Are you on, or are you off the bus? Medical studies bring legitmacy to hallucinogens

Are you on, or are you off the bus? New medical studies on hallucinogens bring legitimacy to the Kesian ride

No longer constrained to the world of bleeding heart hippies professing their oneness with nature at a String Cheese Incident reunion concert at Red Rocks, hallucinogenic drugs seem to be moving from the shadowy depths of hippie counter-culture to the forefront of medical research. Scientists and doctors alike at Harvard, John Hopkins, New York University, Arizona University, and the University of California Los Angeles have begun to reexamine the potential benefits of hallucinogenic drugs as treatments for depression in cancer patients, obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorder, end-of-life anxiety and drug and alcohol addiction. 

While a fair amount of research has already been done by the aforementioned institutions, there is further supportive work being done by nonprofit organizations such as the Heffter Research Institute and MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. Furthermore, MAPS organized the largest conference in the U.S. in the past 17 years that is to be focused primarily on psychedelic science. The conference was held on April 15-18, 2010 in San Jose, California and was designed to “bring together international experts to present on psychedelic research and psychedelic psychotherapy topics” and to explore “clinical and spiritual applications, issues relevant to healthcare professionals, and social and cultural issues surrounding the therapeutic and recreational uses of psychedelics” according to the organization’s website. 

Such a change in the public and professional perception of the medical applications of these psychedelic drugs marks a clear distinction between a new modern openness towards the drugs’ potentials and the unnecessarily demonizing attitude held towards them in the 60s and 70s. In an effort to legitimize new studies and insulate researchers from political and social backlash, both experimenters and medical review boards have developed strict guidelines aimed at maximizing patient comfort and minimizing the risk of any emotionally traumatic experience that may result from adverse reactions to the drugs. Moreover, advancements in medical technology have allowed scientists to observe the effects of various drugs using brain scans, all of which serves to further legitimize the current studies in a way that researchers in decades past could never have been able to do.

Researchers are still slow to make overarching claims about the positive effects of the drugs on patients’ consciousnesses and the degree to which these psychedelics can better treat mental disorders, but studies continue to provide data that point in that direction. For example, in follow-up surveys administered 2 and 14 months after an experiment at Johns Hopkins where one group was given psilocybin and another a placebo, in both instances, the group of individuals who received the psilocybin reported having more satisfaction with their lives after the experience as compared to the control group and that the experience had ranked as one of the top five most memorable experiences in their lives. 

What we are seeing at this time is an evolution of both medical and cultural knowledge, as well as a growing acceptance and understanding of the potentials of human consciousness. Retrospectively, given the cultural opposition and the lack of medical technology in previous decades, it is clear how such research could have been shut down so quickly. But now, as the Western world is growing increasingly more in tune with the expansion of spiritual consciousness through Yoga and meditation, and as our medical resources are able to confirm those potentials for expansion, there seems to be a paradigm shift that may foster a continued support for less traditional means of spiritual and mental development.