A JAMA Study Found Fewer Than Half of Psychedelic Retreats Employ a Medical Professional
A New York Times investigation into overseas psychedelic clinics — most of it centered on Mexico, now home to at least 40 ibogaine clinics versus almost none a decade ago — puts real numbers behind something we've flagged before: there's no standardized oversight in this industry, and no official tally of how often that goes wrong. The anchor data point comes from a JAMA study led by Baylor's Amy McGuire, which surveyed 49 publicly-advertised psychedelic retreats and clinics in the US and abroad and found fewer than half employed a medical professional at all, and only about 10% had staff with emergency medical training. The Times ties that gap directly to documented harm: a fatal ibogaine-related cardiac arrest in Costa Rica (Aug 2024), a death during drug detox at a Mexican clinic (2025), a fatal ayahuasca reaction in Peru (Jun 2026), a Miami doctor now charged with manslaughter after a ketamine/MDMA death at an unlicensed "healing space," and a criminal rape case against a doctor at a Cancún ibogaine clinic, after he allegedly assaulted a patient who'd just been given 5-MeO-DMT. None of this is an argument that the underlying compounds don't work — the same reporting includes patients with real, positive outcomes — but it's a sharp illustration of what "no FDA approval, no standardized protocol, no US legal recourse" actually looks like in practice for the veterans and civilians we've written about traveling abroad for treatment that isn't yet legal at home.
Read at The New York Times