Australia Opens First Psychedelic Clinic After Legalizing MDMA And Psilocybin Treatments

In early 2023, Australia legalized the use of MDMA and psilocybin to treat crippling mental health conditions such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). One year later, it opened the country’s first ever psychedelic therapy clinic.

Clarion Clinics in Melbourne offers patients a nine-month treatment course that costs up to $16,000. Despite its hefty charges, the clinic said there have already been more than 250 expressions of interest in the first week alone. 

Prior to therapy patients must first meet the clinical diagnosis for post-traumatic stress disorder or treatment-resistant depression, and have undergone other approved treatment which has not worked. 

Next patients will have to undergo online medical screening and be weaned off any existing medication. Then they will meet with a clinic psychiatrist and undergo psychiatric and physical assessments. If they are accessed as eligible they will finally be enrolled for treatment. 

Experts hesitant to comment on results of treatment, more data is needed.

Early studies on psychedelic-assisted therapy have been enthusiastic about its effect on depression and PTSD. But medical professionals are reminding us that we are still in the early phases of clinical trials and more data is needed. 

Even the team from Melbourne clinic admits that similar to psychedelic clinics in the US, they are working with a totally new approach. 

“There’s still a lot we need to learn about these agents and how they work, like which patients are a good fit and what conditions they can actually help,” says Prof Suresh Sundram, a founding member of the clinic and chair of the psychiatry department at Monash University.

“We are taking a very cautious approach to this because of the aforementioned lack of data about who is suitable … there’s so much that’s not known as yet.”

Other experts are also worried that it is giving the wrong impression that this treatment is available for everyone. 

Professor Richard Harvey, chair of RANZCP’s Psychedelic Steering Group, mentions, “There’s definitely a chance that patients might have really high expectations.”

You know, some of the marketing we see online makes it sound like these treatments or substances are something everyone should be using, and that all psychiatrists should be prescribing them. But honestly, there just isn’t any solid evidence to back that up.

There’s also a misconception that patients will be getting high every session. When in reality patients usually complete one psychotherapy session each week for four weeks before their second dose.

“People often zero in on the dosing sessions, but really, those are just two days. The rest of the time—over the first six months, and then the nine months in total—is all about the psychotherapy,” Sundram shared.

“The medicines are really just there to help with the therapy; they’re not the therapy itself. It’s a mechanism, which allows the patient to be able to think through and to experience memories, issues, problems that in conventionally, they wouldn’t be able to do.”

MDMA and psilocybin was reclassified as prohibited substance under Schedule 9 of the Australian Standard for the Uniform Scheduling of Medicines and Poisons to Schedule 8 as controlled drugs. This allowed it to be legally accessible in specific therapeutic contexts under the Authorized Prescriber Scheme.