EP 6 JESSICA ZITTER

Mind Manifest Podcast

In this episode, I spoke with Dr Jesscia Zitter. She first came to my attention after I read New York Times article, which crystallised the dissonance and conflict I suspect a lot of critical care physicians feel around the marshalling of the end of life for their patients. The ‘slow burn’ of psychedelic science is as it should be – the gradual percolation of their empirically ratified benefits through medicine and then hopefully into mainstream society. At the time of writing, the research into the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin in end-of-life care, for example, seems to be proceeding at a pace that Goldilocks would approve of - not excessively slowed down by obfuscating bureaucrats, nor impatiently pushed along by overzealous stakeholders and evangelists. This gives us time to have a cultural conversation about how we can best integrate these substances into the care of the dying. If the phase 3 trials for psilocybin and other psychedelics in the fields of palliative care produce a shade of the benefits seen in phase 2, then the proposition of their normative prescription of psychedelics for end of life issues will move from the realms of absolute psychonaut fantasy to possible medical reality. Furthermore, (Barring some massive paradigm shift in the nature of health care hierarchy), doctors will very likely spearhead the prescription of such substances to the dying, and as such, I wanted to get a ‘physicians eye view’ of the current state of play in the world of palliative medicine - and that’s where Jessica comes in. She speaks with a nice combination of candour and humour, with confidence and doubt. I hope you enjoy.