"In findings that could pry open a door closed for nearly half a century researchers have found that psilocybin  a hallucinogen long used in traditional healing rituals  eases the depression and soothes the anxiety of patients contending with serious illness and the prospect of imminent death. In two separate studies published httpjop.sagepub.com Thursday researchers report that trial subjects who received a single moderatetolarge dose of psilocybin got substantial and lasting relief from their profound distress. Among  cancer patients who participated in the two trials as many as  in  continued to feel measurably less hopeless and demoralized six months after taking the drug than they had upon their recruitment. And even years later many reported they had gained  and retained  a profound sense of peace and meaning from the experience. Of  cancer patients who got psilocybin in a trial httpjop.sagepub.comcontent.full conducted at New York Universitys Langone Medical Center  rated it as among the most meaningful events of their life. This drug saved my life and changed my life said Dinah Bazer a Brooklyn N.Y. woman who was administered a single dose of psilocybin at a New York treatment center in . In the wake of treatment for ovarian cancer Bazer said her anxiety at the prospect of its return was eating her alive. Under the influence of a single high dose of psilocybin Bazer said Wednesday she became volcanically angry as she visualized her cancer as a dark mass bearing down on her. With an epithet she then saw herself throwing it off. I was bathed in Gods love for hours after that said Bazer who describes herself as an atheist. When the psilocybins hallucinatory effects wore off she said two years of intense anxiety were simply gone. This is a groundbreaking result said Dr. George Greer medical director of the Heffter Research Institute httpsheffter.org the nonprofit organization that funded the two trials. Greer suggested that the existential anxiety of the terminally ill is only one of many conditions that psilocybin may one day treat. Others may include treatmentresistant depression addiction to cocaine alcohol or tobacco obsessivecompulsive disorder and demoralization in longterm survivors of HIV he said. Johns Hopkins University psychiatrist Dr. Roland R. Griffiths http the lead author of one of the two studies httpjop.sagepub.comcontent.full said the enduring relief provided by a single dose of psilocybin makes such treatment more akin to surgery than it does to the plodding laborintensive treatments that remain the mainstay of his profession. I really dont think we have any models in psychiatry that look like the effects demonstrated in the two trials said Griffiths. Something occurs and its repaired and its better going forward  very plausibly for more than six months he added. In that sense its a new model. The publication of the two early trials in the Journal of Psychopharmacology marks an American return to research on the therapeutic use of hallucinogenic drugs after a hiatus of  years.  In the s and s hallucinogenic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide  LSD  and psilocybin which is found naturally in certain mushrooms were widely used in U.S. biomedical research and in psychotherapy practices. But in  as the psychedelic drugs gained a broad counterculture following in the United States the U.S. government declared any use of the drugs illegal. By the s that ended all American research on their potential therapeutic benefits. In recent years a small clutch of American researchers including the authors of the two new papers have argued that such prohibitions might be preventing the discovery of better treatments for widespread and pressing psychiatric problems including depression addiction and posttraumatic stress disorder PTSD. With PTSD epidemic among U.S. combat veterans and drug addiction a national scourge American officials have indicated a new willingness to allow research to proceed on psychedelic and other drugs long classified as having no legitimate medical use. On Tuesday the Food and Drug Administration gave its blessing to conducting largescale clinical trials of an experimental medication   methylenedioxymethamphetamine  better known as the party drug ecstasy. Like LSD and psilocybin ecstasy appears to hold promise as an adjunct to psychotherapy in the treatment of PTSD. If the resulting Phase  trials of ecstasy demonstrate their effectiveness the next step could be FDA approval of ecstasy as a prescription drug. The newly published trials of psilocybin are not quite so far advanced. Both studies were considered Phase  clinical trials in which the safety and dosing regimens of a potential medication are still being tested. But both were considered to be doubleblind placebo trials  the goldstandard of medical research in which subjects are left to guess whether they have gotten the active study drug or an inactive lookalike. In one of the trials researchers used a very low dose of psilocybin much lower than that required to induce hallucinations as a placebo. In the other they used the dietary supplement niacin. In each trial all of the subjects got a high dose of psilocybin in one of two sessions. So all in the end experienced the full effects of the drug. All subjects in both trials had been diagnosed with cancer and with existential anxiety or depression resulting from the illness and the likelihood of an early death. Participants were extensively prepared for the expected effects of the psilocybin. To minimize adverse reactions researchers closely monitored the subjects while they were under the influence of the drug or the placebo. Afterwards psychotherapists encouraged the subjects to write down and reflect upon the experience. Immediately after as well as five weeks after their first session subjects who got the psilocybin first looked much better than did those who got the placebo first. A wide range of standardized measures of depression anxiety and quality of life showed that these subjects were less hopeless less demoralized and less anxious. Six months out  of those in the trial conducted at New York UniversityLangone reported their life satisfaction andor wellbeing had been improved by the experience. In the larger of the two trials conducted at Johns Hopkins University psilocybin produced large and significant  increases in measures of quality of life life meaning death acceptance and optimism  effects that were sustained at six months. Psilocybins side effects meanwhile were pretty tame. In the two trials about  of subjects experienced nausea or vomiting when getting a high dose and about  in  experienced some form of transient psychological discomfort. Many subjects heart rates and blood pressure rose but none to a dangerous extent. The potential use of psilocybin in patients diagnosed with lifethreatening diseases comes at a moment when medical care at the end of life is a subject of growing concern among patients and physicians. Research finds its still common for dying patients to get painful and futile procedures. Palliative and hospice care both aimed at easing the discomfort of the seriously ill are growing specialties in American hospitals. An increasing number of patients meanwhile are demanding the right to die with a physicians help. As states debate these physicianassisted suicide bills they should consider the implications of finding an effective treatment for the existential distress of the dying said Dr. Craig D. Blinderman http a palliative care specialist at Columbia University Medical CenterNew York Presbyterian Hospital. It would seem to me before we get to that point we should explore approaches like psilocybin and hopefully not consider physicianassisted suicide as their only option said Blinderman who was not involved in either of the two studies published Thursday. But finding drugs like psilocybin effective is by no means the final hurdle to their widespread availability. None are currently in production and no forprofit pharmaceutical company would likely invest millions of dollars to bring to market a pill intended effectively for onetime use. Dr. Greer said that in addition to incubating the next generation of researchers to explore the healing effects of psychedelic compounds the New Mexicobased Heffter Institute is pondering a future in which specialized psychiatric clinics have routine access to psilocybin for treating patients. The institute is laying plans to scale up the production and distribution of a synthetic form of psilocybin that could make such treatments available at low cost to patients who could benefit from the drug he said."