An expert in the field of psychiatry in the UK has called upon the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs to reclassify psychedelic drugs like LSD so as to enable a comprehensive, evidence based assessment of their therapeutic potential.
James Rucker, a psychiatrist and honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London, explains in the BMJ how psychedelic drugs “were extensively used and researched in clinical psychiatry” before they were prohibited in 1967. Rucker revealed that before they were prohibited psychedelics were extensively tested for their therapeutic potential in many psychiatric disorders.
Researchers stopped working on psychedelic drugs after 1967 as they were legally classified as schedule 1 class A drugs – that is, as having “no accepted medical use and the greatest potential for harm, despite the research evidence to the contrary”, he notes in the article.
Rucker added that though there is no evidence that psychedelic drugs are more addictive than heroine or cocaine, they have been at the receiving end of more legal restrictions. Further, Rucker notes that there is little evidence indicates that they are harmful in controlled settings and much more historical evidence shows that they could have use in common psychiatric disorders.
In fact, recent studies indicate that psychedelics have “clinical efficacy in anxiety associated with advanced cancer, obsessive compulsive disorder, tobacco and alcohol addiction, and cluster headaches,” he writes.
He further said that owing to the financial and bureaucratic obstacles, large-scale research and clinical studies are impossible; for example, currently only one manufacturer in the world produces psilocybin for trial purposes and it costs £100,000 for 1 g (50 doses).
He added that clinical research using psychedelics costs 5-10 times that of research into less restricted (but more harmful) drugs such as heroin.
Prohibitive costs and obstacles have funding implications as well with all grant funders uncomfortable funding research into psychedelics. Further, prohibition as a condition of UN membership is “arguably causing more harm than it prevents”.
He concludes that psychedelics are neither harmful nor addictive compared with other controlled substances, and he calls on the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and the 2016 UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs, “to recommend that psychedelics be reclassified as schedule 2 compounds to enable a comprehensive, evidence based assessment of their therapeutic potential.”
In a controversial research carried out at Cardiff University aiming to track the impact of LSD on the brain, it was found that none of the participants reported having a bad experience, but three said they experienced some anxiety and temporary paranoia.
Another research revealed that there was not enough evidence of health problems due to use of psychedelics drugs, and that drug experts consistently rank LSD and psilocybin mushrooms as much less harmful to the individual user and to society compared to alcohol and other controlled substances.
