Thomas Hartle waited almost 18 months for therapy to help him deal with his anxiety, but he was turned down
A man who is dying of cancer in Saskatoon waited 511 days to find out if he could keep using psilocybin therapy under an exception to Canada’s drug laws. After all that time, he found out the answer was no.
Thomas Hartle was the first person in Canada to use psilocybin, which is the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, in a legal therapy session to treat his anxiety.
He says the sessions changed his life, but after a year, in October 2021, his permission ran out and he had to reapply.
This week, Health Canada told him that they were going to say no to his request.
Hartwell said in an interview, “I don’t have a lot of choices.” “I can either try to get through life without treatment or, you know, I’d have to look for something underground, like so many other people have had to do, even though that’s not my first choice.”
Hartle, a 54-year-old father of two, was told in 2016 that he had stage-four cancer that would kill him. He has found that psilocybin therapy is by far the best and longest way to deal with his fears about dying.
Hartle told Carolyn Bennett, the minister for mental health and addictions, in an open letter that people with his type of cancer usually die in about 18 months.
“The amount of time you waited on this application is about how long a person with my illness lives on average,” he wrote. “Can’t you see how cruel it seems to spend the patient’s expected lifetime just watching what he does and says instead of responding and helping him?”
AUDIO: Using magic mushrooms to ease the stress of a terminal illness
Hartle was first allowed to use psilocybin under clinical supervision in October 2020. This was allowed under Section 56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. After that expired, he could get psilocybin through a supporting doctor through Health Canada’s special access program (SAP) while he waited for a response to his renewal request.
But he had to go to British Columbia for those sessions, which is an expense he can’t keep paying for. Also, the doctor there, Dr. Valorie Masuda, told CBC in December that a SAP representative told her she was sending in too many applications and needed to run a clinical trial instead.
Hartle says that makes it impossible for him to do anything.
“Health Canada is not giving me a Section 56 exemption because I was able to access a SAP twice. In the same message, they said that they knew going to B.C. wasn’t possible for him financially.
“I get the feeling that they’re coming at it from both sides.” “They are using the fact that I am creative against me as a reason why I shouldn’t get an exemption under Section 56.”
Hartle gave CBC a letter from Health Canada that says Hartle should look for psilocybin in other ways.
“After giving it a lot of thought, I’m going to turn down your request for a subsequent subsection 56(1) exemption because there are already legal ways to get psilocybin, like SAP,” wrote Jennifer Saxe, director general of Health Canada’s controlled substances directorate.
When CBC asked Health Canada for a comment on the situation, Health Canada said Thursday that, for privacy and safety reasons, it does not comment on individual exemption requests.
Calls for regulation
Spencer Hawksell, who runs a non-profit called TheraPsil that works to get psilocybin therapy to Canadians who need it for medical reasons, said he is “appalled” by Health Canada’s “cruel” decision.
Hawksell said it’s “almost ironic” that the same government that wants to make it easier for people to die with medical help won’t be kind in this case.
“The same government lets Thomas and other people like him get drugs that will definitely stop their hearts so they can die with medical help,” Hawksell said. “Yet they won’t let them have access to psilocybin, which Thomas’s treatment has shown to be 100 percent effective.”
Hawksell says the answer is to regulate psilocybin like cannabis.
Hawksell said, “People shouldn’t wait for bureaucrats to say whether or not a doctor’s clinical decision is good.” “That should be the doctor, but the government is getting in the way, which adds to the pain and delays like the one Thomas went through.”