The New Yorker on use of psilocybin to treat cancer patients

Recommended long-read of the week is Michael Pollan’s New Yorker article “The Trip Treatment,” a look at research being done at several medical centers — including New York University and Johns Hopkins — into the use of the psychedelic drug psilocybin to ameliorate anxiety and depression in cancer patients. Similar work had been started half a century ago, but was essentially abandoned after the image of psychedelics became tainted by the excesses of the 1960s, and the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 made it virtually impossible to obtain the drug even for research purposes. Part of the research protocol is illustrated in the video above. The sessions are carefully controlled, with all participants screened, prepared, and then guided through the drug experience. The researchers claim that after almost 500 sessions they have seen no serious adverse effects. That may be, but I find it somewhat difficult to believe. Although psilocybin does seem to have potential in treating oncology patients — and also some forms of addiction — some of the researchers Pollan interviews seem overly enthusiastic. For example, Stephen Ross at NYU told Pollan: “I thought the first teen or twenty people were plants — that they must be faking it. . . . They were saying thins like ‘I understand love it the most powerful force on the planet,’ or “I had an encounter with my cancer, this black could of smoke.’ People who had been palpably s...
Source: The Poison Review - Category: Toxicology Authors: Tags: Medical cancer New Yorker oncology psilocybin psychedlics Source Type: news