Far out: Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say
by Zachary Roth, news.yahoo.com
June 15th 2011 7:45 AM
The hallucinogen in magic mushrooms may no longer just be for hippies seeking a
trippy high.
Researchers at John Hopkins University School of Medicine have been studying
the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in some psychedelic mushrooms,
that's credited with inducing transcendental states. Now, they say, they've
zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative mystical and
spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing benefits, while
carrying little risk of negative reactions.
The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin--long viewed
skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural thrill-seekers--for
a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the anxiety of terminally
ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and
helping smokers quit. Already, studies in which depressed cancer patients were
given the drug have reported positive results. "I'm not afraid to die anymore"
one participant told The Lookout.
The John Hopkins study--whose results will be published this week in the
journal Psychopharmacology--involved giving healthy volunteers varying doses of
psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate sessions.
Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one
of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes.
More important, 89 percent reported lasting, positive changes in their
behavior--better relationships with others, for instance, or increased care for
their own mental and physical well-being. Those assessments were corroborated
by family members and others.
"I think my heart is more open to all interactions with other people," one
volunteer reported in a questionnaire given to participants 14-months after
their session.
"I feel that I relate better in my marriage," wrote another. "There is more
empathy -- a greater understanding of people, and understanding their
difficulties, and less judgment."
Identifying the exact right dosage for hallucinogenic drugs is crucial, Roland
Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry at John Hopkins who led the study,
explained to The Lookout. That's because a "bad trip" can trigger hazardous,
self-destructive behavior, but low doses don't produce the kind of
transformative experiences that can offer long-term benefits. By trying a range
of doses, Griffiths said, researchers were able to find the sweet spot, "where
a high or intermediate dose can produce, fairly reliably, these mystical
experiences, with very low probability of a significant fear reaction."
In the 1950s and '60s, scientists became interested in the potential effects of
hallucinogens like psilocybin, mescaline, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD)
on both healthy and terminally ill people. Mexican Indians had, since ancient
times, used psychedelic mushrooms with similar chemical structures to achieve
intense spiritual experiences. But by the mid '60s, counterculture gurus like
Dr. Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley were talking up mind-altering drugs as a
way of expanding one's consciousness and rejecting mainstream society. Stories,
perhaps apocryphal, circulated about people jumping out of windows while on
LSD, and some heavy users were said to have suffered permanent psychological
damage. By the early '70s, the Food and Drug Administration had essentially
banned all hallucinogenic drugs.
But recent years have seen the beginning of a revival of mainstream scientific
interest in mind-altering drugs, and particularly in the possibility of using
them in a clinical setting to alleviate depression and anxiety. A 2004 study by
the government of Holland (pdf)-- where hallucinogenic mushrooms are legal, as
long as they're sold fresh--found psilocybin to have no significant negative
effects.
Here in the United States, too, the climate may be shifting. In a statement
accompanying the announcement of the Johns Hopkins findings, Jerome Jaffe, a
former White House drug czar now at the University of Maryland School of
Medicine, said the results raise the question of whether psilocybin could prove
useful "in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by some terminal
patients?"
The hope is that the long-lasting spiritual and transcendental experiences
associated with psilocybin could--if conducted in a controlled and supportive
setting, and with appropriate dosage levels--help ease patients' fear and
anxiety, allowing them to approach death with a greater sense of calm. (You can
see one terminally ill cancer patient speak movingly about the positive effects
of psilocybin here.)
Griffiths thinks the drug may have the potential to alleviate the suffering of
terminal patients. He's currently leading a separate John Hopkins psilocybin
study, using volunteers who are depressed after being diagnosed with cancer.
"So far we've had--anecdotally only--very positive results," comparable to the
study with healthy volunteers, he said. A study from the University of
California at Los Angeles last year reported similar positive results.
But Griffiths said his study, under way for three years, has only recruited 20
patients, in part because oncologists are more interested in curing cancer than
helping patients cope with its effects, so they don't refer provide many
referrals. "Most oncologists just don't get it," he said. "It's not the focus
of their research, and they're busy people."
But the experience of one volunteer in Griffiths's study offers a glimpse of
the potential benefits. Lori Reamer, 47, told The Lookout that she participated
in two Johns Hopkins psilocybin sessions last September, not long after ending
intensive chemotherapy and radiation to treat a rare form of leukemia that,
several times in the preceding few years, had almost taken her life.
Reamer, an anesthesiologist from Ruxton, Md., with three young daughters, said
that although her disease was in remission by that time, she was still
suffering psychologically from the trauma of the illness and the treatment.
Deeply depressed, she said, she had walled herself off emotionally, and was
unable to show empathy for others or even for herself.
The psilocybin had an immediate impact. "At the end of the session, I was just
in this joyous, happy, relaxed state," she said. "The drug was gone--what was
left was just this peaceful calm."
That calm had lasting benefits. Reamer said the experience--what she called "an
epiphany"--gave her the impetus to get out of a failing marriage. Since doing
so, she said, both she and her daughters have been much happier.
"I don't think it was the drug that did it," she said. "It was the drug that
helped me find the clarity."
That's not the only improvement. "My sleeping has gotten better. My
relationships have gotten better with people," she said. "The fog has lifted."
"The best thing it did for me was heal me psychologically and emotionally and
allow me to be back in my kids' lives, be back to being a mother," Reamer
concluded. As she spoke, she was taking her daughters--two 15-year old twins,
and a 6-year-old--on a trip to Hershey Park.
And although doctors tell her that, thanks to the effect of the illness and the
treatment, she likely has only 10 or 15 years to live, she's able to approach
that challenge with equanimity.
"My fear of death kind of disappeared," she said. "I'm not afraid to die
anymore."
Griffiths, of John Hopkins, said Reamer's experience isn't an outlier among the
volunteers, both sick and healthy, who have tried psilocybin. "People feel
uplifted, and very often have a sense that everything is O.K. at one level," he
said. "That there's sense to be made out of the chaos."
"When you see people undergoing that kind of transformation," he added, "it's
really quite moving."
(Magic mushrooms at a farm in Hazerswoude, Netherlands, August, 2007:Â AP
Photo/Peter Dejong)
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