There is no defined road to legalising psychedelics, but there are many options available. Ismail Lourido Ali, of MAPS, discusses the important nuances in this Drug Science webinar on expanding access to psychedelics. Due to the recent progress of medical cannabis legalisation, many expect psychedelics to follow a similar path of medical legalisation, followed by …
In this webinar, Dr Meg Spriggs explains the potential of psilocybin to treat anorexia nervosa, and offers valuable insights from the clinical trial investigating this application at the Centre for Psychedelic Research. Eating disorders are a complex mental health issue with few effective pharmaceutical treatments available. Meg provides an introductory background to some of the …
By Rayyan Zafar an Honorary Research Assistant for Drug Science Can a ‘double standard’ in paediatric medicine provide a framework to restructure repressive medical cannabis policies? In 2019, a drug called Zolgensma came to market. This drug used a particularly innovative gene therapy technique to treat infants suffering with an extremely rare and catastrophic neuromuscular …
By Dr Anna Ross, an Honorary Research Assistant for Drug Science A reflection on the article “Coming Out”: Stigma, reflexivity and the drug researchers drug use. In 2015 I started a PhD in drug policy at the University of Edinburgh. It had been a long journey, and at the age of 34, with two …
By Dr Hannah Thurgur an Honorary Research Assistant for Drug Science As we welcome in the new year, Drug Science reflects on the year of 2020 for psilocybin research and celebrates these achievements. Here we focus on the use of psilocybin-assisted therapy in three different conditions to reflect the breadth of research currently taking place …
By Rayyan Zafar an Honorary Research Assistant for Drug Science It was 5 years ago in 2016 when Nick Clegg, the then deputy prime-minister of the United Kingdom became aware of a group of patients suffering with the severe nerve-wasting syndrome, multiple sclerosis, who were using cannabis to treat their condition. He heard accounts of …
Ayahuasca has been used as a medicine in Mesoamerican ceremonies for thousands of years, but the primary psychoactive compound, DMT, was not synthesised until 1931. DMT was studied during the wave of psychedelic research in the 1950s and 60s until research was banned in 1971 by the Convention of Psychotropic Substances. Ayahuasca was not included …