Psychedelic Mushrooms Are Closer To Medicinal Use (nytimes.com) 79
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University have recommended that psilocybin, the active compound in hallucinogenic mushrooms, be reclassified for medical use, potentially paving the way for the psychedelic drug to one day treat depression and anxiety and help people stop smoking. The New York Times: The suggestion to reclassify psilocybin from a Schedule I drug, with no known medical benefit, to a Schedule IV drug, which is akin to prescription sleeping pills, was part of a review to assess the safety and abuse of medically administered psilocybin [Editor's note: the story may be paywalled; alternative source]. Before the Food and Drug Administration can be petitioned to reclassify the drug, though, it has to clear extensive study and trials, which can take more than five years, the researchers wrote. The analysis was published in the October print issue of Neuropharmacology, a medical journal focused on neuroscience.
The study comes as many Americans shift their attitudes toward the use of some illegal drugs. The widespread legalization of marijuana has helped demystify drug use, with many people now recognizing the medicinal benefits for those with anxiety, arthritis and other physical ailments. Psychedelics, like LSD and psilocybin, are illegal and not approved for medical or recreational use. But in recent years scientists and consumers have begun rethinking their use to combat depression and anxiety.
The study comes as many Americans shift their attitudes toward the use of some illegal drugs. The widespread legalization of marijuana has helped demystify drug use, with many people now recognizing the medicinal benefits for those with anxiety, arthritis and other physical ailments. Psychedelics, like LSD and psilocybin, are illegal and not approved for medical or recreational use. But in recent years scientists and consumers have begun rethinking their use to combat depression and anxiety.
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Certain drugs, like MDMA have been found to help people with PTSD and other conditions improve via exposure therapy. Exposure therapy involves exposing the target patient to the anxiety source or its context without the intention to cause any danger. Doing so is thought to help them overcome their anxiety or distress.
Psychotherapy incorporating use of the drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy, is equally effective in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as the most widely accepted psychiatric
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Actually the treatment associated with MDMA isn't exposure therapy. It's radically more effective than exposure therapy and shares nothing in common.
There are clinical guides available regarding the application of MDMA in the treatment of patients with PTSD that you can access for free.
The short version is that the hypothesis for PTSD is it is a condition of excessive self doubt and detachment, in other words the patient loses the ability to trust or accept their own feelings and come to terms with reality
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It's like that pill to help you end restless leg syndrome- side effect of death.
Exactly like that, except the side-effect is pretty much nothing.
Let's help you stop smoking by sending you on a Magical Mushroom Tour!
Sure. Why the hell not?
Re:Duuuuude....weeeeeed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's help you stop smoking by sending you on a Magical Mushroom Tour!
That seems a lot more sensible than the currently approved pill that has an 8% success rate and occasionally triggers a literally homicidal rage in otherwise normal people.
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Chantix can be even worse. There have been actual homicides [washingtonpost.com] and suicides [vice.com].
Re:Duuuuude....weeeeeed! (Score:5, Interesting)
You *do* know "Reefer Madness" is not scientifically accurate.
As for psilocybin, both it and LSD have very low toxicity AND very low addiction potential. If you compare them to caffeine on both those scales (toxicity and dependence), they stand in relation to caffeine roughly as caffeine stands to alcohol. And while individual cases of post-usage psychiatric problems have been reported in the literature, when the use is examined statistically the prevalence of self-harm and psychological distress is actually lower in psychedelic drug users.
This doesn't mean that users of such drugs can't come to harm; schizophrenics should especially avoid them. But I personally see very little medical or public health justification in preventing most interested individuals in experimenting with pharmacy grade psychedelics.
I could easily imagine licensed facilities for people interested in LSD. These facilities would be responsible for dosage and purity and could handle routine bad trips that would result in emergency room visits.
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And how do you know that doesn't work?
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The question isn't even if it works. The question is, are you creating a bigger problem than the original problem?
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Doesn't matter about the addiction potential. What matters is that you're trying to treat anxiety by having hallucinations. And I compared that to treating your restless leg syndrome with a medication that can kill you.
Have you ever tried mushrooms?
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Yes. Which is why I have grave doubts that sending somebody on that sort of a hallucination journey will help with smoking or anxiety at all.
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Just saying that it isn't useful to prescribe hallucinatory drugs for non-hallucinatory disorders.
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These facilities would be responsible for dosage and purity and could handle routine bad trips that would result in emergency room visits.
Um, yeah ... so "routine bad trips that would result in emergency room visits" are what you don't get with caffeine.
So, it is worse than caffeine.
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No, there are emergency room visits caused by caffeine too, some of which require hospitalization. Look it up.
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Only significant possibility of death is if one accidentally eats a mushroom that isn't a psilocybe and is instead a poisonous look-alike. Problem will go away once it's legal and distribution is reliable, like cannabis is in some states.
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This is purely hypothetical problem I am pretty sure - I have never heard of such a poisoning. The psychoactive psilocybin mushrooms almost all have a distinctive "bluing" reaction when bruised due to the oxidation of psilocin to form a blue dye. No deadly mushroom has this reaction.
Now people do get poisoned thinking they are eating wild edible mushrooms, of which there are many types, some of which resemble deadly ones. Such poisonings account for 70% of all fatal natural source poisonings.
On the (small)
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Even in the states where it is legal, cannabis distribution isn't reliable.
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Actually, no, I don't. I always compare the potential side effects to the seriousness of what the drug is supposed to fix.
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I'm to the point that altered reality states constitute stupid risk, no matter what it is for.
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Try them before you make uninformed statements, AC.
Round and Round we go... (Score:5, Insightful)
Many cultures use hallucinogens. Changing how the brain works for a limited amount of time, can have profound effects on how people view themselves and society around them. Harnessing this to help people isn't a new thing, its simply a return to things that have worked over time.
--
Here we go round the mulberry bush
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Can we do pot next? (Score:1)
US6630507B1
https://patents.google.com/patent/US6630507B1/en
Assignee: US Department of Health & Human Services
"Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in li
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The cost of a child scales exponentially with one's level of wealth.
Drugs have always been available in poor communities...why do you think that "the rest of the world" isn't using them?
Now more than ever (Score:5, Insightful)
And I realized that our true nature is spirit not body, that we are eternal beings that God’s love is unconditional. There is nothing that we can ever do to change that, It is only our illusion that we are separate from God or that we are alone. In fact, the reality is, we are one with God and he loves us.
Now if that isn’t a hazard to this country? How are we going to keep building nuclear weapons? What’s going to happen to the arms industry if we realized that we’re all ONE?
It’s going to fuck up the economy. The economy that’s fake anyway. Which would be a real bummer
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You seem to be holding on to a forgone conclusion about the nature of God.
My dreams are a part of me. The characters of which I dream are something that my mind is doing. My neurotransmitters. My brain cells. So they are, in part, me.
Why is it so ridiculous to say that, using that as an analogy, we are all, in part, God?
Oh, right, because the two dominating religions on the planet insist that God is something completely separate from us, in their dusty old books.
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Fantastic Bill Hicks [youtu.be] quote. [wordpress.com]
Funny how animals have been on this planet for millions of years yet man is the only animal stupid enough who can't figure this out.
Please just make GM weed that doesn't stink! (Score:2)
Now that pot is legal, I can't go to a public park without smelling the stuff. Cigarettes weren't so bad since they had a 5 foot radius. But dammit, if somebody is smoking pot within a 100 feet everyone in my family (kids included) go "Ugh! It smells like a skunk around here!" It's only going to get worse...
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I suppose we can make it illegal to do both of:
A) smoke pot
B) in public
Since edibles are a thing, and people can smoke at home or in special pot bars, I think that level of regulation is perfectly reasonable.
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Re:Please just make GM weed that doesn't stink! (Score:5, Funny)
We'll be sure to get off your lawn, sir.
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Stop calling me sir! And when you are done, get back inside here and clean your room!
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Cigarettes weren't so bad since they had a 5 foot radius.
Yeah, that's right, tobacco smoke magically dissipates within five feet of smokers. Got any other horse shit you want to peddle? I've got some unfertilized plants in my garden which could use top dressing.
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The comment about the smell just makes me remember college years. Go to McDonald's at 2AM. Notice strong weed smell. Order food. Receive completely wrong order.
But as for making it not stink.... wasn't part of weed culture just bragging about the dank smell?
Wont happen (Score:2)
Any attempts to reclassify Schedule 1 drugs will probably never happen because the big pharma companies are strongly opposed (since all the things on Schedule 1 are drugs that the big pharma companies can't patent or control and that any drug maker would be able to produce)
Plus you have the anti-drugs campaigners who would argue that (as with weed) the harmful effects of hallucinogenic drugs outweigh any medical benefits.
Re:Wont happen (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks, Mario! (Score:2)
Flying.....Airplanes (Score:2)
So let eat this mushroom and fly to Miami. What could possibly go wrong?
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Depends if you are the pilot or not.
already known medical benefits (Score:5, Funny)
Some of the medical benefits 'shrooms provide are already well studied and known.
For example, we know that aerobic exercise is good for you. Which is just the kind of exercise you get when running from the angry bull or cows in the field, or the farmer, or ....
GOP trusts me to own a gun (Score:1)
But not to own a mushroom.
Shrooms do work (Score:2)
I don't like getting blasted on them as they can make you wonder off into some dark places vs say acid but when I go out to a nightclub to rave I'll take about .4 grams and about 1-1.5 hours later I'll take another .5 sometimes in smaller portions over 30min. Usually I'd have done one chocolate which I make into 1 gram worth of shrooms. You get an almost weed high with out the body stone so your visual perception changes a bit and things seem more clear and happy. The come down is like a MDA come down you f
Why? (Score:2)
This is like all the stoner proposals to make everything out of hemp.
Sure, the stuff won't work better than anything we already use for those purposes, but ... it's hemp man, so it's good!!
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