Just Say Know: Regulating Psychedelic Expertise. Erika Dyck, PhD Canada Research Chair, History of Medicine University of Saskatchewan

Transcription

1 Just Say Know: Regulating Psychedelic Expertise Erika Dyck, PhD Canada Research Chair, History of Medicine University of Saskatchewan

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7 Dr. Hofmann's discovery of LSD generated a powerful wave of interest in brain chemistry and, together with the development of tranquilizers, was directly responsible for what has been called the "golden age of psychopharmacology." Stanislav Grof interviews Dr. Albert Hofmann Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California, 1984

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10 I will never be able to describe fully what happened to me during my excursion into madness. There are no words in the English language designed to convey the sensations I felt or the visions, illusions, hallucinations, colors, patterns and dimensions which my disordered mind revealed. I saw faces of familiar friends turn into fleshless skulls and the heads of menacing witches, pigs and weasels. The gaily patterned carpet at my feet was transformed into a fabulous heaving mass of living matter, part vegetable, part animal I was repeatedly held in the grip of a terrifying hallucination in which I could feel and see my body convulse and shrink until all that remained was a hard sickly stone Time lost all meaning. Mysterious flashes of multicoloured light came and went. The dimensions of the room, elasticlike, (sic) stretched and shrank But my hours of madness were not all filled with horror and frenzy. At times I beheld visions of dazzling beauty visions so rapturous, so unearthly, that no artist will ever paint them Sidney Katz excerpts from My 12 Hours as a Madman, MacLean s October 1, 1953, p

11 Aldous Huxley

12 E.M. Jellinek, Yale Alcoholism is a disease.

13 Bill W. co-founder of A.A. 12-step program: Step Two: For our Group purpose there is but one ultimate authority a loving God as He may express Himself in our Group conscience. Alcoholics Anonymous (1955),

14 Humphry Osmond and Abram Hoffer

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16 He had a momentary oneness with God. Had a vision while lying [down] with eyes closed of a spiral staircase with himself talking to another person. This appeared to have great meaning to him...he seems to have gained some insight and understanding of himself.[i] [i] SAB,A207, XVII. Clinical Files, LSD Trials, anonymous. Patients names have been removed by the author to maintain confidentiality.

17 Results - Strong endorsement in medical literature for LSD treatments - Claim success rates from 30 to 90% with 2-year follow-up studies - Interviews with former patients treated this way revealed sustained sobriety

18 Results

19 1962 Canadian Food & Drug Agency places Thalidomide on the banned substances list Schedule H LSD?

20 it would not be proper to remove a drug from medical availability except in the most extraordinary circumstances we wish to have the advice of the most competent authorities. - December 1962, J.W. Monteith, Minister of Health & Welfare. House of Commons.

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26 Bill S-60, 1967/8 placed LSD under the jurisdiction of the Food and Drugs Act, alongside other psycho-active substances (DET, DMT, MDMA). Senator Molson Minister Allan MacEachen

27 40 years later David Nutt, et al. Rational Scale to Assess the Harm of Drugs, The Lancet (2007) Argues that regulated drugs, including alcohol and tobacco are far more dangerous than many of the illegal substances, including LSD. Promotes evidence-based public policy concerning drug regulation.

28 - (2012) Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for alcoholism: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, Journal of Psychopharmacology - Teri Krebs (Norwegian University of Science and Technology and Harvard Medical School) and Pål Johansen (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Neuroscience) - Show that in a study of 536 participants, in trials between 1943 and 2010, exhibited a positive response to curbing alcoholism through psychedelic approaches.

29 Just Say Know?