Mike Tyson, from Iron to Psychedelics

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Mike Tyson’s life has been one hell of a roller coaster trip – from the youngest heavyweight champion of all time with all the fame and fortune, to serving three years of a six-year sentence after he was convicted of rape. After an unsuccessful attempt to return to his previous glory, just when we all thought that his career in the limelight was over, he made a spectacular cameo in the 2009 hit comedy film, The Hangover.

Now that Tyson has been accepted once more into the mainstream consciousness of America, he is poised to become the champion of another cause – psychedelics.

The very first episode of Hotboxin’ with Mike Tyson, who began his business ventures as a cannabis entrepreneur, had Dr. Gerardo Sandoval Isaac, as his guest. Dr. Gerry, as he is known around the world, is a gynecologist that was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, who authored several works, including, “Bufo Alvarius and the Entheogenic Experience”, “The God Molecule”, and “The Bufo Medicine Codex: Guidelines for the Proper Administration of 5-MEO-DMT from the Sonoran Desert Toad.”

Midway through the episode, Tyson and Dr. Gerry take a “toad” break, so that the ex-heavyweight champ could try 5-MEO-DMT, also known as the God molecule. According to Tyson, the experience was something out of this world. As a matter of fact, he wanted to try it again because he was anxious about the unknown during his initial trip and felt as if he did not take full advantage of its healing properties. As explained by Dr. Gerry, a 5-MEO-DMT trip is like “free-base jumping into the heart of God” in 20 minutes.

As a guest on Logan Paul’s podcast, “Impaulsive,” he extols the benefits of psilocybin, and during the appearance, ingests a hand full of magic mushrooms. He is on the record for claiming that the mushrooms and other psychedelics saved his life.

As Dr. Gerry said on the first installment of Hotboxin’, “Mike brings people together;” and he may very well bring people and psychedelics, which would bode well for the psychedelic stocks industry.

Before we get into publicly traded companies that are already working on bringing these substances into the general market, be it, for medicinal or recreational use, it would be beneficial to use Mike Tyson as a case study of how psychedelics changed his life.

Mike Tyson’s father abandoned him and his mother when he 2 years old. Tyson found refuge in the streets, joining a gang at an early age. By the time that he was 12, Tyson was sent to a correctional facility for juveniles in upstate New York. His mother died when he was 16 and was adopted by the legendary trainer who changed his life forever, Cus D’Amato – whom he had met at the corrections center. Unfortunately for Tyson, D’Amato died in 1985 and his co-manager, Jimmy Jacobs died three years later.

Then came Don King, the notorious promoter who did not have Tyson’s best interests at heart, coupled with the impromptu marriage to actress Robin Givens, just two weeks after having begun dating. After these events, Tyson’s life derailed. Street fights, a suicide attempt caused by a “chemical imbalance” as per the New York Daily News, the list goes on and on.

Tyson believes that psychedelics saved his life from spiraling out of control to the point of no return, but is it possible to get a return on a psychedelic stock investment? As with financial instruments, risk is always involved and every investor ought to perform their own research, so to help, we found a company that has four programs in research and development, three of which are in the Preclinical trials, and one that has already completed Phase I, and is actively recruiting patients to begin Phase IIA.

Small Pharma, (TSXV: DMT.V) is a neuropharmaceutical company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, that is publicly traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. It was founded in 2015 and is conducting Preclinical and Phase I trials in London, England. Although it has a $0 market capitalization, the company has $52.77M of cash on hand.

Small Pharma’s mission is to develop effective and innovative therapies for mental health disorders, primarily focusing on depression. The four programs that they currently have in research and development are:

SPL026: Injectable DMT, exploring the possibilities of coupling DMT with psychotherapy to treat Major Depressive Disorder.

SPL028: Prolonged DMT Series, and injectable formulation with a DMT isotope intended to provide a longer psychedelic experience.

SPL029: Oral DMT series, an oral formulation to give a different route of administration for patients in a clinical setting.

SPL801: Oral 6-hydroxynorketamine, an oral delivery of 6-HNK, a metabolite of ketamine, that has shown in preclinical trials to rapidly alleviate depression with a better side effect profile than ketamine.

SPL026 is the program that completed part A of Phase I, with 32 participants that tested the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of the injection. Small Pharma is currently recruiting 42 patients that have been diagnosed with Moderate/Major Depressive Disorder to test the same factors. In the past year this stock has fluctuated between $0.25-$1.10, so it will be interesting to see how their four projects perform in the trial phases. If successful, it may be wise to buy while the stock price is low, while keeping in mind that of every 5,000 to 10,000 substances that begin preclinical testing, only one makes it through the FDA approval process.