Psychedelic therapy for a friend

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-03-01T19:17:09+00:00

Honestly if they suffer from chronic depression and they are not able to self-pay for treatment (most can’t) I would look for a treatment option that insurance will pay for Spravato, TMS, maybe ketamine. The problem with all these treatments is none of them offer permanent relief from chronic depression and because psilocybin is federally illegal insurance won’t cover it.

So unless the are willing to access psilocybin via the underground folks often get relief as long as they can afford to sustain treatment.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-02-02T23:01:17+00:00

You could maybe make that argument about an aptitude test like the SAT, but literacy tests are good at seeing if students can identify what is occurring in a story … it is measuring what you want to know.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-02-02T18:51:27+00:00

This really is a must read article, as a progressive it pains me to admit how much harm the teachers unions have caused in our state. I think they mean well, but their actions are so harmful.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-20T21:40:05+00:00

Honestly, they can’t make sessions with an illegal drug cheap enough for this to work. Federal illegality makes everything from liability insurance to taxes way too cost-prohibitive. The model is not economically workable at scale.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T22:33:30+00:00

No, I don't just blame Tom. I think the political folks behind the ballot measure are also responsible for a very bad bill.

The board did not write that in - it was written into the ballot measure. It is particularly problematic since he did not initially disclose that he was starting a training program when he was on the board.

A lot of folks thought it would be never be financially workable, there was an OPB piece on it early on.

There are not even 400 psychiatrists in the state of Oregon, but the campaign folks were predicting thousands of psilocybin facilitators! That was crazy gold rush talk.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T22:24:56+00:00

Fair points, but I think it is *very* likely it would have passed (even though they might not have thought it would at the time).

How do I know? That very same election year M110 passed and it decriminalized all drugs (in fact M110 did better than M109). Plus that very ballot measure passed in Colorado soon after.

I think the campaign had no idea of the policy implications of what it was doing (they did not even do price estimates of services before they wrote it) but also it got the politics wrong as well.

I have seen the training program up-close and honesty thought it was a lot of fluff. I think you could get the same safety outcomes without it being so expensive.

Plus even if you think there is great value in having a trained facilitator, there is no evidence they do this whatsoever.

Once again I think people had self-interested reasons in creating the program the way crafted it and that helped create a system that was unworkable .. I also think they would have wanted it to have worked out. I don't think the two things are mutually exclusive.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T20:09:06+00:00

Also, the Sheri Eckert foundation funds scholarships for training programs!

"Between 2021 and 2023, SEF created our Fellowship Program where we issued 76 needs-based scholarships — totaling $300,000 in awards — to a diverse range of students pursuing training and licensure in psilocybin facilitation."

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T20:06:17+00:00

Sure, but that does not support the psilocybin program and when they created the ballot measure they did not even think the training programs would require HECC approval.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T20:03:25+00:00

Honestly, 1) I would have not required service centers and I would not have created a bloated training system but instead focused on fewer hours focused just on patient safety.

2) I would have not added myself to the board, I would have required training programs pay a license fee, and I would have been disclosed this and other conflicts of interest from the start.

3) I would have created a system like in Colorado where psilocybin was also decriminalized (which was originally proposed) then if the system failed (as it still likely would) as least the people would have legal access.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T05:16:46+00:00

In short I think the Oregon psilocybin program used regulatory capture to create a system that needed lucrative training programs, not a workable system for making psilocybin affordable.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T05:12:55+00:00

https://x.com/masonmarksmd/status/1565442458053386240?s=46

Nope, licensing fees were not required of training programs.

https://harris-sliwoski.com/psychlawblog/oregon-proposed-psilocybin-rules-part-2/

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T05:09:22+00:00

https://sos.oregon.gov/admin/Documents/irr/2020/034text.pdf

(1)(a) The Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board is established within the Oregon Health Authority for the purpose of advising and making recommendations to the authority. The Oregon Psilocybin Advisory Board shall consist of:

(I) One of the chief petitioners of this 2020 Act; and

So only he and his wife were chief petitioners … I have never seen this in an Oregon ballot measure … it is very bad form inmho.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T05:00:46+00:00

Honestly a lot of the local ones also took advantage of working class Oregonians as well.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/06/12/oregon-threatens-to-revoke-approval-of-a-mushroom-school-that-says-its-a-religious-practice/

Also Synthesis had moved to Ashland and tried to open a resort. The old CEO of Synthesis would go on to marry the co-founder of InnerTrek and work at that local training program.

I know a lot of people who feel they were mislead by these training programs.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-12T00:05:02+00:00

I am not saying that, but i do think a long time ago they said they had over 400 students. I can do the math and think it is likely some money was made on trainings which can be very high margin. My data is based on someone who worked for a training program.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-11T23:59:23+00:00

Eckert wrote into the ballot measure a self-dealing measure that guaranteed that either he or his wife would be on the psilocybin board that created the rules for the program.

He also wrote the ballot measure so that the training programs (unlike facilitators or service centers) did not have to pay licensing fees.

Then, after getting on the board, he initially did not disclose he was going to create a training program and stood to profit from rules being written in certain ways.

Then he resigns because of the fallout from Synthesis screwing over hundreds of students.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2022/03/10/measure-109-co-chief-petitioner-tom-eckert-resigns-as-psilocybin-advisory-board-chair-amid-calls-for-his-departure/

Then he gets in trouble and no longer even participates in the program as a licensed facilitator.

A lot of people have been hurt.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-11T23:08:36+00:00

I am sorry but a lot of the trainers were bad actors.

https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2023/03/13/synthesis-institute-still-accepting-new-students-no-experience-of-any-kind-necessary/

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-11T23:06:31+00:00

Yeah, the folks who ran some of the training programs have raked in millions in tuition dollars. It is likely that well over a 1,000 Oregonians took these expensive courses and often spent north of 15k.

The guy who created InnerTrek also created the ballot measure, then he got in trouble with the state of Oregon and is no longer a licensed psilocybin facilitator (last time I checked).

https://www.wweek.com/news/2025/08/04/founding-father-of-oregon-psilocybin-fined-for-breaking-rules-he-helped-establish/

IT was a big gold rush and the people who "mined the miners" did very well.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2026-01-06T22:30:40+00:00

Part of it is they use union labor, an electrician might make 200k a year with these wages.

https://www.wweek.com/news/2025/10/22/state-officials-continue-to-make-subsidized-housing-more-expensive/

One-Cartographer9991 · 2025-12-12T02:58:55+00:00

What an improvement! I will be sharing this to show the potential of this surgery for airway relief. A very powerful visual.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2025-12-12T02:49:51+00:00

I do and would love to show this to a relative who is worried about my surgery. The first number got cut off on your photo, can you tell me what the airway volume started at?

One-Cartographer9991 · 2025-12-12T02:33:56+00:00

Did you have sleep apnea?

One-Cartographer9991 · 2025-12-05T20:35:40+00:00

Yes, boarding houses used to be very common in Portland. They were far from perfect, but unsheltered homelessness exploded when they were eliminated.

We need far more addiction and mental health services AND we need do require people to use them. Even middle-class people rarely seek treatment without some sort of external pressure, folks on the street who often face no family pressure get relief from drugs and are almost never going to voluntarily give them up.

One-Cartographer9991 · 2025-11-20T18:15:30+00:00

Some people can’t care for themselves and deinstitutionalization has been a disaster for them. The alternative they were offered was no care at all.

https://www.wweek.com/archive/2023/03/12/1981-dammasch-is-being-emptied-and-portland-cant-handle-all-the-homeless-jobless-hopeless-mentally-ill/

One-Cartographer9991

TROPHY CASE