Magic mushrooms could have medical benefits, researchers say

[Dale O Sea]

The hallucinogen in magic mushrooms may no longer just be for hippies seeking a trippy high.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have been studying the effects of psilocybin, a chemical found in some psychedelic mushrooms, that's credited with inducing transcendental states. Now, they say, they've zeroed in on the perfect dosage level to produce transformative mystical and spiritual experiences that offer long-lasting life-changing benefits, while carrying little risk of negative reactions.

The breakthrough could speed the day when doctors use psilocybin--long viewed skeptically for its association with 1960s countercultural thrill-seekers--for a range of valuable clinical functions, like easing the anxiety of terminally ill patients, treating depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and helping smokers quit. Already, studies in which depressed cancer patients were given the drug have reported positive results. "I'm not afraid to die anymore" one participant told The Lookout.

The Johns Hopkins study--whose results will be published this week in the journal Psychopharmacology--involved giving healthy volunteers varying doses of psilocybin in a controlled and supportive setting, over four separate sessions. Looking back more than a year later, 94 percent of participants rated it as one of the top five most spiritually significant experiences of their lifetimes.

More important, 89 percent reported lasting, positive changes in their behavior--better relationships with others, for instance, or increased care for their own mental and physical well-being. Those assessments were corroborated by family members and others.

"I think my heart is more open to all interactions with other people," one volunteer reported in a questionnaire given to participants 14-months after their session.

"I feel that I relate better in my marriage," wrote another. "There is more empathy -- a greater understanding of people, and understanding their difficulties, and less judgment."

Identifying the exact right dosage for hallucinogenic drugs is crucial, Roland Griffiths, a professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins who led the study, explained to The Lookout. That's because a "bad trip" can trigger hazardous, self-destructive behavior, but low doses don't produce the kind of transformative experiences that can offer long-term benefits. By trying a range of doses, Griffiths said, researchers were able to find the sweet spot, "where a high or intermediate dose can produce, fairly reliably, these mystical experiences, with very low probability of a significant fear reaction."

In the 1950s and '60s, scientists became interested in the potential effects of hallucinogens like psilocybin, mescaline, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) on both healthy and terminally ill people. Mexican Indians had, since ancient times, used psychedelic mushrooms with similar chemical structures to achieve intense spiritual experiences. But by the mid '60s, counterculture gurus like Dr. Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley were talking up mind-altering drugs as a way of expanding one's consciousness and rejecting mainstream society. Stories, perhaps apocryphal, circulated about people jumping out of windows while on LSD, and some heavy users were said to have suffered permanent psychological damage. By the early '70s, the US government had essentially banned all hallucinogenic drugs.

But recent years have seen the beginning of a revival of mainstream scientific interest in mind-altering drugs, and particularly in the possibility of using them in a clinical setting to alleviate depression and anxiety. A 2004 study by the government of Holland (pdf) found psilocybin to have no significant negative effects.

Here in the United States, too, the climate may be shifting. In a statement accompanying the announcement of the Johns Hopkins findings, Jerome Jaffe, a former White House drug czar now at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the results raise the question of whether psilocybin could prove useful "in dealing with the psychological distress experienced by some terminal patients?"

The hope is that the long-lasting spiritual and transcendental experiences associated with psilocybin could--if conducted in a controlled and supportive setting, and with appropriate dosage levels--help ease patients' fear and anxiety, allowing them to approach death with a greater sense of calm....

Full Yahoo news article here

I hope this is more true to its source than marinol.

[Sinner]

I did some shrooms when I was young, pretty sure I took more than more than the "perfect" dosage though.

[Dale O Sea]

I did too, a decade or so back.

Interesting buzz..wouldn't call it an hallucinogen tho..

Hard to classify..like weed.

[Sinner]

We used to take them alot back in the day. They were fun, not sure I would do them again, of course I wont do alot of things again. hehe.

[Fan]

oh they are hallucinogens, just need to take enough

[Dale O Sea]

Mine were a gift..must not have been generous enough..

I didn't even throw up.

[Fan]

if you throw up you have taken the wrong kind of mushroom They are unpleasant but you should not refund. Peyote makes people hurl, as does ayahuasca afaik.

[Dale O Sea]

My wife throws up a little just watching me eat a sauteed mushroom..

[Bobbi Snow]

Marinol was an over-rated, outrageously-priced pharmaceutical that wasn't worth the money.

[Dale O Sea]

I hear that..why muck with ma nature' design..