<http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1754088,00.html>
Lancet calls for LSD in labs

James Randerson, science correspondent
Friday April 14, 2006

"Use more psychedelic drugs," is not advice you would expect
from your GP, but that is the call from an influential US
medical journal to researchers.

An editorial in the Lancet says that the "demonisation of
psychedelic drugs as a social evil" has stifled vital medical
research that would lead to a better understanding of the brain
and better treatments for conditions such as depression.

The journal's editor Richard Horton said he was not advocating
recreational drug use, but championed the benefits of
researchers studying the effects of drugs such as LSD and
Ecstasy by using them themselves in the lab.

"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," said the
editorial, "...criminalisation of these agents has also led to
an excessively cautious approach to further research into their
therapeutic benefits."

Dr Horton told Guardian Unlimited that important advances were
made by researchers using psychedelic drugs on themselves, but
that these studies were stifled by the post-1960s anti-drug
backlash. "Our very earliest understanding of the neurochemistry
of the brain came from studying LSD-like compounds. Those same
researchers were also taking those drugs, not recreationally,
but as experiments on themselves. This was immensely important
work."

"The whole taboo around recreational drug use can make the study
of these drugs very difficult," he said, "We need to get a
balance between these social taboos and what's best for
patients."

Dr Horton's comments echo those from psychiatrist Ben Sessa on
the 100th birthday of Albert Hoffmann, who discovered LSD. "It
is as if a whole generation of psychiatrists have had this
systematically erased from their education," he told the
Guardian in January.

"But for the generation who trained in the 50s and 60s, this
really was going to be the next big thing. Thousands of books
and papers were written, but then it all went silent. My
generation has never heard of it. It's almost as if there has
been an active demonisation."

Some anti-drug charities and politicians argue that medical
research on illegal drugs should remain taboo because it risks
sending a confused message to potential users. Rick Doblin of
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies in
Sarasota, Florida rejects this argument. "The idea that by
contradicting the exaggerated propaganda you are somehow sending
the wrong message is false," he said, "Kids know when they are
being told something that is way exaggerated, but then they
don't know what is the truth."

The journal's call comes at a crucial moment, he said, because
several small studies of the medicinal effects of illegal drugs
are under way. "I think it is a tremendously courageous step."

MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, has shown promise in
treating post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety in cancer
patients, while LSD and psylocibin - the active ingredient in
magic mushrooms - are being investigated as treatments from
cluster headaches. Sativex, a treatment for multiple sclerosis
derived from cannabis, is already available in Canada.