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Bringing down legal barriers to psychedelic research, experimentation

Orange County Register - 7/17/2022

On Thursday, the House of Representatives approved amendments expanding research into the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs.

The proposals, introduced separately by Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-New York, and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, are notable first for their bipartisan nature. AOC and Crenshaw couldn’t be further apart politically, but they both recognize that psychedelic drugs have the potential to do a lot of good.

AOC’s proposal will allow researchers to study the use of MDMA and psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, as alternatives to opioids in treating pain.

Crenshaw’s proposal authorizes a federal grant program through the Pentagon to fund research in the use of psychedelics to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Many hear the word ‘psychedelics’ and they think of acid trips from the ’60s,” said Crenshaw on the House floor. “What we’re talking about here is the proven use of psychedelics to treat PTSD.”

Crenshaw cited research showing that the therapeutic use of MDMA under the guidance of therapists has been extraordinarily effective at treating PTSD compared to treatments with placebo.

“[Researchers] found that 67% of PTSD sufferers who had MDMA with an intensive course of psychotherapy no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis following the trial, compared with 32% of those who received a placebo with psychotherapy,” reported Zoe Cormier in Scientific American last year. “And 88% of subjects in the MDMA group experienced a ‘clinically significant improvement’ in symptoms.”

Most psychedelic drugs, including MDMA and psilocybin, remain on the federal government’s restrictive Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act. Drugs in that category are deemed to have a high potential abuse, no accepted medical use and a lack of safety. This restrictive status keeps them federally illegal and creates hurdles for legitimate research.

But research conducted around the world has demonstrated that psychedelic experiences can aid in the therapeutic process for various psychological challenges. Hence, the willingness of lawmakers to break down barriers to research.

It’s a long time coming.

Back in 2010, I attended a conference organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) held in San Jose which brought together researchers from around the world to present their work on psychedelics. Even then, there were studies finding beneficial uses of substances like psilocybin and MDMA, but also ongoing research into the use of LSD to help alleviate the anxiety of terminally ill patients.

At the conference, I had the opportunity to meet psychedelic legends like Stanislav Grof, who was an early LSD researcher in the 60s, and Alexander Shulgin, who, in addition to synthesizing hundreds of new psychedelic substances, is credited with having reintroduced MDMA to the world in the 1970s.

MDMA, first synthesized by Merck in 1912, and today often referred to as “ecstasy,” wasn’t always illegal and wasn’t always plagued with the erroneous stigma of being a destructive party drug.

After Shulgin’s rediscovery of the drug in the 1970s, he referred it to psychotherapists as a potential tool in therapy. And so, throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s, thousands of psychotherapists used it as a tool to help open up patients to talk about and process emotionally challenging issues.

But, of course, it also became popular as a club drug and it being the 1980s, it had to go.

When the Drug Enforcement Administration moved to get MDMA banned, they tried to get it placed in Schedule I, only to be rebuffed by an administrative law judge who was convinced that, because of evidence of widespread, legitimate medical usage, Schedule III was the appropriate placement. But that didn’t satisfy the drug warriors, who pushed to eventually get it placed in Schedule I anyway.

And so, that’s where it’s been for the last four decades.

MAPS, under the leadership of Rick Doblin, has zeroed in on legitimizing MDMA again, funding and supporting research into it as a therapeutic tool. The results have, unsurprisingly, been consistent with what therapists in the 70’s and 80’s perceived.

Thanks to the efforts of MAPS, in 2017, the Food and Drug Administration designated MDMA a “breakthrough therapy” for PTSD, which could some day in the not-too-distant future result in MDMA becoming legal for therapeutic uses once again.

It is inevitable that beneficial uses of other psychedelics will be further established, and America is clearly adjusting to that.

This is all coming at a time of growing interest in cities and states across the country in tearing down legal barriers to psychedelics.

Denver, Colorado decriminalized psilocybin in 2019, followed by Oakland and Santa Cruz, California, and even in Washington, D.C.

In 2020, Oregon voters approved Measure 109, legalizing psilocybin mushrooms.

Here in California, Sen. Scott Wiener,  D-San Francisco, has proposed decriminalization of psychedelics and creating a Research Advisory Panel to look into psychedelic research. It cleared the state Senate last year, despite some Democrats, like Sen. Dave Min of Irvine, who is only in office thanks to the help of the prison guards union, voting against it. It’s now before the Assembly.

Obviously, if decriminalization prevails in California, much of the rest of the country will follow.

From my perspective, that’s a good thing.

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In the context of psychedelics, prohibition and criminalization not only (in my opinion) wrongly deprived individuals of the freedom to experiment or forced them to risk the consequences of criminalization or the harms of the black market — but it also wrongly held back legitimate research into substances that researchers have long known could be helpful in therapeutic contexts.

The mainstreaming of psychedelics is a positive development and here’s to hoping laws and stigma against them continue to fall.

As a related aside, I do recommend the new series on Netflix “How to Change Your Mind,” hosted by author Michael Pollan, about the use and history of psychedelics.

Sal Rodriguez can be reached at salrodriguez@scng.com

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