Should the NHS really use magic mushrooms to treat mental health?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg936l88e7o

Posted by topotaul

25 Comments

  1. If it helps then yeah.

    If it doesn’t then no.

    Like all medicine, unless there’s a cost issue what’s the question?.

  2. I healed my CPTSD from it. I’d always recommend personally unless someone is dumb and irresponsible

  3. so the 1st person was prescibed it under medical supervision and had a good experience. But the 2nd person took ‘LSD’ recreationally years ago when he was 18 and had a bad trip, umm, how is that a valid comparison lol, the bbc are batshit putting this story out.

  4. As a nutter, I’d rather have them than the pills. Unless they too cause long lasting side effects

  5. klepto_entropoid on

    LSD was used in psychiatry and psychotherapy for decades. It may be surprising to hear but it was found to be most effective in treating alcoholism..

  6. I’m anti-legalising drugs for the public, but I’m completely fine with prescription distribution of certain drugs where there is good scientific evidence to suggest they can help people with various illnesses, diseases, or conditions.

    I don’t think you should just be able to buy cannabis from a shop on your high street and then light it up on the kerb, but some form of medicinal marijuana from a licensed pharmacist for a cancer patient is fine with me, for example.

    I believe there’s also some good evidence that small quantities of LSD can also be helpful for some conditions and patients as well.

  7. Well they’re outsourcing mental health care to churches, community groups and anything else they can think of, so why not.

  8. abyssal-isopod86 on

    If it helps then absolutely.

    If it does not then no.

    Some trials have found that a single dose of psilocybin can act as an antidepressant for up to six months for some people.

    Personally if that works that way from me, you’re damn right I want to take it.

  9. Dismal_Fox_22 on

    Mental ill health maybe. But that’s really quite vague. For the conditions that it has been proven to work for then absolutely. It is negligent not to.

  10. Going out on a limb here but if you give people with mental health problems some mdma or mushrooms and send them to a club/ a festival with some friends or other people with music they like I think it might help them.

    Not really sure about this mental health epidemic either, if you earn an average wage in the UK which is what 35K, why wouldn’t you have mental health problems, you can barely do anything, life must be pretty rubbish in the UK, you can’t even treat yourself to nice food or put the heating on.

  11. Personally completely solved an addiction issue with one application of psilocybin at home without professional guidance.

    The possibilities for that compound in combination with psychiatric professionals guiding the process could be limitless. It absolutely could be life changing for a large proportion of society.

  12. More pointless moral panic, unless you’re an expert in the field you shouldn’t even be asking or answering the question because you have nothing useful to offer.

  13. If it actually found to work, its under supervision and controlled, go for it
    Treating mental health isn’t one shoe fits all nomatter how eager they are to blanket prescribe SRIs
    Not knocking the latter, just that while they work for some, others respond better to different stimulae
    Some get on with standard medication, some with targeted therapy/cbt, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this turned out to work as well

  14. All I know is that the rates of mental issues and depression in young people are much higher now than when magic mushrooms are semi-legal.

  15. Revolutionary-Mode75 on

    Yes in clincial enviroment, using delivery methods and treatement protocols that has been validated by clinical trial data. Given that none of these are patentable, it will probably be up to the NHS and the government to fund these large scale trials.

    Not sure Jules Evans adds anything to the debate, we have known for years that pschodelics recreational purpose can be harmful, recently with cannibis an others we have discover their a genetic component to this as well I believe, at least for cannibis, so developing a way to screen patients that suitable should be possible with enough funding and research.

    I don’t believe anyone is running trials using them anywhere near the dosages use by recreational users.

    I think the real problem is that many of the efforts to get these drugs into the medicine, is dress up as way to make them legal for recreational use, this is especially the case for cannibis.

  16. I imagine all this would be administered through
    Microdosing programmes as well as other treatment at the same time.

    I.e microdose and following a productive daily routine over a couple of months.

    NOT devouring 8 grams of raw cubensis.

    Edit: interestingly when I was living in Canada and attending cognitive behavioural therapy sessions I asked my counsellor about microdosing and she said there was plenty of medical research out there suggesting it was an effective treatment, the only issue is sourcing and measuring suitable doses.

  17. HussingtonHat on

    Getting some patients to trip some balls has seen pretty good results over a fairly wide range of mental stuff across the world. I think there was another one that basically molly’d up dementia patients and it had pretty surprisingly good results.

  18. FutilePenguins on

    Psilocybin is known to have the same effects as antidepressants without the physical side effects, so yes, yes they should

  19. Fine_Analyst_4408 on

    I resolved a lot of trauma through a few magic mushroom trips. My last trip I cried for 8 hours straight, which sounds like a bad thing but I felt so much better afterwards. Haven’t needed a trip since.

  20. I don’t understand the problem, is it because it’s not manufactured?

    Bayer invented heroin to be a less addictive opioid, it didn’t go that well.

    If a substance has a therapeutic benefit as is administered in a controlled manner, then it can be useful, regardless of the source.