Canadian Lawyer

4 www.canadianlawyermag.com UPFRONT NEWS ANALYSIS WILL PSYCHEDELICS follow the path of cannabis? Superficially, the drugs have a similar history, including a wild ride on the stock market and growing social accept- ance. However, for those deep in the world of psilocybin, the active ingredients in magic mushrooms, and other psychedelics, the similarities stop there. Eric Foster, a partner at Dentons Canada LLP, is one of the leading cannabis law corporate lawyers in Canada. He says he gets a lot of calls asking about psychedelics because of his cannabis expertise. "But I've said all along that psychedelics [are] really, in my mind, unrelated to cannabis. Ultimately it's very much a biotech profile." The significant promise of psychedelics is not its potential as a consumer product, but as a therapeutic drug that some hope will revolutionize mental health treatment. "Cannabis is a retail product. These substances will never be retail," says Peter Rizakos, general counsel at Braxia Scientific. "They're going to be regulated as drugs, and they're controlled substances. That's not going to change." Braxia runs psychedelic treatment clinics and research on new psychedelic drug formulations. When Rizakos speaks about his company's work, there is a feeling of public service that you don't tend to hear as much from cannabis producers. "There's a huge need in society for alternative ways of dealing with mental illness," says Rizakos. "Our job is to obviously do well by the shareholders, but it's got a public good element to it." Although Rizakos is optimistic about the long-term viability of psychedelic treatments, recent market fluctuations for all biotech companies have meant that companies like his have had to focus more on fundamentals. "I think over the next few years, what will happen in the market is coming back to Earth, and people will want to see clinical results," he says. "The market is starting to distinguish between companies that have real busi- nesses, real technology, real management teams and those that were exploring the sector based on its perceived popularity," says Sherri Altshuler. She is the co-practice group leader of Aird & Berlis LLP's capital markets group. Altshuler is also co-chair of the cannabis and life sciences group and says that, like it is for many biotech products, psychedelics regulation is complex and often inefficient. Unlike the Cannabis Act, though, lawyers can't refer to a single piece of legislation. "What is the law on psychedelics? The answer is found, depending on the client's business, in a variety of different statutes and regulatory organizations," says Jeffrey Merk. He also heads the same groups with "The market is starting to distinguish between companies that have real businesses, real technology, real management teams and those that were exploring the sector based on its perceived popularity." Sherri Altshuler, Aird & Berlis LLP Psychedelics are not quite cannabis While there are similarities, lawyers advising or working for companies developing psychedelic drugs say their therapeutic potential makes them very different than cannabis, writes Tim Wilbur

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