slimvictor
Bluelight Crew
Channel 4, controversially, is going to broadcast an experiment to investigate whether MDMA can be used as a treatment for depression. Seeing as it's only been a month since the same channel broadcast a live, uninterrupted " rave" to celebrate the history of dance culture, so it might seem like just another gimmick, but the organisers stress that it's a real experiment.
Some of the participants -- which include actor Keith Allen and former MP Dr Evan Harris, alongside a vicar and a former member of the SAS -- will be given the drug, while some will be given placebo pills. Their brains will be scanned using an MRI machine to determine whether there's a threshold that could provide people with relief from depression without making them high. The whole thing will be overseen by Professor David Nutt, the former UK government drug adviser who was sacked for pointing out that drug policy rarely follows the conclusions of scientific evidence.
MDMA -- or methylenedioxymethamphetamine, known to most as ecstasy -- is a class A drug in the United Kingdom, meaning that under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 supplying the drug could lead to as much as life imprisonment. In practice, Channel 4 is unlikely to find itself prosecuted for the programme (even if, unlike countries like Switzerland or the Netherlands, experiments using such drugs are generally banned). Critics have decried Channel 4's decision to publicise drug-taking, potentially glamorising it.
Harris isn't the first minister to volunteer for something like this, though. In 1955, Christopher Mayhew (then MP for Woolwich East) agreed to a request from an old school friend, Dr Humphry Osmond, to appear on an episode of Panorama where he was given a 400mg dose of mescaline. Humphry, a psychologist with a keen interest in the therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, was both the coiner of the term "psychedelic" and the one to give Aldous Huxley a dose of mescaline in 1953 -- a trip that Huxley would recount in his book The Doors of Perception.
Mayhew, happy to help his old friend with a project, sat in a drab room with Humphry and drank the mescaline dose. Mescaline, derived from cacti, has been used for thousands of years by civilisations that have valued it for the supposed mystical insights it provides. Mayhew, a man unused to such substances, has an interesting time trying to explain to Humphry (and the viewer) what happens:
Watch the video of the 1953 TV show and read the rest of the article, including transcripts of the show, at:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/19/drugs-on-tv
Some of the participants -- which include actor Keith Allen and former MP Dr Evan Harris, alongside a vicar and a former member of the SAS -- will be given the drug, while some will be given placebo pills. Their brains will be scanned using an MRI machine to determine whether there's a threshold that could provide people with relief from depression without making them high. The whole thing will be overseen by Professor David Nutt, the former UK government drug adviser who was sacked for pointing out that drug policy rarely follows the conclusions of scientific evidence.
MDMA -- or methylenedioxymethamphetamine, known to most as ecstasy -- is a class A drug in the United Kingdom, meaning that under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 supplying the drug could lead to as much as life imprisonment. In practice, Channel 4 is unlikely to find itself prosecuted for the programme (even if, unlike countries like Switzerland or the Netherlands, experiments using such drugs are generally banned). Critics have decried Channel 4's decision to publicise drug-taking, potentially glamorising it.
Harris isn't the first minister to volunteer for something like this, though. In 1955, Christopher Mayhew (then MP for Woolwich East) agreed to a request from an old school friend, Dr Humphry Osmond, to appear on an episode of Panorama where he was given a 400mg dose of mescaline. Humphry, a psychologist with a keen interest in the therapeutic potential of hallucinogenic drugs, was both the coiner of the term "psychedelic" and the one to give Aldous Huxley a dose of mescaline in 1953 -- a trip that Huxley would recount in his book The Doors of Perception.
Mayhew, happy to help his old friend with a project, sat in a drab room with Humphry and drank the mescaline dose. Mescaline, derived from cacti, has been used for thousands of years by civilisations that have valued it for the supposed mystical insights it provides. Mayhew, a man unused to such substances, has an interesting time trying to explain to Humphry (and the viewer) what happens:
Watch the video of the 1953 TV show and read the rest of the article, including transcripts of the show, at:
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-09/19/drugs-on-tv
