EDMONTON - When most people hear the term LSD, images of little pieces of blotter paper soaked in mind-expanding liquid that offer users a new world of altered perception and oneness come to mind - not to mention jail time. The reputation of the drug may, however, hinder its potential as a powerful treatment to a serious addiction. Erika Dyck, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Alberta, has been taking an historical look at the use of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. [continues 511 words]
When most people hear the term LSD, ideas of little pieces of blotter paper soaked in mind-expanding liquid that offer users a new world of altered perception and oneness come to mind--not to mention jail time and parole. The illicit reputation of the drug may, however, hinder its potential as a powerful treatment to a serious addiction. Dr Erika Dyck, professor of the history of medicine at the University of Alberta, has been taking an historical look at the use of LSD as a treatment for alcoholism. [continues 547 words]
A new study that looks back at LSD research conducted by a team of scientists in Canada more than four decades ago demonstrates the degree to which anti-psychedelic hysteria derailed promising scientific research for the treatment of alcoholism. The original work, led by British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond at a hospital in Saskatchewan, was one of the stranger chapters in Canadian scientific investigation. Dr. Osmond, who invented the term "psychedelic" and famously assisted the writer Aldous Huxley in experimenting with drugs, had observed that alcoholics would stop drinking if they suffered delirium tremens during withdrawal. He believed that LSD, in a single dose, could simulate such symptoms and have the same beneficial results. [continues 306 words]
Saskatchewan once used LSD to treat hundreds of alcoholic patients, and the province used to be so prominent in such research that the word "psychedelic" -- now shorthand for an entire counterculture -- was coined in the Prairie town of Weyburn. A recently published paper has shone new light on the trials, which occurred over more than a decade at several psychiatric hospitals in the province. The results not only drew interest from around the world, including from famed novelist Aldous Huxley, but also reveal much about how society views drug use, says medical historian Erika Dyck. [continues 464 words]
Half Of The Patients Remained Dry For At Least 18 Months After A Single Dose, Doctors Said EDMONTON - Saskatchewan once used LSD to treat hundreds of alcoholic patients, and the province used to be so prominent in such research that the word "psychedelic" - now shorthand for an entire counterculture - was coined in the prairie town of Weyburn. A recently published paper has shone new light on the trials, which occurred over more than a decade at several psychiatric hospitals in the province. The results not only drew interest from around the world, including from famed novelist Aldous Huxley, but also reveal much about how society views drug use, says medical historian Erika Dyck. [continues 584 words]
1950s Research Coined Term 'Psychedelic' Edmonton - Saskatchewan once used LSD to treat hundreds of alcoholic patients, and the province used to be so prominent in such research that the word "psychedelic" -- now shorthand for an entire counterculture -- was coined in the prairie town of Weyburn. A recently published paper has shone new light on the trials, which occurred over more than a decade at several psychiatric hospitals in the province. The results not only drew interest from around the world, including from famed novelist Aldous Huxley, but also reveal much about how society views drug use, says medical historian Erika Dyck. [continues 501 words]
If you haven't yet heard, a new hallucinogenic drug called salvia divinorum has found its way onto the NIU campus. Whether this is a good thing or not, it's completely legal in Illinois for anyone 18 or older. According to the University of Maryland's substance abuse research site, salvia is a hallucinogenic plant that is native to Mexico. In August 2002, researchers discovered that this drug had hallucinogenic qualities, and that by oral ingestion it would have psychoactive effects. According to this Website, some of these effects include feelings of floatation, spinning and hallucinations. [continues 607 words]
NDP Accuses Liberals Of Double Standard Liberals are being accused of having a double standard for slamming NDP candidate Cheri DiNovo over past use of LSD when she was a "street kid," after Health Minister George Smitherman's recent admission he once was addicted to illegal drugs. The latest flashpoint in the campaign for tomorrow's by-election in Parkdale-High Park came yesterday in an Ontario Liberal Party statement urging DiNovo, now a United Church minister, to "come clean" on controversial remarks she made in the past. [continues 434 words]
B.C.'s medical community is warming to the idea of treating drug addicts with psychedelic drugs. But so far, no one is offering to prove that the treatment works. Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall says there is a possible use for psychedelic drugs, in combination with talk therapy, when treating addicts. "Can psychedelic drugs be used in combination with . . . talk therapy?" he said Friday. "If you put those two things together, you get better results than just drugs or just talk therapy." [continues 276 words]
Psychedelic mushrooms have been a stubborn part of the nation's drug problem for decades, offering their users a potentially dangerous, and decidedly illegal, way to warp their consciousness. Now government-funded scientists have found that the active ingredient in the mushrooms could be a powerful tool for scientific research, and they say it should be explored as a potential treatment for depression, anxiety, and other disorders. In a paper published last week, scientists at Johns Hopkins University say that a single dose of psilocybin routinely brings about positive psychological changes that can last for months. This lasting effect is surprising and mysterious, the scientists said, but seems to be the result of what they call powerful drug-induced "mystical experiences" that include a feeling of the sacredness and oneness of the universe. More than two-thirds of the volunteers described their session with the drug -- several hours in a laboratory, under close monitoring -- as one of the most meaningful and spiritually significant events in their life, on a par with the birth of a child or the death of a parent. [continues 878 words]
What makes some mushrooms more psychedelic than others? Researchers at Johns Hopkins University think they know. A plant alkaloid called psilocybin mimics the effect of serotonin on brain receptors and provides what the researchers called a "primary mystical experience" that may lead to overall positive changes in behavior. While researchers hailed the discovery as a new way to approach hallucinogenic compounds, they cautioned that the chemical should not be handled lightly. "Even in this study, where we greatly controlled conditions to minimize adverse effects, about a third of subjects reported significant fear, with some also reporting transient feelings of paranoia," said study leader Roland Griffiths of Hopkins. "Under unmonitored conditions, it's not hard to imagine those emotions escalating to panic and dangerous behavior." [continues 85 words]
'60s Icon Would Have Reveled in Painstaking Account of His Career Timothy Leary, A Biography By Robert Greenfield; Harcourt; 663 Pages; $28 Timothy Leary, who once said that he had looked forward to dying all his life and who has now been dead for 10 years, was born in Springfield, Mass., on Oct. 22, 1920. But the Leary who occupies the public mind -- that unpredictable, incorrigible and ultimately unknowable human emblem of '60s counterculture and of the uninhibited drug use that permeated and fueled that counterculture -- did not emerge until somewhat later. [continues 1282 words]
It was a warm night last summer when John gathered in a metro parking lot with a few friends and smoked one of the most potent hallucinogens on the market. Brought from British Columbia, the drug -- salvia divinorum -- didn't raise an eyebrow at airport security. For good reason: despite its intoxicating buzz, it's perfectly legal. "It's worse than being 10 times as drunk as you've ever been in your life," remembers John (not his real name). "It really messes up your depth perception. [continues 485 words]
Three New Jersey lawmakers will discuss on Friday their efforts to get banned salvia divinorum - a powerful hallucinogen that kids can buy over the Internet. Reps. Linda Stender, D-Union, Jack Conners, D-Camden, and Herb Conaway, M.D., D-Burlington, will hold a news conference to discuss their herb and its dangers. Also attending the news conference will be Delaware lawmaker Sen. Karen Peterson and the parents of a 17-year-old Delaware youth who committed suicide after using the drug. [continues 67 words]
Re: Back to the Future, LastWord, April 6 - 12 "All that 1960s stuff" was really about the peaceful psychedelic revolution in consciousness and lots of great things came out of it, such as awareness that war-mongering and materialism are destructive, wasteful and futile. Renewed reverence for life manifested in the health food and holistic medicine movements and the environmental movement was also influenced by the peaceful psychedelic revolution in consciousness. However, mainstream society failed to give credit were credit is due - to psychedelics. [continues 226 words]
They have such whimsical names as heavenly blue, crimson rambler and pearly gates, and delicate blooms that crawl quickly up trellises. But when morning glory seeds aren't planted -- when they are instead ingested -- whimsical thoughts can crawl through altered minds with kaleidoscope-like visions. And teenagers know this. Once popular in the hippie era of the 1960s, morning glory seeds as a hallucinogen seem to have sprouted once again. Local gardening shops have noticed their seed stocks depleted by adolescent hands, and poison control centers in the District and its suburbs have received calls from hospitals with patients experiencing adverse reactions, or bad trips, from the seeds. [continues 1274 words]
That psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and MDMA (ecstasy), can be effective treatments for various psychiatric illnesses is an old idea. Once considered wonder drugs for their effects on anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and other mental illnesses, they have been effectively banished from medical practice after legal rulings banned their sale and use. Although such bans were largely put in place to quash concerns about rampant recreational drug use fuelling the counter cultures of the 1960s and 1980s (LSD and MDMA, respectively), criminalisation of these agents has also led to an excessively cautious approach to further research into their therapeutic benefits. [continues 226 words]
"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. [continues 414 words]
A little-known hallucinogenic leaf that is legal in most of the USA is the target of new calls for a ban after the suicide of a teenager who smoked it. Salvia, a relative of flowering sages enjoyed by many gardeners, is the most powerful natural hallucinogen known - almost as strong as LSD, experts say. Known as "diviner's sage," salvia has been used for centuries by the Mazatec Indians in Mexico. In the United States it is sold in leaf and liquid form by Web sites and head shops and is available to anyone at any age. advertisement [continues 695 words]
I'm in college and went to a party where everyone was acting strange. I found out they were all eating some type of chocolate "cookie" they called "silly putty." I left the party because my friend said the cookies were laced. Have you heard of these cookies? - - D.W., Portland, Ore. Yes, but these are not cookies. They're chocolate-covered mushrooms that make your brain feel like putty because they're psychedelic drugs. You were smart to leave the party when you did. [continues 469 words]
