Why abandoning psychedelic research in the 1970s was a blow to science

In the early 1950s, Albert Einstein, Karl Jung, Graham Green and many other leading figures from science, philosophy, culture and politicians were presented in the plans of the meeting – they were called “Guard” – where they will be powerful psychedelicsThe field was engaged in a different turn, but I am fascinated by what could be.

I investigated psychedelics DriveThe new BBC Radio 4 series. Earlier, I wrote about disturbing, bright hallucinations that I had in a coma in a hospital with Covid-19. It was that I did not want to repeat, but I wanted to understand why people intentionally searched for psychedelic experience, visiting places where laws differ or risk (legal and otherwise) to look for healing or satisfy other unsatisfied needs.

It has never been given that the international community will come in general to ban psychedelics. Requests of scientists from Humphrey Davy, who experimented with the effects of nitrogen oxide in 1799, on Humphrey Osmond, who invented the word “psychedelic” in the 1950s, saw that chemically induced states required a strict, thoughtful interdisciplinary research.

To the USA War with drugs He began in the 1970s, a number of promising studies of therapeutic potential of psychedelics were conducted. There was also a long story of their use by indigenous crops in sacred and ritual contexts. But instead of science allowed to follow his course, everything was controlled underground. As a result, many of us feel that these substances obtained from mushrooms and plants or synthesized in laboratories, as others. It is this other that surprises me in her ability to linger.

Today, psychedelic studies are recruiting Steam around the world again, looking at whether such drugs can help with depressionDependence, PTSD, eating disorders, dementia and injury between generations. There is work on their possible use to expand the window for Recovery after a strokeGiving more time for rehabilitation and even as a way to understand consciousness.

When we spoke with researchers quietly and objectively testing substances such as Psilocybin And DMT in clinical conditions, all this was like the world away from psychedelic narratives about the popular culture. These molecules have a deep, prolonged effect on the mind and our perception of reality. It is difficult to understand how strange it seems that we decided to simply cut off the wide ways of research, and refused to allow our best mind to see where they could really lead.

Conversations with modern researchers are as interesting as for me, but for me I cannot get rid of “what if?”. Thanks to the global crisis of the government’s mental health and healthcare systems, they desperately need new treatment options. State financing is reduced and under threat in many territories. At the same time, large business, with its motives, has great interest, which has deep consequences for the justice and accessibility of any new methods of treatment. Everything changes, quickly.

As soon as you try with a clear look at the history of humanity relations with psychedelic molecules, history is from giant wounds with self-esteem. Ultimately, the financing of suffering has not passed, and a completely different era began. The drug war has practically closed the studies of the general class of substances for decades, and the consequences have been continuing to this day.

The history of these substances is a warning. Politics cannot be allowed to prevent scientific discovery. Looking around the world today, I see urgency – I would say a moral imperative – to protect and develop the conditions in which science can continue to work. The bets are too high to not.