The now well-known Canadian non-profit organization, TheraPsil, is challenging Health Canada to end a 50-year prohibition on the psychedelic drug, magic mushrooms. The bold proposal outlines measures to license growers and sellers, provide quality control, security, and even guidelines for proper packaging. If successful, possession of magic mushrooms and psilocybin, the potent psychedelic compound they produce, will no longer be illegal under federal law in Canada.
TheraPsil CEO Spencer Hawkswell Weighs In
Threapsil CEO Spencer Hawkswell stated that his expert team had crafted a 165-page proposal that they then passed off to Health Canada’s Director General Jennifer Saxe. As the name suggests, the group at TheraPsil advocates for the therapeutic use of psilocybin. The team there drew upon twenty-year-old medical cannabis legislation to help draft these proposed regulations to end psilocybin prohibition.
In a recent CBC news report, Hawkswell is quoted as saying, “This is taking all of the bureaucratic processes, all of the hard work that people put into cannabis, such as how to apply for a license if you want to grow it … and just making it the exact same for psilocybin.”
The comprehensive document put forth by TheraPsil advocates outlines everything from who can be licensed growers and sellers, to who can be involved, where they can be located, quality control, security, and packaging too. Additional provisions include measures for patients to be able to register to grow their magic mushrooms, much like many medical cannabis patients can grow their cannabis at home. Finally, there’s even a formula to help calculate just how much any individual can grow by counting the amount of mycelium, or branch-like organisms that produce the mushroom as a fruit.
TheraPsil Has Already Won Major Victories for Psychedelic Medicine
Our readers will surely remember how just last year, Canada’s Health Minister helped those with a terminal illness and treatment-resistant depression gain access to psilocybin therapy. Despite being federally illegal since 1975, Canada’s progressive Health Minister, Patty Hajdu, helped the mushrooms catalyze a major victory in the fight for better mental healthcare.
What started with just a few patients has expanded into a total of 64 patients and therapists to date having received legal exemptions from Health Canada to work with psilocybin. Despite renewed interest in the mushroom and its therapeutic potential, the department also acknowledges that more than 150 applications it has received have not been answered as of yet.
TheraPsil is Confident in Health Canada Being Open to Their Proposal
In the aforementioned CBC reporting, Hawkswell describes Health Canada’s Director-General as being open to the measures his organization had proposed. He is quoted in that report as he describes the exemptions Health Canada has already made and cited the countless more patients that can benefit. Furthermore, Hawkswell describes it to be a safety issue that is entirely within the realm of Health Canada’s mandate to consider.
Have Enough Clinical Trials Been Done to Warrant Regulation?
While advocates and policymakers are still at odds when it comes to psilocybin legislation, you can be sure that the debate is very much alive. Proponents argue that ample data exists to validate psilocybin as a safe and efficacious treatment for some otherwise very difficult to manage conditions. However, other experts cite very real political consequences of legalizing a psychedelic that’s been banned since 1974. Whether such political implications outweigh the very real impact this medicine has proven to make on patients with the gravest of illnesses, will be for the officials at Health Canada to decide.