Updated: June 6 2019
Clarity Health Fund has awarded 7x $1,000 USD microgrants so far as of the end of May 2019. Here’s some quick info on those recipients and what made us excited about giving them each a microgrant! We haven’t yet finalized our macro-grants, though we’re close.
Listed in alphabetical order:
Carl-Cyril: Drug Checking Day
Drug checking day is an online event that encourages people to test their substances.
Drug checking can save lives, but many people don’t test their drugs. This project can efficiently increase awareness. An online initiative like this is nice because it costs roughly the same whether it’s reaching one person, or a million people.
Danielle Negrin: SF Psychedelic Society, and Psychedelic Recovery / Therapeutic Use Peer Support Groups
The SF Psychedelic Society is the largest psychedelic society in the US and Danielle runs it. The psychedelic recovery and therapeutic use peer support groups are where people who have used psychedelics on their own to intentionally treat conditions like addiction, depression and PTSD can talk about their experiences in a supportive group setting, with some similarities to the structure of AlAnon.
We are glad to support the person running the largest psychedelic society in the US. There are many questions around how psychedelics can be integrated into society remaining, and psychedelic societies are one promising piece of that.
Psychedelic peer support groups could be a useful model for how psychedelic therapy might be integrated into society in the future. Peer support groups might help address some of the affordability challenges of psychedelic therapy.
Milan Griffes: Awareness of Psychedelic Research and Advocacy Amongst the Effective Altruism Community
Milan Griffes is a vocal member of the effective altruism community. The effective altruism community is a group of people focused on using their resources to help humanity in the most effective way possible. Milan is working on helping the effective altruism community evaluate psychedelic research and advocacy as a potential cause area. Here’s Milan’s post “Cash prizes for the best arguments against psychedelics being an EA cause area,” which was linked to on the popular blog Marginal Revolution.
The EA community is a powerful force of talent and donations. If Milan can help increase awareness of psychedelic research and advocacy as a potential EA cause area, that could be a great way to indirectly help the psychedelic therapy field.
PsychonautWiki: The Open Encyclopedia of Psychonautics
PsychonautWiki is community-driven encyclopedia that provides comprehensive and scientifically-grounded information on drugs.
Their site reaches millions of people per year on an extremely cost-efficient budget, and we are glad to be able to support them to continue running the site.
Roxanne Hallisey: Study on Military and Veteran Perceptions of Psychedelics
Roxanne is doing a study on the perceptions of psychedelics of military and veteran service members. She’ll submit to peer reviewed journals.
Veterans are a key population for psychedelic therapy, for example due to high rates of PTSD. This could help improve the ways people talk about psychedelics to military members and veterans.
Sara Reed: Developing an MDMA Therapy Clinic
Sara is working on the making of an MDMA-assisted psychotherapy site, contingent on FDA approval of Expanded Access, in Kentucky, USA, with a team of clinicians of color.
If approved, Expanded Access for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD could be directly helpful to building a base of advocates by increasing the number of patients who could receive the treatment. This is relevant because approximately 50% of states won’t automatically reschedule MDMA-assisted psychotherapy after FDA approval, instead they require legislative action to reschedule at the state level even if rescheduled federally. Kentucky is one of the states that requires regulatory action for rescheduling after FDA approval. Also, this clinic has a nice direct impact towards enabling some number of people to receive MDMA therapy for PTSD in Kentucky.
Sasha Frost: Animated Video on Psychedelic Therapy
Sasha Frost is working on an animated video related to psychedelic therapy.
Sadly, most people don’t read books. There’s lots of good info “locked away” in books. Video is a great way to reach bigger audiences. Sasha’s project can make a dent in information access for psychedelic therapy knowledge that currently exists only in books or in people’s heads.
More information on these projects
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Future microgrant rounds
We’ll announce future microgrant application rounds on our email list. We don’t yet have an ETA for the next one, sorry.