Home | Community | Message Board


This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Kraken Kratom Kratom Capsules for Sale   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Bridgetown Botanicals Bridgetown Botanicals   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds   Mushroom-Hut Mono Tub Substrate

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
OfflineYthanA
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Male User Gallery

Registered: 08/08/97
Posts: 18,817
Loc: NY/MA/VT Borderlands Flag
Last seen: 6 hours, 33 minutes
We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression * 4
    #26733604 - 06/10/20 06:37 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression
www.theguardian.com

The world is experiencing a devastating physical health emergency. But the coronavirus pandemic has also seen a renewed focus on our psychological wellbeing. Loneliness, uncertainty and grief may be intensifying an already acute mental health crisis, and in the US there has been a 20% spike in the number of prescriptions for antidepressant and anti-anxiety drugs during lockdown. Demand for key antidepressants is threatening to exceed supply in the UK – where prescriptions have already more than doubled over the last decade.

I head the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College London, the first of its kind, supported by about £3m in philanthropic donations. For 15 years, my research has focused on how drugs such as LSD, psilocybin, DMT and MDMA work in the brain, and how they may be useful in treating disorders such as depression. Like the present pandemic, a psychedelic drug experiences can be transformative – of the individual – and of society. Both illuminate the extent to which the condition of the world we inhabit is dependent on our own behaviours. And these, in turn, are a consequence of how we feel, think and perceive.

The Centre was founded in April 2019. A few months later, Johns Hopkins University in the US announced a supersized version, floated by $17m. If you have read Michael Pollan’s book How to Change Your Mind or seen the first episode of Gwyneth Paltrow’s Netflix series, The Goop Lab (titled The Healing Trip), you may be aware that such developments reflect a rising interest, and investment, in the mental health application of psychedelic drugs.

One reason for this is that a decades-long struggle to resurrect medical research in the area is beginning to bear fruit. In London, we have spearheaded work showing how psilocybin ( or “magic mushrooms”) can be used to assist psychotherapy for difficult-to-treat depression, making a significant difference when conventional antidepressants and talking therapy have not. Right now, we are crunching data from a much larger depression trial that compares psilocybin-assisted therapy with a six-week course of a conventional antidepressant drug, a “Prozac-like” selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). Preliminary analyses indicate game-changing results.

There hasn’t been a breakthrough in mental healthcare for some time, and psychedelic therapy works very differently to current treatments. Conventional drug treatments have dominated psychiatry for decades, and although many people prefer psychotherapy, it is more expensive, harder to access and arguably no more effective than the drugs.

These drugs haven’t changed much since their discovery, and come with side effects that put people off taking them. Where SSRIs are concerned, their antidepressant action seems to rely on a moderation of the stress response – but it is a palliative rather than curative action, which requires having the chemical in the body for several months or longer.

Psychedelic therapy is a much more comprehensive treatment package. It entails a small number of psychologically supported dosing sessions, flanked by assessment, preparation, and integration (talking through one’s experience afterwards). Psychedelics appear to increase brain “plasticity”, which, broadly speaking, implies an accelerated ability to change.

One view is that a psychedelic experience is a consequence of an especially intense surge of plasticity that opens a window of opportunity for lasting therapeutic change. The same windows may open up during other extreme states, such as experiencing trauma, stress-induced breakdown, a spontaneous spiritual experience or coming close to death. The difference with psychedelic therapy, however, is that the experience is carefully prepared for, contained and mediated. If not done this way, the use of psychedelics can be dangerous.

The impact of successful psychedelic therapy is often one of revelation or epiphany. People speak of witnessing “the bigger picture”, placing things in perspective, accessing deep insight about themselves and the world, releasing pent-up mental pain, feeling emotionally and physically recalibrated, clear-sighted and equanimous. This is very different from people’s descriptions of the effects of SSRIs, where a contrasting feeling of being emotionally muted is not uncommon. It would be premature to disclose the findings of our head-to-head trial prior to proper scientific review, but on top of impressive tolerability and antidepressant effects with psilocybin-assisted therapy, we are seeing remarkable changes in patient-relevant outcomes. These include increased quality of life, “flourishing” (feeling well rather than just “not depressed”), the ability to feel pleasure again and normal sexual functioning. The value of something new and different is often hard to gauge until it is placed alongside something more familiar, and our new study does this.

Those driving efforts to get psilocybin therapy licensed hope to be able to market it across North America and Europe within the next five years. As was the case with medicinal cannabis, however, it is quite possible that use could begin to scale up prior to formal licensing. Before Covid-19, a small but buoyant market existed for plant-based psychedelic retreats or ceremonies in pockets of Europe, as well as Central and South America. There have been a number of initiatives to liberalise policies on psychedelic use in the US, and the most ambitious is the psilocybin service initiative in Oregon, which aims to phase in legal, regulated psilocybin therapy through Oregon’s health system, from this year. Whatever one’s view on these developments, allying them with research is imperative if we are to advance scientific understanding, and ultimately inform and safeguard the individual.

Despite this progress, the idea of “psychedelics for mental health” will be petrol on flames for some. Stigma is attached to both mental illness and psychedelics, and so full entry into the mainstream won’t go unchallenged (and rightly so). If the 1960s is anything to go by, there may be passions to temper at both ends of the spectrum, as psychedelics evangelisers could stoke as much trouble as opponents – which is why a dispassionate, scientific approach is so important.

Like all tourism, the psychedelic variety will have taken a big hit in the pandemic, but it is unclear whether home use has been affected, either in prevalence or quality. “Hardly the best time for a trip,” one might think – but psychedelics are sensitive to the slippery subtleties of context. Many of the insights these compounds awaken are of a Buddhist sort, and although timelessly relevant, they feel particularly so today: the self as illusory, suffering as inevitable, attachment as a common cause of suffering, impermanence as fundamental, and slowing down, contemplation, breath, and community as potent resources.

Sars-Cov-2 is a virus that attacks the respiratory system and can kill. We all breathe, and we will all die, but our instinct is to forget and escape these truths. Two of this pandemic’s silver linings are that it has invited an expanded consciousness – and that people have slowed down. Many will have noticed their breath, contemplated their own and other’s impermanence, and felt grateful for care, love and life. If psychedelic therapy does fulfil its potential, it will be providing the same essential lessons. The extent to which we listen will be up to us.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibletyrannicalrex
Strange R
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/24/03
Posts: 38,331
Loc: subtropics
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: Ythan]
    #26733653 - 06/10/20 07:19 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

YES! I am lovin' it! So glad to see that serious research and people are being implemented in psychedelics.


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineStable Genius
Radicalised
 User Gallery

Registered: 09/26/18
Posts: 6,230
Loc: Wide Bay Orstralia
Last seen: 2 days, 3 hours
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: tyrannicalrex]
    #26750819 - 06/17/20 06:34 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

This was on tonight's news.
Veteran's Affairs are seriously looking at the use of psychedelics in treating front line defense force personnel with severe treatment resistant PTSD etc.




Also, from February this year regarding the Aus psilocybin trial.
Chief Investigator and clinical psychologist at the Psilocybin Palliative Care trial at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne Dr Margaret Ross says,

Quote:

The findings that they've generated recently with psychedelic research has been unparalleled in psychiatry.
We've never seen anything like this in terms of the most rapid and dramatic reduction of symptoms of alleviating patients suffering.





Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibletyrannicalrex
Strange R
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/24/03
Posts: 38,331
Loc: subtropics
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: Stable Genius]
    #26751011 - 06/17/20 08:27 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

Hell yeah!:heart:


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineFractal420
Psycellium
Male User Gallery


Registered: 06/21/13
Posts: 5,913
Last seen: 10 months, 13 days
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: tyrannicalrex]
    #26753769 - 06/18/20 09:16 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

Especially in the middle of a much ignored mental health crisis, since the pandemic is the overarching problem

It’s either that or a huge uptick in SSRI prescriptions, which would suck


--------------------
Dreaming of That face again.
It's bright and blue and shimmering.
Grinning wide
And comforting me with it's three warm and wild eyes.

Prying open MY third eye


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisibletyrannicalrex
Strange R
Male User Gallery


Registered: 04/24/03
Posts: 38,331
Loc: subtropics
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: Fractal420]
    #26753891 - 06/18/20 10:01 AM (3 years, 9 months ago)

Well you know the pharma companies are going to profit from this in every facet.:sad::mad2::scat:


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Invisiblebadchad
Mad Scientist

Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,377
Re: We can no longer ignore the potential of psychedelic drugs to treat depression [Re: tyrannicalrex]
    #26754216 - 06/18/20 12:16 PM (3 years, 9 months ago)

They will, but they will also only get exclusivity for 5-7 years, then generics will emerge.

The extensive psychotherapy involved will be quite interesting.  I wonder if those methods will be able to be controlled somehow.


--------------------
...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge.  It is an indellible experience; it is forever known.  I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did.

Smith, P.  Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27.

...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely.

Osmond, H.  Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Kraken Kratom Kratom Capsules for Sale   PhytoExtractum Buy Bali Kratom Powder   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order   Left Coast Kratom Buy Kratom Extract   North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Bridgetown Botanicals Bridgetown Botanicals   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds   Mushroom-Hut Mono Tub Substrate


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* Are psychedelic drugs good for you? motamanM 7,388 6 12/03/03 04:44 AM
by sirreal
* Sacred Sexuality and the Psychedelic Experience motamanM 16,524 3 02/22/09 12:02 AM
by veggie
* Discoverer of LSD Urges Medical Use of the Drug baraka 5,302 7 09/20/20 09:26 PM
by nektar61
* Teens Turn Legal Plant Into Dangerous Drug motamanM 5,646 17 11/25/03 07:34 AM
by EvilGir
* Discover Magazine article on psychedelics HB 7,180 5 03/23/03 07:05 AM
by DazedSol
* Portugal Decriminalizes Drug Use!!!! GGreatOne234 7,098 5 06/18/15 08:08 PM
by Learyfan
* Misuse of Pain Drug Linked to Hearing Loss motamanM 3,403 3 11/12/17 12:28 PM
by CookieCrumbs
* Canada - Pot charge rejected in potential landmark case ThorA 3,730 3 01/03/03 04:17 AM
by thecannuck

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: motaman, veggie, Alan Rockefeller, Mostly_Harmless
1,845 topic views. 0 members, 6 guests and 8 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.024 seconds spending 0.006 seconds on 14 queries.