Sunday, March 13, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
LSD makes a comeback as a possible clinical treatment
Excerpt:
The preliminary study picks up where investigators left off. It
explores the possible therapeutic effects of the drug on the intense
anxiety experienced by patients with life-threatening disease, such as cancer.
A number of the hundreds of studies conducted on lysergic acid
diethylamide-25 from the 1940s into the 1970s (many of poor quality by
contemporary standards) delved into the personal insights the drug
supplied that enabled patients to reconcile themselves with their own
mortality. In recent years some researchers have studied psilocybin (the
active ingredient in “magic mushrooms”) and MDMA (Ecstasy), among
others, as possible treatments for this “existential anxiety,” but not
LSD.
Gasser, head of the Swiss Medical Society for Psycholytic Therapy,
which he joined after his own therapist-administered LSD experience, has
only recently begun to discuss his research, revealing the challenges
of studying psychedelics. The $190,000 study approved by Swiss medical
authorities, was almost entirely funded by the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies, a U.S. nonprofit that sponsors
research toward the goal of making psychedelics and marijuana into
prescription drugs. Begun in 2008, the study intends to treat 12
patients (eight who will receive LSD and four a placebo). Finding
eligible candidates has been difficult—after 18 months only five
patients had been recruited, and just four had gone through the trial’s
regimen of a pair of all-day sessions. “Because LSD is not a usual
treatment, an oncologist will not recommend it to a patient,” Gasser
laments.
The patients who received the drug found the experience aided them
emotionally, and none experienced panic reactions or other untoward
events. One patient, Udo Schulz, told the German weekly Der Spiegel
that the therapy with LSD helped him overcome anxious feelings after
being diagnosed with stomach cancer, and the experience with the drug
aided his reentry into the workplace.
The trials follow a strict protocol—“all LSD treatment sessions will
begin at 11 a.m.”—and the researchers are scrupulous about avoiding
mistakes that, at times, occurred during older psychedelic trials, when
investigators would leave subjects alone during a drug session. Both
Gasser and a female co-therapist are present throughout the eight-hour
sessions that take place in quiet, darkened rooms, with emergency
medical equipment close at hand. Before receiving LSD, subjects have to
undergo psychological testing and preliminary psychotherapy sessions.
Another group is also pursuing LSD research. The British-based
Beckley Foundation is funding and collaborating on a 12-person pilot
study at the University of California, Berkeley, that is assessing how
the drug may foster creativity and what changes in neural activity go
along with altered conscious experience induced by the chemical. Whether
LSD will one day become the drug of choice for psychedelic
psychotherapy remains in question because there may be better solutions.
“We chose psilocybin over LSD because it is gentler and generally less
intense,” says Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at the
University of California, Los Angeles, who conducted a trial to test
psilocybin’s effects on anxiety in terminal cancer patients. Moreover,
“it is associated with fewer panic reactions and less chance of paranoia
and, most important, over the past half a century psilocybin has
attracted far less negative publicity and carries far less cultural
baggage than LSD.”
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
LSD in Hollywood in the 1950s
This is a long and very interesting article detailing the history of LSD in Hollywood in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Warning: LSD turns hot dogs into screaming trolls with 7 children!
Watch the video
Far out.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Cary Grant loved LSD
"I knew Cary Grant very well and he loved ... what did they call it? Acid! LSD. He said he liked to take the trip." - Debbie Reynolds
"I learned many things in the quiet of that room ... I
learned that everything is or becomes its own opposite ... You know, we are all
unconsciously holding our anus. In one LSD dream ... I imagined myself as a
giant penis launching off from earth like a spaceship." - Cary Grant
The secret history of psychedelic psychiatry
ON August 15th, 1951, an outbreak of hallucinations, panic attacks and psychotic episodes swept through the town of Saint-Pont-Esprit
in southern France, hospitalizing dozens of its inhabitants and leaving
five people dead. Doctors concluded that the incident occurred because
bread in one of the town's bakeries had been contaminated with ergot, a
toxic fungus that grows on rye. But according to investigative
journalist Hank Albarelli, the
CIA had actually dosed the bread with d-lysergic acid diethylamide-25
(LSD), an extremely potent hallucinogenic drug derived from ergot, as
part of a mind control research project.
Although we may never learn the truth behind the
events at Saint-Pont-Esprit, it is now well known that the United States
Army experimented with LSD on willing and unwilling military personnel
and civilians. Less well known is the work of a group of psychiatrists
working in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, who pioneered the use
of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism, and claimed that it produced
unprecedented rates of recovery. Their findings were soon brushed under
the carpet, however, and research into the potential therapeutic effects
of psychedelics was abruptly halted in the late 1960s, leaving a
promising avenue of research unexplored for some 40 years.
...
Continue reading at the link above.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Psychedelic Drugs Show Promise as Anti-Depressants: Scientific American
...
The August 18 review, by psychiatrist Franz Vollenweider and
neuropsychologist Michael Kometer of the University Hospital of
Psychiatry in Zurich, proposes that various psychedelics' interaction
with the receptors for the neurotransmitter serotonin
may prove key to understanding their beneficial—and
mind-bending—effects. "Psychedelics activate neuronal networks and the
glutamate system that are implicated in the regulation of emotion,"
Vollenweider says, noting that their hallucinogenic effects can be
impeded by blocking specific serotonin receptors in the brain (known as
5-HT2A). Psychedelics typically boost serotonin and may also boost the
release of glutamate, according to the review authors, another
neurotransmitter that has been linked to short-term but long-lasting
brain functions such as learning and memory. More glutamate also has an
impact on synapses. "This might result in an increased number and
function of spine synapses in the prefrontal cortex," Vollenweider says.
...
New studies into hallucinogens and mental health
LSD and ketamine, two powerful hallucinogens, are also potential cures
for depression, OCD, and anxiety. Two studies published this week, in Science and Nature, confirm that hallucinogenic drugs stimulate healthy brain activity, even promoting the growth of neurons.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Mental Health Benefits of LSD
A growing number of people are taking LSD and other psychedelic drugs such as cannabis and ecstasy to help them cope with a variety of conditions including anorexia nervosa, cluster headaches and chronic anxiety attacks.
The emergence of a community that passes the drugs between users on the basis of friendship, support and need – with money rarely involved – comes amid a resurgence of research into the possible therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. This is leading to a growing optimism among those using the drugs that soon they may be able to obtain medicines based on psychedelics from their doctor, rather than risk jail for taking illicit drugs.
...
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