The studies, which explored the possibility of a connection between mental health problems and psychedelic drug use, found that there is no link between psychedelics and mental health conditions such as psychosis.
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“The re-emerging paradigm of psychedelic medicine may open clinical doors and therapeutic doors long closed”, writes Dr. Evan Wood, Professor of Medicine and Canada Research Chair, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.
Psychedelic drugs like LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin (found in “magic mushrooms”), dimethyltryptamine (DMT), mescaline, and methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) are substances that have a strong effect on a person’s “conscious experience”, according to a statement from the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Psychedelics, relics of the 1960s drug culture, could be beneficial to those suffering from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, according to new study published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Although Johnson’s research required tight controls – careful screening of participating patients and close monitoring during medication intake – the researchers were pleased with the results.
The study showed that LSD had a notable reduction of anxiety in terminally ill patients within two months after two LSD-enhanced psychotherapy sessions. A second small research, which included the lively molecule in “magic mushrooms” in remedy for alcohol habit, confirmed a “vital discount” within the days alcohol was used in addition to within the quantity.
“Continued medical research and scientific inquiry into psychedelic drugs may offer new ways to treat mental illness and addiction in patients who do not benefit from now available treatments”, the research team wrote in the report detailing their work, as cited by EurekAlert. Finally, they analyzed a third small study that showed MDMA (ecstasy) lowered PTSD symptoms in people who had chronic PTSD. But the authors of the study believe there’s hope for that.
Before more psychedelics can be accepted and investigated as potential therapeutic agents, the research community must prove that studies involving such compounds can be as rigorous and as safe as other scientific experiments.
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In a press interview Johnson concluded: “It’s been a long road – this started back in the mid-late 1990s when the (US Food and Drug Administration) started to approve some of these very early studies”. “It’s been a cautious road, but one that’s data-driven”.
