Research into psychedelic drugs has been undergoing a renaissance. In the past decade, preliminary trials with the likes of LSD have shown their promise as tools for understanding and treating mental illness.
Later this year, those testing psilocybin and MDMA are expected to recruit hundreds of people for the before their possible approval as medicines.
Yet more evidence of medical potential comes from studying people who used psychedelics outside of research settings. They have . Now we can chalk up more findings on this front for another possibility: using psychedelics to tackle opioid addiction.
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Research published last month, of which I was a part, shows that people who took psychedelics recreationally were less likely to become dependent on opioids ().
Opiate epidemic
The backdrop to this research is an epidemic of opiate-related overdose in the US, with deaths involving prescription painkillers and heroin topping those from homicides or car accidents.
The best currently available methods shown to lower fatal overdose rates include methadone and buprenorphine therapy, which reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms, but nearly half of those being treated this way still struggle to beat addiction. So you might hope further investigations will follow into the use of psychedelics for this.
However, because they remain criminalised, only research under tight government regulation is permitted. And the worry is the and the UK 鈥� where much of the progress towards the development of medical psychedelics has been made 鈥� may make even this limited research more vulnerable to pressure from those in power.
Despite the mountain of evidence highlighting the failure of the 鈥渨ar on drugs鈥� to reduce crime, addiction rates or drug-related death, elected officials in both countries continue to add to the trillions already spent on this approach.
Thousands of studies
Psychedelics became caught up in that war relatively recently. From 1950 to the mid-1960s, before most of society became aware of these drugs, thousands of medical studies using them were conducted on tens of thousands of people with psychiatric conditions. To claim that researchers were on the cusp of an unprecedented revolution in psychopharmacology is hardly an exaggeration.
But then the popular idea that these drugs could invoke feelings of unity and oneness, consciousness expansion and a deepened sense of spiritual and personal development saw them embraced by a culturally progressive, anti-war and anti-authority social movement.
However, recreational users were less aware of the potential risks, leading to psychedelic-related hospitalisations. These, coupled with a fear of further cultural upheaval, led to the US banning this class of drugs in 1970.
Today, the that swirled around Donald Trump鈥檚 election campaign and the UK鈥檚 expansion of drug bans could undo much of the progress made in dismantling prohibition and expanding permission for psychedelic research.
We are on the brink of a lot of promising applications for these drugs. I can only hope that the resurgence of strong scientific investigation and growing research evidence means a medical revolution may yet triumph over the threat of continued oppression.
