Will LSD ever be accepted as mainstream treatment?
Bartlett says it’s inevitable that the more science demonstrates the medical benefits of psychedelics, the more healthy people will want to take them as well…”it was what brought the house down in the 60s,” according to Carhart-Harris. “A lot of people may have missed out from effective treatment because of recklessness with compounds that should be treated with an appropriate level of respect.”
Since the results were published in 2006 there have been more than a dozen research projects involving psychedelics…it could lead to a revolution in the way addiction, anxiety and depression are treated. For the past decade and a half, academics around the world have been studying whether psychedelic substances that cause hallucinations, changes in perception and mind-altering states could have medical benefits.” The sample sizes of the studies have often been very small, but the results have been striking enough to lead to calls for larger scale research. A Johns Hopkins team found the drug dramatically reduced anxiety among people with terminal cancer. Another study of 15 life-long smokers found that 80% had given up smoking after three psilocybin sessions. It could be “an enormous aid in psychotherapy, particularly illnesses associated with very rigid thought patterns, like depression, anxiety, addiction and OCD, because LSD produces a looser form of consciousness”, according to Amanda Fielding, head of The Beckley Foundation, which promotes drug policy reform. This history of psychedelics, however, means they are never likely to be treated as just another substance.
Original Article (BBC):
Will LSD ever be accepted as mainstream treatment?
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