First LSD Test In 40 Years Reveal Drug Helps Terminal Patients Prepare For Death 221
EwanPalmer writes "The first controlled LSD study in more than 40 years reveals the drug could be used to help people with terminal illnesses deal better with death. The study, published in the Journal of nervous and Mental Disease, showed that 12 people who agreed to take the banned hallucinogenic drug during therapy sessions felt 'significant reductions in anxiety' about their lives ending."
No shit captian obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
This has been a long known fact, shortly after the study, or experiments were done this was being discussed among the medical community, and among the Public. I guess the newer generation will rediscover these studies but this isn't anything remotely "new" or ground breaking!
Re:Is this even news? (Score:3, Insightful)
This is really ancient knowledge. Did science just get hep?
Great.
Re:You want to reduce my anxiety? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're going to die no matter what, there's absolutely nothing anyone can do to change that, all medical science can hope to do is delay it a bit. Coming to accept that knowledge rather than letting it eat away at your peace of mind is an important part of the dying process - the sooner you do it the freer the rest of you life will be, whether that be day or decades. It's an incredibly liberating, humbling, and inspiring thing to truly accept that everything you think of as yourself will come to an end, and the only trace left in this world will be the ripples you leave in other people's lives.
hallucinogens (Score:2, Insightful)
Aside from the fact that "get high" can refer to drugs besides marijuana, marijuana itself is technically classified as a mild hallucinogen. I've never understood this classification because :
(a) marijuana makes you lethargic while most hallucinogens make you more energetic,
(b) marijuana can cause visual effects but only after you've taken so much it becomes unpleasant.
(c) marijuana has a predictable effect while serious hallucinogens are much more susceptible to "set & setting".
Anyways, mescaline, the naturally occurring drug closest to LSD, has been used for religious purposes since before recorded history. Also, LSD is knowing for leaving a lasting impression. Ain't surprising that controlling the "set & setting" allows for serious psychological work.
Also, psychedelic mushrooms are useful for treating alcoholism in that you should not take alcohol when on mushrooms, so partying on a mushroom trip means a night out sans alcohol.
Re:The fed killed drug research for decades. (Score:2, Insightful)
The canabinoids of Marijuana, alone, have a number of apparent (but not adequately researhed) benefits:
- They appear to be a specific treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which, itself, seems to be a result of undermeidcation for pain - also driven by the "drug war").
- Canabinoids (including at least one which does not produce a substantial "high") also appear to be a successful treatment for a debilitating form of childhood epilepsy.
- Parkinson's disease eventually kills, not directly through loss of dopamine, but by the body's attempt to compensate for it by fouling up a system that uses the recently discovered endocanabinoids as neurotransmitters. (These are the chemicals that THC and its relatives mimic, much as opioids mimic endorphins.) This ends up with loss of memory and loss of appetite, and the victim starves herself to death. Canabinoids may help alleviate this and/or prolong life, (if only by reducing the tendency to self-starvation by inducing "the munchies").
- Canabinoids have been claimed to arrest the progress of several cancers, including a brain cancer.d
- Canabinoids have long been used for reducing the nausea of chemotherapy, easing self-starvation in cancer patients. (Similarly with side-effects of anti-AIDS drug coctails.)
I could go on.
If canabinoids are so useful, then why not produce them in a pill, instead of smoking the marijuana. Oh, wait, they did, and in clinical trials, they weren't proven very effective. Which begs the question as to whether the canabinoids are effective or the placebo effect is what is being observed. Even if there is some effectiveness, the question then should be is it more effective than current medications/treatments?
For instance 2-bromo-LSD, a derivative of LSD is very effective for alleviating migraines and cluster headaches. Do they prescribe it for everybody? No, it is a last use drug because of other side effects (BOL is not a hallucinogenic like straight LSD). For 95% of migraine and cluster headache suffers, the standard treatments apply because they are effective.
You mention canabinoids as a treatment for some types of childhood epilepsy. Yet, the only support for that and most other "treatments" is anecdotal. When actual clinical trials are performed, the results do not tend to support the claims.
Yes the federal government banned LSD, but not because it made people feel good. There was plenty of research into it and it was determined that the good did not outweigh the bad. That said, the federal government only has control over the US. Foreign governments also banned it, even those that are much more liberal with drug policy.
I am sure you could go on, but what is needed is scientific proof of the effectiveness of these compounds, not anecdotal.
Re:Is this even news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Psychedelics are dangerous. They are very effective at treating addictions, and modern society is entirely build around all the consumers running on hamster wheels for their next hit. They grant self-awareness, and that just might make the marionette see the strings they dance from. But even more dangerously they might make the puppetmasters realize those same strings also tie the hand that holds them.