WONDER DRUGS?

Psychiatry’s psychedelic frontier

MDMA

In an advanced phase trial published in Nature in May 2021, patients in the US, Israel and Canada who received doses of the psychedelic stimulant MDMA, alongside care from a therapist, were more than twice as likely than the placebo group to no longer have post-traumatic stress disorder several months later.

Psilocybin

In October 2021, in a first for psychedelics since the war on drugs was launched in the 1970s, US federal funding was granted for a study into psilocybin – the active ingredient of magic mushrooms – to treat tobacco. An earlier study in the Lancet found that a high dose of psilocybin significantly reduces depressive syndromes and markedly improves anxiety for sustained periods.

DMT

The psychoactive component of ayahuasca – a mixture of Amazonian shrubs – is illegal in many countries including the US. But a large trial by scientists at the University of São Paulo showed ayahuasca significantly reduced the severity of patients’ depression, and other users have said it helps with personal insight and growth.