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

Today’s lead story is about trauma. We hear a lot about it in the psychedelic hypersphere — from first responders to veterans to survivors of sexual assault. But another, often-overlooked demographic who experience severe trauma is journalists. People who report from war zones, crime scenes, mass shootings, immigration raids or detention centers, and harrowing courtrooms; journalists who regularly sacrifice their safety and wellbeing to bring the public news, despite the many forces trying to stop them. Now, there’s a nonprofit bringing working journalists psychedelic-assisted therapy for the psychic lesions incurred on the job. Obviously, this story is near and dear to our hearts at DB. It’s penned by journalist Noah Daly (who was recently published in the New York Times, btw, and according to whispers through the grapevine, has another story for them on the way). You can find his latest for us immediately below!

OH! Also, what are you up to on Sunday, May 31? We’re hosting a workshop on 5-MeO-DMT with Joël Brierre and Victoria Wueschner from Tandava and F.I.V.E. You really don’t want to miss it, as we’ll be discussing everything you need to know about this medicine, including major safety concerns affecting people and the space right now. RSVP to attend here!

Solidarity to journalists everywhere ✊📝,
Mary Carreón
Editor-in-Chief

Some don’t contain any at all.

As the legal mushroom market explodes, more products are appearing that are designed to feel psychedelic without actually containing psilocybin.

Capsules, gummies, chocolates, and “microdose” blends are often formulated with combinations of adaptogens, stimulants, functional mushrooms, and mood-altering compounds that can create sensations like energy, focus, emotional lift, or body effects — while containing none of the primary compound most consumers believe they’re taking.

And from the outside, the difference isn’t always obvious.

That’s why understanding labels, ingredients, and formulation strategies has become an important part of harm reduction. Because informed decisions start with knowing what’s actually inside the product you’re consuming.

To help make sense of it all, Eden created a 13-page educational guide built with input from cultivators and formulators in the space. Inside, you’ll find:

• A simple ingredient breakdown chart
• How to identify misleading formulations
• The difference between microdose vs macrodose products
• Common “feel-alike” ingredient strategies
• Red flags to watch for before purchasing

If you’re consuming in this category, this guide is worth reading first.

👉 Download the Guide + Ingredient Chart

After The Story, launched at the National Press Club, aims to close a long-standing gap in care for reporters carrying the cumulative weight of bearing witness.

By Noah Daly

“It has always seemed to me that what I write about is humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable, and that it is important to tell people what really happens in wars.”
- Marie Colvin, The Sunday Times

Among journalists, there is a general admiration for the correspondent – someone who can travel far, observe, report, and bring the story home. Then there are others. Journalists who do the unthinkable, putting themselves in harm's way, so their audience can understand the facts of a dangerous world and the people who suffer from it. They are writers, filmmakers, photographers, podcasters, and societal fixers willing to risk everything to remind people far from the lines of fire that those distant frontiers matter. They are war reporters.

Like the soldiers they follow, war reporters often struggle with PTSD. More than 20 years ago, a study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that war journalists experience lifetime PTSD at a rate of roughly 28.6%, comparable to that of combat veterans. Journalists, however, have largely carried on their work without the support systems that have grown up around other professions exposed to regular trauma. 

After The Story, a new nonprofit launched on Thursday, May 14, 2026, is trying to change that. Co-founded by journalist and artist Samantha Rose Stein and National Geographic photographer Michael Christopher Brown, the nonprofit is setting out to provide fully funded access to psychedelic-assisted trauma care and integration support for journalists carrying accumulated psychological injury from their work. The initiative, announced on Thursday, May 14, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., was tucked into the afternoon programming at the Federal Summit on Psychedelic Medicine.

“We rely on journalists to help society metabolize reality, but we rarely talk about what it costs to carry those realities over time,” says Stein. “The Fellowship is not fundamentally about psychedelics. It is about care, sustainability, reflection, integration, and support for people working in high-exposure storytelling environments.”

Like other trauma-exposed professions, Brown explains, conflict reporters are often forced to compartmentalize the things they see, but there’s a catch: “Journalists are trained to observe others,” he says, “but there is very little cultural permission for journalists themselves to process what repeated observation does to them over time.” In 2011, Brown was critically injured by shrapnel while covering the Libyan Revolution in Misrata — the same attack that killed journalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros. While on assignment in Beirut, Stein was attacked and faced repeated safety threats tied to her reporting. 

One of the contributing factors to PTSD among conflict journalists is the whiplash of moving between impossibly different worlds. “Even though many times I would sleep in abandoned buildings on the floor, not eating, not washing, going without water for days or weeks on end, but you still feel like you're part of the 1%,” says Ben Anderson, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and war correspondent for the BBC and Vice News Tonight. Anderson knew that if he ever got badly hurt, there would be a huge effort to get him to safety. He kept his return ticket in his pocket, knowing that even though it might take four or five days to get out of a dire situation, he’d get out – a luxury that most of the people he interacted with didn't have. “For a very long time,” Anderson says, “any time there were signs that this was taking a bit too much of a toll on me, I just dismissed it completely, because I had so much guilt about thinking that I deserved any kind of care or attention, or even a break.”

While working in Iraq, Anderson found himself with a small detachment of young Iraqi soldiers, in a close-quarters operation fighting house to house. “They got a radio message saying a suicide bomber is about to turn down the street and run towards you with a gunman hide, and we dove into a little bombed-out shop,” he says. One of the Iraqi soldiers tried to shoot the suicide bomber as he ran down the street towards their position. “I sat down on a pile of broken blocks and rubble, and one of the soldiers screamed at me, ‘IED! IED!’ and he could see the wires of an IED in the rubble right next to where I was sitting. Two or three days before, three of our colleagues had been killed by an IED hidden in rubble, just like that.” Anderson’s photographer friend took a picture of him, and he showed it to him three or four days later. “He said, Ben, you looked bored, you know, you look like someone just said to you, your Uber is going to take 20 minutes to arrive, and you were fed up that we had to wait.”

In 2018, a year after receiving his own PTSD diagnosis, Anderson underwent MDMA-assisted therapy and documented his experience for Vice News. 

Stein, Brown, and Anderson have all gone through psychedelic-assisted therapy. Stein and Brown say that when it’s combined with long-term integration support, the treatment helped them address aspects of their PTSD they hadn't been able to resolve through conventional approaches alone. Anderson found his MDMA treatment to be profound and helpful, but it did not resolve his PTSD symptoms. 

"I have lost colleagues to this work, and I have watched others lose themselves long after they came home," Brown said. "Trauma can narrow your emotional world over time. Your connection to your family, your work, even yourself can slowly erode."

After The Story will provide fellowships that combine facilitated access to legally operating psychedelic-assisted care with preparation, integration support, peer community, and clinical collaboration. Participants will undergo medical and psychological screening, and the initiative intends to partner with legally operating clinical and retreat-based programs in jurisdictions where these treatments are permitted. That currently includes Mexico, where dozens of ibogaine clinics operate, as well as a growing number of regions permitting psilocybin therapy, such as Colorado and Oregon. In the wake of increasing numbers of abuse cases in psychedelic spaces, Stein and Brown say they are collaborating with harm reduction experts, physicians, and leaders from Indigenous medicine communities to ensure After The Story is able to connect fellows with quality practitioners.

The inaugural cohort will include up to 18 fellows globally, who will receive a grant to help cover travel expenses. After The Story says priority is given to mid-career and veteran journalists with significant exposure to trauma. In an industry that relies on freelancers without the structural support of employer-sponsored healthcare and faces comparable or greater occupational risks, the fellowship is open not only to reporters but also to photographers, filmmakers, editors, producers, translators, fixers, and other media workers operating in high-stress environments. 

“Many of the psychological stressors experienced by journalists — including chronic trauma exposure, hypervigilance, moral injury, and vicarious trauma — precede development of the psychiatric conditions currently being studied in psychedelic therapy research,” says Dr. Greg Fonzo, co-director of the Charmaine and Gordon McGill Center for Psychedelic Research and Therapy at the University of Texas, Austin.  

Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, endorsed the initiative. "Journalists are among the people society asks to witness suffering, violence, and conflict on behalf of the public, yet they often lack the support structures available to other trauma-exposed professions," he said in a statement.

The fellowship was launched during a moment of profound disruption for working journalists. In recent months, major media companies, such as The Washington Post, BBC, NBC News, and The Associated Press, have been laying off large numbers of editorial, reporting, and production staff. Many newsrooms in smaller markets are facing cutbacks, and journalists are now forced to compete with a torrent of AI slop making it harder than ever to connect with their audiences. Not to mention the disinformation, online harassment, economic and political instability, and intensifying global crisis cycles. These pressures are reshaping the practice of journalism and forcing those continuing in the field into increasingly dire straits.

The fellowship is currently fundraising for its inaugural year. Applications for the first cohort are expected to open later in 2026. Journalists and referring colleagues can register interest at [email protected].

Plant medicine ceremonies ask you to surrender, and some shamans exploit exactly that. From sexual assault disguised as healing rituals to emotional shaming of participants mid-journey, survivors and experts break down how abuse of power operates in psychedelic spaces, why it's so hard to recognize in the moment, and what you can do to protect yourself before you even drink the medicine.

This Friday, journalist Suzanah Weiss dives into power-tripping shamans and what the plant medicine community can do to demand better.

Update your subscription here to get the full story in your inbox on Friday!

Not all mushroom products actually contain psilocybin.

Many are formulated with adaptogens, stimulants, and “feel-alike” compounds designed to mimic parts of the experience without the primary molecule most people think they’re taking.

That’s why Eden created a 13-page guide to help you decode labels, spot misleading formulations, and better understand what’s actually inside. Includes a simple ingredient breakdown chart you’ll want to save before your next purchase.

👉 Download the Guide + Chart