Politics of Psychedelic Research

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Abstract

Research with psychedelic drugs in the 1950s-1970s brought us fundamental understanding of how the brain works (including such concepts as "serotonin" and "receptors"). Many thousands of papers were published on experiments using LSD, psilocybin and other mind-altering drugs in humans. Anti-counterculture politics from the late '60s brought that research to a halt, worldwide. In the 1990s and 2000s, perseverence has again won scientists the right to use these substances to understand and treat the mind. Today, doctors are giving MDMA,psilocybin, and soon LSD to patients in ongoing clinical trials. The new focus is on proving that these drugs can help to cure otherwise intractable conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress, fear of death in cancer patients, and cluster headaches.Both safety and efficacy are being studied, and if the formal results match the informal results, doctors will be able to prescribe these medicines within the next decade. By creating contexts in which these drugs can be safely taken, it may eventually be possible for healthy people to legally use them for insight, sacred use, and enjoyment.

Medical use of marijuana is ancient, but has been revived in thelast decade, starting in California. Public compassion for the illis producing tolerance of the formerly illegal drug. Ten US statesallow the legal medical use of marijuana, and solid 70% majoritiesfavor it throughout the US. Most politicians hate the issue, butsome are rising to regional prominence by supporting it and ridingits popularity. Tens of thousands of patients are getting relief.Many rural police refuse to follow the law and harass patients, andfederal cops, courts, and bureaucrats are dead-set against it. Butpersonal experience with patients is teaching ordinary Americansthat what they believed about marijuana was false. Turns out thegovernment was lying and the marijuana activists were more credible.The result is rising tolerance for all kinds of marijuana use.

Speakers

• John Gilmore

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