If you answered yes to any of those questions — or if you're a day-tripper willing to share your experiences — scientists with the University of Colorado and around the Denver metro would love to give you some weed and mushrooms. And maybe even pay you for your time.
A cursory search of metro area clinical trials with psychoactive compounds turned up more than a dozen studies involving synthetic psilocybin, CBD, THC, synthetic DMT and a proprietary LSD analog, but it's not as simple as just signing up online and heading to the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus to get high. It's serious business, with extensive screening processes and potentially heavy time demands.
But if you have a condition being studied in concert with a psychoactive treatment, then a clinical trial could be an option for you.
"People who participate in clinical trials overall tend to have better outcomes," says Dr. Stacy Fischer, a professor of medicine at CU-Anschutz. "Specifically, in cancer treatment, survivorship just seems to be better for people who participate in clinical trials."
Fischer is currently leading a non-compensated clinical trial examining the efficacy of psilocybin for late-stage cancer patients experiencing end-of-life-related anxiety and depression, as well as a clinical trial of psilocybin-assisted therapy to address fear of recurrence in patients with early-stage breast cancer and ovarian cancer in remission. She is still recruiting patients for both trials, but she's not alone in looking for participants, who are harder to find than you'd think.
"Even in this realm of mental health and wellness, wrapped up in the psychedelics and CBD/THC kind of world, it is surprisingly challenging," Fischer says.
Along with Dr. Fischer's trials, here is a sampling of the conditions and psychoactive treatments Westword found currently recruiting participants for clinical trials in the Denver metro:
Cannabis and Psychedelic Studies Looking for Participants
The University of Colorado Boulder is recruiting individuals diagnosed with cancer for a study analyzing the effect of CBD and THC on quality of life. The study pays up to $200 for participants' time, and lasts eight weeks. Candidates must have a cancer diagnosis, be at least 25 years old, and not be a regular cannabis user.Reunion Neuroscience is recruiting women with postpartum depression for a trial using a novel psychedelic called RE104, a proprietary drug similar to the active metabolite in psilocybin but lasts half as long. Compensation varies, and participants will make four visits over the course of 28 days. Candidates must have given birth in the last twelve months, meet specific criteria on a depression scale, and not be breastfeeding.
For depression and/or anxiety, there are two separate psilocybin trials (one at CU Anschutz and one conducted by the Usona Institute), two trials of a proprietary LSD analog called MM120 (one for depression and one for anxiety, conducted by MindMed), and one using VLS-01, an oral film with DMT (conducted by atai Therapeutics). Compensation, qualification and study length vary for these trials.
There are a couple of CBD and THC trials currently underway under CU. One is at CU Boulder for people aged sixty and over to study harm reduction in older individuals seeking to use cannabis for pain, anxiety or mood problems. The other is at CU Anschutz for people with mild cognitive impairment who may be at risk for Alzheimer's disease. Compensation varies for these. The CU Boulder study lasts eight weeks, while the mild cognitive impairment study, for people ages 55 to 85, lasts 24 weeks.
There's also a trial at CU Anschutz paying $750 for a three-to-four-week study where participants will combine THC edibles with alcoholic beverages to examine the effect on brain function. Another trial at CU-Anschutz is an acute and long-term observational study on recreational psilocybin users; it will last five weeks, and total compensation can be up to $200.
There's plenty of excitement and enthusiasm after a study is announced, but it takes a lot of time and effort to get from the initial application to the clinical trial, according to Fischer. During her late-stage cancer and depression psilocybin trials, for every four people pre-screened, only about one person can move forward in the trial, she says.
"There are a lot of additional steps that need to be taken to ensure the safety of the participant, the understanding of the participant, and all the kinds of things we want to do to protect them from an ethical standpoint," Fischer says. "We make sure we can minimize the risk and maximize safety. When folks understand the time commitment, they may not be as enthusiastic."
Studies of new medicines and treatments start off with phase one, where no one gets a placebo, everyone gets the drug, and the scientists are solely looking at the safety of the substance. When that's satisfactory, the study moves to phase two, where the patients are randomized between the medicine and a placebo to measure the efficacy of the treatment. Phase three trials are large trials with a significant number of patients, and oftentimes, there are multiple large trials in order to ensure similar results.
If it gets through those phases, the medicine then goes to a board that eventually makes a recommendation to the Food and Drug Administration Panel, which will approve or deny the drug for medical use.
Although some studies pay participants, Dr. Fischer encourages eligible participants to sign up for clinical trials as a way to advance the public good.
"People choose to participate in clinical trials because they see this as giving back something great," she says. "When people are participating for those reasons, they're generally left feeling grateful for the opportunity to have participated. And even though we try to be very straightforward that we don't know that these therapies are going to eventually be helpful, they'll participate to gain their own benefit, whether that's longer life, feeling better, or a better quality of life."
