Nine Perfect Strangers: Does Psilocybin Have The Benefits Masha Claims?

Episode 4 of Nine Perfect Strangers revealed that Masha has been microdosing Tranquilum guests with psilocybin – but does it really work as she says it does? As is Hulu’s way, the first three episodes were released all at once on the streaming platform with each episode being released once a week after that. So far, the strategy appears to be working: Nine Perfect Strangers was Hulu’s most-watched series premiere ever. Audiences have been drawn in by the pulpy mystery-thriller vibe that has been so successful in recent years for HBO.

Nine Perfect Strangers follows nine guests at the Tranquilum resort, run by Nicole Kidman’s Masha Dmitrichenko, a Russian wellness guru with a shady past who is keeping secrets from the guests, namely that she’s had her staff microdosing most of her guests with psilocybin without their knowledge. It’s a dangerous gamble. Each guest was chosen for a specific reason and they are dealing with deeply rooted issues including anxiety, depression, anger management issues, addiction, trauma, grief, and more. Her staff expresses reservations about treating the volatile group in this manner, but it appears Masha’s unorthodox and unethical treatment method is working–for now. The group starts to access repressed emotions and the truths they’re holding back.

However, Nine Perfect Stranger‘s guests figure out that Masha has been drugging them and they confront her. Masha admits she has been microdosing them with psilocybin, a.k.a. magic mushrooms, but is defiant she has anything to be sorry for. She claims psilocybin “cures addiction, it can treat mental illness, it can treat PTSD, schizophrenia, dementia. It can make you eat better, sleep better, f**k better, and it has the capacity to change the world.” In Masha’s defense, she’s not entirely wrong. Psychiatric interest in psychedelics isn’t exactly new; the ’60s and ’70s saw plenty of experiments, some questionable, involving the use of LSD and other psychedelics, including the CIA’s enormously unethical, secret Project MKUltra. More recently, some research has suggested that microdosing with psilocybin–Masha’s approach–can have some benefits, with it appearing to help alleviate some symptoms of anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. It’s also thought that microdosing can help to fight inflammation in the body, the culprit behind a number of diseases and ailments. [via Harvard]

That said, Masha is getting well ahead of herself in Nine Perfect Strangers. Dedicated research into the effects of microdosing psychedelics is still very new, having only really become a topic of study in the past few years. Research into the effects of any drug takes years, if not decades, to gather enough real, concrete evidence to make a determination one way or another. While early research has returned initial results that are quite promising, there is still little evidence to rule out the positive effects of microdosing psilocybin as anything more than the placebo effect, with some studies suggesting that may be the case. [via New Scientist]

What’s more, it’s unclear how safe it is. Just as there’s evidence to suggest it can help some people, there’s also evidence gathered in these early research studies that indicates some people are far more susceptible to negative side effects from psilocybin, including the triggering of psychotic episodes. Other research indicates that for other people, microdosing with psilocybin can exacerbate the very things it purports to alleviate, including anxiety, difficulty sleeping, migraines, and physical discomfort.

Masha and the Tranquilum staff, including Yao (played by The Good Place‘s Manny Jacinto) have taken precautionary measures to ensure anyone predisposed to having a bad reaction to being microdosed with psilocybin does not receive the drug, taking their guests’ bloodwork and analyzing it regularly. Still, it’s unclear that anyone on the Tranquilum staff is actually trained to handle this sort of bloodwork analysis and phlebotomy. Yao does have a medical background, but it appears to be as an EMT–a noble profession, but not one that includes the sort of specialized training running a mini-lab requires. With so much unknown about the effects of microdosing psilocybin, what Masha and her Tranquilum staff are doing on Nine Perfect Strangers is both dangerous and unethical, as well as illegal.

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