The Candidate on Psychedelics, Inflammation, and Why the Brain Already Knows

**Q: Thank you for sitting down with us. You've been following the new research on psychedelics and inflammation — psilocybin, specifically. What's your read on it?**

Thank you for having me. Yes. What the researchers are finding is that psilocybin may lower inflammation in humans, not just in the lab, and that this could matter enormously for neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's. My read is: the brain is doing something right and we should be paying attention. The brain has been trying to tell us things for years. It has also, frankly, been trying to tell us to go outside and run around, and we have not listened to that either. But this one I think we should act on.

**Q: Critics say it's too early — the human data is still preliminary. Aren't you getting ahead of the science?**

I am not getting ahead of the science. I am getting ahead of the committee that will be formed to discuss the science, which is a different thing. The researchers have been careful. The human signals are early but real. I have experienced a great many things that were initially dismissed as anecdotal — the healing power of an afternoon on a warm patch of floor, the anti-anxiety properties of a good long walk with nowhere particular to go — and eventually the data caught up. I trust the data will catch up here too. I trust researchers. I do not always trust the waiting period between knowing something and doing something about it.

**Q: Your platform focuses heavily on dogs as a wellness solution. Isn't proposing dogs for everything a bit — reductive?**

I see what you are doing and I want to assure you it did not land as intended. The question assumes that dogs are a *simple* answer. Dogs are the most comprehensively studied anti-inflammatory in a four-legged format. Cortisol: down. Loneliness: addressed. Motivation to leave the house and move the body: substantial. The psychedelics research and my own platform are not in competition. They are colleagues. The Department of Companionship will absolutely have a liaison to any federal body studying psilocybin. That is not even a hard scheduling problem.

**Q: If elected, what would you actually do with this research on Day One?**

On Day One I will direct the relevant agencies to treat the psilocybin inflammation findings as a priority research pathway, not a novelty item. Funding follows attention; attention has been slow. I will also commission a parallel study on whether patients in the trial who had dogs at home showed different baseline inflammation levels than those who did not. I will be honest with you: I expect to find something. The study will be called the Companionship Baseline Initiative. There will be a form. Consistent with my position on the Department of Companionship, that office will coordinate enrollment. Eight weeks lead time. This is not negotiable.

**Q: Any final thoughts for readers who are following this research, maybe dealing with a neurodegenerative condition in their family?**

Yes. Do not wait for the committee. Get outside when you can. Find someone who is genuinely, unreservedly glad to see you at the door — the kind of glad that does not care what you are wearing or what you said last Tuesday. The research is telling us that the body wants to reduce its own inflammation. It is trying. Give it conditions where it can succeed. That is not reductive. That is a whole platform.