from the lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds dept.
Beginning in the nineteen-fifties, psychedelics had been used to treat a wide variety of conditions, including alcoholism and end-of-life anxiety. The American Psychiatric Association held meetings centered on LSD. Some of the best minds in psychiatry had seriously studied these compounds in therapeutic models, with government funding.
Between 1953 and 1973, the federal government spent four million dollars to fund a hundred and sixteen studies of LSD, involving more than seventeen hundred subjects. Through the mid-nineteen-sixties, psilocybin and LSD were legal and remarkably easy to obtain. Sandoz, the Swiss chemical company, gave away large quantities of Delysid—LSD—to any researcher who requested it, in the hope that someone would discover a marketable application.
Now, forty years after the Nixon Administration effectively shut down most psychedelic research, the government is gingerly allowing a small number of scientists to resume working with these powerful and still somewhat mysterious molecules.
Related Stories
James J. H. Rucker, a psychiatrist and honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, has argued in a British Medical Journal (BMJ) article that psychedelics should be reclassified as schedule 2 compounds:
He explains that many trials of psychedelics published before prohibition, in the 1950s and 1960s, suggested "beneficial change in many psychiatric disorders".
However, research ended after 1967. In the UK psychedelic drugs were legally classified as schedule 1 class A drugs - that is, as having "no accepted medical use and the greatest potential for harm, despite the research evidence to the contrary," he writes.
Rucker points out that psychedelics remain more legally restricted than heroin and cocaine. "But no evidence indicates that psychedelic drugs are habit forming; little evidence indicates that they are harmful in controlled settings; and much historical evidence shows that they could have use in common psychiatric disorders."
In fact, recent studies indicate that psychedelics have "clinical efficacy in anxiety associated with advanced cancer, obsessive compulsive disorder, tobacco and alcohol addiction, and cluster headaches," he writes.
And he explains that, at present, larger clinical studies on psychedelics are made "almost impossible by the practical, financial and bureaucratic obstacles" imposed by their schedule 1 classification. Currently, only one manufacturer in the world produces psilocybin for trial purposes, he says, at a "prohibitive" cost of £100,000 for 1 g (50 doses).
[...] He concludes that psychedelics are neither harmful nor addictive compared with other controlled substances, and he calls on the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, "to recommend that psychedelics be reclassified as schedule 2 compounds to enable a comprehensive, evidence based assessment of their therapeutic potential."
[See also: Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results - Ed.]
Original Submission
The clinical trials at N.Y.U.—a second one, using psilocybin to treat alcohol addiction, is now getting under way—are part of a renaissance of psychedelic research taking place at several universities in the United States, including Johns Hopkins, the Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center, and the University of New Mexico, as well as at Imperial College, in London, and the University of Zurich. As the drug war subsides, scientists are eager to reconsider the therapeutic potential of these drugs, beginning with psilocybin. (Last month The Lancet, the United Kingdom's most prominent medical journal, published a guest editorial in support of such research.) The effects of psilocybin resemble those of LSD, but, as one researcher explained, "it carries none of the political and cultural baggage of those three letters." LSD is also stronger and longer-lasting in its effects, and is considered more likely to produce adverse reactions. Researchers are using or planning to use psilocybin not only to treat anxiety, addiction (to smoking and alcohol), and depression but also to study the neurobiology of mystical experience, which the drug, at high doses, can reliably occasion. Forty years after the Nixon Administration effectively shut down most psychedelic research, the government is gingerly allowing a small number of scientists to resume working with these powerful and still somewhat mysterious molecules.
As I chatted with Tony Bossis and Stephen Ross in the treatment room at N.Y.U., their excitement about the results was evident. According to Ross, cancer patients receiving just a single dose of psilocybin experienced immediate and dramatic reductions in anxiety and depression, improvements that were sustained for at least six months. The data are still being analyzed and have not yet been submitted to a journal for peer review, but the researchers expect to publish later this year.
The results taste orange.
takyon: Michael Pollan's article was published in 2015 (covered by us here) and is now featured in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2016. Here is some fresher material:
Tripping up addiction: the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of problematic drug and alcohol use (DOI: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2016.10.009) (DX)
Psychedelics not linked to mental health problems or suicidal behavior: A population study (open, DOI: 10.1177/0269881114568039) (DX)
MDMA could be on the market legally by 2021:
In small studies around the country, a handful of researchers have been investigating how MDMA-assisted psychotherapy can help heal the psychological and emotional damage caused by sexual assault, war, violent crime, and other traumas. Now, federal regulators have approved the drug for use in large-scale clinical trials too—a move that could set the stage for making "ecstasy" legally available as a new medicine. The Phase III trials will involve at least 230 patients, and will be sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), an organization that advocates for the medical use of various psychedelics, including MDMA (otherwise known as ecstasy or Molly or millennial aspirin). The organization funded early safety and efficacy trials of the drug in the past. And in one pilot study involving 19 PTSD patients, more than half experienced decreased symptoms for up to six years after receiving three doses of MDMA.
Study shows how LSD interferes with brain's signalling
A group of volunteers who took a trip in the name of science have helped researchers uncover how LSD messes with activity in the brain to induce an altered state of consciousness.
Brain scans of individuals high on the drug revealed that the chemical allows parts of the cortex to become flooded with signals that are normally filtered out to prevent information overload.
The drug allowed more information to flow from the thalamus, a kind of neural gatekeeper, to a region called the posterior cingulate cortex, and it stemmed the flow of information to another part known as the temporal cortex. [...] The scientists wanted to test a hypothesis first put forward more than a decade ago. It states LSD causes the thalamus to stop filtering information it relays to other parts of the brain. It is the breakdown of this filter that gives rise to the weird effects the drug induces, or so the thinking goes.
Effective connectivity changes in LSD-induced altered states of consciousness in humans (open, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1815129116) (DX)
Related: Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results
Research Into Psychedelics Continues
Lucy in the Sky With Protein: Key to LSD's Psychoactive Potency Possibly Found
From 'problem Child' to 'prodigy'? LSD Turns 75
Fast-Acting Depression Drug, Newly Approved, Could Help Millions
Of the 16 million American adults who live with depression, as many as one-quarter gain little or no benefit from available treatments, whether drugs or talk therapy. They represent perhaps the greatest unmet need in psychiatry. On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved a prescription treatment intended to help them, a fast-acting drug derived from an old and widely used anesthetic, ketamine.
The move heralds a shift from the Prozac era of antidepressant drugs. The newly approved treatment, called esketamine, is a nasal spray developed by Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., a branch of Johnson & Johnson, that will be marketed under the name Spravato. It contains an active portion of the ketamine molecule, whose antidepressant properties are not well understood yet. "Thank goodness we now have something with a different mechanism of action than previous antidepressants," said Dr. Erick Turner, a former F.D.A. reviewer and an associate professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University. "But I'm skeptical of the hype, because in this world it's like Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown: Each time we get our hopes up, the football gets pulled away."
[...] Esketamine, like ketamine, has the potential for abuse, and both drugs can induce psychotic episodes in people who are at high risk for them. The safety monitoring will require doctors to find space for treated patients, which could present a logistical challenge, some psychiatrists said.
The wholesale cost for a course of treatment will be between $2,360 and $3,540, said Janssen, and experts said it will give the company a foothold in the $12 billion global antidepressant market, where most drugs now are generic.
[...] One question that will need to be answered is how well esketamine performs in comparison to intravenous ketamine.
Also at STAT News, Reuters, and NPR.
Previously: Ketamine Reduces Suicidal Thoughts in Depressed Patients
Studies Identify How Ketamine Can Reverse Symptoms of Depression
Ketamine Shows Promise as a Fast-Acting Treatment for Depression
Related:
Psychiatrists Investigate Using Mushrooms to Treat Depression
Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results
Depression Not Caused by Low Serotonin Levels - Most Drugs for Treatment Based on Myth
Psilocybin Successfully Treats Severe Depression in Small Clinical Trial
Research Into Psychedelics Continues
What a Gottlieb-Led FDA Might Mean for the Pharmaceutical Industry
Study Suggests Psilocybin "Resets" the Brains of Depressed People
FDA Designates MDMA as a "Breakthrough Therapy" for PTSD; Approves Phase 3 Trials
Amazonian Psychedelic May Ease Severe Depression, New Study Shows
Study Shows How LSD Alters Directed Connectivity Within Brain Pathways in Humans
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:48PM
Mid and late '60s rock is still a great document on the effects of LSD on humans, you can get a little bit of a trip just by listening to some of it. Similarly, bebop music from the decade starting around 1945 seemed to be about heroin. Unfortunately, the late '70s and '80s were mostly about coke.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:05PM
That triggered me. Fucking Nixon/DEA.
BAD TRIP
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:56PM
FYI, the newyorker's own site added that piece to the URL, it's not part of the link.
(Score: 3, Informative) by CRCulver on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:15PM
LSD was outlawed under the Johnson administration.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:23PM
"LSD is Schedule I in the United States, according to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The Controlled Substances Act (CSA) was passed by the 91st United States Congress as Title II of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 and signed into law by President Richard Nixon."
(Score: 2) by CRCulver on Thursday February 12 2015, @02:20PM
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:08PM
All I can think about are the movies "The Men Who Start at Goats" and "Red".
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:52PM
'bah, typo... should have been "The Men Who STARE at Goats"
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday February 11 2015, @08:39PM
I see.... mmmm...
There, FTFY.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:19PM
Not one mention of the secret experiments and deaths caused by them by the government agencies involved in the experiments during that time period. On a side note article reminds me of the message in the old Funkadelic tune "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow" which these chemicals will definitely help you to do to get a new perspective on your reality.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:50PM
secret experiments and deaths caused by them by the government
Google "MK Ultra"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:14PM
MKULTRA and the death of Frank Olson have nothing to do with legitimate research, medicinal or recreational use of psychedelics.
Albert Hofmann discovered LSD, not the CIA.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:28PM
That high-profile asshole kept repeating that LSD killed his daughter.
Even after he had the autopsy results, he continued to bloviate with his bullshit until his death.
-- gewg_
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:27PM
There are no "best minds" in psychiatry, that's a given looking at their crazy ideas. One has to be nuts to think drugs, electroshock etc. are viable solutions.
Or let's put it this way: Sure, if you cut your feet off you won't need to waste time with socks and shoes... In fact you are better off with no feet than not having a mind left.
Taking psychotropic drugs are causing permanent damage each time, until there's nothing left to damage.
The drug industry is the pinnacle of money above all. It's a very successful 60 Billion per year industry, unfortunately it's more about death than life.
These researchers should use it themselves, that will put an end to the insanity.
Interestingly, the "government" involved with approving this, most of the board of directors are from Eli Lilly, etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:18PM
You've got no evidence of long-term brain damage, your "common sense" foot mutilation example is meaningless drivel, and your conspiracy theory about Big Pharma ignores the fact that LSD is cheap by dose and the patents expired decades ago.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:09PM
> You've got no evidence of long-term brain damage,
I dunno about that guy, but there are some commonly reported long-term "flashback" effects associated with LSD and other hallucinogen/psychedelic use and over use. These effects are widely known in the online "lsd community."
Here is the first hit I got when I went googling for some background material.
https://www.erowid.org/chemicals/lsd/lsd_info3.shtml [erowid.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:43PM
So I experience these "flashback" effects, and in my case they're nothing to write home about. I skimmed the article, and it looks like most of them emerge in the dark, which is consistent with my experiences.
As an example, I'll see trails behind small lights like status leds in the dark. I'll also see lava lamp type patterns if I close my eyes (that one is actually kind of neat). The last time I used a drug of this type is more than a year ago.
In my case, I wouldn't really call it damage. The stories in DARE pamphlets about having full blown trip flashbacks are unsubstantiated. If I'm super relaxed and listening to certain types of music I an almost get a taste of my emotional state while intoxicated, but that's more of a nostalgia thing I think.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:10PM
I get those visual effects (have done all my life) and I've never used LSD or any other similar drug.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:59PM
> I get those visual effects (have done all my life) and I've never used LSD or any other similar drug.
And some people are born without a hand (like myself) that doesn't mean that someone whose hand has been amputated is not suffering from hand damage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @10:17PM
Those patterns are called phosphenes they are normal and we're always there :
The occurrence of phosphenes can be spontaneous, and they can be provoked in a number of ways. They appear spontaneously only when visual stimuli are lacking and especially when the viewer is subjected to prolonged visual deprivation. According to Oster (1970:83), phosphenes may account for the 'illuminations', the visions or the experience of 'seeing the light' reported by religious mystics meditating in the dark; they are the 'prisoner's cinema' experienced by people in dark dungeons; they may well occasion reports of phantoms and ghosts. Darkness is not a requirement; only the absence of external visual stimuli is needed. Phosphenes are a hazard to the long-haul truck driver peering for hours into a snowstorm. Aeroplane pilots often experience phosphenes, especially when they are flying alone at high altitudes, where the sky is cloudless and empty of the usual depth cues (Oster 1970:83).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @10:45PM
Your bare quote seems to be saying that LSD related effects are normal.
If phosphenes are normal, then LSD related effects are not phosphenes.
Read the erowid link.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:05PM
I have read it but schedule 1 drugs research of the 80's then to be flawed since a positive publication would mark the end of your funding. The leading theory on post lsd visual disturbance is that while the phosphenes where amplified/boosted/modulated by the LSD, your visual system could not ignore them anymore and you became to irreversibly aware of what was there but hidden in plain sight. (a 12h training of the visual cortext to classify those patterns instead of discarding them)
But PTST is a real possibility in case of a high intensity bad trip, however this kind of posttraumatic stress respond really well to therapy...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:57PM
Psychedelics, particularly MDMA (Ecstasy), are some of the best and most effective treatments known for PTSD. [maps.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @12:27AM
Mdma is not a psychedelic... However 80mg of Mdma 20 minutes into the trip is the best way to avoid bad trip...
It is called candy tripping...
Mdma + 2c-e = best therapeutical tool ever according to Sasha Shuglin wife
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 12 2015, @01:19AM
Its close enough, its a phenethylamine - well technically an amphetamine but all amphetamines are phenethylamines ("amphetamine" stands for "alphamethylphenethylamine"). Its in the same category as the 2C-x series, DO-x series, and TMA-x series of psychedelics, which also includes mescaline. Since you're mentioning Shulgin, you know that MDA and its derivatives are featured in PiHKAL. "Entactogen" vs "psychedelic" vs "entheogen" vs whatever is just semantics.
(Score: 2) by Sir Finkus on Thursday February 12 2015, @01:40AM
I can only speak for myself, but these phosphenes became much more vivid and "ordered" after my trips. My theory is that drugs like this heighten your awareness of those kinds of visual "glitches", much like you may notice cars that look exactly like yours with greater frequency than you had before getting that particular car. I believe that that would account for most of what people think of as Hallucinogen persisting perception disorder (yes, it has a name). A very small minority can experience more severe effects that interfere with their lives. Based on what I've read, most of these people had taken massive doses or were heavy users.
The trouble with most of the studies I've read on the matter is that they rely on self-reporting among users of an illicit substance. Most of what gets sold as "LSD" these days are actually research chemicals such as 25I-NBOME due to the difficulty and cost of synthesizing the real deal. Self-reporting is a bit "meh" as far as reliability goes, and you have to assume that these people were taking the real thing.
Join our Folding@Home team! [stanford.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @08:11PM
Any intense or traumatic experience can cause flashback. Far more people have flashbacks about the Vietnam War, for example, than LSD trips.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @08:27PM
> Any intense or traumatic experience can cause flashback.
Can an intense and traumatic experience cause someone not to read the linked article and instead go off on an unrelated tangent?
Looks like a big yes! to that.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:31PM
Signed, Dr. Walter Bishop (Fringe Division)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:13PM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRaA6mLJW54 [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:39PM
Even "liberal" news outlets can't handle it [nytimes.com]:
Classic psychedelic use is associated with reduced psychological distress and suicidality in the United States adult population. [nih.gov]
Acute Effects of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Healthy Subjects. [nih.gov]
Psychedelics as Medicines for Substance Abuse Rehabilitation: Evaluating Treatments with LSD, Peyote, Ibogaine and Ayahuasca. [nih.gov]
A Review of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) in the Treatment of Addictions: Historical Perspectives and Future Prospects. [nih.gov]
LSD-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with a life-threatening disease: a qualitative study of acute and sustained subjective effects. [nih.gov]
LSD enhances suggestibility in healthy volunteers. [nih.gov]
Classical hallucinogens as antidepressants? A review of pharmacodynamics and putative clinical roles. [nih.gov]
Recent advances in the neuropsychopharmacology of serotonergic hallucinogens. [nih.gov]
History and future of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). [nih.gov]
Self-experimentations with psychedelics among mental health professionals: LSD in the former Czechoslovakia. [nih.gov]
From Hofmann to the Haight Ashbury, and into the future: the past and potential of lysergic acid diethlyamide. [nih.gov]
Repeated lysergic acid diethylamide in an animal model of depression: Normalisation of learning behaviour and hippocampal serotonin 5-HT2 signalling. [nih.gov]
Safety and efficacy of lysergic acid diethylamide-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety associated with life-threatening diseases. [nih.gov]
Psilocybin-assisted treatment for alcohol dependence: A proof-of-concept study. [nih.gov]
Psilocybin-occasioned Mystical Experiences in the Treatment of Tobacco Addiction. [nih.gov]
Can psychedelic compounds play a part in drug dependence therapy? [nih.gov]
Psilocybin and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. [nih.gov]
Pilot study of the 5-HT2AR agonist psilocybin in the treatment of tobacco addiction. [nih.gov]
Enhanced repertoire of brain dynamical states during the psychedelic experience. [nih.gov]
The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers. [nih.gov]
Psilocybin-Induced Decrease in Amygdala Reactivity Correlates with Enhanced Positive Mood in Healthy Volunteers. [nih.gov]
The Heffter Research Institute: past and hopeful future. [nih.gov]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:40PM
There's a pretty good BBC documentary that coincidentally I watched last weekend called "The Beyond Within" with basically the same story despite being from '86 not '15
By the same story, there are certain cyclical stories that appear in the news but they aren't really news. Coincidentally there's a 5 year cycle of "LSD use growing on campus" fake news story.
I haven't researched enough to find out if this is just cyclical murmuring or a real change.
I was on a documentary binge while working in the lab last week, another weird, recommended one to listen to while working is "The G I Revolt".
The BBC doc is a BBC doc, so instead of blowing money american style on expensive historical re-enactments and endless repetition for 5 year old viewers, its all interview footage with people who were actually there and newsreel footage. Its not some History Channel shite about hitler or jesus or both, it really is worth watching.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:05PM
Coincidentally there's a 5 year cycle of "LSD use growing on campus" fake news story.
This article has nothing to do with that scare story.
This is about controlled lab research, not kids dropping acid and listening to pink floyd.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:53PM
Seriously, he would be. This kind of research is exactly what he did, what he talked about doing, and tried to figure out whether LSD could be used safely and if so in what quantities.
I'm not one to do that sort of thing myself - I like my brain the way it is, thank you - but all those I know who've done it swear by it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by MozeeToby on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:25PM
tried to figure out whether LSD could be used safely and if so in what quantities.
These questions were answered very early in LSD's history. Yes, it's safe in quantities well above what you would ever want to use to trip on. The very first dose ever taken on purpose was something like 20x the dose you'd take for any conceivable use.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @09:27PM
.. and vindicated. Same for Terence Kemp McKenna and, of course, Dr. Albert Hoffmann.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Geezer on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:46PM
Ken Kesey sampled said acid copiously during and after his participation in the MKULTRA studies done at Stanford.
I'd love to do a FOIA request on the study results.
One flew east, one flew west...
(Score: 2, Informative) by curunir_wolf on Wednesday February 11 2015, @10:12PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @07:31PM
First the recent legalization of pot in a couple of states ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_legalization_in_the_United_States [wikipedia.org] ) and now this.
Are we inching towards the end of the madness that is the War on Drugs?
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Friday March 06 2015, @09:25PM
Professor David Nutt: Why I think the terminally ill should take LSD [independent.co.uk]