Swiss scientists broke a four-decade-long informal ban on LSD research yesterday when they announced the results of a study in which cancer patients received the drug to curb their anxiety about death. 
 
 The study, which was published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, looked at the safety and efficacy of LSD when used in combination with talk therapy. The researchers used the semisynthetic psychedelic drug to facilitate discussions about the cancer patients' fears of dying. The patients who took LSD, most of whom were terminally ill, experienced 10-hour-long supervised "trips." One patient described the trips to The New York Times as a "mystical experience," where "the major part was pure distress at all the memories I had successfully forgotten for decades." 
 
 These periods of distress are regarded as therapeutically valuable because they allow patients to address their memories and the emotions they evoke. The patients underwent 30 such trips over the course of two months. 
 
 A year after the sessions ceased, the patients who had received a full dose of LSD — 200 micrograms — experienced a 20 percent improvement in their anxiety levels. That was not the case for the group who received a lower dose, however, as their anxiety symptoms actually increased. They were later allowed to try the full dose after the trial had ended. 
 
 "We want to break these substances out of the mold of the counterculture." 
 
 Because of the small number of study participants, the researchers are reluctant to make any conclusive statements about the LSD treatment's effectiveness. Indeed, the results were not statistically significant. But the fact that the study took place at all bodes well for psychedelic drug research, as the drug caused no serious side effects. Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a foundation that has funded many of these studies, thinks that revisiting LSD-based treatments is worthwhile. "We want to break these substances out of the mold of the counterculture," Doblin told The New York Times, "and bring them back to the lab as part of a psychedelic renaissance." ||||| Idaho Republican backs faith-healer parents: ‘If I want to let my child be with God, why is that wrong?’ 
 
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 Illustration of a human brain (Shutterstock) 
 
 The National Institute of Mental Health has called for novel ways of thinking about suicidal behavior and new avenues for its prevention. “Treatments involving classic psychedelics may represent one such approach,” according to a new study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. 
 
 More than 38,000 Americans died by suicide in 2010, making it the tenth leading cause of death, according to the NIMH. (If you are in a suicide crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.) 
 
 “Despite advances in mental health treatment over the past 60 years, suicide rates have not significantly declined in much of the world during this time,” Peter S. Hendricks of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his colleagues wrote in their study. 
 
 The researchers said their study showed that “classic” psychedelics — drugs like LSD, “magic” psilocybe mushrooms, and mescaline-containing cacti like peyote — “have the potential to alleviate human suffering associated with mental illness.” 
 
 The study found that people who used classic psychedelic drugs tended to have lower levels of psychological distress, and were less likely to experience suicidal thoughts, suicidal planning, or attempt suicide. 
 
 “Lifetime classic psychedelic use was associated with a 19% reduced likelihood of past month psychological distress, a 14% reduced likelihood of past year suicidal thinking, a 29% reduced likelihood of past year suicidal planning, and a 36% reduced likelihood of past year suicide attempt,” they said. 
 
 The study was based on data on 190,000 adults who participated in the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, a national study conducted annually by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 
 
 However, the cross-sectional design of the study makes it impossible to say why the use of psychedelic drugs was associated with reductions in psychological distress and suicidality. 
 
 Previous research conducted in Switzerland has found that psilocybin inhibits the processing of negative emotions in the brain. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine researchers have also found the drug produced long-lasting elevations in mood among healthy volunteers. 
 
 Drugs like LSD and psilocybin affect serotonin receptors in the prefrontal cortex, a region of the brain associated with suicide risk, Hendricks and his colleagues noted. 
 
 But psychedelics can exacerbate symptoms of schizophrenia and psychosis. The drugs can also produce unpleasant experiences, known as “bad trips.” 
 
 “Nevertheless, the associations reported here suggest that if individual-level harms occurred, they failed to obscure the apparent protective effect of classic psychedelic use on psychological distress and suicidality at the population level.” 
 
 The researchers said that the findings could also be due to the characteristics of psychedelic drug users, rather than the characteristics of psychedelic drugs themselves. A previous study found that psychedelic users “reported less materialistic values and greater mysticism, spirituality, and concern for others” – all characteristics that could reduce their risk of suicide. 
 
 “The picture is undoubtedly complex,” the researchers said. “Nevertheless, future research should attempt to delineate longitudinal predictors of classic psychedelic use that also relate to mental health and suicidal behavior.” 
 
 Originally published at PsyPost.org
– Researchers experimented with LSD in psychiatric treatment until such research was effectively banned in the US in 1966—but now a Swiss psychiatrist has conducted the first controlled trial of the hallucinogenic drug in more than four decades, with US FDA approval. Dr. Peter Gasser's study involved 12 people who were dying, most of terminal cancer, and suffering from "deep anxiety," the Seattle Times reports. After undergoing talk therapy, eight of the patients were given a 200-microgram dose of LSD designed to "produce the full spectrum of a typical LSD experience" on two occasions; the other four received a 20-microgram "active placebo" that wasn't expected to have an impact. They took their 10-hour "trips" in Gasser's office, and, he says, "Their anxiety went down and stayed down." Specifically, subjects who received full doses of LSD saw a 20% improvement in their anxiety symptoms, and for those who were still alive a year later, the improvement had lasted, the New York Times reports. Those who took the placebo reported increased anxiety. It doesn't sound like a comforting experience at first: The Verge says the purpose of administering the psychedelic drug was to "facilitate discussions about the patients' fears of dying," and one patient reports that "the major part was pure distress at all these memories I had successfully forgotten for decades. These painful feelings, regrets, this fear of death." But he talked about all that with Gasser, something he'd found difficult prior to the trip; the Times refers to such distress as "therapeutically valuable," and many subjects had similar experiences. Other than that, no serious side effects were seen.