It’s developing new compounds and attracting investors — Many startup companies developing psychedelic therapies work with classic mind-altering substances such as psilocybin, mescaline and LSD. Jonathan Sporn, the founder and chief executive of Gilgamesh Pharmaceutical, has no interest in any of them. “There’s no way in hell we’re going to develop a generic drug,” Sporn says. The 64-year-old…

Awakn Life Science’s ketamine therapy for alcohol use disorder is promising. Will it be profitable? British psychiatrist Ben Sessa believes fervently in psychedelic medicines. They are “likely to change the whole paradigm of psychiatry,” says Sessa, who a co-founder and head of psychedelic medicine at a startup company called Awakn Life Sciences. …

A Johns Hopkins professor and leading researcher of psychedelics faces his death and invites others to carry on his work. — No one person has led the so-called psychedelic renaissance. Many have played vital roles: Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, best-selling author Michael Pollan, philanthropist and podcaster Tim Ferriss and Bob Jesse, an influential behind-the-scenes networker, among others. …

Let me begin with a mea culpa. I’ve just made the bulk of my charitable donations for the year. I should have done so sooner. Charities get a flood of money in December. Their needs are year-round, of course. Next year, I plan to do my giving early in the…

Norwegian sociologist Karl Erik Lund was banned from a conference on e-cigarettes because…..er, for no good reason — Early in November, a website called Tobacco Tactics, which calls itself “the essential source for rigorous research on the tobacco industry,” posted information about a small organization called the International Association on Smoking Control and Harm Reduction, or SCOHRE. Based at the University of Bath in England, Tobacco Tactics is…

A new report says those favoring safer nicotine products are on “the right side of history.” — On Election Day, California voters approved a law to ban all flavored tobacco products, including e-cigarettes. Yet Marlboros and Camels can be bought at any corner store or gas station. This is, to be blunt, nuts. It makes no sense to ban safer nicotine products, like e-cigarettes, while permitting deadly…

How an anti-smoking group lost its way — The most famous anti-smoking campaign in history was branded, simply, as @truth. It was launched in 2000 by the American Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit organization funded with $1.5 billion from the proceeds of a class-action suit against Big Tobacco companies. …

Scientific research and drug reform are moving forward. The business of psychedelic medicines? Not so much. — The Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics conference, which is now in its 15th year, is one place where all kinds of people involved with psychedelic drugs come together. …

Some lawyers say plant-medicine churches are exercising their freedom of religion. Others advise caution. It’s complicated. — Rabbi Benjamin Gorelick is the founder and spiritual leader of the Sacred Tribe, a community of Jewish seekers in Denver that grows its own psilocybin mushrooms for use in religious ceremonies. He calls himself “the mushroom rabbi,” but law enforcement authorities regard him as a drug dealer. …