REVIVING RESEARCH INTO PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS

That psychedelic drugs, such as LSD and MDMA (ecstasy), can be
effective treatments for various psychiatric illnesses is an old
idea. Once considered wonder drugs for their effects on anxiety,
depression, alcoholism, and other mental illnesses, they have been
effectively banished from medical practice after legal rulings banned
their sale and use. Although such bans were largely put in place to
quash concerns about rampant recreational drug use fuelling the
counter cultures of the 1960s and 1980s (LSD and MDMA, respectively),
criminalisation of these agents has also led to an excessively
cautious approach to further research into their therapeutic benefits.

So do illicit drugs have therapeutic benefits that outweigh their
substantial social harm? The evidence is scant.

But the case of a man who emerged from a decade-long period of
intensive MDMA use "during which he is estimated to have taken 40000
pills" with no signs of the profound neurotoxicity that has long been
feared to result from even limited consumption of ecstasy, has
re-energised calls for more research into the real side-effects, and
therapeutic potential, of psychedelic drugs.

Although some small-scale research projects using LSD, MDMA, and the
active components of cannabis are now underway, the blanket ban on
psychedelic drugs enforced in many countries continues to hinder safe
and controlled investigation, in a medical environment, of their
potential benefits.

Exaggerated risks of harm have contributed to the demonisation of
psychedelic drugs as a social evil. But although this dangerous
reputation "generated and perpetuated by the often disproportionately
stiff penalties for their use" is helpful for law enforcement, it
does not correspond to the evidence.

Rather, the social prescription against psychedelic drugs that
hinders properly controlled research into their effects and
side-effects is largely based on social and legal, as opposed to
scientific, concerns.

To maximise research into therapeutic benefits without exacerbating
real social harms a legal structure that recognises this distinction
is sorely needed.