Magic Mushrooms Could Treat Depression And Addiction

Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 16:01

	By Robin Whitlock Follow @RobinWhitlock66

Psilocybe Semilanceata aka. Liberty Caps. A potent source of psilocybin.

Hippies throughout the western world will be interested in the findings of a new study which has discovered the benefits of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound responsible for Magic Mushrooms.

Scientists have found that the hallucinogenic active ingredient within the mushroom could help to treat a wide range of psychiatric disorders including depression, anxiety and addiction.

The study provides guidelines on how much of the substance should be taken in order to deliver maximum benefits with minimum risk. It also warns of the dangers of paranoia and delusions if a safe dose is exceeded.

One of the most interesting findings confirms the experiences of numerous mystics over the years. Researchers found that the second highest dose induced ‘mystical’ experiences which patients found to be intensely personally and spiritually beneficial but without any side-effects. Participants in the study taking this dose reported improvements in mood, attitude and behaviour that were confirmed by friends and family.

Additionally, the study showed a dramatic increase in "openness", one of the five catagories of the Revised Neo Personality Inventory.

Despite this, don’t bank on psilocybin becoming legal for general use just yet. As with other research projects of this type, more research needs to be conducted in order to determine how exactly the substance works on the human system and researchers maintained that even if the drug becomes available it will be on a prescription basis only to be administered by trained medical personnel.

So far, the way in which the drug works is not known.

"The model of it would never be, 'take two of these and call me in the morning,'" said Matthew Johnson, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Johns Hopkins University. "Someone having an adverse reaction might be so scared they might run across a highway and be hit by a car. We wouldn't encourage anyone to do these things in a non-supervised context."

Although the study is part-funded by the US National Institute on Drug Abuse, the drug is mainly being considered for use by terminally ill patients experiencing depression and anxiety as well as for those with hard-to-treat addictions such as alcoholism.

Scientific research on hallucinogenic substances has a long history, being conducted in the 1950’s with experiments using LSD which continued until the 1970’s according to Dr Charles Grob of Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre in California.

It was recreational use of the drugs that led to these experiments being stopped as public concern over rising drug abuse began to increase. In the new study, 51 volunteers received four doses of psilocybin during separate, eight-hour periods.

Many of the participants followed some form of spiritual practice and roughly half of them had completed post-graduate education. Two-thirds of the patients reported mystical experiences in response to the second highest dose which is believed to be the amount of greatest benefit to patients.

Only 5.6% reported feelings of fear or paranoia, but this jumped to 33% when the highest dose was administered. Nevertheless, these effects were short term and did not affect the volunteers after the session. The volunteers also reported feelings of well-being and life satisfaction up to one year later with 90% reporting ‘increased devotion to spiritual practice’.

Study author Roland R. Griffiths said "Now this finding is really quite fascinating. And that is because personality is considered a stable characteristic of the psychology of people. It's been thought to be relatively immutable, and stable across the lifespan."

Griffiths is a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at John Hopkins. “Remarkably, this study shows that psilocybin actually changes one domain of personality that is strongly related to traits such as imagination, feeling, abstract ideas and aesthetics, and is considered a core construct underlying creativity in general," he added. "And the changes we see appear to be long-term."

Dr Grob commented that the study demonstrated "under optimal conditions, they [magic mushrooms] can reliably induce mystical-level experiences, which in and of themselves appear to have a therapeutic potential."

Dr Stephen Ross, clinical director of the New York University Langone Centre of Excellence on Addiction commented that he thought Griffith’s work to be a ‘landmark’ in the field of hallucinogen research.

Psilocybin, with a LD50 of 280 mg/kg in rats (you would need roughly 17 KGs of fresh Psilocybe Semilanceata to reach a level of toxicity in a 60KG person) and an extremely low addiction rate, is considered to be one of the safest drugs known to man, making it less toxic or addictive than a cup of tea.

Psilocybin and the mushrooms containing it are classified as Class A Drugs, and possession can carry a sentence of up to 7 years in prison or an unlimited fine, or both. 

Relevant Links

Johns Hopkins University

Psilocybin Wikipedia