Pubdate: Fri, 14 Apr 2006
Source: Guardian, The (UK)
Copyright: 2006 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Contact:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/175
Author: James Randerson, science correspondent
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hallucinogens.htm (Hallucinogens)

LANCET CALLS FOR LSD IN LABS

"Use more psychedelic drugs," is not advice you would expect from 
your GP, but that is the call from an influential US medical journal 
to researchers.

An editorial in the Lancet says that the "demonisation of psychedelic 
drugs as a social evil" has stifled vital medical research that would 
lead to a better understanding of the brain and better treatments for 
conditions such as depression.

The journal's editor Richard Horton said he was not advocating 
recreational drug use, but championed the benefits of researchers 
studying the effects of drugs such as LSD and Ecstasy by using them 
themselves in the lab.

"The blanket ban on psychedelic drugs enforced in many countries 
continues to hinder safe and controlled investigation, in a medical 
environment, of their potential benefits," said the editorial, 
"...criminalisation of these agents has also led to an excessively 
cautious approach to further research into their therapeutic benefits."

Dr Horton told Guardian Unlimited that important advances were made 
by researchers using psychedelic drugs on themselves, but that these 
studies were stifled by the post-1960s anti-drug backlash. "Our very 
earliest understanding of the neurochemistry of the brain came from 
studying LSD-like compounds. Those same researchers were also taking 
those drugs, not recreationally, but as experiments on themselves. 
This was immensely important work."

"The whole taboo around recreational drug use can make the study of 
these drugs very difficult," he said, "We need to get a balance 
between these social taboos and what's best for patients."

Dr Horton's comments echo those from psychiatrist Ben Sessa on the 
100th birthday of Albert Hoffmann, who discovered LSD. "It is as if a 
whole generation of psychiatrists have had this systematically erased 
from their education," he told the Guardian in January.

"But for the generation who trained in the 50s and 60s, this really 
was going to be the next big thing. Thousands of books and papers 
were written, but then it all went silent. My generation has never 
heard of it. It's almost as if there has been an active demonisation."

Some anti-drug charities and politicians argue that medical research 
on illegal drugs should remain taboo because it risks sending a 
confused message to potential users. Rick Doblin of the 
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in Sarasota, 
Florida rejects this argument. "The idea that by contradicting the 
exaggerated propaganda you are somehow sending the wrong message is 
false," he said, "Kids know when they are being told something that 
is way exaggerated, but then they don't know what is the truth."

The journal's call comes at a crucial moment, he said, because 
several small studies of the medicinal effects of illegal drugs are 
under way. "I think it is a tremendously courageous step."

MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, has shown promise in treating 
post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety in cancer patients, while 
LSD and psylocibin - the active ingredient in magic mushrooms - are 
being investigated as treatments from cluster headaches. Sativex, a 
treatment for multiple sclerosis derived from cannabis, is already 
available in Canada.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom