By Ankur Kayastha ’15

Doctors and scientists increasingly believe that there is a class of drugs that can radically change a person’s outlook toward painful occurrences in life. Drugs have a societal stigma that is even prohibitive when scientific research is involved. Class A drugs attract the most serious legal punishments and are considered to be the most harmful of all drug classes. However, when researchers are able to get a hold of these narcotics, the medicinal use of hallucinogens—most notably Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)—have been scientifically proven to provide benefits for participants in case studies, especially for terminally ill patients.

LSD was first synthesized in the 1930s by Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman, and it was classified as a psychiatric drug during the late 1940s. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) conducted research experiments with employees, agents and members of the general public to study the potential uses of the drug in the future. In popular culture at the time, mainstream figures such as writer Aldous Huxley and psychopharmacologist Al Hubbard advocated the use of LSD for psychedelic benefits. But since 1968, possession of LSD has been illegal in the United States.

The New York Times wrote an article on March 4, 2014 about the reconsideration of use for therapeutic purposes. LSD is manufactured from ergot fungus that grows on rye and other grains. Users experience pupil dilation, reduced appetite and wakefulness. The main psychological effects it induces includes synesthesia (sensory transduction alterations), altered thinking processes, altered time perception and spirituality experiences.

For the first time in over 40 years, a controlled trial of LSD was administered to willing patients, and The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease posted the results online. LSD was given to 12 people who were near death, most of whom had terminal cancer. It was described as, “a mental adventure that appeared to have eased the existential gloom of their last days,” according to the New York Times article. Patients’ anxiety went down and consistently remained lower after taking the hallucinogen. Most of the patients at the beginning of the testing period were susceptible to periods of distress, which is virtually the only side effect from proper doses of LSD. These periods were overcome as the study continued for weeks, as anxiety eventually decreased by a factor of 20 percent.

As psychology is considered the study of the mind, and includes the relationship between the body and its environment, the scientific community is interested in the emergence of a ‘psychedelic renaissance,’ or the controlled use of narcotic substances. In a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University, “researchers found that using small amounts of psilocybin in a controlled setting could lead to life-changing positive experiences that increased long-term psychological well-being,” according to an article in Psychology Today. These transcendent experiences may prove useful in treating conditions like addiction, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

In a scientifically controlled setting, hallucinogenic drugs have been proven to provide patients with positive life perspectives and lessen their intensity of pain. The trials are considered too small to be conclusive, but with more studies, the true benefits of hallucinogenic drugs may be confirmed. According to the New York Times article, “The participants, by and large, considered the therapy worthwhile.”