November 2021

Taking small doses of LSD or magic mushrooms has long been a part of Silicon Valley lore, but does the research support the hype?

By Mike Reddy

When the co-founder and CEO of a $2 billion marketing startup was fired in April, the circumstances surrounding his ouster sparked a flurry of media attention. “Iterable CEO Justin Zhu says he was fired for taking LSD before investor meeting,” read an Euronews headline. Similar headlines appeared in Bloomberg, Business Insider, Forbes and Fortune, among others.

It’s not surprising that Zhu’s story blew up in the press. One can’t help but wonder what would motivate someone in his position to do something so seemingly bizarre.

According to Bloomberg, he was trying to take a microdose of the psychedelic drug to improve his focus and consequently enhance a pitch he had to deliver to an investor group. As it relates to psychedelics, microdosing is typically defined as taking a small enough dose of LSD or mushrooms containing psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms) to derive benefits without launching into a full-blown hallucinogenic trip.

Instead, Zhu took too much, struggled to deliver the pitch as intended and ultimately didn’t secure the investment. The episode would be cited later as the primary reason for his firing.

But interest in psychedelic microdosing isn’t wholly unreasonable. The trend basks in the media limelight often, usually accompanied by firsthand accounts of ushering in a variety of eye-catching advantages. Consider the following headlines, for example: “Interview With a Corporate Banker Who Microdosed His Way to the Top” —Vice (2016); “Microdosing Psychedelics Could Make People More Creative” —The Atlantic (2018); “Moms Who Microdose ‘Magic’ Mushrooms Say the Psychedelic Made Them Better Parents” — Insider (2021)

From increasing focus and general well-being to improving job performance and parenting, microdosing psychedelics certainly looks to be a panacea. But looks aren’t everything. Findings from a self-blinding citizen science study, for instance, cast doubts on the media hype.

The study, published in the eLife scientific journal, was the largest placebo-controlled study of psychedelics to date. It found that after four weeks, psychological outcomes improved from baseline for the microdosing group, but “the placebo group also improved and no significant between-groups differences were observed.”

“The findings,” it said, “suggest that anecdotal benefits of microdosing can be explained by the placebo effect.”

With piqued interest, the Luckbox team started asking around about microdosing. Cardano founder Charles Hoskinson—featured in last month’s The Future of the Future of Money issue—has spoken about psychedelics and mushrooms in podcasts and video livestreams. Before parting ways after his interview, Hoskinson shared that he was skeptical about microdosing, adding that he considered it “a fad.”

“I think it’s ignoring the real value of psychedelics,” he told Luckbox. “You collect a lifetime of mental trauma and conditioning because of your lifestyle and society, and your brain gets stuck.

“Counseling and therapy sometimes can’t unstick you, and so what you do is you just go in, you break the egg, you scramble everything up, and you open a beginner’s mind again. And all those cobwebs, they get cleared out.”

Putting it another way, Hoskinson likened the potential of psychedelics to the magic touch of The Fonz in Happy Days.

“He’d go and hit the jukebox, and then the damn thing starts playing again,” he said. “That’s what a psychedelic that’s worthwhile is going to do for you.”

Hoskinson pointed to the work conducted at Johns Hopkins’ Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research as further evidence for the drugs’ potential. In 2000, Johns Hopkins was the first to gain regulatory approval to reinitiate research with psychedelics in healthy, psychedelic-naive volunteers, and it has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles in the years since.

Natalie Gukasyan and Albert Garcia-Romeu both study psychedelics for Johns Hopkins, and they share similar perspectives about microdosing: There just isn’t enough conclusive evidence out there to suggest it lives up to the buzz.

“It might be that we haven’t done the right kind of lab study yet to really employ a measure that would be able to accurately quantify the kinds of benefits that people are experiencing,” Gukasyan told Luckbox. “But the ones I’ve seen to date have shown pretty lackluster evidence for any kind of benefits for mood or concentration.”

Garcia-Romeu, too, said that based on his reading of the studies, he doesn’t see anything that indicates there’s a benefit to microdosing. But the potential of psychedelic drugs goes beyond microdosing, he noted, with the research conducted thus far showing far more promise and straightforward results. Findings over the past two decades suggest they could be used in a variety of treatments, including for depression and smoking cessation.

“The data there are, I wouldn’t say conclusive enough to get an FDA approval right now,” Garcia- Romeu said, “but they’re moving in that direction with the classic psychedelics showing pretty robust antidepressant effects, anxiolytic effects—meaning reducing anxiety—and therapeutic benefits for people who would like to overcome substance use problems.”

In one study, 15 longtime smokers, who had previously tried and failed to quit smoking, took psilocybin in a treatment program involving cognitive behavioral therapy. After six months, 80% hadn’t smoked again.

So what does the future hold for psychedelic research? A lot of the work, according to Garcia-Romeu, is geared toward completing phase 3 clinical studies and then seeking medical approval. Gukasyan said she’s optimistic about approval for drugs like psilocybin in the next several years but that it’s not yet absolute.

“I think a lot of people are expecting it to be,” she said. “There’s been millions and millions of dollars poured into infrastructure to get ready for something like that, but you never know.”

Even if the research is favorable, she noted, legislative action would still be necessary to reschedule the drugs, and it’s difficult to predict the outcome in Congress.

As for the former CEO of Iterable, Justin Zhu said in a Bloomberg Technology interview that he definitely wouldn’t recommend taking LSD the way he did. But he maintained that it helped heal trauma and stress associated with his role.

“From my experience, it has changed my life,” he said. “It has changed my relationships with my mom, with our employees, and just with how I process emotions and difficulties I face as an Asian-American and also as a founder and CEO.”

DAY TRIPS

Asked why psychedelic research seems to focus on psilocybin mushrooms more than other psychedelics, Johns Hopkins researcher Albert Garcia-Romeu said it was mainly because of taboos and cultural baggage dating back to the ‘60s.

“One of my professors joked that the reason they’re studying psilocybin is because it’s not spelled LSD,” he said.

But there’s no reason to believe one would be more effective than another for any specific type of treatment. Still, psilocybin does have benefits in clinical settings due to its six- to eight-hour action time—notably shorter than LSD’s.

Although experiences vary from person to person—and based on dosages—estimated trip durations for the most commonly known psychedelics are listed below.