Support for the Dying

The other majorly researched use of psychedelics is in easing anxiety and depression stemming from terminal illness and fear of death, especially in end-stage cancer patients.  There are many studies currently under way using LSD or psilocybin pills to treat anxiety and depression in cancer patients.  A study was just completed by psychiatrist Charles Grob at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center that found that psilocybin can be administered safely while reducing anxiety and depression in end-stage cancer patients.  In the study, Grob brought subjects into a hospital room that had been draped in sheets and with extra furnishings to create a more comfortable environment, and the subjects brought pictures and other objects with sentimental value, and the subject would discuss these pictures and objects with the doctor and assistants while they administered the drug.  This created a positive mindset in the patients, who would then listen to music with a blindfold on while they were experiencing the psilocybin trip.  The subjects showed significant reduction in depression and anxiety for 6 months after the drug was administered.  The psilocybin, in 20-30 milligrams doses, gave the subjects mystical insight into their life position, and caused “sustained positive changes in attitude, mood and behavior” (Slater).  The subjects reported that they were able to enjoy the time they had left more fully, and felt grateful for and took advantage of the present, and were more comfortable with their death.  While researchers do not know how psilocybin and other psychedelic drugs work, it is understood that ingestion of these substances is "associated with a deactivation of regions of the brain that integrate our senses and our perception of self" (Slater).  Timothy Leary, one of the biggest voices for psychedelic research in the 1960's, called this phenomenon "ego-loss", where the drug user loses his identity and sense of who he is.  Leary said that ego-loss was an important tool for lasting change because sometimes to change one's identity it is necessary to lose identity and perceive it from another point of view.  This may be the most important characteristic of psychedelics for the use of therapy and what causes patients given these drugs to change their outlook on their disease.

LSD and Addiction

The most promising, and the most studied, use of psychedelics is to treat addiction.  These studies focus on alcoholism because of its legal status, and LSD because of its availability when these studies were conducted.  When LSD was first introduced into the pharmaceutical community, its most promising use was considered to be treating alcoholism, and was even endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson.  In a retrospective analysis of past research, neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen found that in randomized studies comparing LSD to a placebo control, "59% of people receiving LSD reported lower levels of alcohol misuse, compared to 38% of people who received a placebo".  

A single study, published and widely circulated in 1964 by  Smart and Storm, found there was no difference in treating potential for LSD versus a placebo, and that neither were effective at treating alcoholics.  However, this study administered LSD to patients in a hospital setting, where the subject lay strapped into a hospital bed and was questioned by doctors.  The problem with this study is that the subjects did not participate in therapy of any kind.  When someone takes LSD and trips, they become oversensitive to their surroundings and the mindset it gives them, and being strapped to a bed a questioned by doctors in white coats could easily cause a very paranoid, fearful trip.  While the conclusion was originally that LSD was ineffective at treating alcoholism, with a better understanding of psychedelic drugs the study only shows that LSD alone cannot treat alcoholism, it acts as an aid for therapy.

In contrast, 2 doctors, Dr. Abram Hoffer and Dr. Humphrey Osmond, ran a continuous, uncontrolled study using LSD on alcoholics as an aid to therapy and found that about 50% of these alcoholics, who before had been resistive to Alcoholics Anonymous, were treated of their disease.  In fact, almost all studies that use this psychedelic therapy method found that LSD was 50% effective at treating their patients.  In addition, all of these studies were conducted before new and better therapeutic methodologies like motivational interviewing and cognitive behavior therapy, and the combination of these new therapies and LSD could yield an even better success rate.

Both scientists and users agree that LSD is not physically addictive, despite its Schedule 1 label.  Although it is possible to become addicted to anything from heroin to internet porn to pudding cups, LSD doesn't hook it's users like nicotine or crack does.  This is a contrast to the last drug cure for alcoholism, which led to an epidemic of morphine addicts.

aPOThecary

With the legalization of marijuana for medical (and recreational) use on the rise in the U.S., specialty pot shops are becoming a legal, profitable business.  Providing medical grade bud to those with a prescription (or anyone over the age of 21 in Colorado and Washington), these dispensaries sell a huge selection of custom-made strains, tinctures, and edibles.

With an increase in research towards the positive benefits of psychedelic drugs, their legalization could mimic that of marijuana. In the Netherlands, "smart shops" sell a selection of mind-altering substances including psilocybin and other psychedelics.  One day, you neighborhood dispensary could carry a selection of designer drugs (like the new 25i) and special preparations of natural psychedelics.

For more information, here's a link to the wiki article on smart shops: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_shop

Fresh mushrooms for sale at an Amsterdam smart shop

Drug Factsheet

LSD:

an lsd tab

                LSD, or "acid", was created by accident in a pharmaceutical lab by chemist Albert Hofmann.  It is usually taken as a tab, which is a piece of paper with a dose of LSD blotted on to it.  The common street dosage for a tab was originally 250 mcg when it first hit the streets in the 1960's.  Now a more common dose is 100 to 150 mcg.

Acid trips last around 9 hours, and tolerance to acid builds and diminishes quickly, making it hard to abuse.

Psilocybin Mushrooms:

a bag of shrooms

                Shrooms, or psilocybin mushrooms, are mushrooms that grow on all continents except Antarctica.  They are eaten fresh or dried, and a trip lasts around 4 hours.  Although they are a Schedule 1 controlled substance, they are legal to grow in New Mexico for personal use.

DMT:

DMT as crystals

                DMT, short for Dimethyltryptamine, is famous for being the most intense psychedelic. Found naturally in the ayahuasca plant, the pure chemical DMT can be smoked, injected, or inhaled, and gives an almost instant trip that lasts 30 minutes to an hour, most of which is spent in a dream-like state.

Mescaline/Peyote:

a peyote cactus button

mescaline powder

                The peyote cactus has been eaten by native American tribes for centuries.  Mescaline, the active chemical in peyote, can also be taken as a pill.  The average dose of mescaline is 300 mg, and when used in religious ceremonies American tribe members eat 2-24 cactus buttons.  A trip usually lasts between 10 and 12 hours.

Why It Is The Way It Is

Psychedelic drugs have been tightly restricted since 1970, when Congress created one law that regulated all drugs, the Controlled Substances Act.  This law set boundaries for drugs based on their medical merit, abuse potential, and safety of use, as decide by Congress.  Psychedelics were put in Schedule 1, the most restrictive category, which was described as substances with no accepted medical use, high abuse potential, and no safety standards.  This category makes research very difficult to be approved, so the scientific community lost the opportunity to learn more about their effects.

So why are psychedelic drugs grouped as Schedule 1 controlled substances, along with heroin, and above meth (which is Schedule 2)?  When the Controlled Substance Act was written, LSD and the hippie lifestyle were viewed as the biggest danger to America, and represented the largest threat to the politicians currently in power, who had approved the Vietnam War and the draft, and were ignoring civil rights issues.  So despite evidence that LSD was not dangerous and a plethora of research touting its medical benefits, it got banned along with all of its cousins, like psilocybin and mescaline.

Introduction

Most American's image of psychedelic drugs stems from the hippie counterculture, where these relatively unknown drugs became a new phenomenon that encouraged the new generation to rebel.  These drugs, especially LSD, but including psilocybin mushrooms, DMT, mescaline, and more, became notorious for their use by hippies, who disregarded conventional wisdom and adopted new cultural practices and ideologies.  But these substances' origins were much different, coming from the labs of pharmaceutical companies, where researchers hoped to use them medicinally, and from ceremonial and religious use in ancient cultures across the globe.  After the 60's, these drugs were quickly outlawed in the U.S., stopping almost all legitimate research aimed at developing psychedelics into usable treatments for a variety of ailments.  However, there has been a small modern resurgence in research, with promising results.  Despite the bad image psychedelic drugs have been given, they are important chemical tools that assist in therapy for alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illnesses.