Is it time to give hallucinogenic drugs for medical use another try?
Some researchers in California make that case in a study of a dozen patients with advance cancer. The patients, 11 women and 1 man, received a low dose of psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms" in one session and a placebo, consisting of water and the B vitamin niacin, which causes flushing, in another.
On a couple of measures of mental health, the patients showed less anxiety months after treatment and a big improvement in mood even a half-year after a single psychedelic session.
To be sure, this study, billed as a pilot test, had some flaws, most notably that each patient served as his or her own point of comparison, or control. And the researchers concede that it was pretty much impossible for the patients not to know pretty quickly whether they were getting the drug or the dummy medicine in a given session.
One of the funders of the pilot study and the bigger one at NYT is the Heffter Research Institute, a nonprofit that specializes in the science of hallucinogenic drugs.
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