there are groups such as the Beckley Foundation in England and the Russian Psychedelic Society. The efforts of two privately funded organizations have catalyzed much of the recent wave of research: MAPS, founded in 1986 by Doblin, and the Heffter Research Institute, started in 1993. Nichols of Purdue University adds, "Baby boomers who experienced the psychedelic sixties are now mature scientists and clinicians who have retained their curiosity but only recently had the opportunity to reexplore these substances." Also, senior researchers who were influenced by psychedelics in the sixties now are speaking up before they retire and have earned credibility." Chemist and neuropharmacologist David E. "FDA openness to research is really the key factor. Things began to change in 1990, when "open-minded regulators at the FDA decided to put science before politics when it came to psychedelic and medical marijuana research," says Rick Doblin, a public policy expert and head of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). This reaction not only made these substances illegal for personal use but also made it extremely difficult for researchers to get government approval to study them. Their disappearance was the result of a political backlash that followed the promotion of these drugs by the 1960s counterculture. īetween 19 there were no human studies with psychedelic drugs. Other investigators during this era found that LSD may have some interesting potential as a means to facilitate creative problem solving. The research suggested that psychedelics offered significant benefits: they helped recovering alcoholics abstain, soothed the anxieties of terminal cancer patients, and eased the symptoms of many difficult-to-treat psychiatric illnesses, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder.įor example, between 19 studies in terminal cancer patients by psychiatrist Stanislav Grof and his colleagues at Spring Grove State Hospital in Baltimore showed that LSD combined with psychotherapy could alleviate symptoms of depression, tension, anxiety, sleep disturbances, psychological withdrawal and even severe physical pain. Fifteen years later, in 1958, he was the first to isolate psilocybin and psilocin-the psychoactive components of the Mexican magic mushroom, Psilocybe mexicana.īefore 1972, close to 700 studies with psychedelic drugs took place. In 1943 Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered the hallucinogenic effects of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals in Basel while studying ergot, a fungus that grows on rye. Psychedelic drug research began in 1897, when German chemist Arthur Heffter first isolated mescaline, the primary psychoactive compound in the peyote cactus. Though still in their preliminary stages, studies in humans suggest that the day when people can schedule a psychedelic session with their therapist to overcome a serious psychiatric problem may not be that far off. Much remains unclear about the precise neural mechanisms governing how these drugs produce their mind-bending results, but they often produce somewhat similar psychoactive effects that make them potential therapeutic tools. 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. 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. 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. Mind-altering psychedelics are back-but this time they are being explored in labs for their therapeutic applications rather than being used illegally.
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