Scientists suggest fresh look at psychedelic drugs
 

Scientists suggest fresh look at psychedelic drugs - Aug 2010
Combined with therapy, such substances could treat depression, chronic pain

LONDON ? Mind-altering drugs like LSD, ketamine or magic mushrooms could be combined with psychotherapy to treat people suffering from depression, compulsive disorders or chronic pain, Swiss scientists suggested on Wednesday. Research into the effects of psychedelics, used in the past in psychiatry, has been restricted in recent decades because of the negative connotations of drugs, but the scientists said more studies into their clinical potential were now justified.

The researchers said recent brain imaging studies show that psychedelics such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), ketamine and psilocybin ? the psychoactive component in recreational drugs known as magic mushrooms ? act on the brain in ways that could help reduce symptoms of various psychiatric disorders. The drugs could be used as a kind of catalyst, the scientists said, helping patients to alter their perception of problems or pain levels and then work with behavioral therapists or psychotherapists to tackle them in new ways.

"Psychedelics can give patients a new perspective ? particularly when things like suppressed memories come up ? and then they can work with that experience," said Franz Vollenweider of the Neuropsychopharmacology and brain imaging unit at Zurich's University Hospital of Psychiatry, who published a paper on the issue in Nature Neuroscience journal. Depending on the type of person taking the drug, the dose and the situation, psychedelics can have a wide range of effects, experts say, from feelings of boundlessness and bliss at one end of the spectrum to anxiety-inducing feelings of loss of control and panic at the other.

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:2 cents: Anxiously looking forward to the glorious return of LSD to the forefront. :rasta

Interesting read..

enlightened scientist

http://www.constructiveanarchy.com/b...rt-hofmann.jpg

This fella here (a good friend of my father's coincidentally) has been calling for a reconsideration of policy with respect to LSD for quite some time.... about 40 years, give or take.

It's the greatest substance ever accidentally created.

This is on one of my favorite shirts... Hoffman's bicycle ride

i was roommates with a fella in college back in the day that was studying this. it included psychoanalysis+lsd to take the patient back to their time in the womb, i think it also involved deep breathing. the thought was that the birth process is the most traumatic thing we go through.

ahh, here's the main text on this from those days, stanislas grof originally came up with psychoanalysis, lsd + holotropic breathing

http://www.amazon.com/LSD-Psychother.../dp/096600194X

interesting read

I always liked the phrase "you look like I'm on acid"...

I wonder how they determine the exact dosage / interesting reading

They will need to be certain the one they treat, can handle the death/life experience.
There is no life altering experience that even comes close,.. all about perspective and what one wishes to learn from the commitment. Many have known about this for hundreds of years and have not waited for the collective to make it acceptable. Grate minds do great drugs, weak minds find addiction, and other afflictions to blame for their bad wiring. Hope the professionals don't fuck it up again.