After a Alaska Airlines pilot off duty accused of trying to bring down a plane Midflight said he consumed ‘magic mushrooms’ before boarding, psychedelic researchers say event should be a warning, particularly for people who think they can overcome stubborn mental illness by taking it themselves a psychedelic drug.
Over the past five years, psychedelic drug research as part of therapy for mental disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and addiction have skyrocketed. The initial results of the studies were so promising that The Food and Drug Administration has released draft guidelines in June for the design of clinical trials of psychedelic drugs, including MDMA and psilocybin, for the treatment of mood, anxiety and substance use disorders.
It is not clear whether off-duty pilot Joseph Emerson, 44, who told authorities after his failed attempt to shut down the plane’s engines that he was suffering from depression, was trying to self-medicate by taking psilocybin, the active component of magic mushrooms.
Yet as states consider legalizing or decriminalizing psilocybin, clinics in Oregon began offering psilocybin therapy this summer and Colorado Voters Approved Legalization in 2022 – some psychedelic researchers fear the dangers will be overlooked.
“I’ve been following the growing momentum behind decriminalization and waiting for a headline like this to come up,” said Dr. Joshua Siegel, a psychiatrist in the psychedelics research program at the University of Washington in Saint -Louis. “I hope this leads to a rational conversation about the benefits and risks.”
Under controlled circumstances – screening for a history of psychosis or bipolar disorder, careful monitoring of dosages, preparation for what to expect and close medical supervision of the “journey”, treatment coupled with psychotherapy – psychedelics can lead to impressive results, say the researchers.
More news on psychedelic research
Dr. Boris Heifets, an anesthesiologist and co-director of the Exploratory Therapeutics Laboratory at Stanford University School of Medicine, said the therapy’s potential for a wide range of mental health problems is remarkable.
“But any drug treatment, especially one as intense as a psychedelic, will have pros and cons,” Heifets said. “It’s not a negligible risk if you don’t know who it’s not for.”
Current studies exclude patients with bipolar disorder and people with a personal or family history of psychosis, Heifets said.
When accompanied by psychotherapy, there is growing evidence that psychedelics can work when other treatments fail.
“We’ve had very good results in our trials,” said psychiatrist Dr. Joshua Woolley, director of the Psychedelic Translational Research Program at the University of California, San Francisco.
“The trials are very well controlled and dosing is always facilitated,” Woolley said. “The patient meets the therapist beforehand, is informed of what they might experience, and is given the opportunity to practice in advance in the room where the treatment will take place.”
Psychedelic effects can last a long time
What many people don’t understand about psychedelics, Woolley said, is that the impact can last days, weeks or longer after the substance is no longer detectable in the body.
In a new studyBritish researchers described the experiences of 608 people willing to talk about long-term difficulties that arose after using psychedelic drugs.
One participant noted that “for about 18 months, I woke up every morning with the sun, filled with a feeling of absolute dread. Sometimes my anxiety was so bad in the morning that I would physically shake from the energy.
Another said: “I felt like the person I used to be had been completely erased of all sensory memory and I felt completely dissociated from the body I inhabited…. (I) basically felt like I was completely disintegrating. My life has been and will never be the same.
According to the new study, 15% of participants experienced “derealization,” or confusion or uncertainty about what was real in the days, weeks, or months following a psychedelic experience. People sometimes felt like they were in “a dream, an afterlife, purgatory, a movie, a video game, or a false reality,” the researchers wrote.
How Psychedelics Can Help
Researchers aren’t sure how psychedelics help get people out of mental illness when other treatments don’t work. There are theories.
“You can imagine that people with serious mental illness can get stuck,” Woolley said. “We think the way psychedelics work is that they induce a ‘plastic state,’ in which change is possible.”
Animal studies have shown that psychedelics can cause axons, the long threadlike fibers that carry messages between nerve cells, to start making new connections, he explained.
In the right context, “psychedelics can bring the brain out of a state of depression or anxiety, a cycle of negative thoughts, self-perception, moods and behaviors,” Siegel said. “When you look at the cellular level you see an increase in plasticity and to me that’s the molecular equivalent of allowing habits to be flexible, which makes change easier.”
People are thought to get “stuck” because the brain is designed to develop habits, said Chris Tuell, professor of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience and director of addiction services at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine.
The brain develops habits because they are essential for survival. If strong connections were not made in the brain – to send us back to where there is food, to have sex to procreate, to stay away from danger – the species would not survive, said Tuell.
But sometimes this wiring results in a strengthening of unhealthy connections, leading to stubborn mental illnesses like long-term depression or anxiety. It’s like a car wheel stuck in a rut in the road, unable to get out, Tuell said.
An intense experience, like a psychedelic trip, can sometimes pull a person out of a mental rut, experts say.
Even in carefully controlled studies, experiences with psychedelics can be “euphoric, exhilarating or terrifying,” Heifets said.
“Context matters. With support, treatment can lead to transformation,” Heifets said. “If completely uncontrolled, it can potentially lead to what we see in the news.”
