It was shown that terminally ill cancer patients, with hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to a 2005 study, cope better with the anxiety of death. Los Angeles researchers released a study Tuesday showing that the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, psilocybin, when given to a critically ill patient, will help them cope having the depression making it easier to deal with the whole ordeal. Within the 1970s, the federal government made a law that stopped the legal use of mind altering drugs for instance LSD. This is also when psychedelic drug research had to stop. Scientists feel like the shrooms study is surely a milestone. Of course, these are the scientists that want to be able to use hallucinogens as a form of clinical use.
Death is easy with hallucinogens
The magic mushroom study results were posted in the Archives of General Psychiatry. This is a prestigious psychiatric journal that posted it. CNN showed that 12 patients got small doses of psilocybin. All of these patients were having a difficult time with the diagnosis of being terminally ill. A placebo was given to a control group. There was little effect with this. One to three months after taking psilocybin, patients said they were less anxious and their overall mood had improved. There was a 30 percent drop in depression amongst the group after only six months. Some said that they were closer than ever with loved ones as they psilocybin gave them a different perspective on life.
More research in the future with psychedelic drugs
The magic mushroom experiment researchers try to get more funding to conduct more experiments. ABC News talks about where psilocybin works within the brain. It works on the area that typically controls the nonverbal imagery and emotion. Numerous cultures have used magic mushroom hallucinogens for a long time. Cultural and political conflict brought therapeutic research having psychedelic drugs to a halt within the 1970s. A professor of psychiatry at Harbor-USLA Medical Center called Dr. Charles Grob said to ABC News that “40 years later, society has reached a point where it is sufficiently mature to manage these compounds in a safe and structured manner,” as he lead the magic mushroom studies.
Don’t use at home
Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University explained that psilocybin studies are easy to do safely thinking about the magic mushroom analysis, not even taking into account that hallucinogens are beneficial in a clinical use. Griffiths, who is conducting his own study using psilocybin, told the Los Angeles Times the analysis conducted on psychedelic drugs in the 1950s and ’60s “was promising, but by no means did it reach the kinds of scientific standards that we would expect today.”. Federal and local regulators were expected to approve the experiments. That is the only reason Griffiths and Grob could do their research. The researchers discouraged cancer patients from using magic mushrooms on their own. There were minimal amounts of bad trips in the studies. This is because doses were carefully regulated.
Additional reading
CNN
cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/09/06/magic.mushrooms.ease.anxiety/?hpt=T2
ABC News
abcnews.go.com/Health/ucla-study-finds-magic-mushrooms-curb-anxiety-advanced/story?id=11568335
Los Angeles Times
latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-magic-mushrooms-20100907,,4230087.story?track=rss
