The boardroom has rediscovered hallucinogens. The intoxicants are intended to boost performance and inspire creativity. But does brain doping really do anything? And how safe is it? A look at the state of knowledge.
If you believe the reports, the US tech world is a drug swamp. A juggernaut powered by magic mushrooms, LSD, ketamine. Google founder Sergey Brin is said to rely on the powers of “magic mushrooms”, Tesla boss Elon Musk takes psychedelics, even Apple founder Steve Jobs is said to have been not averse to LSD. However, it’s less about fun and more about self-optimization. Hallucinogens are intended to dope the brain so that creative potential can be better exploited and cognitive performance increases.
The fact that the high-flyers from Silicon Valley, Wall Street and the Ivy League universities help their minds with drugs has not gone unnoticed in German executive suites. More and more managers and executives in this country are now said to be consuming psychedelics to boost their careers. Right? Does brain doping with psychedelic substances really have the potential to enrich the world of work?
How widespread is brain doping in Germany?
Germany is a high consumer country. At least when it comes to alcohol. 7.9 million people between the ages of 18 and 64 drink so much that it poses a health risk. 4.5 million smoke weed. In addition to cocaine, crack and amphetamines, psychoactive substances also played a role in adults, but their share was less than two percent. How often brain doping is the reason for drug consumption cannot be determined from these figures.
What Peter Raiser, Managing Director of the German Center for Addiction Issues (DHS), knows with certainty: “Stress and deadline pressure in particular lead to people wanting to use substances to provide relief. All substances that are available are used for this purpose.” In addition to alcohol, substances are used that have a stimulating effect and are intended to ensure better performance.
“This includes legal and illegal substances from methylphenidate, for example in Ritalin, to cocaine and amphetamines,” he tells the star. “On the other hand, calming substances such as benzodiazepines and Z-drugs are taken in order to be able to deal with stress and pressure better.” Figures from an analysis by the DAK health insurance company confirm his assessment. Accordingly, in 2020, 1.8 percent of employees in this country took medication to be more productive or to improve their mood.
Experts assume that the number of unreported cases of neuroenhancement could be much higher. The estimate is up to 12 percent. It becomes even less precise when it comes to quantifying how many managers and executives are among the consumers. “We don’t have any reliable figures on this, so we can’t say that this or that is the typical managerial drug,” emphasizes Raiser.
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The trend of drug abuse to improve performance
For a long time, Ritalin with the active ingredient methylphenidate was considered the drug of choice for brain doping, also known as “neuro-enhancement”. It has the reputation of being a kind of miracle cure that relieves fatigue in healthy people and is said to increase performance and concentration. The increased number of Ritalin prescriptions shows how popular the drug is, which is actually primarily used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“This is an indication that more and more people are abusing the substance in order to optimize their mental performance,” said the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The problem: Some substances, which are also contained in anti-depressants or beta-blockers, could improve attention or reduce exhaustion when sleep is deprived. But a performance-enhancing effect through ‘brain doping’ has not been scientifically proven.”
According to a DHS position paper, instead of improving mood and improving performance, some preparations used for brain doping actually had the opposite effect. This is also the case with the popular active ingredient methylphenidate. In healthy people, taking it has been proven to neither result in the desired mood improvement nor increase performance. The performance decreases much more. In addition, stimulant agents such as methylphenidate and modafinil had a high risk of psychological dependence. However, all relevant preparations have undesirable side effects.
The same applies to psychedelics. There is evidence that psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms,” can improve emotion regulation and regulate fears. But a lot of things are still in the subjunctive. On the other hand, there are dangers that arise, among other things, from incorrect dosage. Existing health risk factors can also become a problem.
A family history of psychosis can lead to the consumer also developing psychosis in rare cases. If trauma is present, it can be made worse by a trip. A US study also found that 1.3 percent of consumers struggled with hallucinations, sometimes for years.
Workshops with psychedelic tools
Nevertheless, there are increasingly reports of a supposed boom in so-called “psychedelic leadership” training courses. According to a report in “Spiegel”, such courses aimed at “high performers” should not only be about working on one’s own personality; truffles containing psilocybin, or magic mushrooms, should also be taken in a supervised environment. The hope behind this is to become a better manager with the help of the supposedly positive effects of psychedelics. These courses are becoming increasingly popular, especially in the tech and startup scene.
Nevertheless, Raiser can only warn against such workshops. He says: “I don’t want to speculate about whether such substances can have a positive effect at times. However, the risks exist in any case, and even small doses are not without danger.” He therefore advises against “experimenting with such substances in the hope of a desired effect.”
Raiser strongly doubts that “such courses are carried out as part of a serious, secure therapy. After all, these are substances that fall under the Narcotics Act. Even if the providers suggest a form of security that does not exist.” Especially since even a supposedly protected framework does not protect against “unwanted consequences of taking it, including addiction.”
The idea is not new. Aldous Huxley already experimented with hallucinogens to expand the “gates of perception”. His findings about LSD were widely discussed in society. That was in the 50s. And Karl Goldfield also considers taking psychedelic substances to be the clearest “way to open your mind and see clearly for yourself what is really happening.” He reported to the Wall Street Journal about his work as a consultant. Goldfield advises the tech world on so-called microdosing, i.e. taking drugs in small quantities. A form of drug use that seems to be becoming increasingly popular, especially among people with demanding, very demanding jobs. Goldfield does not have a medical background. He developed his expertise through experiments on his own body.
“Neuro-enhancement” is not a mass phenomenon
It wouldn’t be the first time that hype about a drug from the USA has spilled over. This could be observed years ago in the sudden popularity of the psychostimulant drug Modafinil. The drug is approved in this country for the treatment of excessive sleepiness. However, it is not expected that brain doping with psychedelics à la Sergey Brin and Steve Jobs will trigger a similar wave of consumption and become a mass phenomenon.
Society has become more open to hallucinogens, be it due to promising medical approaches to the use of hallucinogens in therapies or pop culture offerings such as the Netflix series “How to Change Your Mind”. Nevertheless, it is questionable whether companies in this country will in the foreseeable future send their employees to workshops with the targeted consumption of psychedelic substances, as is already the case in the USA and Great Britain in exceptional cases.
German reality is much more, as “Wirtschaftswoche” reported, that a number of companies such as Bayer and BASF have had a rigorous anti-drug policy for years. Passing a drug test is one of the employment criteria there.
Sources: Federal Ministry of Health and Research, Study Karolinska Institute,Psilocybin study, Study 2 Psylocybin, Study LSD, Study Trauma, DHS Yearbook Addiction, Analysis DAK, Mirror, Business Week, CNN, Wall Street Journal, Capital, DHS position paper “Brain doping”