James Rucker, Psychiatrist, Thinks Psychedelic Drugs Should Be Legally Reclassified
When you think of psychedelic drugs, you might imagine a colorful 1960s scene, when LSD and mushrooms were wildly popular among musicians and artists. But scientists have found ways to extract certain compounds from shrooms, acid, and other psychedelics to the benefit of people suffering from depression, anxiety, and even PTSD.
A stigma around psychedelic drugs exists, yet research hints at their potential medicinal benefits. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 defines them as a Schedule 1 substance — which means they are considered dangerous and have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”
This is why psychiatrist James Rucker, who’s an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, is arguing for psychedelics to be reconsidered legally. In an editorial report published in BMJ, Rucker explains that psychedelics were “extensively used and researched in clinical psychiatry” before 1967, when they were prohibited.
Many of these drugs actually proved to make a “beneficial change in many psychiatric disorders” during the 1950s and 60s, he writes, and since then the limited research on them has only reinforced that. For example, a study from 2011 found that a small dose of psilocybin, the psychoactive chemical in shrooms, helped mediate anxiety in patients. Research has also delved into the effects of psychedelics on PTSD and depression, and found that it could potentially become an alternative form of treatment for mental illnesses.
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http://www.medicaldaily.com/james-rucker-psychiatrist-thinks-psychedelic-drugs-should-be-legally-reclassified-334984
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