It appears we have isolated the active
ingredient and are able to fully manage the dose. From this work, it appears that it stabilizes
the mind. This is counter intuitive and
surprising, but patients who are traumatized by devastating information or
suffering from depression are suddenly restored to balance.
This also reveals an
hypothesis. That mental illness is a
form of chronic imbalance that may be simply curable. We are most familiar with mental illness
derived from physical trauma, that is often incurable, but illness derived from
emotional stress is hardly so well identified.
Thus a revisitation of such an emotional stressor will often trigger an
out of balance response which is clearly difficult to mange or even identify.
We may actually have a solid
working therapy here to assist in the rebalancing of the problem and perhaps
even curing the problem.
Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say
By Zachary
Roth
The hallucinogen in magic mushrooms may no longer just be for hippies
seeking a trippy high.
Researchers at Johns
Hopkins University
School of Medicine have
been studying the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in some psychedelic
mushrooms, that's credited with inducing transcendental states. Now, they
say, they've zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative
mystical and spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing
benefits, while carrying little risk of negative reactions.
The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin--long
viewed skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural
thrill-seekers--for a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the
anxiety of terminally ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic
stress disorder, and helping smokers quit. Already, studies in which depressed
cancer patients were given the drug have reported positive results. "I'm
not afraid to die anymore" one participant told The Lookout.
The Johns Hopkins study--whose results will be published this week in
the journal Psychopharmacology--involved giving healthy volunteers varying
doses of psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate
sessions. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants
rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of
their lifetimes.
More important, 89 percent reported lasting, positive changes in
their behavior--better relationships with others, for instance, or increased
care for their own mental and physical well-being. Those assessments were
corroborated by family members and others.
"I think my heart is more open to all interactions with other
people," one volunteer reported in a questionnaire given to participants
14-months after their session.
"I feel that I relate better in my marriage," wrote another.
"There is more empathy -- a greater understanding of people, and
understanding their difficulties, and less judgment."
Identifying the exact right dosage for hallucinogenic drugs is crucial,
Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins who led the study,
explained to The Lookout.
That's because a "bad trip" can trigger hazardous,
self-destructive behavior, but low doses don't produce the kind of
transformative experiences that can offer long-term benefits. By trying a range
of doses, Griffiths
said, researchers were able to find the sweet spot, "where a high or
intermediate dose can produce, fairly reliably, these mystical experiences,
with very low probability of a significant fear reaction."
In the 1950s and '60s, scientists became interested in the potential
effects of hallucinogens like psilocybin, mescaline, and lysergic acid
diethylamide (LSD) on both healthy and terminally ill people. Mexican Indians
had, since ancient times, used psychedelic mushrooms with similar chemical
structures to achieve intense spiritual experiences. But by the mid '60s,
counterculture gurus like Dr. Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley were talking up
mind-altering drugs as a way of expanding one's consciousness and rejecting
mainstream society. Stories, perhaps apocryphal, circulated about people
jumping out of windows while on LSD, and some heavy users were said to have
suffered permanent psychological damage. By the early '70s, the US
government had essentially banned all hallucinogenic drugs.
But recent years have seen the beginning of a revival of mainstream
scientific interest in mind-altering drugs, and particularly in the possibility
of using them in a clinical setting to alleviate depression and anxiety. A
2004 study
by the government of Holland (pdf) found psilocybin to have no
significant negative effects.
Here in the United
States , too, the climate may be shifting. In
a statement accompanying the announcement of the Johns Hopkins findings, Jerome
Jaffe, a former White House drug czar now at the University of Maryland School
of Medicine, said the results raise the question of whether psilocybin could
prove useful "in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by
some terminal patients?"
The hope is that the long-lasting spiritual and transcendental
experiences associated with psilocybin could--if conducted in a controlled and
supportive setting, and with appropriate dosage levels--help ease patients'
fear and anxiety, allowing them to approach death with a greater sense of calm.
(You can see one terminally ill cancer patient speak movingly about the
positive effects of psilocybin here.)
But Griffiths
said his study, under way for three years, has only recruited 20 patients, in
part because oncologists are more interested in curing cancer than helping
patients cope with its effects, so they don't refer provide many referrals.
"Most oncologists just don't get it," he said. "It's not the
focus of their research, and they're busy people."
But the experience of one volunteer in Griffiths 's study offers a glimpse of the
potential benefits. Lauri Reamer, 47, told The Lookout that she
participated in two Johns Hopkins psilocybin sessions last September, not long
after ending intensive chemotherapy and radiation to treat a rare form of
leukemia that, several times in the preceding few years, had almost taken her
life.
Reamer, an anesthesiologist from Ruxton ,
Md. , with three young daughters,
said that although her disease was in remission by that time, she was still
suffering psychologically from the trauma of the illness and the treatment. She
had walled herself off emotionally, she said, and was unable to show empathy
for others or even for herself.
The psilocybin had an immediate impact. "At the end of the session,
I was just in this joyous, happy, relaxed state," she said. "The drug
was gone--what was left was just this peaceful calm."
That calm had lasting benefits. Reamer said the experience--what she
called "an epiphany"--gave her the impetus to get out of a failing
marriage. Since doing so, she said, both she and her daughters have been much
happier.
"I don't think it was the drug that did it," she said.
"It was the drug that helped me find the clarity."
That's not the only improvement. "My sleeping has gotten better.
My relationships have gotten better with people," she said. "The fog
has lifted."
"The best thing it did for me was heal me psychologically and
emotionally and allow me to be back in my kids' lives, be back to being a
mother," Reamer concluded. As she spoke, she was taking her
daughters--two 15-year old twins, and a 6-year-old--on a trip to Hershey Park.
And although doctors tell her that, thanks to the effect of the illness
and the treatment, she likely has only 10 or 15 years to live, she's able to
approach that challenge with equanimity.
"My fear of death kind of disappeared," she said. "I'm
not afraid to die anymore."
Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins, said Reamer's experience isn't an outlier
among the volunteers, both sick and healthy, who have tried psilocybin.
"People feel uplifted, and very often have a sense that everything is O.K.
at one level," he said. "That there's sense to be made out of the
chaos."
"When you see people undergoing that kind of transformation,"
he added, "it's really quite moving."
(Magic mushrooms at a farm in Hazerswoude ,
Netherlands ,
August, 2007:Â AP Photo/Peter Dejong)
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