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."
bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:0, Interesting)
I can't image a worse trip than knowing your going do die and experiencing those thoughts while under the influence of LSD. For those that have never taken this drug, beyond the entertaining light, sounds and altered twisted reality and all, it can also puts your mind on a train of thought such that you can not break out of it unless someone is monitoring you, picks up on that and says, "dude, snap out of it." Somehow death and and LSD are a bad idea.
Re: Welp, that's the end of that (Score:2, Interesting)
Wait! I thump bible and advocate LSD.
Similar Tests.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Were done with Psilocybin (Magic Mushrooms) on terminally ill cancer patients (http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/unique-everybody-else/201210/psilocybin-anxiety-and-depression-in-cancer) and also PTSD sufferers (http://guardianlv.com/2013/08/psychedelics-show-promise-for-ptsd-treatment/). Psychedelics are beautiful substances which when used correctly can give the user a profound, new outlook on life and put personal matters into better perspective. There's no doubt these drugs are exceptional in acting as what I would describe as the psychological equivalent to a disk de-fragmentation on a computer; nothing is necessarily gained or lost, just arranged and sorted back into the order which is most conducive to the operation of the hardware (or human body, in this case).
Re:bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the article, the trial was for "LSD-assisted psychotherapy", so it was a combination between an acid trip and a session with a therapist. There was someone monitoring them, and they probably did have to get patients to "snap out of it" once in a while.
Re:bad trip to the power of infinity? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't image a worse trip than knowing your going do die and experiencing those thoughts while under the influence of LSD. For those that have never taken this drug, beyond the entertaining light, sounds and altered twisted reality and all, it can also puts your mind on a train of thought such that you can not break out of it unless someone is monitoring you, picks up on that and says, "dude, snap out of it." Somehow death and and LSD are a bad idea.
I was thinking the same thing. It's been several decades since I've dropped acid. But this could go one of two ways. I've had very few bad "trips" but I can't imagine how bad it could be if you know you are dying. And i hope they give them some valium when they come down. There's nothing worse than that strung out feeling afterwards. It's best if you can sleep through that. On the other hand, most things are pretty funny when you're tripping.
I remember when I was a teenager doing LSD and I saw the grim reaper appear. After I got over my initial shock I pointed at him and laughed. Eventually he went away but took my walls and ceiling with him. My only thought at the time was that my dad was going to be really pissed when he sees this.
Re:Article not quite right (Score:5, Interesting)
And then there was the experiment where a couple dozen professionals who had been stuck on various problems for months were given LSD to determine it's effects on creative problem solving. (You can read about the experiment here: http://www.themorningnews.org/... [themorningnews.org]) but here's a quote:
"But here’s the clincher. After their 5HT2A neural receptors simmered down, they remained firm: LSD absolutely had helped them solve their complex, seemingly intractable problems. And the establishment agreed. The 26 men unleashed a slew of widely embraced innovations shortly after their LSD experiences, including a mathematical theorem for NOR gate circuits, a conceptual model of a photon, a linear electron accelerator beam-steering device, a new design for the vibratory microtome, a technical improvement of the magnetic tape recorder, blueprints for a private residency and an arts-and-crafts shopping plaza, and a space probe experiment designed to measure solar properties."
Yeah, LSD is a lot of fun to use recreationaly, and it's easy to mock "the semi-coherent ramblings of some guys on LSD," but LSD has a lot of potential to offer our society if only we'd take it seriously.
Re:Similar Tests.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Fourteen months after participating in the study, 94% of those who received the drug said the experiment was one of the top five most meaningful experiences of their lives; 39% said it was the single most meaningful experience.
Critically, however, the participants themselves were not the only ones who saw the benefit from the insights they gained: their friends, family member and colleagues also reported that the psilocybin experience had made the participants calmer, happier and kinder.
You can read more about it here: http://healthland.time.com/201... [time.com]
The fed killed drug research for decades. (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been a long known fact,
Some of this was known back in the '60s and '70s. But the federal government decided to suppress it. In particular: Any drug with side-effects that were pleasant was considered a threat to the status quo of governance - a way for productive people to achieve happiness without driving industrial profit and/or part of a Communist conspiracy to rot the "Free World"'s moral fiber.
There was a period where researchers would only get new grants if the conclusions of their studies stated that the drugs - psychedelics, marijhuana, etc. - were useless for medical purposes and/or dangerous. (The papers in Science, for instance, were often pathetically hilarious. The reduced data said one thing, while the conclusion said the opposite.)
Meanwhile the government (notably with such things as the FBI's COINTELPRO program) smeared those (formerly highly respected scientists) who had been proponents of finding uses for them (especially those who had tried to use them to augment intelligence and experimented on themselves - often with bizarre results). The most prominent of these was Timothy Leary, though there were a number of others.
Somewher in there the drugs were added to various "schedules" and banned from medical use.
After a couple years of this, with any actual benefits buried in the noise, the government declared that it was "settled science" that there were no useful treatments using these drugs and stopped issuing new permits for their use in new research projects. (It's very much like research into global warming: You can't convince people on either side because the research is suspect due to the government becoming involved and pushing its horse in the race.)
Then the government declared acts related to banned-drug trafficing, possession, and use to be "serious" crimes and imposed passed mandatory minimum sentences - recreating the scenario of alcohol prohibition, funding organized crime, filling up the prisons, and lining corrupt police personell's pockets with graft money. Then it passed RICO and created the same financial incentive structure that fueled the Spanish Inquisition - driving ever-increasing anti-drug activity and blocking attempts to repeal drug bans.
And that's where it stood for decades. Negligible work on uses for the chemicals - either by organized research or private self-medication (with drugs of uncertain content and quality).
So while Moore's Law drove the computes from giant cabnets filling floors of office buildings to chips in everything under the sun, work on a nimber of categories of drugs stagnated.
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.
But "more research is needed" to determine which (if any) of these effects are real, turn them into practical treatments, and deploy them. And it's not going to happen smoothly and rapidly with the government continuing to interfere.
Re:uh (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:same as booze being illegal in saudi arabia (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you considered that she only saw the extreme edge cases? The vast majority of people who take LSD never end up in an emergency room because of it. The vast majority never end up hospitalised. She, by definition of her job, only saw the worst.
> Things going horribly wrong while on hallucinogens isn't exactly rare, and as such should really only
> be used while under supervision. They are in fact so common, that they have an official slang term,
> "bad trip".
Depends what you mean by "horribly wrong" or "bad trip". "Bad Trip" is used to describe any situation where a person has an emotional experience that they are having trouble handling. Yes, this happens. I have seen it happen. It can be loud, it can be scary, but it really turning into anything significant IS indeed rare.
In fact, if it wasn't rare, it wouldn't make the news.
Yes, its true, psychedelics can provide people with very intense emptional experiences, which are not always fun; anyone using them should be aware of and prepared for that. Anything beyond that is just unwarranted fear.