LSD and Ecstasy being used to combat cancer anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder







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Hallucinogenic drugs including LSD and Ecstasy are being used by doctors in tests to treat conditions including cancer anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists are once again striving to prove that psychedelic drugs can be of medical benefit more than four decades after authorities clamped down on their use for both recreational and research purposes.

There are a handful of studies currently taking place across the U.S. with drugs like LSD, MDMA (Ecstasy) and psilocybin, the main ingredient of 'magic mushrooms'.

While the research is still preliminary, early results from a New York University study suggest that participants are less fearful of death and have less general anxiety. They are also said to have greater acceptance of the dying process with no major side effect.



Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, said: 'There is now more psychedelic research taking place in the world than at any time in the last 40 years.

'We're at the end of the beginning of the renaissance.'

He said that more than 1,200 people attended a conference in California last weekend on psychedelic science.

But doing the research is not easy, Mr Doblin and others say, with U.S. government funders still leery and drug companies not interested in the compounds they can't patent. That pretty much leaves private donors.

'There's still a lot of resistance to it,' said David Nichols, a Purdue University professor of medicinal chemistry and president of the Heffter Institute, which is supporting the NYU study.



'The whole hippie thing in the 60s has kind of left a bad taste in the mouth of the public at large.

'When you tell people you're treating people with psychedelics, the first thing that comes to mind is Day-Glo art and tie-dyed shirts.'

Psilocybin has been shown to invoke powerful spiritual experiences during the four to six hours it affects the brain.



A study published in 2008, in fact, found that even 14 months after healthy volunteers had taken a single dose, most said they were still feeling and behaving better because of the experience. They also said the drug had produced one of the five most spiritually significant experiences they'd ever had.

Experts emphasise people shouldn't try psilocybin on their own because it can be harmful, sometimes causing bouts of anxiety and paranoia.

But the NYU study, led by Dr Stephen Ross, is testing whether that drug experience can help with the nine months of psychotherapy each participant also gets.

The therapy seeks to help patients live fuller, richer lives with the time they have left.

Each study participant gets two drug-dose experiences, but only one of those involves psilocybin; the other is a placebo dose of niacin, which makes the face flush.

All three people in the study so far felt better, with less general anxiety and fear of death, and greater acceptance of the dying process, Dr Ross said. No major side effects have appeared. The project plans to enrol a total of 32 people.

Dr Ross' work follows up on a small study at the University of California in Los Angeles. Results haven't been published yet, but they too are encouraging, according to experts familiar with it.

Yet another study of psilocybin for cancer anxiety, at Johns Hopkins University, has treated 11 out of a planned 44 participants so far. Chief investigator Roland Griffiths said he suspected the results would fall in line with the UCLA work.

In interviews, some psychiatrists who work with cancer patients reacted coolly to the prospects of using psilocybin.

'I'm kind of curious about it,' said Dr. Susan Block of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. She said it's an open question how helpful the drug experiences could be, and 'I don't think it's ever going to be a widely used treatment.'

Dr Ross, meanwhile, thinks patients might benefit from more than one dose of the drug during the psychotherapy. The study permits only one dose, but all three participants asked for a second, he said.



