Jack Parow: Magic mushrooms helped during hard lockdown

Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow was depressed after the Covid lockdown until he went for psilocybin mushroom treatment that inspired a new album.

Zander Tyler – better known as the rapper with the elaborate cap and his love for leopard print clothes – said psilocybin mushrooms helped unlock his brain and beat depression.

“I was 16 years old when I started taking mushrooms and I am 40 years old now. I love mushrooms. It always makes you feel better, sometimes you don’t even know why you feel better, but you do.

I have experienced good and bad things on mushrooms,” he said. Parow said he used a lot of psilocybin mushrooms to deal with the lockdown blues and a hard breakup.

“During lockdown with everything that happened and things that built up through the years, it all hit me at once. I was in a bad space and super depressed.”

He went to his psychologist’s psilocybin retreat in the Knysna forest for six days. “It was amazing. It was a one-man retreat with me being the only patient.”

Parow said he felt uncomfortable joining a group circle where you do a hero dose with 12 other people.

“That’s not for me. I can’t handle that s**t. I have too many demons and s**t. I didn’t want to deal with them in front of strangers.”

He described the retreat as the most amazing thing he has done in his life.

“I did the journey in the middle of the Knysna forest. At times it was crazy because I saw snakes coming out of me. I saw crazy stuff. I even saw my father who died 20 years ago. But it’s important to implement what you learned in real life afterwards.”

Parow said he wasn’t saying psilocybin mushrooms should be legal. “The problem is then it becomes a party thing, but banning it won’t stop people from taking it. But legalise it for clinical treatment, because of its proven success rate,” he said.

Cannsun Africa business head Donaghue Woodman said they were excited to be approved as the first psychedelic trial in SA.

“Cannsun Medicinal Global is looking to address physical and mental health diseases affecting a large population in SA by studying the effects of psilocybin with psychotherapy on HIV-positive women who have a major depressive disorder (MDD),” she said.

Woodman said the trial was also the first mental depression trial that was wholly focused on women. “Normal antidepressants don’t always work on females, they have a different reaction.”

She said over 60 trials were happening globally and were already in phase 2 and 3 of the trials. All results published so far showed safety and efficacy, even on the highest doses, she added.

“Antidepressants take about three months to work, which has side-effects, before it may work. “Psilocybin mushrooms have one treatment and integration therapy afterwards and are once off with the effects lasting up to nine months to a year.

You can only think what the pharma companies are thinking now.”

Psychedelic Society South Africa founder Mishka Latib said it was fascinating to see the transition of interest in psilocybin mushrooms over time.

“We usually had requests from young people looking to explore. Now, the majority of requests are of older people who have heard about it. The demographics have changed.”

Latib said now, people between the ages of 30 and 60 on medication, or going to therapy, wanted to make a transition in their lives and requested help.

“Every day hundreds of people are doing mushrooms or finding underground facilitators. “The reality is there are people risking their lives to be able to help themselves.”

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– marizkac@citizen.co.za