Johns Hopkins Launches $4M Psilocybin Study To Cure Tobacco Addiction

 The NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse, in particular, has awarded Johns Hopkins Medicine a grant worth nearly $4 million to study the effects of psilocybin — the active compound in magic mushrooms and magic truffles — on tobacco addiction. 

It’s a welcome surprise for scientists who’ve been asking for big budgets (and being ignored) for decades. Now, they’ve won a multi-million dollar study for three years at Johns Hopkins and other sites, alongside experts from New York University and University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Biggest Psilocybin Study Yet on Tobacco Addiction

The psilocybin study will take place at the same time at the three institutions to “diversify the pool of participants” (or have a wide range of people who want to quit smoking). This way the results are reliable, and can be used later on to help as many smokers as possible to quit tobacco — for good. 

Lead scientist Matthew Johnson, Ph.D., who is a Professor in Psychedelics and Consciousness at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, says that this could be the biggest psilocybin study yet on tobacco addiction:

“The historical importance of this grant is monumental. We knew it was only a matter of time before the NIH would fund this work because the data are so compelling, and because this work has [proven] to be safe. 

“Psilocybin does have very real risks [if taken without care], but these risks are squarely reduced in controlled settings through screening, preparation, monitoring, and follow-up care.”

Psilocybin Helps Break Addictive Patterns

Johnson’s upcoming study on psilocybin for tobacco addiction may be the biggest so far, but it’s certainly not the first. A pilot study in 2014 by the same scientist had shown that people were more likely to quit smoking by using psilocybin as a tool — even more so than taking “mainstream” drugs and therapies for smoking cessation.

2021’s fresh update will be a double-blind trial in which participants will not only take psilocybin sessions, but also join in cognitive behavioral therapy. This kind of talk therapy deals with diving deep into your psyche, to find out exactly what negative patterns of thought are causing you to have problems. 

Johnson’s team say that psilocybin will “boost” the said self-exploration, making it easier to break addictive patterns formed after years of smoking. 

This psilocybin-talk therapy combo has helped tons of smokers quit the habit. Now, Johns Hopkins is looking to do a bigger version of the 2014 study by teaming up with New York University and University of Alabama at Birmingham this time around — plus a larger, more diverse set of participants. 

Can You Quit Smoking After Six Months?

Turns out you can! With the help of psilocybin-based therapy, you can even quit smoking for good — with total stopping for as early as six months. Johnson had shown this in his 2014 study which had a small number of longtime smokers. 

Here’s how the original John Hopkins team discovered it back then:

First, the researchers looked for longtime smokers who had tried many times to quit tobacco and failed to do so. The scientists chose 10 men and five women, all healthy mentally and physically. With an average age of 51; and smoked around 19 cigarettes a day for 31 years. 

After the researchers told the subjects about what to expect in a psilocybin session, they gave the first dose by pill on their first day without a cigarette. Two weeks later, they were given a second, much higher dose of psilocybin. Eight weeks after the first dose, the subjects got an even higher dose.

It wasn’t just a “take a pill and leave” situation, either. During each psilocybin session, two researchers stood close by as trip-sitters. They made sure the subjects took psilocybin in a cosy, “homelike” setting. Participants wore shades and listened to calming music on earphones — allowing them to focus on their inner journey of self-exploration for six to seven hours. 

Psilocybin vs. Nicotine Patches

So what happened next? 

After six months of psilocybin sessions paired with cognitive behavioral therapy, the abstinence rate for study participants (or those who didn’t touch a cigarette since) was 80 percent. Pretty high indeed!

This is much higher than the normal success rates in “non-psychedelic” smoking cessation trials. Take varenicline, for example (aka the most effective Big Pharma drug for quitting smoking), which only has a 35 percent success rate after six months. Or nicotine replacement and behavioral therapies, the success rates of which are less than 30 percent, says Johnson. 

That being said, the researchers said that you should not take psychedelics for quitting smoking in a “do-it-yourself” setting. The study’s results are only due to a controlled administration of the drug in a treatment program — one that is paired with cognitive behavioral therapy. Keep that in mind, psychonauts! 

Psilocybin + Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

There you have it. As much as we’d like to give all the credit to psilocybin for helping people quit smoking for good, cognitive behavioral therapy is key for the magic to work properly. Looking back at the 2014 study, the complete process went like this:

• Psilocybin sessions, plus
• Weekly one-on-one counseling sessions;
• A great deal of constant monitoring; and
• Forming habits such as keeping a diary before quitting, so you can keep track of when and why cravings occur.

So! Is it okay to just take psilocybin and skip the other steps, such as talk therapy? If you want the best results, then you better not skip ’em, says Johnson:

“Quitting smoking isn’t a simple biological reaction to psilocybin, as with other medications that directly affect nicotine receptors. 

“When [taken] after careful preparation and in a therapeutic context, psilocybin can lead to deep reflection about one’s life and spark motivation to change.”

A New Breakthrough for Psilocybin

The upcoming Johns Hopkins study is the latest breakthrough in the psychedelic renaissance — and funded by a U.S. government agency, no less. Which is awesome! Because for the past 20 years, the only thing keeping psychedelic research alive was philanthropy (aka “donations from rich people”). 

Past studies have shown that classic psychedelics, such as LSD, DMT, ibogaine, and psilocybin, are effective in treating a host of conditions. Take cancer-related end-of-life anxiety, for example; resistant depression, or even substance abuse. Now it seems scientists are looking to add tobacco addiction into the mix.

One more thing… A big-budget, three-year psilocybin study such as this one could have massive effects on how lawmakers see psychedelics. Should Johns Hopkins succeed, there’s a big fat chance that the U.S. Federal government will legalise magic mushrooms and magic truffles on the basis of therapeutic use. That’s the dream, right? 

If you ask us, this golden new era can’t come soon enough!