Microdosing’s Micromoment - theCult

Consuming crumb-size amounts of psychedelics - not to get high but to feel more focused and creative and present - has moved a tiny bit mainstream.

As of one month ago, I knew of just one friend who microdosed; my friend, who is a musician, said he was taking 0.1 grams of mushrooms a few mornings a week so he could finish up an album that had been taking him years. Then, a few weeks later, I was at a different friend's house when he walked into his kitchen, took a teeny-tiny, shriveled-up mushroom stem out of the freezer, snapped off a minuscule amount, and popped it into his mouth, a thing he now does regularly to feel "more open" while on the many work calls he has throughout the day.

This was while telling me about another friend, who's devised a way to, as precisely as possible, dilute liquid LSD into 10-microgram doses. That guy uses it for painting.

It's been quiet but also quick: Microdosing, which usually means taking tiny amounts of psychedelics (one-20th to one-tenth of a recreational dose) has spread from San Francisco to New York and around the country. People say they are using it not to escape their everyday lives but to enhance them: If you're microdosing, you might even forget you're doing drugs in the first place. The amounts are sub-perceptual, without the seeing-stuff side effects. They're still themselves, users say, only a little better.

Recent reports show that millennials are drinking less and less interested in drugs like cocaine. But in a strange turn of events, they've taken up LSD and mushrooms in the way someone else might pop an Adderall. The most common self-reported benefits include improved mood, better eating and sleeping habits, and less of a need for caffeine. And, really, what could be more millennial than rebranding some of the most potent drugs out there as illegal vitamins that combine the feel-good-ness of self-care with the possibility of gaining a competitive edge on colleagues?

Drug dealers I surveyed have reported an uptick in microdosing requests: "Maybe 10 to 15 percent of my clients plan on microdosing, which is definitely up from when I first started selling mushrooms," says one Brooklyn dealer. Another says that while she's noticed more people buying mushrooms and LSD, return customers are consuming them more slowly. One dealer even brings around his scale for microdosers who want to measure out smaller amounts; another creates tinctures of diluted LSD. And a growing number of posts on Reddit devoted to the subject indicates that people are microdosing all sorts of things, from ketamine (for depression) to cannabis (for pain management).

Between 2010 and 2013, microdosing began to gain steam in Silicon Valley coder circles, thanks in part to the preachings of LSD researcher James Fadiman. The appeal of a drug regimen that allows for hours of uninterrupted focus and concentration was not lost on this crowd. Fadiman thinks microdosing caught on so quickly because "it has a small positive effect and it's not scary," though, as is the case with all drugs, fear is subjective. Particularly because microdosing is both highly unresearched and incredibly imprecise, and therefore prone to all kinds of dosage mix-ups and unintended trips. In fact, there have been zero controlled clinical trials related to microdosing. In England, Amanda Feilding of the Beckley Foundation is close to beginning a study that will involve hooking up microdosers to an EEG while they play the strategy game Go in an attempt to measure both creativity and cognitive function. For now, that's it.

Mushrooms

Illustration: Mark Nerys

What it is: "Magical mushrooms" contain the psychoactive compound psilocybin. They can be eaten, brewed into tea, or coated with chocolate.

How microdosing it feels: About an hour or two after ingesting the microdose, people notice an increase in focus and energy. Many users find that it helps with weaning off - and staying off - anti-depressants. It can help lessen the side effects of withdrawal and even mitigate depression. Many speak to the drug's ability to increase empathy, too.

Anecdotal accounts already suggest that microdosing is not for everyone. For those who have any sort of bipolar or psychosis history, there is the possibility of overstimulation. It also doesn't seem to agree with those with existing anxiety, says Fadiman. And, of course, it is illegal.

Yet the curiosity only grows, in part because of renewed interest in the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics taken in traditional doses. In Michael Pollan's new book on the subject, How to Change Your Mind, out in May, he goes deep on the science from professionally guided, federally approved studies that looked at the effects of psilocybin (that's the psychoactive part of mushrooms) on cancer patients in significantly lessening signs of anxiety and depression.

Which is why some people are ignoring the risks and microdosing to get in on some of the reported benefits. "Eventually, people take things into their own hands," says Dr. Michael Mithoefer, a Charleston psychiatrist involved in MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of PTSD. "Certainly not the ideal way to do it, but that's one of the problems that happens when the regulatory and scientific community isn't responding to the need for better medicines." And perhaps the science will catch up with the culture. "It's a very plausible question whether microdosing has antidepressant activity," says Matthew W. Johnson, a Johns Hopkins psychologist who has published psilocybin studies. "If that was true, that could be a novel treatment to one of the world's biggest medical disorders."