Magic mushrooms may help with depression, say leading scientists
24 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized Tags: alcohol, depression, ecstasy, greece, happiness, lsd, magic mushrooms, scientists, uk
A drug derived from magic mushrooms could help people with depression by enabling them to relive positive and happy moments of their lives, according to scientists including the former government drug adviser, Professor David Nutt.
Two studies, for which scientists struggled to find funding because of public suspicion and political sensitivity around psychedelic drugs, have shed light on how magic mushrooms affect the brain.
Nutt, from Imperial College London, was sacked as a government drug adviser after claiming tobacco and alcohol were more dangerous than cannabis and psychedelic drugs such as ecstasy and LSD.
He believes prejudice and fear have prevented important scientific work on psychedelic drugs. Research began in the 1950s and 60s but was stopped by the criminalisation of drugs and stringent regulations which made the work costly.
“Everybody who has taken psychedelics makes the point that these can produce the most profound changes in the state of awareness and being that any of them have experienced,” said Nutt.
The drugs had been used for millennia, he said, since psychedelic mushrooms grew in the Elysian fields of Greece. Aldous Huxley wrote The Doors Of Perception about the insight such drugs gave him into the life of the mind.
