The Rise of Psychedelic Therapies | News on Drugs

The healing powers of psychedelics are transforming the world of mental health treatment. At the forefront of research is Professor David Nutt, whose team at Imperial College London is using magic mushrooms in clinical trials to treat depression – and getting incredible results.

Humans love drugs. Every culture in human history has looked for ways to alter its consciousness. So where does this desire come from? And why are some drugs legal and others illegal? What is it about some drugs that make governments declare war on them?

In News on Drugs, writer JS Rafaeli chats to fellow drug nerds about their studies to tackle some of the biggest questions in the crazy world of mind-altering substances.

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42 Comments

  1. Please tell Rafaeli to get a decent mic. His is so awful that his voice is just way too jarring and unpleasant. Also this approach to therapy has been shown to have little to no benefit. Psychedelics can have amazing benefits but the therapy is both extra and often completely unnecessary.

  2. B A L A N C E ? And just like marijuana THC or No THC ; and YES Alcohol is very dangerous,there has been more deaths related to drug withdrawal than other addictive substances , but anytime your mind is under a mind altering substance is highly Questionable …. Schizophrenics , Major Depression everyone is different and responds differently,just looking back on our history of Psych….

  3. Psilocybin mushrooms have proven very effective in the treatment of various mental health issues. Helped me get out of years of depression and excessive alcohol use. My social anxiety is gone as well

  4. What's interesting is that deep meditation has a similar effect. At a certain stage of mindful concentration, discursive thinking becomes virtually impossible. Insights arise. The meditator is protected from kilesas (harmful habits of mind). All this is clearly seen. At ever deeper levels more phenomena occurs. Usually the deeper levels only on one week or longer retreats for experienced meditators. In my opinion, psilocybin microdoses would enhance a daily at home practice. Problem is it is illegal to use personally in the USA and has stiff penalties. It is true, a daily meditation practice helps to keep one relatively sane and able to handle stressors with more wisdom and compassion.

  5. Amazing documentary! I eish they would role this out as a therapy it could help so many people! I wish i could try it ive suffured eith severe depression,oc.d. and later alcholism from age 10 im now 32. If only this stuff was available for treatment alonside therapy

  6. When taken under supported conditions, psilocybin mushrooms can cause self-described spiritual experiences that generally result in positive changes in the person's attitude, mood and behavior.

  7. Curious as to whether or not individuals who have diagnosed mental health disorders will always end up having bad trips ( paranoia and psychosis) or the psychedelics activate some firings in the brain that can override moderate to severe psychological disorder ?

  8. Throw away your stupid simplistic naive ideas of what a hallucination is. I'm talking about a robust deeply sophisticated notion of hallucination. Hallucinations that are so real you cannot distinguish them from reality. Hallucinations that are so mesmerizing that… Imagine that you started imagining that you were a kangaroo and you just sat there day after day after day imagining that you were a kangaroo and you imagined it so much that you literally became a kangaroo and you could not remember anymore that you were ever a human. That's the kind of power of imagination that I'm talking about.

    See so the irony of people who criticize psychedelics is that they themselves are doing it from a state of hallucination but they're so ignorant and oblivious and lacking in self reflection that they don't understand that what they're doing is you're criticizing psychedelics from a state of hallucination and delusion.

  9. I grow and use them on a monthly basis. What is so incredible is the results last for a while so I’m not poisoning my body relentlessly every day. It’s an incredible approach to my depression and it makes me happy and strengthens my spiritual faith.

  10. using mushrooms is one of the single greatest experiences I've had. As someone whos build a relationship with the mushroom and use for prolonged amount of time I fear that people using to get rid of depression maybe disappointed. It needs to used on a somewhat regular basis. You begin to develop a relationship with the mushroom. The biggest thing I think is finding your unique dosage. Just because someone does a certain dose does not mean that will be the correct dose for someone else. So the individual needs to find their unique dosage by using multiple times as well as finding what that individuals best set and setting will be. It has taken many trips to find what works best for me. Good luck and happy tripping.

  11. I have been depressed for a long time, but after taking mushrooms few months ago, l feel much happier and highly motivated and my ADHD gone , lost a ton of anxiousness and had a few epiphanies about how I should live my life. I decided to buy an ounce for backup, but haven’t yet felt the need to take any more since then.

  12. Psilocybin mushrooms are no joke, I tried some 4 year old ones last night and holy crap they STILL worked. I slept on them and woke up more alive and refreshed than I've felt in YEARS. My god. I took maybe 2g worth, didn't feel much tripping till an hour after when I went to bed and woke up with a "there it goes!" moment so I put on some headphones and listened to classic Latin Jazz and basically went into a really deep lucid dream seeing the entire band and dancing in a prolonged hypnagogia state and eventually sleeping. Something about the rhythm was incredible, a real magic of the human spirit that we need more of today. Music had more of that spirit in the 60s.

  13. Psilocybin mushrooms seem to cure depression. Pharmaceutical industry stakeholders are probably scared about that.
    Some alcoholics immediately go sober after a transformative trip, just makes so much sense and feels really true.

  14. clinically appropriating an already well known process that humans have done for 150,000 years around campfires with trusted family, friends and the tribe's shaman – giving it a fancy name acting like they invented something new

  15. Just one trip on mushroom significantly helped with my depression. The good internal feelings I acquired during the trip never left me and I now see life through an entirely different perspective

  16. Psychedelics can really affect mental health challenges such as anxiety and depression. Personally, they’ve been extremely beneficial for me.

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