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Psychedelic researcher says he believed LSD was dangerous ‘until I saw the science’
We are currently experiencing a “renaissance” in psychedelic research, as Michael Pollan writes in a recent issue of The New Yorker. Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin can be used to treat a range of mental health disorders, from anxiety and addiction to depression, and researchers at the nation’s leading medical schools are intent on discovering their full therapeutic potential.
Psilocybin is among a group of drugs labeled “classic psychedelics,” which also includes LSD, mescaline and DMT, and has been designated a Schedule I drug since Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act back in 1971. This classification—which defines a drug as having a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision—has made psychedelics very difficult to study in a laboratory setting.
But the last few years have witnessed a flood of new research in the field, beginning with a landmark study by Roland Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In his double-blind study, volunteers who were administered doses of psilocybin, under the close supervision of therapists, reported having life-altering experiences and long-term improvements in personal well-being, life satisfaction and “positive behavior change.” Two-thirds of participants said the session was one of the “most spiritually significant experiences of their lives.” Griffiths’ work has inspired many other experiments, including an ongoing New York University study in which advanced cancer patients undergo a psilocybin therapy session to help them manage end-of-life anxiety.
In a phone interview, I spoke with Peter Hendricks, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health, about the exciting advances happening in the field. Just last month, Hendricks and his colleagues published a study in Psychopharmocology about the associations between classic psychedelic use and a reduction in psychological distress and suicidality in the U.S. adult population. Hendricks shared his thoughts about the lack of scientific rationale for our drug laws, the unique societal anxieties provoked by hallucinogens, and why a new world of psychedelic research is just beginning.
Editor’s note: This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Allegra Kirkland: How did you become interested in researching the effects of psychedelics on people’s mental health and overall life satisfaction?
Peter Hendricks: My background is in clinical psychology, with a focus on addiction. For people who work in the mental health field, there’s a motivation to help others. Many of us would like to see the problems we’re trying to address disappear. I realize that might sound too optimistic, but with that in mind, it’s not difficult to see why the success rates for existing treatments are so disappointing. The sort of interventions we have right now for everything from depression to addiction are not yet where we’d like them to be. So we’re looking to improve upon what already exists.
As for why psychedelics, it’s kind of an interesting story. When I was a post-doc back in 2006, I published my dissertation in a journal called Psychopharmacology. They sent me a complementary copy of that issue so I could see my article in print, and I was so excited to check it out the day it arrived at my office. But the article I opened to was in fact [Johns Hopkins professor] Roland Griffiths’ foundational piece on psychedelic research.
AK: From Michael Pollan’s description in the New Yorker, it seemed like Griffiths’ article really marked a turning point in the scientific community’s renewed acceptance of psychedelic research. Would you agree with that?
PH: Absolutely. It was huge. I was born in 1976 so I’ve lived through the war on drugs and of course the “Just Say No” campaign of the ‘80s. Like many people, I always assumed the information I was given was accurate. I had every reason to believe and trust in the government and their rationale for the classification of drugs. Up until that moment, I thought that hallucinogens were dangerous drugs and there were valid reasons for their designation as Schedule I substances. But then I read Roland’s study, and that was really a watershed event for me. It not only changed my understanding of psychedelics, but it encouraged me to delve deeper into our drug laws and the rationale behind them. Over the course of a year or two, I came to see there is indeed tremendous curative potential in these substances and that the rationale for their legal status is very poor.
Still, as a psychologist, I would be careful myself not to belittle those who are having a hard time understanding my position. There’s a great professor in New York named Jonathan Haidt who studies the moral foundations of conservatives and liberals and gave an amazing TED talk about it. He would say that liberals typically want to see society change and go forward. Conservatives would typically like things to stay as they are. He comes to see these two forces as yin and yang; they complement one another. If everyone was a progressive, he argues, society would change too quickly and could, in the worst case scenario, descend into anarchy. On the other hand, if we never change, then we’ll never evolve—we’ll never see the sort of advancements in human rights that we’ve seen over the past few hundred years. So change is good. But I can understand how too much change too rapidly could be a frightening concept.
AK: Go on.
PH: I think in the late ‘60s, there were some pretty dramatic changes taking place. I don’t think people my age can really appreciate how monumental some of them were. Elvis’ performance where he was shaking his hips was considered extremely controversial and wild. And in just a few years, we go from that to long-haired, bearded hippies burning their draft cards and living on communes. We have music the likes of which we’ve never heard before, like the Grateful Dead with their 45-minute long jam sessions and the incredible innovations of Jimi Hendrix. I think LSD and psychedelics were fueling a lot of this change. And coming from a place of compassion, I can see how for a lot of people these changes were frightening or overwhelming. …The medical or scientific rational for classifying these drugs as Schedule I wasn’t there. But I can see how people thought that was the best thing for our country.
Continued -
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/...ed-lsd-was-dangerous-until-i-saw-the-science/
We are currently experiencing a “renaissance” in psychedelic research, as Michael Pollan writes in a recent issue of The New Yorker. Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin can be used to treat a range of mental health disorders, from anxiety and addiction to depression, and researchers at the nation’s leading medical schools are intent on discovering their full therapeutic potential.
Psilocybin is among a group of drugs labeled “classic psychedelics,” which also includes LSD, mescaline and DMT, and has been designated a Schedule I drug since Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act back in 1971. This classification—which defines a drug as having a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision—has made psychedelics very difficult to study in a laboratory setting.
But the last few years have witnessed a flood of new research in the field, beginning with a landmark study by Roland Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In his double-blind study, volunteers who were administered doses of psilocybin, under the close supervision of therapists, reported having life-altering experiences and long-term improvements in personal well-being, life satisfaction and “positive behavior change.” Two-thirds of participants said the session was one of the “most spiritually significant experiences of their lives.” Griffiths’ work has inspired many other experiments, including an ongoing New York University study in which advanced cancer patients undergo a psilocybin therapy session to help them manage end-of-life anxiety.
In a phone interview, I spoke with Peter Hendricks, a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health, about the exciting advances happening in the field. Just last month, Hendricks and his colleagues published a study in Psychopharmocology about the associations between classic psychedelic use and a reduction in psychological distress and suicidality in the U.S. adult population. Hendricks shared his thoughts about the lack of scientific rationale for our drug laws, the unique societal anxieties provoked by hallucinogens, and why a new world of psychedelic research is just beginning.
Editor’s note: This interview has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Allegra Kirkland: How did you become interested in researching the effects of psychedelics on people’s mental health and overall life satisfaction?
Peter Hendricks: My background is in clinical psychology, with a focus on addiction. For people who work in the mental health field, there’s a motivation to help others. Many of us would like to see the problems we’re trying to address disappear. I realize that might sound too optimistic, but with that in mind, it’s not difficult to see why the success rates for existing treatments are so disappointing. The sort of interventions we have right now for everything from depression to addiction are not yet where we’d like them to be. So we’re looking to improve upon what already exists.
As for why psychedelics, it’s kind of an interesting story. When I was a post-doc back in 2006, I published my dissertation in a journal called Psychopharmacology. They sent me a complementary copy of that issue so I could see my article in print, and I was so excited to check it out the day it arrived at my office. But the article I opened to was in fact [Johns Hopkins professor] Roland Griffiths’ foundational piece on psychedelic research.
AK: From Michael Pollan’s description in the New Yorker, it seemed like Griffiths’ article really marked a turning point in the scientific community’s renewed acceptance of psychedelic research. Would you agree with that?
PH: Absolutely. It was huge. I was born in 1976 so I’ve lived through the war on drugs and of course the “Just Say No” campaign of the ‘80s. Like many people, I always assumed the information I was given was accurate. I had every reason to believe and trust in the government and their rationale for the classification of drugs. Up until that moment, I thought that hallucinogens were dangerous drugs and there were valid reasons for their designation as Schedule I substances. But then I read Roland’s study, and that was really a watershed event for me. It not only changed my understanding of psychedelics, but it encouraged me to delve deeper into our drug laws and the rationale behind them. Over the course of a year or two, I came to see there is indeed tremendous curative potential in these substances and that the rationale for their legal status is very poor.
Still, as a psychologist, I would be careful myself not to belittle those who are having a hard time understanding my position. There’s a great professor in New York named Jonathan Haidt who studies the moral foundations of conservatives and liberals and gave an amazing TED talk about it. He would say that liberals typically want to see society change and go forward. Conservatives would typically like things to stay as they are. He comes to see these two forces as yin and yang; they complement one another. If everyone was a progressive, he argues, society would change too quickly and could, in the worst case scenario, descend into anarchy. On the other hand, if we never change, then we’ll never evolve—we’ll never see the sort of advancements in human rights that we’ve seen over the past few hundred years. So change is good. But I can understand how too much change too rapidly could be a frightening concept.
AK: Go on.
PH: I think in the late ‘60s, there were some pretty dramatic changes taking place. I don’t think people my age can really appreciate how monumental some of them were. Elvis’ performance where he was shaking his hips was considered extremely controversial and wild. And in just a few years, we go from that to long-haired, bearded hippies burning their draft cards and living on communes. We have music the likes of which we’ve never heard before, like the Grateful Dead with their 45-minute long jam sessions and the incredible innovations of Jimi Hendrix. I think LSD and psychedelics were fueling a lot of this change. And coming from a place of compassion, I can see how for a lot of people these changes were frightening or overwhelming. …The medical or scientific rational for classifying these drugs as Schedule I wasn’t there. But I can see how people thought that was the best thing for our country.
Continued -
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/...ed-lsd-was-dangerous-until-i-saw-the-science/
