Eric Eligh’s work as a registered nurse at St. Paul’s hospital in Vancouver with people who use substances burned him out.
One of his patients, on their own, tried psychedelic therapy and experienced dramatic improvement.
Amazed at change, Eligh started looking into the therapeutic uses of psychedelic medicines, and at the same time had the opportunity to access ketamine-assisted therapy.
“It was transformative,” he says, “so much that I recognized that there was lots of myself that I wasn’t able to bring to my work. There are parts of who I am that I was having to shelve to be able to be with the people I was working with, and this led to burnout.”
After St. Paul’s Hospital, Eligh began working as a nurse with two psychedelic therapy programs in Vancouver, then completed a substance use addiction nursing fellowship and also an MDMA therapy training program. He is now enrolled in Vancouver Island University’s new graduate program in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
A graduate of the Selkirk College nursing program, Eligh has recently moved back to the West Kootenay. His new business, Understory Wellness, will offer microdoses of ketamine in a group therapeutic setting, opening in September in Nelson and Vernon.
Eligh says ketamine therapy using very small doses has a good track record for treating depression, PTSD, anxiety, substance-use disorders, disordered eating and other mental-health diagnoses.
His program is a medical model, he says, because it requires a referral from a doctor. The Understory team is a multidisciplinary group of psychiatrists, physicians, psychologists, nurses and social workers.
That team is already on board, and they are currently completing the 12-week model that is adapted from the Roots to Thrive program on Vancouver Island, experiencing the process they will eventually help to facilitate.
Understory will enroll small cohorts of people who meet weekly on Zoom and get together in person three times as a group for ketamine treatment.
The program integrates a training program and the ketamine experience into a therapeutic whole, Eligh says.
“When you’re ‘in the medicine’ … what often happens is people get a break from the internal dialogue that is in their head,” says Eligh.
For example, that voice might be a critic or taskmaster, which he says under normal conditions might help to keep us safe, but “for folks who are experiencing anxiety or depression, the volume of that internal dialogue has gone up to the point where it is not allowing folks to function.”
But he is clear that this therapy model is not for everyone.
“This is not a panacea. There are people for whom this is not the right thing for both from a health perspective, but also just considering where they’re at in their self care journey.”
Eligh plans to include psilocybin and MDMA therapy when they become legal.
New retail store offers psilocybin, LSD, and DMT
Jim Leslie is not waiting for government sanction.
He describes his new business — Psilo Therapeutics — as a psychedelic wellness shop, selling microdoses of psilocybin mushrooms, LSD, and DMT. All the products are for therapeutic use, he says, similar to the status of medical cannabis before legalization.
“This is not a place where people would get therapy,” Leslie says. “I’m not a psychotherapist — my specialty is safe access, and basic education around safe use.”
Leslie recently closed The Kootenay Cannabis Tree, a licensed non-medical cannabis store. Before that he ran the Kootenay Medicine Tree, a medical cannabis dispensary.
At his new store, customers must be 19 or older and must self-declare that the substances are for therapeutic use. No doctor’s referral is required but customers undergo a screening for mental health status and for prescription drug medications.
Leslie says he will help customers with a schedule of doses, the amount to take, how often to take it, and he will be available if they have any questions.
Leslie says he knows clinical therapists in Nelson who are familiar with microdosing and who can help integrate it into their clients’ therapy. He said there are practitioners at clinics around the province who will do macrodose therapy as well, and he will provide references to those.
Many of Leslie’s customers are dealing with low level anxiety and depression, he says, adding that there is strong scientific evidence and anecdotal support for the efficacy of psychedelic therapy.
“There’s a lot of people who are not doing well,” he says. “And oftentimes they don’t have the support in their life from the health-care system, or from pharmaceutical prescriptions that they’ve tried and failed with.”
All his products, Leslie says, are locally made.
“If we recall what happened in the cannabis industry here in the region, the same thing is happening for psilocybin mushrooms. We have a range of local producers who are producing clean, safe, organic, single-strain isolated magic mushrooms.”
As for the illegality of the substances he is selling, Leslie thinks it will be tolerated by the authorities the way cannabis was before legalization.
“It wasn’t legal, but it was tolerated, because typically the products were safe, and this is being done for medical purpose and clear benefits to the community.”
For Leslie, his business is about freedom to choose.
“What we’re trying to do is help Canadians not have to choose between their liberty and their health, where if they choose these products, and they don’t have a way to get them, they’re potentially putting their freedom in jeopardy.”
bill.metcalfe@nelsonstar.com
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