HALLUCINOGEN MAY AID CANCER PATIENTS

The Active Ingredient in 'Magic Mushrooms' Eased Depression and
Anxiety, a Study Says.

The psychedelic drug psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic
mushrooms," can improve mood and reduce anxiety and depression in
terminal cancer patients, Los Angeles researchers reported Monday.

A single modest dose of the hallucinogen, whose reputation was
severely tarnished by widespread nonmedical use in the psychedelic
'60s and ethical lapses by researchers such as Timothy Leary, can
improve patients' functioning for as long as six months, allowing
them to spend their last days with more peace, researchers said.

The research was a pilot study involving only 12 patients, but it is
viewed as a first step in restoring the drug to respectability.

"This is a landmark study in many ways," said Dr. Stephen Ross,
clinical director of the Center of Excellence on Addiction at New
York University's Langone Medical Center, who was not involved in the
research. "This is the first time a paper like this has come out in a
prestigious psychiatric journal in 40 years."

The research conducted on psychedelic drugs in the 1950s and '60s
"was promising, but by no means did it reach the kinds of scientific
standards that we would expect today," said behavioral biologist
Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University, who was also not
involved in the study.

The new research "is just a pilot study and really needs to be
considered preliminary, but it demonstrates that such research can be
conducted safely and that doses have palliative effects," Griffiths said.

Ross and Griffiths have ongoing studies examining the use of
psilocybin in cancer patients, but Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist
at Harbor- UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical
Research Institute, is the first to report results.

Grob and his colleagues studied 12 patients, ages 36 to 58, with
advanced-stage cancer and anxiety resulting from their diagnoses.
Each patient went through two sessions, one in which he or she was
given the drug and another with a placebo, the drug niacin, which
provokes a physiological but not a psychological reaction. Although
the doses were blinded, about 80% of the time both patients and
physicians could tell which drug patients were getting.

Subjects were given the drugs in a hospital research unit and were
then closely monitored for six hours. They were encouraged to lie in
bed, wear eyeshades and listen to music during the sessions.

The patients were given a relatively low dose of psilocybin, 0.2
milligram per kilogram of body weight. Nonetheless, the team reported
in the Archives of General Psychiatry, all patients reported a
significant improvement in mood for at least two weeks after the
psilocybin treatment and up to a six-month improvement on a scale
that measures depression and anxiety. Most also reported a decreased
need for narcotic pain relievers. No adverse reactions were observed.

These types of patients normally do not respond well to psychological
therapy, Grob said, but his study showed that the drug has "great
promise for alleviating anxiety and other psychiatric symptoms."

Ross and Griffiths are using psilocybin doses 50% higher than in
Grob's study and are obtaining similar results, they said in
interviews. All three researchers had to jump through many federal
and local regulatory hoops to obtain approval for the experiments.

Now the problem is obtaining subjects, Griffiths said. Because the
drug has "such a tarnished history ... many oncologists are reluctant
to refer volunteers," he said.

All three discouraged cancer patients from using the hallucinogen on
their own. The drugs "are, in fact, dangerous and, under nonmedical
conditions, people can have fearful reactions, panic reactions,
engage in dangerous behavior and do great harm to themselves,"
Griffiths said. "But the studies underscore the fact that we can
screen people and prepare them in a way that minimizes any harmful effects."

Psilocybin is illegal and listed in the same class of drugs as LSD
and heroin, according to the Department of Justice.