[eluketronic]

Psilocybin is still something that can be grown/synthesized outside of a lab. Sure, major pharmaceutical companies could synthesize pure psilocybin and sell that as a new treatment in some kind of ideal form but it seem that from a lot of anecdotes posted here as well as many other stories I’ve heard, “normal”, non-lab-produced psilocybe mushrooms can have a profiundly positive effect. This might be what big pharma is seeing as a potential opportunity loss and therefore funding studies that skew results in a less positive way.

[jasonhansel]

The issue is that your doctor can't write a prescription for the mushrooms themselves, so those aren't likely to become a mainstream treatment.

The more likely outcome is that the industry will create a synthetic analogue of psilocybin, conduct the trials needed to get it FDA-approved as a depression treatment, and then market it widely, making it more readily available and widely known than psilocybin itself.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing: such an analogue might (say) have fewer side effects or work more reliably. But it will result in the pharmaceutical industry getting the bulk of the profits.