Magic mushrooms

There are signs here and there that some nations are finding their way out of the anti-drugs hysteria that has been prevalent in so many nations in recent history.  Obviously, before nation-states were "invented" and multiple laws were passed, people could use any substance, natural or otherwise, that they could locate, sometimes with disastrous results, sometimes not.  

Once "civilization" began spreading, many of the natural substances like coca, marijuana, opium, and magic mushrooms, etc, were outlawed.  Fear and ignorance were the primary culprits, although some corporations played a role in abolishing natural substances like hemp because their own businesses or monopolies were threatened by decentralized use and private cultivation.  No matter that hemp was widely used and encouraged by our own Founding Fathers.

Finally, cooler and calmer heads have begun to prevail, but there is still a long way to go.  The study of the utility of magic mushrooms in treating depression cited below is a good example, although we have the classic Catch-22 here:  the fact that the magic mushrooms are still illegal in England is hampering the ability of researchers to conduct basic research.  One would think that scientists, at the least, would be allowed to conduct experiments on the substances.

First magic mushroom depression trial hits stumbling block

By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - The world's first clinical trial designed to explore using a hallucinogen from magic mushrooms to treat people with depression has stalled because of British and European rules on the use of illegal drugs in research.

David Nutt, president of the British Neuroscience Association and professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, said he had been granted an ethical green light and funding for the trial, but regulations were blocking it.

"We live in a world of insanity in terms of regulating drugs," he told a neuroscience conference in London on Sunday.

He has previously conducted small experiments on healthy volunteers and found that psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, has the potential to alleviate severe forms of depression in people who don't respond to other treatments.

Following these promising early results he was awarded a 550,000 pounds grant from the UK's Medical Research Council to conduct a full clinical trial in patients.

But psilocybin is illegal in Britain, and under the United Nations 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances it is classified as a Schedule 1 drug - one that has a high potential for abuse and no recognised medical use.

This, Nutt explained, means scientists need a special licence to use magic mushrooms for trials in Britain, and the manufacture of a synthetic form of psilocybin for use in patients is tightly controlled by European Union regulations.

Together, this has meant he has so far been unable to find a company able to make and supply the drug for his trial, he said.

"Finding companies who could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence, which can take up to a year and triple the price, is proving very difficult," he said.

Nutt said regulatory authorities have a "primitive, old-fashioned attitude that Schedule 1 drugs could never have therapeutic potential", despite the fact that his research and the work done by other teams suggests such drugs may help treat some patients with psychiatric disorders.

Psilocybin - or "magic" - mushrooms grow naturally around the world and have been widely used since ancient times for religious rites and also for recreation.

Researchers in the United States have seen positive results in trials using MDMA, a pure form of the party drug ecstasy, in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

"What we are trying to do is to tap into the reservoir of under-researched illegal drugs to see if we can find new and beneficial uses for them in people whose lives are often severely affected by illnesses such as depression," Nutt said.

Original.