LSD Re-Emerges as Tool for Therapeutic Research

Kyle Davis
LSDstairway.jpg

The October issue of Scientific American has published an article on the "problem child" LSD's triumphant return to the medical community.  After decades of research being on hold, lysergic acid diethylamide-25 is being used in experiments with terminally ill patients. The drug resurfaced in its native homeland of Switzerland under the watchful eye of leading physician Peter Gasser. The intent of the research is to therapeutically cleanse patients of the “intense anxiety” that is experienced with life threatening illnesses such as cancer.

The British based Beckley Foundation is funding and collaborating on a 12-person study at the University of California with the aim of discovering how the drug changes neural activity and how that relates to the altered states created by Hoffman’s “problem child.” While researchers are happy to see LSD return to the limelight, they hope to ascertain the best psychedelic drug of choice for patients: psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, or MDMA. With much less distractions and obstacles to get in the way--like another hippie movement or CIA experiments--this round of research promises to be much more lasting than what we've seen before.  

This article was also featured on Evolver news.

 

Image: "Stairway to LSD Heaven" by LahDeeDah Lu on Flickr courtesy of Creative Commons Licensing.

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Sign me up!

Submitted by highryder on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 19:04.

The best news for humanity in decades!

http://www.cosm.org/

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_Church

 

combine psychedelics with healing visionary art to heal the sick. 

 

http://www.alexgrey.com/hofmann.htm 

 

http://evolver.net/group/evolver_vancouver/discussion/maps_fundraiser_md...

 

Vancouver BC.  Oct. 24 2009  Support this critical medical research! 

what about the hippie movement

Submitted by revolutionrabbit on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 17:39.
is that just shoveled under the e-fall empire rug? if any of you kiddies and grownups, want to know what it was like in the late 60's when the psychedelic wave hit the industrial military media complex fan that Ike warned us about, try reading my poetic novel,about one such teenager that rode the wild wave. on revolutionrabbit.blogspot.com or go direct to amazon, and type Gone Hallucinogen Freeway. an underground journey through the subterranean hip LSD scene, with that peak novelty moment crystallized in the lens of the torrential gyre widening the zeitgeist zero-point to a Miro dot.Be there or be square. in those days the therapy was in the streets and the parks and the blacklight dens of equality.the rabbit hole never died.and the psychedelic revolution slogs on.Love, peace, and  diggers.Flower Power in 2012.

The Byrds told us there were pyramids on the moon

Submitted by highryder on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 18:51.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Byrds

 

After the first album, there was no going back. 

 

http://www.dead.net/

 

http://www.blackcrowes.com/

 

http://www.toolband.com/index_frames.html

 

Very Exciting Developments 

 

 

Never forget! Thanks for a very important reminder, revolutionrabbit.

Hello revolution

Submitted by Kyle Davis on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 21:13.
Hello revolution rabbit. Obviously the weakest part of the Internet is not knowing the tone that someone is using, so I'm not too sure if you took the hippie comment negatively, but I might as well clarify my tone while I’m on the subject now. Obviously the hippie movement was a monumental time in our history, I was not born so I missed that wave, but it is clear that LSD’s power left it’s footprint on the world. Hoffman himself states in his book LSD: My Problem Child, “This joy at having fathered LSD was tarnished after more than ten years of uninterrupted scientific research and medicinal use when LSD was swept up in the huge wave of an inebriant mania that began to spread over the Western world, above all the United States, at the end of the 1950s.” What’s great about the situation now is that it's gaining fantastic results, by going to the people who need it most, the terminally ill. As you well know, psychedelics amplifies sensory experience and provides an enhanced capacity into the aesthetics of nature, which can ultimately bring you to the ground level of your own mortality. What I believe we may see in these controlled settings is the patients releasing the emotions that cause fear and anxiety to their daily lives due to living with a life impaling disease. This in turn will allow them to live fuller lives, which ultimately brings health, perhaps to the point of fighting off the illness all together in some cases. And this time around, hopefully, the drug will stay controlled and not spill out into the streets again, as Hoffman, the father, always wished. Hopefully after decades of solid research, LSD will gain the respect it’s always deserved on a mainstream level as a gateway into our own psyche, but there are many tough minds out there who would love to disagree all day, and those are the ones who need the facts because they are the decision holders to it's legality at the moment, and it won't get there if it goes uncontrolled again; and if you think differently, search salvia on Youtube and watch this generation go at it.

all for helping terminally ill

Submitted by revolutionrabbit on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 23:47.

and also not forgetting the history of real LSD tripping.As if there is some more serious way of that now, so research can go on.Like, you know so it is more presentable to the people in the white coats that make decisions on who lives and who dies, or dies less painfully. I hope some miracle happens and the folks that made LSD illegal, and said Tim Leary was the most dangerious person on the planet, reconsider the way the medical profession makes policy.But i seriously don't think sweeping the people that used psychedelics, the ones that did not just try it for a kick,and forgot about it, under some sterilized tarp, so it is , somehow now more respectable, is less menacing.LSD's Triumphant Return" ah, but not for you, just for more research funding, so it can be repackaged and made into another pharmaceutical along with all the smart drugs like the ones that kill more people then cancer almost, and hey, then when they kill us with thier medicine, then can give us the coupe de grace LSD pill.

but seriously, maybe ten years from now, it will be more enlightened. Cross your fingers and hope to die on LSD-25 with a smile on your face.No not like Huxley, just to get you better prepared.And that is a good thing because ten years from now doctors will also be shaman.

The Lady of the Manor is out to bend the Nation's Mind

Submitted by highryder on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 18:11.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article4967570.ece

 

 

No one is better qualified.

Missing the point

Submitted by Yem36313 on Fri, 10/23/2009 - 14:55.

RevRabbit, I think you are missing the point here.

LSD being made available for the terminally ill is a very important piece of the larger puzzle, and now it isn't harried by the fact that there is a markedly mixed opinion brought on by a social movement where (inevitably) there are two schools of thought and an innate struggle that ensues, such as in the 1960's.

I think that we can all agree that getting things like LSD or Marijuana to ill people is far more important than the average joe being able to "enjoy" these substances in the privacy of their own homes...right?!

 

And I don't agree with the generalizations that you make about groups of people, like doctors--it isn't nice and it isn't wise. I don't want to sound as if I am attacking you because that is certainly not my intention, but I have seen you post on many stories, and it feels as though you are not wanting to engage in intelligent conversation as much as you want to pick out points from the contributors' stories/articles that you feel you can shoot down. The people who are contributing to this website are highly qualified and educated in their respective fields, and while I am all "for" healthy debate, it is counter-productive to argue merely for arguement's sake. It is true, there are some corrupt doctors... and there are corrupt teachers, and nurses, and cops, and actors, and insurance agents--but it is important not to focus continually on the negative things that life offers up because then that is all you have!

The field of medicine itself is a benevolent field in which people are actively seeking to make others well. I agree with you that someday all doctors will be shaman, and it will be a lovely day when that is way of it, but until then, I think you need to pipe down on the negative points and begin to realize the good in humanity and perhaps in yourself.

 

Peace and Love

B

For Lover's of the Satellite Mind

Submitted by highryder on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 00:28.

http://www.ilovemetric.com/site/2009/10/new-acoustic-ep-plug-in-plug-out...

 

Gorgeous!