Five Decades Later, Psychiatry Passes The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
TUNING IN
Five Decades Later, Psychiatry Passes The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
"Special K," 'Shrooms Get Science's Seal Of Approval
IT'S LIKE A SIXTIES FLASHBACK: five decades after Timothy Leary founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project and began proselytizing about the mind-blowing benefits of LSD, researchers are finding the same results in psychological studies carried out in laboratories around the country.
The most recent confirmation comes this month in a study that found a "single intravenous dose" of a chemical compound informally called "Special K" created an antidepressant effect within 40 minutes of patients receiving it, according to Medscape.com.
In a study of patients with bipolar depression, the anti-depressive response lasted an average 6.8 days and changed participants' baseline depression levels.
The study is "particularly noteworthy" because the majority of the 17 participants had poor outcomes in previous drug trials and electroconvulsive therapy, according to Dr. Carlos A. Zarate, chief of "experimental therapeutics & pathophysiology" at the National Institute of Mental Health.
The experiment with Special K is just one of several that have been reported on in recent months. Last month, a study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology reported that the drug Ecstasy positively affected on patients with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
And, last April, the New York Times reported doctors were finding hallucinogens effective for "treating depression in cancer patients; obsessive-compulsives disorder; end of life anxiety" as well as drug and alcohol addictions. The paper quoted a psychologist who himself took psilocybin to treat his lingering depression:
"All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating. Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water’s gone. And then you’re gone." The doctor says his trip was one of the most meaningful experiences of his life.
Back in 2007, Time reported on the "quiet psychedelic renaissance…at the highest levels of American science" and asked in its headline, "Was Timothy Leary Right?"
Just three years later the consensus seems to be yes. Back in the 60s and 70s, Leary’s popmantra to “tune in, turn on, drop out” was considered dangerously radical and resulted in him receiving a severe jail sentence when busted with just a small sum of pot, according to some. One prosecutor allegedly argued that jailing Leary "would prevent him from spreading his ‘messianic ideas about psychedelic drugs to young people.’ “
Fifty years later, the futurist who also supposedly once said, "I am 100 percent in favor of the intelligent use of drugs, and 1,000 percent against the thoughtless use of them, whether caffeine or LSD” -- is proving prophetic.
Tags: Ephemera
