The realities of psychedelic research in today's political milieu

My interest in psychedelic research primarily involves the use of natural plants and fungus that have been used for millennia in a spiritual context.  However, the comments in the articles below are germane for anyone considering the use of psychedelic substances.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris is the first scientist in over 40 years to test LSD on humans - and you're next
Laurence Phelan 
The Independent Sunday 17 August 2014

"Depression and addictions rest on reinforced patterns of brain activity, and a psychedelic will introduce a relative chaos. Patterns that have become reinforced disintegrate under the drug. I've used the metaphor of shaking a snowglobe. And there's some evidence that psychedelics induce plasticity, in terms of neural connections in the brain, such that there is a window of opportunity in which connections can either be broken or reinforced. New things can be learnt at the same time that old things can be unlearnt. It induces a kind of suppleness of mind."

"The dangers with psychedelics – and there are potential dangers," says the doctor, " arise when they are taken without the proper caution. The model for how the drugs are taken therapeutically is very different from how people might take them recreationally. People are in a particularly sensitive and vulnerable state on psychedelics, and I do think you need that professionalism and structure to have it done properly."

"It is absurd to treat LSD and psilocybin as more dangerous than heroin," he tells me. In a 2010 study published in The Lancet, following on from the work that led to his controversial sacking from the chair of the Government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs the year before, Professor Nutt ranked the 20 most commonly used drugs according to the evidence for the overall amount of harm they do to the users and to society. Psilocybin came last, with an overall harm score of six, and LSD came 18th with a score of seven, compared with alcohol's 72 and heroin's 55.

No wonder the Czech psychiatrist Stanislav Grof, in 1975, predicted that "psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology or the telescope is for astronomy". Unfortunately, the effective prohibition of LSD research meant it was not to be. Perhaps Professor Nutt has Grof in mind when he says: "I think it's the worst censorship of research since the Catholic Church banned the telescope." He continues: "There's a lot of evidence for LSD being an efficacious treatment for things such as addiction. But no one's done a study on it for 50 years. This is outrageous."

Is LSD about to return to polite society?
For 40 years, Amanda Feilding, Countess of Wemyss and March, has believed psychedelics are an effective treatment for depression and anxiety. Now a growing number of scientists agree.
Ed Cummings
The Guardian Sunday 26 April 2015