PSILOCYBIN STUDY FINDS ENDURING 'HIGH'

Some find meaning in meditation, others through religion, but for some
middle-aged volunteers in a Johns Hopkins study, their life-altering
sacred experience arrived in a dose of psilocybin, the active
ingredient in so-called sacred mushrooms indigenous to Mexico.

In what some are calling a "landmark" study on the effects of
hallucinogens, Roland Griffiths and colleagues brought 36 adult
volunteers into the laboratory where they experienced their first
psychedelic high. Two-thirds said it was among the most profound
events in their lives, said Griffiths, whose findings appear in the
journal Psychopharmacology. The positive effects appeared to last for
as long as a year.

Griffiths and colleagues took out ads looking for adults with no
history of mental illness or psychedelic drug use. After performing
extensive psychiatric interviews, they chose 36 volunteers, average
age 46, all of whom underwent eight hours of preparation. They took
the drug in a relaxed setting for another eight hours with two
monitors present. They were given either psilocybin, an amphetamine
compound or a placebo. The monitors were unaware of what the volunteer
had taken.

Afterward, the volunteers completed a battery of tests. Two-thirds
who'd taken psilocybin recounted a profound spiritual experience.
"These are successful, dynamic people with plenty of life experience,"
Griffiths said. "We didn't expect this."

But Griffiths said a third of the volunteers experienced terrible fear
and anxiety on psilocybin. "These drugs should not be used
recreationally," Griffiths said. "These are potentially dangerous
drugs, and we can't predict who will have fear, anxiety and paranoia.
You can imagine that in different circumstances, someone might panic
and do something dangerous."

However, the negative effects, at least in the calm study setting,
didn't last beyond the session, whereas positive ones persisted. "They
felt that they learned something true and deeply important," Griffiths
said. Family and co-workers interviewed said they saw profound changes.

"As a scientist, I have to go where the data is," said Dr. Herbert
Kleber of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in
Manhattan. "On the other hand, I worry about saying things that can
have a Pied Piper effect." Kleber was one of four scientists asked to
write accompanying editorials in the journal.

Kleber referred to the 1960s when scientists such as Harvard's Timothy
Leary swallowed their own research drugs. Leary, who was fired because
of his controversial research, invited a generation to "turn on, tune
in and drop out."

Forty years later, Griffiths decided that "classical hallucinogens
have been in the deep freeze for too long. Our understanding of
neuroscience, our ability to measure subtle psychological effects of
spiritual experience, has proceeded along, and yet there are a whole
class of compounds we know nothing about."