The Mental Health Crisis and Psychedelics: Big Business Targets The Sector

As the Mental Health Crisis moves out of the shadows of the Covid-19 pandemic, Big Business is now focused on the importance (and commercial potential) of psychedelic medicine

For many years, the Mental Health Crisis was a hidden crisis. While hundreds of millions (and now billions) of people were developing treatable mental health disorders, governments around the world were asleep at the wheel.

Conventional healthcare has failed. The reason that the numbers of treatable mental health disorders (and preventable deaths) keep soaring higher is that conventional mental health therapies are grossly inadequate.

The world’s largest health crisis revealed

The two billion treatable mental health disorders around the world are largely untreated. This is either because sufferers have sought therapy but failed to obtain any relief, or are too discouraged by the inadequate therapies available to even seek treatment.

This massive crisis of untreated mental health disorders is directly responsible for >8 million preventable deaths per year.
 

Even the pharmaceutical industry has been AWOL through this crisis. By 2016, Big Pharma had slashed funding on mental health research by 70%, content to continue flogging its marginally effective antidepressants – while mental health steadily worsened.

Finally, the mainstream media is now paying full attention to this mental health catastrophe. Coverage on the amazing potential of psychedelic medicine to revolutionize mental health care is soaring.

Indeed, some of the most unlikely voices in the media are now sounding the alarm on the magnitude of the Mental Health Crisis. And even daring to ask the question: “could mind-bending mushrooms hold the key to happiness?”
 

Was that a headline from USA Today, or perhaps the NY Times? No, it was straight from The Wall Street Journal. From the heart of U.S. business media came a dramatic warning on the need to address a health crisis that is now spiraling out of control.

Across the Pond, a UK media source was singing the praises of psychedelic drugs in a recent article as potentially “the key to happiness”.
 

Was it The Daily Mail or perhaps The Guardian that recently asked the question “could mind-bending mushrooms hold the key to happiness”?

No, it was the ultra-conservative business publication, The Financial Times. The Wall Street Journal’s UK twin.

The world’s largest investment opportunity in life sciences revealed

Privately, Big Business has already been quietly moving into the psychedelic drug industry. Some of the highest net-worth investors from both Silicon Valley and Wall Street have been building their own positions in this emerging industry.

A few notables, such as PayPal’s Peter Thiel and Shark Tank host Kevin O’Leary have been publicly banging the drum about the magnitude of the investment opportunity.

A recent Psychedelic Stock Watch article noted that psychedelic drug trials and testing on human subjects is already targeting treatment markets worth a combined $330 billion.

However, most of the Smart Money moving into the psychedelic drug industry has done so without any fanfare. Institutional investors have poured close to $2 billion into emerging public and private companies just since the beginning of 2020.

Psychedelic medicine is poised to revolutionize mental health care. Psychedelic Stock Watch has been a leading voice in reporting on both the amazing results of clinical studies on psychedelic drugs as well as the failure of conventional therapies.

Two-thirds of veterans seeking treatment for PTSD report no benefit from the therapy they receive from the Department of Veterans Affairs (using conventional therapies). This comes at a time where an average of 22 veterans per day are committing suicide.

In a Phase III clinical trial of an MDMA-assisted therapy by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), 90% of participants reported some benefit from treatment. Two-thirds were effectively cured.

Night and day. Success versus failure. Not just improving lives, saving lives.
 

Similar with depression. In the United States, 50% of people receiving first-line drugs for depression report no benefit. Treatment options are so mediocre that two-thirds of Americans exhibiting symptoms of depression don’t even seek treatment.

In a 2016 clinical study, two-thirds of patients receiving a psilocybin-based treatment for Treatment Resistant Depression (TRD) were in remission one week after their first session. Compass Pathways (US:CMPS) is preparing to report results from a Phase IIb clinical trial for TRD using a very similar therapy.

Capitalizing on psychedelic stocks

Conventional mental health therapies provide marginally effective relief of the symptoms of mental health disorders. People are rarely cured. Millions continue to die each year (needlessly).

Psychedelic medicine is consistently showing (in formal clinical trials and clinical studies) that it can deliver cures for the same disorders: depression and PTSD as well as addiction.

These are revolutionary therapies that can (will) completely displace existing therapies in treatment markets worth a combined $330 billion. And that’s just the starting point.

Now the secret is out.

The secret is out on the magnitude and severity of the Mental Health Crisis. The secret is out that psychedelic drugs can revolutionize mental health therapy and perhaps even represent “the key to happiness”. Huge treatment markets beckon.

It’s a social cause that even the most-conservative media publications are now getting behind.

It’s an investment opportunity that many of the highest-profile investors from Silicon Valley and Wall Street are now embracing.

Yet it’s still a ground-floor opportunity for investors. After a spectacular rally in these stocks in the fall of 2020, valuations have gone sideways (or lower) in 2021.

Most of the popular asset classes today have investors extremely nervous because of the bubble valuations. Meanwhile, psychedelic stocks are bargain priced.

For 50 years, the research and commercial potential of psychedelic drugs was muzzled by severely misguided drug Prohibition. Now the genie is out of the bottle.

The People are embracing psychedelic medicine. In Canada, ~80% of the population is in favor of the legalization of psilocybin for medicinal use. In the U.S., activists are pursuing ballots on drug reform for psychedelics in an increasing number of states.

The mainstream media understands the magnitude of the Mental Health Crisis and the imperative need for psychedelic medicine. Big Business is already embracing the enormous investment opportunity.

The politicians (who are followers, not leaders) will be next to see the light.

If someone would have suggested, even two years ago, that The Financial Times would be asking if psychedelic drugs were “the key to happiness”, that idea would have drawn raucous laughter.

Today, it is a fact. The world is changing.

Psychedelic drugs are the future of healthcare.