Drugs like LSD and Ecstasy 'could help terminally ill'

E-llusion

E-llusion

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Psychedelic drugs such as LSD and Ecstasy could be used to help patients with terminal illness and mental disorders, if scientific trials prove successful.
Little research has been carried out into the potential benefits of hallucinogens since they came to prominence in the 1960s.

But scientists are now beginning to explore their capabilities in relation to a wide range of illnesses and conditions.

The first clinical trial involving LSD since the 1970s began in Switzerland in June with the aim of using "psychedelic psychotherapy" to help terminally ill patients come to terms with imminent death to improve the quality of their remaining life.

Eight subjects will receive 200 micrograms of LSD - enough to induce a powerful psychedelic experience - and four will be given 20 micrograms. They will then be assessed for anxiety levels, quality of life and pain levels.

Researchers are also investigating Ecstasy, the street name for MDMA, as a possible treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

The active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, has shown promising results in helping people who are dying from cancer.

A study by Charles Grob, professor of psychiatry at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Centre, involved giving a psilocybin treatment to 12 patients. One, Pamela Sakuda, who has colorectal cancer and had lost hope, reported reaching an "epiphany" when she realised during the treatment that her fear of the disease was destroying the time she had left.

The research, which has yet to be published, follows work at the John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, in which 36 healthy volunteers aged 24 to 64 were given psilocybin then observed in the laboratory.

When they were interviewed again 14 months later 58 per cent rated the experience among the five most personally meaningful of their lives and 64 per cent said it had increased their well-being.

Prof Roland Griffiths, who published the study, told the Guardian: "The working hypothesis is that if psilocybin or LSD can occasion these experiences of great personal meaning and spiritual significance ... then it would allow [patients with terminal illnesses] hopefully to face their own demise completely differently - to restructure some of the psychological angst that so often occurs concurrently with severe disease."
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Drugs like LSD and Ecstasy 'could help terminally ill'

By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 12:51PM BST 12 Aug 2008

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2545731/Drugs-like-LSD-and-Ecstasy-could-help-terminally-ill.html
 
At last a bit of common sense in the world :).

It makes perfect sense to me that psyches could be of huge benefit to, for example, terminally ill patients. They're certainly of huge benefit for the rest of us so why should the terminally ill be left out :D.

I only hope that the researchers involved are allowed to continue and extend their work as I truly believe that the benefits to patients could be enormous. I can't imagine being in such a position, but if I were to ever find myself there, I would certainly be looking sort my head out before the off with some useful LSD/MDMA therapy. I can't imagine much that would be more effective at putting things into a more manageable perspective.
 
E-llusion said:
The research, which has yet to be published, follows work at the John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, in which 36 healthy volunteers aged 24 to 64 were given psilocybin then observed in the laboratory.

When they were interviewed again 14 months later 58 per cent rated the experience among the five most personally meaningful of their lives and 64 per cent said it had increased their well-being.
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That's a pretty interesting stat right there.
 
Fuck that noise. Having done both psilocybin and LSD in the early 70's I can definitely say that I do not want to be tripping balls on my deathbed. MDMA may be different. I have never tried it.

This isn't going anywhere until the LSD is dropped IMO. No one will back that.

I mean if you think lying in bed watching the room breath and do other tricks is a good time then be my guest. I'll definitely pass. And that is if you don't get any 'boogymen' coming to haunt you.I'm 50 now and most people lose that 'adventurous phase' when you can handle that sort of shit. Those 'epiphanies' are few and far between. I tend to get that sort of introspection on weed more than any psychedelic I've ever done. Maybe the dose was too high ( pun intended).

A nice cocaine/strong opiate cocktail on the other hand. There used to be a thing called the Brompton (I believe) cocktail which was essentially heroin,cocaine and booze that was used in terminal patients at one time.
 
edarrin said:
Fuck that noise. Having done both psilocybin and LSD in the early 70's I can definitely say that I do not want to be tripping balls on my deathbed.
(...)
Maybe the dose was too high
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Yep, maybe your dose was too high.

.... I'm guessing they aren't giving them "tripping balls" amounts of LSD. The threshold at which you start having experiences doesn't immediately throw you down the rabbit hole; if you don't overdo it, there are many grades of mind-altering experiences that you can have without watching the walls breathe.
 
^^
200μg is certainly a very hallucinogenic dose!! these days most blotters are between 50μg and 70μg (even if your dealer assures you its 150μg)

giving someone that much LSD is going to give them a full on trip 8o
 
Yep, maybe your dose was too high
Click to expand...


Perhaps. Back then sometimes 1/2 a blotter would have those effects I discribed.

And the purple mics...those were good. But not deathbed material. Maybe a lower measured dose would not be so potentially panic inducing.
 
I would not be the extremely well adjusted and happily insane person I am today without the medicinal aid of LSD that I started administering at 14, in fact I would probably not even be here with you all tonight.

I would most definitely take LSD under the right circumstances if I was in another spiritual crisis. And as it stands the walls breathe and contort on their own, so being on my deathbed and having that experience would not alarm me, in fact I expect my audio and visual "hallucinations" to naturally increase as I get older. I welcome it.

I've had many ridiculous diagnonsenses since I was a kid, taken many pills and talked to many stone walls who called themselves "therapists." LSD was one of the only teachers that helped me to integrate my own reality into this one.
 
I cant imagine a better treatment for the terminally ill than ecstasy. The power it has to make you feel at peace with everything is very unique. It seems like a no-brainer to me.

If you've ever seen Ecstasy Rising they have a clip of a terminally ill cancer patient talking about her use of ecstasy before it became illegal. She reported that one dose of MDMA helped her come to terms with her illness.

I dont think E and LSD shouldnt be sold over the counter, but to not have them be available through a doctor to these types of people is a crime.
 
i think that the article left out the experiences of the patients outside of the 58% that described it as helpful. I support psychedelic therapy, but if the other 42% is having negative experiences we should take that into account. This lack of information kind of gives a limited perspective on the issue, especially since ~ 60-40 ratio wouldn't suit the common person, especially if it is currently not an accepted method.
 
I've had many ridiculous diagnonsenses since I was a kid, taken many pills and talked to many stone walls who called themselves "therapists." LSD was one of the only teachers that helped me to integrate my own reality into this one.
Click to expand...
A-fucking-men. I probably wouldn't be here today if not for psychedelics. Having been completely and utterly anhedonic for at least 10 years, psychedelics (particularly LSD), have allowed me to experience something I had never known before: contentment.
 
god bless these brilliant researchers and thier wonderfull work<3 <3 <3
i look foward to the day that these substances are wideley recognised as true gifts to humanity:)
 
L would be better for people who aren't terminally ill but may have a permenant disorder that they need to live and cope with. MDMA would be perfect for terminally ill patients, and i mean PERFECT>
 
I agree with enoughorangejuice?. LSD would work better for someone to cope with a permenant disability than to cope with shur death. But MDMA....thats the drug to help you look at life in a more positive way when knowing death is shur to come soon. In some ways LSD might be able to work like that to, since it has the ability to alter ones mindset enough to change there outlook on things. But in ways LSD could just trigger a physcotic depressed reaction and leave one in a sad state. The epiphany of bad trips .
 
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