In Canada, Psychedelics Re-emerge In Treatment Of Depression

Toronto, Canada, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 16th Apr, 2021 ) :To manage her stress and fears, Andrea Bird -- who is suffering from terminal cancer -- uses psychedelics, which are seeing a sudden re-emergence in Canada as a possible treatment for mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression.

The 60-year-old Canadian was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2012. Despite aggressive treatment, the disease returned five years later, spreading to her lungs, bones and brain.

As she tries to cope with her incurable ailment, Bird uses psilocybin, the psychoactive substance of hallucinogenic mushrooms that was banned in the 1970s.

"I found it to be the most helpful thing that I did in coming to terms with the fact that my life is ending much sooner than I thought it would," Bird told AFP.

"I'm still dying," she said matter-of-factly, but added that psilocybin "makes me feel like I can stand up." "I really love my life, and I really don't want to die, but I have to find a way to surrender to what is actually happening." Bird, who lives in Ontario province, is among about 30 Canadians, most of them struggling to face the end of their lives, who have received Federal dispensation since August 2020 to use psilocybin for therapeutic purposes.

TheraPsil, a non-profit organization based in British Columbia, has helped most of them get exemptions to Canada's controlled substances and drug act for "compassionate treatment." The group also has connected patients to doctors and therapists who oversee their use of the drug.

These trial cases come amid mounting interest from researchers and investors, as well as a public push to reconsider bans on psilocybin, LSD, DMT, mescaline and other mind-altering substances such as MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy.

The US state of Oregon legalized psilocybin for therapeutic use last November.

- 'Revolution in psychiatry' - Psychedelics have been used by indigenous peoples for millennia, but Western researchers only started delving into their properties and potential uses in earnest in the middle of last century.

But that work came grinding to a halt when the substances quickly became symbols of the anti-establishment counter-culture movement of the 1960s and were banned.

Over the past 20 years, however, the persistence of some researchers, a mental health crisis and a shift in public opinion towards greater tolerance of drugs such as cannabis -- which Canada legalized for recreational use in 2018 -- paved the way for a psychedelics renaissance.

"Now there are more people who are willing to just look at the facts rather than the political weight they may carry," explains Rotem Petranker, associate director of the University of Toronto's Psychedelic Studies Research Program, which looks at the effects of micro-dosing on mood and creativity.

Researchers are studying the potential benefits of these substances for treating depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance addictions and anorexia.

The most advanced clinical trials are focused on using psilocybin for severe or treatment-resistant depression, and MDMA for PTSD.

Some of the studies have yielded promising results.

A recent clinical trial from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University -- which has just opened a research center dedicated to psychedelics -- showed that two doses of psilocybin, accompanied by psychotherapy, produced "large, rapid and sustained" effects in patients suffering from serious depression.

Of the 24 participants, 71 percent showed a reduction of more than 50 percent of their symptoms after four weeks and half went into remission, the study revealed.

Another small-scale study involving 59 participants, conducted by Imperial College London's Centre for Psychedelic Research, showed psilocybin was "at least as effective" as conventional antidepressants, the research team said this week, though adding that larger trials were needed.

"We're experiencing a revolution in psychiatry," Alexandre Lehmann, a cognitive neuroscientist who teaches at McGill University in Montreal, told AFP.

"There are new approaches to alleviating and curing serious and disabling mental health problems, which affect a large number of people, and for which there are currently no good solutions."