Psychiatrist calls for end to 30-year taboo over use of LSD as a medical t

[emad]

Psychiatrist calls for end to 30-year taboo over use of LSD as a medical treatment

· Drug inventor celebrates 100th birthday today
· Battle ahead for approval and funding of UK studies

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Wednesday January 11, 2006
The Guardian


British psychiatrists are beginning to debate the highly sensitive issue of using LSD for therapeutic purposes to unlock secrets buried in the unconscious which may underlie the anxious or obsessional behaviour of some of their patients.

The UK pioneered this use of LSD in the 1950s. But psychiatrists found their research proposals rejected and their work dismissed once "acid" hit the streets in the mid-60s and uncontrolled use of the hallucinogenic drug became a social phenomenon.

Today, on the 100th birthday of Albert Hofmann, the scientist who discovered the mind-expanding properties of lysergic acid diethylamide in Switzerland, one consultant psychiatrist is openly risking controversy to urge that the debate on the therapeutic potential of LSD be reopened. Ben Sessa has been invited to give a presentation on psychedelic drugs to the Royal College of Psychiatrists in March - the first time the subject will have been discussed by the institution in 30 years.

"I really want to present a dispassionate medical, scientific evidence-based argument," says Dr Sessa. "I do not condone recreational drug use. None of this is tinged by any personal experience.

"Scientists, psychiatrists and psychologists were forced to give up their studies for socio-political reasons. That's what really drives me."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,11381,1683781,00.html

[sui generis]

1. what about the taboo as a recreational drug?

:evilgrin:

[RawMaterials]

2. It should be allowed for medical treatment

Their had been studies trying to see if the treatment of Alcoholism with psychedelic therapy was successful,
I think an open debate about why the social taboo is stopping the study of a drug would be welcome.

Its a similar issue with stem cell research.

LSD is illegal because it would "wake up the populous" and thats not good.

http://www.aabibliography.com/lsdalcohol.htm

edit for spell check

[smirkymonkey]

6. I tried to look it up, but I am still unclear on WHY it is supposed to

help treat alcoholism or other forms of mental illness. Is it because it allows the user to transcend the ego, which is the bane of the alcoholic's existence, or does it have something to do with gaining a more spiritual or transcendent outlook upon life, therefore eliminating the need to escape with the bottle? I don't know, but wondered if anyone had any insight or knowledge on this topic.

It appeals to me because I have such a yearning to escape my ego-self and see beyond all my petty fears and problems.

[Botany]

3. Dr Trips

[bemildred]

4. How about we rely on tort law instead of criminal process

when it comes to drugs? Would that work? Just being able to sue people that sell/give you stuff that is bad for you under false pretenses? I really think that would work much better than all these cops running around.

[philb]

5. I'm not aware of any valid medical condition that LSD might be

useful for, that there isn't something else less dangerous and more effective for.
I doubt that there is such. I'm only aware of LSD as recreational drug and for thrill seekers.