Pubdate: Thu, 08 May 2014
Source: Metro (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Metro Canada
Contact:  http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3775
Author: Thandi Fletcher

WILL SHRINKS BE PRESCRIBING LSD?

Mental health. Local psychologist lauds banned drug's efficacy

A Vancouver psychologist wants Health Canada to make LSD legally
available to psychologists and psychiatrists for their patients.

"The use of LSD as a therapeutic adjunct speeds up psychotherapy,"
Andrew Feldmar said. He claims that the drug allows patients to
remember early childhood experiences and reprogram their brain.

Feldmar, who is also studying the impact of MDMA, a form of ecstasy,
on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, said LSD has the
potential to help patients with the most severe cases of depression to
become completely cured of the mood disorder after taking LSD.

The drug, long associated with 1960s hippie counterculture, is banned
in many countries, including Canada. Last year, Health Canada amended
its Special Access Programme to make it illegal for doctors to
prescribe LSD and other drugs like cocaine and heroin, which they
could previously prescribe for individual patient use.

The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health warns that LSD can be
dangerous and addictive.

A study published March in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and
Mental Disease showed that LSD can promote statistically significantly
reductions in anxiety for people with life-threatening diseases who
were near the end of their lives.

Feldmar has been interested in psychedelic drugs as a treatment tool
since 1967, when he took LSD as a psychology student in London, Ont.

Born in Budapest, Feldmar, who is Jewish, was separated from his
mother at a young age when she was sent to Auschwitz during the Nazi
occupation of Hungary. He moved to Canada at 16, but continued to
suffer from intense separation anxiety until he tried LSD.

He hopes his research will help make drugs like MDMA and LSD available
for psychiatric use in the future.

"It basically changed my life," he said.

And his, apparently, isn't the only one.

Since she was a child, Jessica Jarrett has felt like a stranger in her
own skin. It wasn't until an acid trip last year that she realized
why.

"I was sitting there on LSD, and I was just like, 'It would be cool to
be a girl. If I could just flip that switch, I would totally do
that,'" the 28-year-old from East Vancouver told Metro.

Born a male, Jarrett said she struggled with her gender identity since
puberty. That all changed last year when she tried LSD and realized
she no longer wanted to live her life in a body that didn't reflect
who she was on the inside.
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MAP posted-by: Matt