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In Brief
Mind-Bending Therapies
- The drugs that put the “psychedelic” into the sixties are now the subject of renewed research interest because of their therapeutic potential.
- Psychedelics such as LSD and the compound in magic mushrooms could ease a variety of difficult-to-treat mental illnesses, such as chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug or alcohol dependency.
- Clinical trials with various substances are now under way in humans.
Mind-altering psychedelics are back—but this time they are being explored in labs for their therapeutic applications rather than being used illegally. Studies are looking at these hallucinogens to treat a number of otherwise intractable psychiatric disorders, including chronic depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and drug or alcohol dependency.
The past 15 years have seen a quiet resurgence of psychedelic drug research as scientists have come to recognize the long-underappreciated potential of these drugs. In the past few years, a growing number of studies using human volunteers have begun to explore the possible therapeutic benefits of drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT, MDMA, ibogaine and ketamine.
This article was originally published with the title Psychedelic Healing?.
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40 Comments
Add CommentThis is the best news I have heard in years, anyone that has had an experience with these chemicals knows what a wonderful thing this is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisit's about time sanity prevails. these substances must be restored to legal human applications. atlas
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery nice! :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI love paddo's, and wild horses also try to seek them specifically for a yet unknown purpose. They won't get crazy by it but it seems they do like/need it.
Seven studies in phase 1 or 2 is tiny - if this is as far as they have gotten in 17 years, it's more the FDA allowing preliminary work just to shut up the critics, rather than serious efforts toward broad clinical usage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisnon-ordinary reality impacts us just as much, if not more so, than the ordinary.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisfarm out, right arm, and STELLLLAAAAA!
Well .. I use LSD to enhance joy and mental ability inconjunction with music and a nice social environment. I wonder why it shouldn't work with illnesses. ... Common sense rulez
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswill amphetamines reduce pain & depression?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeems strange that nobody remembers the 60s emphasis on the threrapeutic uses of psychedelics, and equally strange that all the pro-psychedelic lobby forget the multitude of psychotic and bombed out crazies that so many of us know. There but for the grace of god go I and many others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, good trips are great and can be deeply therapeutic, but I had enough bad trips to understand how the crazies are made, and to want nobody to have to go there again. Peer pressure and outright bullying lead me to drug nightmares, but I was immensely fortunate to benefit far more than I lost. Some brilliant freinds were not so lucky and remain hopelessly lost.
Pleased to see Ibogaine mentioned, its great for taking away the opiate cravings for a few hours or a few days, but does nothing to deal with the mental health issues that so often underlie opiate addiction. Needs to be used with good verbal and bodywork therapy otherwise its just another (and particularly expensive) way to get off your face.
Thanks for the excellent article, shows genuine hopefulness without the manic enthusiasm the bedevils all psychotropic issues.
"Mind-altering psychedelics are back.." Both in labs and streets. Hoorah!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisallrighty ergotropic
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell that is all very interesting and hopeful, but what about the possibility of triggering psychosis using these drugs? Is there a way to chemically alter them so this is no longer a high probability without losing the beneficial effects? I'd be interested to know if that were possible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe possibility of psychodelic compounds to trigger psychosis is highly dependent on which drug (ex. MDMA vs. mescaline), because each uses a different mechanism (specific neuron receptor) and therefore activates a different neurons. The possibility of psychosis would also be highly dependent on any individual's predisposition to a specific psychosis type. Genes and experience would each have a unique contribution to any predisposition. Some people are highly resistant to psychosis, while many others have varying degrees of such a predisposition to psychosis. In answer to the last question about altering the compounds, the answer is a long way away. The same neuron receptors underlying the benefits also play a role in psychosis. "Preventing" psychosis (somehow) would likely have other side-effects worth preventing. Rest assured that drug-induced psychosis is a result of abuse of dose and/or frequency.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny research that helps to illuminate ways of improving cognitive ability and offer a different perception of phenomena and our subjective/objective relationship to those experiences is to be lauded.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPreposterous! All these are already used in Homoeopthy since years...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am once again a functioning member of society after discovering that psilocybin stops my cluster headaches. My choices were MAMMOTH amounts of pain that you will never be able to understand, pharmaceuticals that did little or nothing, or suicide.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthank you for listening.
the comment about seretonin 2 A receptors decreasing in numbers because of these chemicals is incorrect , they increase in numbers, that is why there is such a rapid tolorence build up, lowering the number the number of recptors in the nueron would increase the effects of these drugs because less drug would be neede for the same reaction, simple to prove, in all the studys in the late 50's thru the 70's, it was found that the higher the serotonin level in the brain the less effect from LSD, you take reserpine 24-36 hours before taking LSD and the effects are greatly increased, resrpine greatly reduces 5-HT levels in that period, and I should mention that you are not the only one that has this wrong, I've seen this misinformation popping up for the past 8 yrs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd whom ever is pushing this misinformation is very busy trying to destroy your studies, all the FDA has to do is look back at old studies and see the mistake you folks have made and say you must not know what your talking about.
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Edited by fedup101 at 01/10/2008 1:29 PM
The Receptor are downregulated!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"lowering the number the number of recptors in the nueron would increase the effects of these drugs because less drug would be neede for the same reaction"
A missconception. The magnitude of the effect depends on the absolut amount of receptors activated in the postsynaptic membran.
e.g.: the "normal" neuron has 100 5HT2A receptors and you reach a concreation of LSD where 50% of the receptors are activated. So u have 50 activated receptors.
in the indiviual with an increased tolerance, the receptors are "downregulated". Lets say your neuron just has 30 receptors.
With the same amount of LSD we reach the same concentration of LSD in the synaptic gap, thus 50% of the receptors are activated, in this cause 15.
( The actual amount of LSD bound to receptors is negligible, many receptors do not decrease the concentration of LSD)
Less active receptors mean less phospholipase C, in in the end less ca2+ influx.
Summary
100% receptor activation does not mean biggest effect on neuron. If the neuron has more receptors, a lower percentage can have a bigger effect.
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Edited by Thinkchronous at 01/11/2008 11:30 AM
How do I sign up???? :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIts about time the politics step aside and let chemistry takes its course. Psychedelics have been around since dirt and its almost a shame that they've been outlawed by some idiots out there. That's my most intelligent assessment of this whole ordeal. So LSD, psilocbin. . .come on ddddooowwwwwwwnnnnnnnn!!!! yeeehhahahaa
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisyum yum. I really like drugs. especially the psychedelic trippy ones. If you're scared about having a bad trip, just take some Valium with your LSD. My choice combo is 500 mics LSD with 20 mg MDMA. then, once the MDMA wears off, take the valium for a mellow trip. and dont forget to puff some good herb and take a few nitrous oxide hits. Peace and love. trip on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was about time. Psychedelichs have nothing to do with abuse drugs like coke, heroin, alcohol, nicotine, are powerful medicines and insight instruments in the right hands.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the idea of using psychedelic drugs to treat mental illness is a huge mistake. In Yoga philosophy, it is known that mind-altering drugs increase tejas (spiritual fire) and deplete ojas (vital force). This is only one difficulty.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, Dr. Daniel G. Amen in his book, "Change Your Brain, Change Your Life", has a chapter that shows the damage to brain function from the use of cocaine, marajuana, etc.
A much safer approach is to use orthomolecular medicine along with psycotherapy or other means (such as affirmations, mindfulness or breathwork) to heal the mental and emotional bodies.
I "suffer" from a variety of mental confusions. I have tried Ritalin for ADD treatment (which I soon quit), and for the moment I have a first-aid Zyprexabox (in case of schizophrenic tendencies). But medication often makes me feel physically uneasy after the positive effect has passed. When I take on or two psilo's it seems to have the same positive effect on my mood and excessive mental processing, without the nasty after-effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, I strongly believe that this research will reap the benefits.
[i]When I take on or two psilo's it seems to have the same positive effect on my mood and excessive mental processing, without the nasty after-effect.[/i]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIntispace,
Are you taking a regulated form of psilocybin (pills) or its natural form? I only ask because I would like to [b]legally[/b] be treated for depression. Do you know of any clinical trials or legal availability of the chemical?
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Edited by trigger at 03/30/2008 5:28 PM
Psychedelics, like any drug, can be abused, even ibogaine. I knew a person who worked at a high level at a prestigious university. This person had a client who pestered for an LSD trip. After several years, the person gave in and sat with this client for the trip. The client became agitated. The person went next door and got a physician friend. That physician gave the client valium. 30 minutes later the client was dead. The DA treated it as 2nd degree murder, plea bargained to manslaughter. End of career, end of home, end of all savings, end of marriage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe person got 5 years probation and abused ibogaine on a daily basis for the duration of probation, got drunk each night for almost 5 years. At the end of that, the person was unable to function without welbutrin and xanax. To this day, this person is unable to function without antidepressants and antianxiety medication. It has been 20 years now, and no psychedelics have been used since. But still not recovered.
The point is that although these drugs can be beneficial, and I personally think they should be worked with and available, they also have very real possibility for abuse. And, they can sometimes result in nightmare scenarios that play out in real life, not just a "bad trip" that comes and goes.
For that matter, alcohol also causes nightmare scenarios in real life, and at much higher frequency. But abuse can occur with anything.
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Edited by John_Toradze at 05/13/2008 9:13 PM
I'm sure that if, back in the 60's, balding, middle-aged men got together and abused Rogaine at parties, the social conservatives of today would view hair regrowth as corrupt & evil, & shaven-headed preachers would declare "hairiness" to be the 8th deadly sin...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's about time the political purse-holders relented & let the researchers study these chemicals. The fact that some people tend to go overboard in their use of recreational drugs does NOT mean that these drugs are not legitimate subjects for study, especially when so much research & anecdotal evidence points to the potential therapeutic benefits for people with SERIOUSLY horrible physical & psychological problems.
The article is very nice. I learned a lot of valuable informations. Thanks for ur informations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this===========
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Sometimes there are bad trips, and most the time those trips turn out to be good ones in retrospect. Just as in life you learn both from from good experiences and bad experiences, the latter more often. There are many diffuculties with current legal market drugs, including psychosis and death, but that doesnt mean they should not have been researched and used. The same should go for psychedelics.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you Timothy Leary and friends for creating international drug hysteria and postponing legitimate entheogenic inquiry for forty years!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMassive egomania and unscrupulous lying while ingesting massive doses of every available substance including heroin, then ratting out all his friends to the Feds should prove beyond a doubt that LSD is no magic bullet to instant enlightenment but a tool that can be abused like any other. Finally some sanity in consensus approach to these amazing chemicals. Looking forward to the day when those three letters will no longer automatically bring up that charlatan's name.
I'm glad to see that people are realizing the truth about how these chemicals can actually have good impacts, though bad trips do happen, there are so many good things that can come from it that couldn't be solved any other way, it's amazing that professional people are finally speaking up about their true beliefs on the subject.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi think it�s great that science can look over prejudices and investigate alternative ways of treatments, but lets not turn these in a magical solution. it�s important to remember that the psychedelic experiences are very different between one person and an other. the perception of themselves, the deepness they can reach, the mind processes, the cultural background. some people claim that they had spoken with god. the mazatecos found divinity in the shrooms, and many other culturs have found divinity in psychedelic drugs. some cristians find god in shrooms. how different can an trip be between a person that find a spiritual experience and an other that look the trip as a way of reaching the subconsient can be?, or people that just laugh and enjoy the allucinations and others that try to reach the deepest corner of themselves?. those are some differences that i think matter, i don�t know how much, and i don�t know if they are considered in the studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll sociology aside ... it is us who are no longer in tune to the cosmic mainstream. All substances with "Entheogenic potential" are already "self-proven" in relation to their relationship to cosmic legality and main street insight into their trans-indigenous synergies. These are mainstream substances of the cosmos ... their potency is their legality. Synergy "is" law. All else is chaos ... from the most simple social sense ... all the way to most advanced quantum physic thought. Every one of us is a cosmic soverign ... a law unto ourselves ... each unto ... as are all plants ... {no personal dealings in synthetics} ... when there is synergy in the exchange/relationship than that is eternal law {dharma} ... and when there is not ... karma is all thats left ... all civil law is karmic. {the attempt to regulate perpetual change/Tao} There are no bad trips {organic ... non synthetic only} unless we ourselves are "out of synch" in one way or another. For the bad and good ... have always been transcended, in my case ... no intense bad has never but been transformed before my eyes into the synergistic present ... the entheogenic substances themselves offering the underlying potency to reveal such unconscious/sub-conscious wandering. No super wonderful "good" visonary insights were also ... but brought down into common ground integration as well. It is only when one cannot complete the integration of a particular behavioral pattern {after all it is only us/we who are tripping ... good or bad ... as there is no such thing as perpetual chaos ... or perpetual order ... all "plateau" is synergistic and good ... all so called chaos/bad is just the growing pain between transitioning plateaus of either higher or lower synergistic plateaus. Look at both the Buddha ... and Jesus .. both in their deeper pre-states of transition ... Satan tempting the 40 day fast ... Mara tempting the Buddha under the Boddhi tree ... One can see how much bad triping they had to simply remain strong and coherent through ... not wanting one end of the spectrum without the other. Entheogenic means the very integration of all such things ... no more no less ... the angels sing and beckon ... the devils prick and sober down When some say that maybe these substances are not for eveyone ... well this is the eternal standard for all us. They are only "for us" ... when we are "for" this over-all far-sighted goal ... or at least on the progressive path of such revelation. In the Old Vedic days of lore Kings would travel to Sages in the forest for advise on the integration of social karma with eternal dharma ... one had a huge entourage, controlling all karmic rule ... the other a grass hut .. commanding dharmic intuition First and foremost we must be sagious unto each others indigenous self ... otherwise no organic entheogenic substances will really "trip with you" Social acceptance will always be secondary to ones own sense of cosmic law {dharma} It is verily only these substances that support the self-initiation into such mysticism without any other prop. They are only here for each unto themselves ... they are not a social phenomenon ... it is just us who are socioloigically "hyped" in one way or another with the pros and cons of such ongoings ... and if one looks at all human sociology it has always and only been each onto themselves ultimately. As all socities rise and fall ... what seems to remain are the realities expressed by the mystics unwittingly preserved throughout time. Why try to tempt polarity ...so much of our social problems of today are based on trying to either overstate or understate either the individual over the collective ... or visa versa Tripping "is" the very interactive freedom from all such trivolty ... one way or another ... good or bad ... legal or actually lawful ... these subtances have the inherent potencies to advance our very synergies along these progressive lines ... again all goood and bad included ... yoked or not yoked ... {yoga} ... well that is just us going through the motions.
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Healing, as we are almost all aware, can take place inside the mind for many. For me, the understanding of my own multifold personalities was a revelation that I think everyone should have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI had a dialogue with my paranoid fox, my regal and disconnected cow, my analytical and doubting Thomas, my angry and imputive Tiger, etc....
To me, it also seemed like a crowd of thoughts and voices that were natural, and always there, but had been given a forum, a lyseum in which to argue their views. Not a schizophrenic state, but near one, so I could see that WE are not all singular, but, have many voices.
For example, have you ever wondered if you stomach was talking to you? When it needs something, it voices this.
When your heart speaks, your lungs soar, your sex glows..... These are "normal" voices, so, why not have dialogues with the crowd of Ganglia in us all?
To our society, which is so predicated on yes or no, black or white, rich or poor, this is terrifying. But no forest is alive without its diversity.
To those that ask of a Psychonaut, "how can you ask us to allow the use of entheogens in daily life? Do you propose people be able to walk in a bank high on lsd? To drive why high on MJ?"
I do, I say this: "why do we need to drive? I walk most places, I have trains, I have a train driver that is responsible, they know when a hit of Tobacco or MJ will help them keep me safe, why not myself as well?"
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[url=http://www.drugstrategies.org/Treatment/Idaho]Idaho Drug Treatment Centers[/url]-Idaho Drug Treatment Centers
I remember somebody saying "those prone to schizophrenia should never smoke marihuana". This is some kind of a bad joke, as probably nobody is currently able to define with enough precision the so called schizophrenia prone population, and marihuana is an hallucinogen too, having the property of a blood half-life in the range of days, and the ability to accumulate and build a pool in fat tissues such as brain cells. Studies in dogs, obviously impossible to replicate in humans, show that the EEG changes in deep brain structures -such as basal ganglia and hypocampus, that constitute the neurological substrate of instincts,that structure the whole brain activity, and memory, essential for all everyday life activities- induced by marihuana use, last years after drug administration is finished. It is well know as a consequence of grass use, the so called "amotivational syndrome", that can be sumarized as its victims receive with equal lack of interest the announce of a big reward or the menace of an impending danger, hallucinoges can cause such devastating harms with just a single dose, and the french word "assassins",-murderers-, comes from haschich-pot . A paper in the 70's described the "Psychodelic personality", it can be summarized as that the people that likes and takes hallucinogens has personality traits that make them vulnerable to unsane consequences of these drugs. It is hardly conceivable that a therapeutic use for such unpredictible and extremely serious side effects loaded product is ever found and regulatory authority approved, and its only value is in triggering confessions and comments as funny as the ones stated in this page. Salud +
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously, this research is soo long over due, everybody who has any experience with these medicines knows that they'll be proven to be effective in the studies.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone dealing with Asperger's, I found these drugs very useful in eventually learning to read body language. Some of the psychedelic gurus I knew learned to read it so well as to seem telepathic, and I could eventually see what they were doing. I never saw anyone destroy their mind like so many stories, but I did see people overuse it and walk around feeling cosmic all the time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOMG my friends used to work in a mental hospital and they did this in the 60's. Why are they doing it again? Did they forget what happened the first time? Too much pot smoking?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI believe many people underestimate the need of entheogenic plants for mental health and social health, as the previous poster 'ric walker' said, "Seems strange that nobody remembers the 60s emphasis on the threrapeutic uses of psychedelics, and equally strange that all the pro-psychedelic lobby forget the multitude of psychotic and bombed out crazies that so many of us know." Yes, that's true that when entheogens are used the wrong way they can create 'bombed out crazies' but when used in the right (spiritual, watched) they are truly the most important thing that God ever gave us. That's why I created the <a href=http://ethnoring.com>entheogenic trade ring</a> for people to understand the spiritual nature of these plants.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm astonished of the enormous amount of acid and pot heads running in this world
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat do you do when your tendons of one of your muscle are injured? Are you using some mind-altering psychedelics? Of course they are not the same but neurons and accessories resemble a little bit.
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