What's Old is New Again

"It [psychedelic drug trials] raises the caution that the investigation of hallucinogens as treatments may be endangered by grandiose descriptions of their effects and unquestioning acceptance of their value."
"Timothy Leary was a research psychologist before he decided the whole world should 'Turn on, tune in and drop out'. It is best if some steps are not retraced."
Dr. Guy Goodwin, professor of psychiatry, Oxford University

‘Magic mushrooms’ contain psilocybin, a psychedelic substance. Jonathan Carmichael

"I was so depressed. I felt that the world had abandoned me that I'd lost the right to exist on this planet."
"I experienced this kind of unity, of resonant love [in a trial with a heavy dose of psychedelics], the sense that I'm not alone anymore. I felt welcomed back to the world."
"I think that trial was the single most effective thing I've done to manage my mental health, and I had tried almost everything."
Rachael Peterson, 29, Maryland, U.S.

"Now we have the core funding and infrastructure to really advance psychedelic science in a way that hasn't been done before."
"That [MEQ: 'mystical experience questionnaire'] was a significant branding mistake, because awe is not fun."
"There's something existentially shaking about these experiences."
Roland Griffiths, neuroscientist, Johns Hopkins

Johns Hopkins is launching a new Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research

 

 

 

 

Johns Hopkins Medicine launched its new Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research in the study of compounds such as LSD and psilocybin as experimental potential aids in dealing with a range of mental health problems, including anorexia, addiction and depression. As the first of its kind in the U.S., all eyes will be fixed on the new Center's progress. Johns Hopkins has been enabled to proceed with this ambitious and controversial project after having received a commitment to the value of $17 million from a foundation and private donors.

By no means is this  the first such center worldwide studying the potential benefits of psychedelics in the treatment of various mental illnesses. Imperial College London had launched the world's first center of its kind back in April, aided with $3.5 million from private funding sources. Both new centers are set to lead the way in "psychedelic medicine", an elusive but long-considered foothold with the acceptance of legitimacy in the scientific establishment. The exploration of the potential of psychedelics and other recreational drugs to aid in psychiatric problems dates to the early 2000s.

Two books and positive headlines were generated out of these early initiatives, attractive enough to researchers to inspire them to study the effects of psychedelics on people suffering from mental illness in a more organized and thorough manner. The anaesthetic and club drug ketamine and related compounds which cause out-of-body sensations used in the treatment of depression has garnered interest as well in therapeutic aids in mind-altering states used to correct for mental illness.

TIBER and REBUS models suggest which psychedelic-assisted therapy may be beneficial

While the evidence of these drugs' successful interventions is not yet convincing, causing many experts in the field to remain wary of their use, reports of improvements have yet to be standardized from the situation where it is not possible for trials with psychedelics to be 'blind'; simply put, participants, unlike most drug trials, are aware when they have been dosed. Acknowledging that situation, scientists at both centers feel the new infusion of funding will lead to clarity in identifying which drugs are useful to which patients, when the altered states are recognized as ineffectual, or where they become potentially dangerous.

Psilocybin, found in magic mushrooms, are among the first of the psychedelics chosen to take into trials for anorexia nervosa and psychological distress and cognitive impairment in early Alzheimer's disease. Since psychedelics can make people with a history of psychosis worse, they are excluded from participation in any trials. On the appointed day of treatment, the individual takes the drug while under continuous observation under the care of a therapist. In some trials, participants are given eyeshades and headphones, are instructed to lie down, and listen to music.

Thus far, the literature from such trials suggest that psilocybin looks promising as a protocol for chronic depression and addiction. And that M.D.M.A. (ecstasy) has the potential to help those with post-traumatic stress, veterans included. LSD and cannabis use in trials have brought in mixed results. What does appear universal in efficacy, is that positive effects are likelier to last longer should the participant experience an especially intense reaction to the psychedelics applied.

Cannabis: Harm Reduction and Hyperbole

"The tricky part is that part of harm reduction will continue to be that you shouldn't be using this product."
"By being more honest and open that cannabis can be used responsibly it will add credibility to the messages that say, 'but you shouldn't really use it under these settings, and one of those is if you're a young person."
"[There is evidence supporting each of the proposed health warnings by Health Canada] and none of them -- except for the warnings around pregnancy and breastfeeding -- actually say people shouldn't use cannabis. That's harm reduction."
"[Most people use pot responsibly] but there is a reasonable number who can have problems controlling their use, and signs of daily use can be an indication of that."
David Hammond, professor, school of public health, University of Waterloo, Ontario

"[People tune out sensationalist scare tactics and condescending messages; abstinence-only propaganda -- and 'Just Say No' campaigns fail to resonate with youth...]"
"If they do find themselves struggling with use, they need supports they can use rather than judgement, or, worse, criminalization."
Heather D'Alessio, spokeswoman, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Health Canada wants all weed to be labelled with health risks. Photos via Health Canada

The group, Canadian Students for Sensible Drug Policy has undertaken an initiative of their own, to produce a "Sensible Cannabis Toolkit" information package which they have based on what they feel is realistic evidence-based information to help guide young adults in their conversations with adults when discussing the use of weed. Most pot users, they point out, do not use pot as a 'gateway' to transition to the use of harder drugs.

They also take issue with the use-associated mental health problems in the heavy use of cannabis concluding that there is an association with cognitive impairment and other mental health problems. "Any strong conclusions around causality" -- which came first? -- remain uncertain, according to their informative website.

Recently, a review of available literature associated with pot use led by researchers at the B.C. Centre on Substance Use discovered that what is believed to be a link to a lower IQ in later life among adolescent-use of high frequency, is belied by the findings of more recent studies concluding no association after controlling for social factors like background poverty and the neighbourhood that users grew up in.

Early efforts at Colorado public health after the state's 2014 legalization saw some of their informative harm-reduction efforts fall flat and face criticism by pot advocates for their condescending undertones. Leading Professor Hammond to the view that pot advertisements must reach beyond "use or not-use", to include information more specific such as that smoking adds toxicity in excess since THC levels in the pot currently in circulation are much higher than what prevailed during the Boomer era.


Health Canada is preparing to roll out a $5.1-million marijuana education tour to travel across the country in an effort to prepare the public before the cannabis legalization comes into effect in Canada by the target date of October 17. Plans are underway to set up exhibits at local events such as fairs, festivals and Canadian Hockey League arenas from July in the Maritimes and Northwest Territories before moving on to other provinces and territories.

Exhibits will be complete with climbing walls, interactive graffiti walls and similar such infrastructure in an effort to encourage people to to discover activities "that can give them a natural high, rather than using cannabis". "Ambassadors" will be tasked to "engage visitors in conversations about the health and safety facts on cannabis", to staff the exhibits.

A list of proposed pot packaging warning labels is being released by Health Canada. That cannabis smoking is harmful; that teens are at greater risk of harms; that people should not drive stoned; that women should not use if pregnant or breastfeeding (new links of pot exposure in the womb or through breast milk have been identified with stillbirth, preterm birth, low birth weight and poorer mental developing in children), are all driving the government's effort to ensure people are adequately informed of risks involved in indulging in cannabis.

Critics,  however, have highlighted one of the warnings for special attention; the warning that "up to one in two people who use cannabis daily will become addicted", has been seized upon as extravagantly unwarranted. Dr. Hammand and colleagues published a paper last year in the Canadian Journal of Public Health outlining their findings that a "very small proportion of Canadians report using cannabis to a degree that is problematic", with only two percent of the sample of respondents reporting the use of pot in the past three months seen to be at high risk of developing health or other problems.

The Curious Mind

"[I felt as though walls were] crawling with geometric hallucinations."
"What arrests my attention is the fact that this space is inhabited. You break into this space and are immediately swarmed by squeaking, self-transforming elf-machines ... made of light and grammar and sound that come chirping and squealing and tumbling toward you."
Terence McKenna, psychedelic aficionado

"There were little cartoon cats going  round, and ice cream cones. [And then] it felt like I was with deceased, amazing and really important people."
"I was surrounded by people who were influential, but cared about me and wanted me to be there and be safe."
"It was an oddly emotional feeling. It was very abstract."
Michelle Ross, Neuroscientist

"There was this creature that was, like, dancing around me and it looked like the thing from the Nightmare before Christmas."
"As it danced around it would shape-shift and spit out these colours."
User-report

Researchers and scientists, one and the same, have questing minds, wanting to know everything about anything. The more obscure, the more tantalizing. Not only do they want to unlock the mysteries of nature in all her glorious manifestations, but they would also like to know more about something we all have and treasure, that some of us make good use of and others fail to, but it is so indispensable that we need it to exist: our minds.

In researching our minds there are corners of experience that don't readily come to mind to most people, but evidently did to behavioural biologist Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. This not a new focus for this scientist, he has previously taken the time and energy to focus on psychedelic substances capable of distorting the patterns perceived by our minds to produce "mystical-type and near-death experiences."

The university has a robust program of various studies for which they advertise and search out willing study participants. In this particular instance the study involves the type of hallucinogenic effects produced by the drug Dimethyltryptamine, better known as DMT, considered by those in the know -- in this instance another researcher, the "spirit molecule".

Volunteers are invited to complete an online survey should they have experienced "encounters with seemingly autonomous beings or entities after taking DMT". What's in it for potential study participants? Well, possibly learning how best to enhance those peculiar, other-worldly hallucinations experienced with the use of DMT. Possibly an eventual 'guided-tour' experience?

Dimethyltryptamine is a naturally occurring molecule present in many plants and animals, one that since the 1930s has been synthesized. The substance is often smoked and those using it experience close to immediate hallucinogenic effects. Terence McKenna, throughout his long fascination with this class of drugs reports that within a minute of taking his first puff, he was immediately plunged into hallucinations.

His fey description of his experiences with DMT is just what the researchers are looking for.

Psychiatry professor Richard Strassman with the University of New Mexico administered close to 400 doses of DMT to 60 volunteers in a ground-breaking psychedelics study in the early 1990s. Among those who were his test subjects many described intense interactions with non-human beings. These beings were variously described as "jokers", clowns, aliens or "helpers", as reported in the book DMT: The spirit molecule.

"Basically, we are very curious about the phenomena of entity encounters."
"What is happening? Are there similarities across experiences? Can the phenomena be quantified in a meaningful way?"
"Perhaps this foundation [could] eventually lead to studies that are able to answer the question about whether these experiences are hallucinations in the traditional sense of the word, [or] whether they are in fact 'breakthrough' experiences that lift a veil to another universe or into other parts of our own universe."
Alan K. Davis, Ph.D.,  study post-doc research fellow

The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus. Wikicommons