Posted on 04/07/2026 9:05:53 AM PDT by jerod
75-year-old with terminal disease used illegal 'magic mushrooms' after Health Canada denied him legal access
Pete Pearson had three reasons for trying psilocybin, or "magic mushrooms," for the first time at age 75.
"I hope it will keep me from losing my mind," he told CBC's White Coat, Black Art. "I hope it will keep me from being a complete jerk to everybody, and being so hard on Susie" — his wife.
Pete had been diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a progressive lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe. The average survival prognosis is three to five years and he'd already passed that. Now, the physical limitations were triggering a toxic stew of anxiety, frustration and depression known as "end-of-life distress."
"I just feel so useless," he told CBC's Dr. Brian Goldman when they first spoke in October 2024.
So, on Jan. 3, 2026, at about 11 a.m., Pete drank a tea containing five grams of natural psilocybin. He stretched out on the hide-a-bed in the front room of his house in Mooretown, Ont., facing the St. Clair River.
Eight hours later, he emerged from his psychedelic trip with a new lease on the time he has left. "I cannot believe how much my outlook on life has changed."
And the anxiety? "It's gone."
But that "complete turnaround," as Pete describes it, happened only after a futile attempt to access psilocybin legally through Health Canada — a process that lasted the better part of a year and caused Pete's already debilitating anxiety to go "through the roof." In the end, he got psilocybin illegally for about $40.
A painful path to psychedelics
By summer 2024, Pete had been living with IPF for going on six years. The more he had to fight for every breath, the less he could do things that gave his life meaning — like spending time with his kids and grandkids.
Blake Pearson, himself a family doctor, says while his dad's shortness of breath itself is "quite distressing," when layered with his anxiety, "it really was getting out of control."
Pete had read about psilocybin and thought it might help.
Throughout that summer, he and Blake worked with his family doctor to apply for legal access to psilocybin through Health Canada's Special Access Program (SAP), which grants health-care providers access to drugs that aren't otherwise approved in the country when conventional treatments have failed or aren't suitable.
They weren't prepared for how onerous the application process would be, but they thought he'd be approved after the SAP application was filed in October 2024.
He even began sessions with a psychotherapist trained in "psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy," in which the psychedelic trip is contextualized before and after to give the experience more impact.
Pete hoped his "trip" would happen with Health Canada approval in early 2025.
Waiting in vain Instead, after multiple back-and-forths with the agency, Pete and his doctor were sent a 14-page letter of denial in July 2025.
Pete shared the letter with CBC. Health Canada's main reasons for its decision were that "the request does not meet SAP's criteria for emergency treatment," and that "several marketed conventional and other therapeutic alternatives remain available."
But Pete had already tried at least three different medications for depression and anxiety, as well as psychotherapy and meditation — all of which were documented in the SAP application.
"My interpretation of the 14 pages is essentially, 'You're not sick enough,' " said Blake. "To me, that's absurd, because when is it the right time to process your own death? Is it six months before you die? Four months?"
According to data from Health Canada, 525 requests for psilocybin were made through the Special Access Program from Jan. 1, 2022 to Feb. 25, 2026. Of those, 338 (64 per cent) were authorized. The majority of authorized requests were for depression, and 28 per cent were specifically for end-of-life distress.
In a statement to CBC, Health Canada says it has "great compassion and understanding for individuals diagnosed with end-of-life anxiety and depression."
MAiD approved in 3 weeks
Pete says the nine-month wait "just made me a wreck."
"I was getting worse and worse, panic attacks and everything else, because of these dummies at Health Canada."
ete's worsening physical symptoms and mental distress prompted him to apply for MAiD in early fall 2025 after he says his doctors told him dying from IPF is "the worst way you can go — just gasping for air."
That application was approved in three weeks. MAiD and Health Canada's SAP are governed under different legal and clinical criteria.
Still, when he found out, Pete says he couldn't believe that he spent a year fighting the government to try psilocybin "and then they say 'We can kill you faster.' "
Psychedelics 'not ready for prime time,' psychiatrist says
Dr. Joshua Rosenblat, a psychiatrist at University Health Network in Toronto, applied for SAP access to psilocybin for his patients so many times that Health Canada recommended he launch a clinical trial. So he did.
The results, published in 2024, showed psilocybin had significant antidepressant effects when combined with psychotherapy. Now, he has seven separate clinical trials underway for psilocybin and depression — all federally funded.
Rosenblat led Canada's first national consensus statement on psychedelics in 2022, which he says made "very clear" that "they're not ready for prime time yet."
Though millions in funding for trials like his may be moving psilocybin in that direction, Rosenblat says it shouldn't be used to treat people for depression or end-of-life distress "until we have more evidence."
While he acknowledges that psilocybin is readily available, he doesn't recommend patients use it on their own "because of its unpredictable nature."...
...These days, Pete says he's enjoying what he can do, rather than cursing what he can't.
"I just can't believe how good I feel for being a sick person that's supposed to be dying."
Now that his end-of-life distress has been resolved, Pete still intends to use MAiD when his difficulty breathing gets to be too much to bear.
But for now, he says that thanks to the psilocybin, "I'm back in the groove, so I'm hoping I can stay there for as long as I can."
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Ketamine might help too.
There really is a lot of potential in micro-dosing psychedelics in a clinic setting. This has been known since the 1950s.
I was gonna say........treating? Get in the pod claude. Oh canaDUH, oh canaDUH..........
A classic case of how modern conventional medical practice can make illness more harrowing, and a lesson for our country.
He should go visit my family at the Oregon coast. Those mushrooms grow all over the place.
Sad.
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. Romans 1:25
Help what? Go insane?
It’s really sad how people have been sold such bill if goods.
ICWYDT
I am fairly sure any psychedelic would give me a bad trip...I had a bad trip on laughing gas.
I was very ill once and my senses heightened - I could hear very quiet voices behind a closed door - everything was sharp edged and in my dreams I saw every blade of grass in a field. Exhausting.
Some people are mot made for psychedlics.
Or you could just surrender your life to Jesus.
That’s what I thought the headline was referring to.
If you need psychedelics from the daddy state for your “anxiety” you’re too weak to live.
can I come pick some?
I read once there are reports by Ketamine users that many see ‘tiny people’. I wonder if that would cause even more anxiety.
Ketamine is pretty strong evidently, too.
https://drugabuse.com/drugs/hallucinogens/ketamine/effects-use/
Lol!
Don’t knock it til you try it
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