drug. And if a participant knows, how do researchers separate the real effects from expectation?

In traditional drug studies, participants don’t know if they’re receiving the real treatment or a placebo, allowing scientists to isolate the drug’s true impact. But with psychedelics, the guessing game is over as soon as the unmistakable, mind-bending effects kick in.

Since Lykos’s rejection last summer, researchers at other psychedelic bio-tech companies are scrambling to find workarounds. Some clinical trials use varying doses to confuse study participants, Science reports. Compass Pathways, which is testing psilocybin for depression, gave all participants the drug but at different doses. This approach helps control for expectation bias, which can distort study results if participants assume they will feel better simply because they believe they received the treatment. MindMed, which is investigating LSD for anxiety, found that only patients who received the highest doses saw real benefits, suggesting the drug, rather than the expectation of it, was responsible for improvements.

Other organizations are taking more radical approaches. Raison is running a clinical trial where patients take psilocybin while being put in a state of “induced amnesia,” waking up with no memory of the experience. If they still show improvement, it suggests the psychedelic “trip” might not be necessary for therapeutic effects. Meanwhile, Stanford anesthesiologist Boris Heifets has experimented with giving ketamine to unconscious surgery patients, testing whether mood changes occur absent any subjective experience.

Another tactic being used is deception. Some researchers tell participants they might receive one of several psychoactive drugs — including stimulants or sedatives — when, in reality, only one drug and a placebo will be administered. The hope is that uncertainty will blur expectations, making it harder for patients to subconsciously convince themselves that they are experiencing improvements based on their expectations rather than the drug's actual effects.

There are ethical concerns here, of course. Informed consent is a pillar of medical research, and misleading participants — even slightly — raises a thorny issue. But as psychiatrist Josh Woolley of UCSF argues, designing studies that can’t produce clear results is equally problematic.

“It’s unethical to do uninformative studies where you don’t actually learn anything,” he said to Science.

Of Course, Elon Musk Hired A Former Ketamine Industry Professional

Elon officially hired the former head of engineering at MindBloom to work at the Department of Education.

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been making headlines for its chaotic approach to governance. But a closer look at its staff reveals a particularly curious detail: One of its members used to work for a leading ketamine company.

According to The Washington Post, 36-year-old DOGE staffer Alexandra Beynon previously served as head of engineering at Mindbloom, a telehealth startup offering at-home ketamine therapy. Now, she’s working at the Department of Education at the behest of Musk.

Mindbloom, founded in 2018 by Beynon’s husband, Dylan Beynon, operates as a telehealth provider for ketamine-assisted therapy. The company prescribes and ships ketamine lozenges directly to patients for at-home use, offering remote guidance and support throughout the treatment process. While many believe telehealth ketamine services are a slippery slope into unhealthy drug use, Mindbloom has contributed to major studies showing the drug’s potential to treat depression and anxiety. It even claims to reject 35 percent of applicants — mostly those with substance abuse histories or health risks such as hypertension, Futurism writes.

Still, the potential for misuse is concerning. A 2023 survey by Colorado addiction treatment center All Points North found that 55 percent of patients using at-home ketamine had either accidentally or intentionally misused the drug. While Mindbloom wasn’t named in the study, APN’s CEO warned that many at-home ketamine providers fail to offer sufficient therapeutic support, leaving patients to navigate powerful dissociatives largely on their own.

Musk has been open about using ketamine for depression, crediting it with lifting him out of “a negative chemical state.” He insists he takes small, doctor-prescribed doses — but also claims he’s “almost always” sober when posting online, a statement that had most of us nodding along like, “yeah sure, bro.”

It used to be that federal officials were required to pass drug tests and undergo extensive background checks to obtain basic security clearance. But, clearly, in Musk’s brave new world, those rules may no longer apply.

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🐟 Plants and fungi aren’t nature’s only psychedelic organisms. Certain species of fish can make you trip for up to two days. Read more about what Arabs called “dreamfish”

🍄 Magic Truffles are the underground “sclerota” of psychedelic mushrooms. And, thanks to a curious legal loophole, you can legally buy them online. But is there really a difference between them? Read more about the hidden treasures of magic mushrooms.

🏳️‍🌈 While safe spaces for the LGBTQ are under attack, there are more opportunities than ever for the queer community to explore psychedelics. In this article, we look closely at the growing trend of queer-friendly psychedelic offerings.

🫖 Looking for an alternative to alcohol to wind down after the end of a long day? Try Kava. It’s relaxing, euphoric, non-addictive, and 100% natural. Here’s our guide for buying it online.

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