STOP-SMOKING (ADDICTION) PROGRAMM

(dutch: stoppen met roken programma/ verslaving)

We offer a specialized programm to help you stop your smoking addiction. The programm contains 2 or 3 guided sessions with legal psychedelic truffles. The sessions are guided by a professional psychologist with years of experience with helping clients to stop their addiction. We also help clients with other addictions (like alcohol, sex, gaming etc).

The best information we have on the capacity of psilocybin to end nicotine addiction comes from a study at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, led by Professor Roland Griffiths.

Griffiths and his team decided to investigate the potential of psilocybin to improve the effectiveness of typical smoking cessation treatments. In this pilot study, they recruited 15 smokers who had on average been smoking for 31 years, around 19 cigarettes per day, and had attempted to quit a mean of six times in their lives. The participants were given a 15-week smoking cessation course, which involved at least two doses of psilocybin alongside weekly therapy sessions.

Participants were analyzed for their biological markers of smoking (urine levels and exhaled carbon monoxide) both during the treatment and six-months afterwards. They also self-reported on their smoking, as well as being measured on the Fagerström test for cigarette dependence, and undertook a series of questionnaires designed to measure the psychological effects of the psilocybin experience.

At the six-month follow-up after the treatment, 12/15 participants were abstinent from smoking. Of the three participants who were still smoking at the six-month follow-up, two had significantly reduced their smoking levels. Only one participant in the entire study did not feel that psilocybin had positively influenced their smoking cessation.

This 80% success rate compares very favorably to typical measures of smoking cessation, such as therapy alone, that usually only reach 35% success at most. A standard twelve-week smoking cessation therapy program has a roughly 17% abstinence rate after six months, whereas therapy programs that also utilize pharmacological interventions such as bupropion and varenicline still only reach success rates of around 24-35% after six months.

The researchers in this study also carried out an even longer-term follow-up of the effectiveness of the treatment of tobacco addiction using psilocybin. In this study, two follow-ups to the initial treatment were carried out: one at 12-months, and one longer-term follow-up at least 16-months (but average of 30 months) after the initial treatment. Participants were measured for the same biomarkers as before, to confirm their reported smoking abstinence. 10/15 participants were still abstinent at the 12-month mark, and 9/12 participants were still abstinent at the longer-term follow-up. Again, these results are impressive compared to typical smoking treatments, that at best show around 30% success at 12-month follow-ups.

Griffiths and his colleagues suggest that the success of their treatment very much depended on the curation of an ideal psilocybin experience, with considerable support from experts in psychedelic therapy.