Hello and welcome to the midpoint. We've got something a little bit different today. I've been fascinated by the increase in the noise around the use of psychedelics for mental health issues for a while now, while not knowing anything about it. It really is outside of my comfort zone. But late last year, I was made aware of Dr. David

Oruzzo and the work he's doing in this space. He's a clinical reader in psychopharmacology and

psychiatry at Imperial College London and the CNWL Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. And since

David arrived at Imperial in 2009, he's conducted and overseen clinical and neuroimaging

trials into the treatment of disorders and addictions using psychedelics and has authored 145 peer-reviewed

scientific papers and five book chapters. So I feel we have the right person here to tell us all

we need to know about this growing area of medicine. So let's go

meet David. Dr. David, so welcome to the midpoint. Thank you so much. You've just revealed

as you walked in that you've come fresh from Davos, which I think actually tells us, and I said in the

introduction, the increasing noise around psychedelics. I think that tells us everything we need to

know about the direction of travel of psychedelics in the mainstream.

If you're invited to talk at Davos, then...

At least just in a side program, but still quite a lot of airtime down there for what we're doing.

Because the money men must see there's an opportunity here, right?

Yeah, I think so.

So I'll also in your introductory say, I know nothing about psychedelics.

I've never done them.

But I also am probably one of those people that needs a few myths busting about them.

So I hear the noise and I hear the good work that potentially is being done in terms of mental health issues and addictions, but don't understand how they work.

So we've got a lot to get into.

Yeah, sounds good.

Tell us how you started in this area and what drew you in?

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