Pubdate: Mon, 12 Apr 2010
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A1, Front Page
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: John Tierney
Cited: Heffter Research Institute http://www.heffter.org/
Cited: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies 
http://www.maps.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Rick+Doblin

HALLUCINOGENS HAVE DOCTORS TUNING IN AGAIN

As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted 
with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed 
untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling 
regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did 
the antidepressant pills he tried.

Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his 
first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., 
to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school 
involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.

Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo 
among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them 
in the 1960s with the slogan "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Now, using 
rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to 
study once again the drugs' potential for treating mental problems 
and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and 
headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he 
contemplated the universe.

"All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating," he 
recalled. "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."

Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour 
experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly 
transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He 
ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes 
him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

Researchers from around the world are gathering this week in San 
Jose, Calif., for the largest conference on psychedelic science held 
in the United States in four decades. They plan to discuss studies of 
psilocybin and other psychedelics for treating depression in cancer 
patients, obsessive-compulsive disorder, end-of-life anxiety, 
post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction to drugs or alcohol.

The results so far are encouraging but also preliminary, and 
researchers caution against reading too much into these small-scale 
studies. They do not want to repeat the mistakes of the 1960s, when 
some scientists-turned-evangelists exaggerated their understanding of 
the drugs' risks and benefits.

Because reactions to hallucinogens can vary so much depending on the 
setting, experimenters and review boards have developed guidelines to 
set up a comfortable environment with expert monitors in the room to 
deal with adverse reactions. They have established standard protocols 
so that the drugs' effects can be gauged more accurately, and they 
have also directly observed the drugs' effects by scanning the brains 
of people under the influence of hallucinogens.

Scientists are especially intrigued by the similarities between 
hallucinogenic experiences and the life-changing revelations reported 
throughout history by religious mystics and those who meditate. These 
similarities have been identified in neural imaging studies conducted 
by Swiss researchers and in experiments led by Roland Griffiths, a 
professor of behavioral biology at Johns Hopkins.

In one of Dr. Griffiths's first studies, involving 36 people with no 
serious physical or emotional problems, he and colleagues found that 
psilocybin could induce what the experimental subjects described as a 
profound spiritual experience with lasting positive effects for most 
of them. None had had any previous experience with hallucinogens, and 
none were even sure what drug was being administered.

To make the experiment double-blind, neither the subjects nor the two 
experts monitoring them knew whether the subjects were receiving a 
placebo, psilocybin or another drug like Ritalin, nicotine, caffeine 
or an amphetamine. Although veterans of the '60s psychedelic culture 
may have a hard time believing it, Dr. Griffiths said that even the 
monitors sometimes could not tell from the reactions whether the 
person had taken psilocybin or Ritalin.

The monitors sometimes had to console people through periods of 
anxiety, Dr. Griffiths said, but these were generally short-lived, 
and none of the people reported any serious negative effects. In a 
survey conducted two months later, the people who received psilocybin 
reported significantly more improvements in their general feelings 
and behavior than did the members of the control group.

The findings were repeated in another follow-up survey, taken 14 
months after the experiment. At that point most of the psilocybin 
subjects once again expressed more satisfaction with their lives and 
rated the experience as one of the five most meaningful events of their lives.

Since that study, which was published in 2008, Dr. Griffiths and his 
colleagues have gone on to give psilocybin to people dealing with 
cancer and depression, like Dr. Martin, the retired psychologist from 
Vancouver. Dr. Martin's experience is fairly typical, Dr. Griffiths 
said: an improved outlook on life after an experience in which the 
boundaries between the self and others disappear.

In interviews, Dr. Martin and other subjects described their egos and 
bodies vanishing as they felt part of some larger state of 
consciousness in which their personal worries and insecurities 
vanished. They found themselves reviewing past relationships with 
lovers and relatives with a new sense of empathy.

"It was a whole personality shift for me," Dr. Martin said. "I wasn't 
any longer attached to my performance and trying to control things. I 
could see that the really good things in life will happen if you just 
show up and share your natural enthusiasms with people. You have a 
feeling of attunement with other people."

The subjects' reports mirrored so closely the accounts of religious 
mystical experiences, Dr. Griffiths said, that it seems likely the 
human brain is wired to undergo these "unitive" experiences, perhaps 
because of some evolutionary advantage.

"This feeling that we're all in it together may have benefited 
communities by encouraging reciprocal generosity," Dr. Griffiths 
said. "On the other hand, universal love isn't always adaptive, either."

Although federal regulators have resumed granting approval for 
controlled experiments with psychedelics, there has been little 
public money granted for the research, which is being conducted at 
Hopkins, the University of Arizona; Harvard; New York University; the 
University of California, Los Angeles; and other places.

The work has been supported by nonprofit groups like the Heffter 
Research Institute and MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for 
Psychedelic Studies.

"There's this coming together of science and spirituality," said Rick 
Doblin, the executive director of MAPS. "We're hoping that the 
mainstream and the psychedelic community can meet in the middle and 
avoid another culture war. Thanks to changes over the last 40 years 
in the social acceptance of the hospice movement and yoga and 
meditation, our culture is much more receptive now, and we're showing 
that these drugs can provide benefits that current treatments can't."

Researchers are reporting preliminary success in using psilocybin to 
ease the anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses. Dr. Charles S. 
Grob, a psychiatrist who is involved in an experiment at U.C.L.A., 
describes it as "existential medicine" that helps dying people 
overcome fear, panic and depression.

"Under the influences of hallucinogens," Dr. Grob writes, 
"individuals transcend their primary identification with their bodies 
and experience ego-free states before the time of their actual 
physical demise, and return with a new perspective and profound 
acceptance of the life constant: change." 
- ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake