If you’ve been paying attention to the health news of late, you might think you’ve have travelled back in time to the 1960s. It’s not a bad acid trip. We are in the midst of a “renaissance” in psychedelic science, as the author Michael Pollan called it last month in the pages of The New York Times. Researchers are examining the potential of drugs like LSD and psilocybin (“magic mushrooms”) – recreational drugs mostly associated with the 1960s counterculture – to act as psycho-therapeutic tools in the treatment of severe addictions, end-of-life anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. We’re high on getting high.

Truth be told, many of the new findings are in fact old discoveries from the 1950s and 60s – dusted off and updated for the 21st century. Uncovering this revolutionary past has much to offer to the movement that is presently unfolding in Canada and abroad.

When classic psychedelics, particularly lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), were legally banned, and restrictions against their use put in place, in the late 1960s and 70s, the widely held opinion in the psychiatric and scientific communities – and, at least among non-users, society at large – was that they were too dangerous. Psychedelics, many argued, had the potential for serious abuse. Furthermore, claims of their medical value were overinflated and lacking a firm evidence base. Not surprisingly, this resulted in a halt to scientific research in the area – although recreational use continued.

Psychedelic science’s demise has become the subject of a growing body of historical analyses over the last decade, many of which point to, as contributing factors, a convoluted mixture of 1960s countercultural excesses (that is, psychedelic gurus and the LSD social movement), transformations in psychiatry (and how mental illnesses are understood, diagnosed and treated as well as what constitutes acceptable clinical research methodology), and even the covert experimentation of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After several decades of being in cryogenic stasis, experimental research with psychedelics is back and attracting the attention of those in and outside of the scientific community. Leading the charge is a new generation of researchers, based out of centres such as Johns Hopkins University, New York University and Britain’s Imperial College in London, whose findings hold promise in treating mental illness.

Attitudes toward recreational drugs are shifting in North America, with legalization of recreational marijuana increasingly prevalent in the United States, and, come Oct. 17, across Canada. Could magic mushrooms be next?

Magic mushrooms, like these ones growing in the Netherlands in 2007, contain the compound psilocybin, which can produce hallucinations and euphoria. Researchers have studied the drug’s potential for treating depression.

Perhaps no one definitive answer exists to answer the question of why we’re in the midst of this so-called renaissance in psychedelic science. Certainly, many have alluded to mental health and addictions systems being in crisis.

Gauging by the staggering human and financial costs associated with mental health and addictions, plus the fact that demand for services and treatment appear to be outpacing the supply, it is easy to see why there is concern.

Roughly one in five people in Canada experience a mental illness in their lifetime. According to CAMH, Canada’s premier research and treatment centre for mental health and addictions, 6.7 million Canadians suffer from mental illness, the cost of which is estimated to be $51-billion a year when factoring in health-care costs, lost productivity and reductions in health-related quality of life.

In the United States, recent data indicate that more than 43 million Americans suffer from a mental-health disorder and close to half of that number have a co-occurring substance-abuse disorder. Approximately 9.6 million Americans have been found to experience suicidal ideation. In terms of economic costs, the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimated the costs of mental illness to be a whopping US$467-billion in 2012.

In one area alone – that of PTSD among returning U.S. veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars – the costs are alarming, with one in five veterans (300,000) diagnosed with the disorder. As revealed by some PTSD figures from the same year, first-year treatment cost the government US$8,300 a person, for a total of more than US$2-billion. To add to this, suicides among active-duty military personnel averaged one a day, 20 per cent of all suicides in the United States.

U.S. research has also revealed another troubling statistic: Americans with serious mental illnesses on average die 15 to 30 years earlier than those without, largely owing to the fact that the former have far higher rates of chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and respiratory problems (interestingly, the study does not address what, if any, role the current medications used to treat severe mental illness may have had in contributing to these chronic diseases).

There’s no question: We need to do more – and better.

Drugs, of course, have come to occupy an ever growing role in mental-health systems. From the early years of the psychopharmacological revolution in the 1950s onward, we have seen a proliferation in the number of drugs used to treat psychiatric disorders, with numerous variations of anxiolytics, antidepressants, anti-psychotics and other psychotropic medications. Whether these drugs, and the theories that go with them, have been a help or hindrance in the battle against mental illness continues to be a source of heated debate.

In an interview with The Canadian Press earlier this year, University of Saskatchewan medical historian Erika Dyck speculated the revival of scientific interest in these taboo drugs might have to do with people’s desperation to find a therapy that works.

Most professionals working in the field will admit the standard medications being used to treat severe mental illnesses and addictions have their obvious benefits, but they also come with significant limitations; at best, the drugs have proven to be effective in the management of symptoms, and for some patients more than others. Unfortunately, the drugs have not been nearly as effective in treating the underlying illness.

In a recent episode of CBC Radio’s White Coat, Black Art, Brian Goldman profiles the burgeoning use of these drugs and just how difficult it is for some people to stop taking them. Citing data from a New York Times article, Dr. Goldman noted that from 2013 to 2014, 34.4 million adults were taking antidepressants, an increase of 250 per cent from a survey completed in 1999 to 2000. Canada also happens to be one of the largest consumers of antidepressants, ranking third on an Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development list of industrialized countries.

More problematic is the fact many of those taking antidepressants are long-term users who face the difficult challenge of withdrawal when attempting to discontinue the medications.