New article: 24 Heures Magazine visited a (legal) magic mushroom lab in Montreal
https://www.24heures.ca/2023/09/25/welcome-to-the-jungle-on-a-visite-une-usine-de-champignons-magiques-a-montreal
Psilocybin, mescaline, and DMT: welcome to Cubed Biotech, a Montreal lab that grows magic mushrooms and synthesizes psychedelic substances for the purpose of making pills sold at corner stores.
Company founder Adam Coape-Arnold welcomes us into a large, trendy startup-style office in an unassuming building in the industrial district of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux, in Montreal's west end. Except for small mushroom trinkets placed here and there, there's no hint that downstairs lies a magic mushroom lab where a true revolution is taking place. And yet.
In the coming months, approximately 200 kg of hallucinogenic mushrooms will be cultivated on site. This is the equivalent of 2 kg of psilocybin, the most well-known psychoactive component of magic mushrooms, which affects perception, mood, and sensations.
The exemption permit that Cubed Biotech obtained from Health Canada allows it to legally produce a total of 3 kg.
"The goal is to extract and synthesize the psychotropic substances contained in mushrooms to make standardized pills that allow for the same effects each time they are taken. My hope is that in five years, people will have access to microdoses at the corner store," he explains as he heads toward the lab.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
A magic mushroom of the strain “Hill Billy Super Squad” grown at Cubed Biotech.
Mushrooms from floor to ceiling
Bulletproof glass, a safe, facial recognition, motion detection, and decontamination systems: after passing through security devices and long, pristine white corridors, Adam Coape-Arnold pushes open the door to the mushroom farm.
“Welcome to the jungle,” he says, referring to the famous rock song of the same name.
The smell of mushrooms hangs in the air. In front of him, the walls are lined with grow bags and various specimens of varying shapes and colors. "I don't want to be witty, but there's really something special about this environment. You can feel like they're alive," the entrepreneur says.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
Several grow bags containing different varieties of hallucinogenic mushrooms at Cubed Biotech's premises.
It's in this sterile environment that Cubed Biotech's growers are trying to create the perfect conditions to grow powerful mushrooms as quickly as possible. The innovative techniques used in the Montreal lab allow for unique prototypes that wouldn't be found in nature, Coape-Arnold says, opening a grow bag on the metal table in front of him.
He gives the example of a mushroom of the Penis Envy strain, usually topped with a reddish-orange cap, completely stripped of its characteristic color. The specimen called APE ( Albino Penis Envy ), entirely white, is also more potent than mushrooms that grow in nature.
"It's like trading camouflage for power," says Adam Coape-Arnold.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
Several of Cubed Biotech's mushrooms will be dehydrated and ground into a fine powder. Their psychoactive components will then be extracted using alcohol in a complex process reminiscent of distillation. The resulting concentrate will finally be purified and transformed into a tablet or liquid with therapeutic properties.
DMT and mescaline
There are more than just mushrooms in the West Montreal lab.
After the mushroom farm, Adam Coape-Arnold takes us to the "playground" of Pavol Tuna, the company's medicinal chemist.
"Right now I'm trying to reduce the mescaline, but it's only half-heartedly effective," sighs the young scientist, who recently arrived from the Czech Republic, as he opens his door to us.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
Pavol Tuna is trying to reduce mescaline in his laboratory.
Mescaline is a hallucinogenic compound found in peyote, a small, spineless cactus found in the southern United States and Mexico. Its effects are similar to those of LSD, but less powerful, according to Toxquébec.com.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
A concentrate of mescaline
Pavol Tuna aims to recreate psilocybin, mescaline, and DTM—the powerful hallucinogen found in ayahuasca vines—in their purest possible form. This is a crucial step for Cubed Biotech, which aims to use these substances to produce tablets that meet pharmaceutical standards.
Photo Gabriel Ouimet
Hallucinogenic mushrooms are dried in the Cubed Biotech laboratory in Montreal.
Potentially revolutionary drugs
Alcoholism, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's, chronic pain: the spectrum of diseases or conditions on which psychedelics appear to have beneficial effects is expanding as scientific research is carried out.
Adam Coape-Arnold believes the natural origins of the products he plans to market will allow him to stand out in the global market for psychedelic drugs, estimated at $8 billion by 2026.
"Unlike other promising, but artificial, molecules like MDMA, natural psychedelics have no addictive potential, in addition to having fewer side effects," he says.
Cubed Biotech's drugs could thus end up replacing traditional antidepressants "which must be taken continuously and which cause numerous side effects," the businessman hopes.
His company is already collaborating with McGill University and Duke University on various projects in the field of mental health.
But before Cubed Biotech can hope to find its products in hospitals or pharmacies, it will have to find a way to limit the duration of the effects of the mushrooms, and therefore of the pills produced in the laboratory.
"Currently, the effects can last for several hours, so doctors have to dedicate a lot of time to each patient [who uses magic mushrooms as part of a treatment]. A limited time frame would allow us to see multiple patients in a single day. This could revolutionize mental health care," explains Adam Coape-Arnold.