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Research into Psychedelics, Shut Down for Decades, is Now Yielding Exciting Results

posted by janrinok on Wednesday February 11 2015, @04:38PM   
from the lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds dept.

tt0120889 writes:

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.

• Summary and article sucks Summary and article sucks (Score: 3, Insightful) by RedGreen on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:19PM

  by RedGreen (888) on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:19PM (#143674)

  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.

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• Re:Summary and article sucks (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:50PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @05:50PM (#143690)

  secret experiments and deaths caused by them by the government

  Google "MK Ultra"

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• Re:Summary and article sucks (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:14PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @06:14PM (#143699)

  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.

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• That lying piece of shit, Art Linkletter (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:28PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 11 2015, @11:28PM (#143860)

  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.

  a toxicology test later determined that Diane Linkletter had no drugs in her system the day she died. [wikipedia.org]

  -- gewg_

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