Magic mushrooms found to lift severe depression in clinical trial

I forget which interview I was listening to about doing LSD research but I remember the gist of the quote: "We tried doing double-blind studies, but 15 minutes into the experiment we realized it was pointless. The people who were given LSD... they knew they'd been given the real stuff, the scientists knew very obviously who'd been given the real stuff... There's no way to give someone LSD and not have everyone in the room know what's going on."

Yeah, it looks like the study linked in the original article didn't do the measurement on the subjects while they were under the influence, but rather some time after the fact. In my experience, psilocybin can have a lasting psychological effect long after the physiological effects wear off.

Not every medical procedure can or has to undergo double blind testing with control groups.

Pretty much any treatment that has very aggressive effects is usually done without it.

Even treatments that can be tested using a control group are quite often tested without it if you can isolate your metrics well enough.

But technically you can still use a control group for psychoactive drugs because in every trial the first rule is not to give the test subjects any information about possible effects or side effects in order not introduce bias, you also quite often isolate the subjects from each other completely.

I'm also not sure if the dose that is given in this case is even high enough to induce hallucinations in the first place.

I'm thinking more along the lines of this one: https://xkcd.com/790/

You could say you were testing drugs for depression and give one group psilocybin and the other something like prozac rather than sugar pills.

Microdosing may remove the "rather noticeable" side effects while producing a similar reduction of anxiety/depression.

Can't they just lower the dosage drastically?

That's why it's a canary study. Sure, it looks good, which means it's worth spending the money on a larger study. And yeah, there are lots of people with severe long-term depression, so find some of them, measure their mood over the same time period, and make absolutely sure that the effects you're ascribing to the substance you're testing aren't caused by something else.

You always need a control group because you can't control for every externality over the exact time period the study was conducted. Maybe the weather was especially nice for those 3 months and the control group feels happier as well? We need a way to quantify the results and be able to answer those questions.

Always be careful with the conclusions you draw from studies without control groups. Small studies without control groups are very cheap to run, so you can run the same study 15 times and only report on it when you get the results you're looking for. Not saying that's what happened here, but we have to apply the same standards of proof to all drug studies or else they don't mean anything. The purpose of this study was likely not to prove "hallucinogens can cure depression" but rather "mushrooms are potentially effective and don't appear to have any glaring safety issues".

It's true. I tell all my friends / family if you're going to do mushrooms for the first time, do them with me. I've seen the worst of trips and only my experience in knowing "I'm just high" kept me stable. Newcomers can't call on this experience so readily and will undoubtedly think they're the special exception that is going to die.

I also have more advice for newcomer shroomers: one thought can spiral downward or upward. Try your best to stay optimistic and open to the experience. You will not understand everything that happens (and this is a good thing because it's how people walk away feeling like they learned something), but you need to stay open and firm in your conviction that you're ok. As soon as you tell yourself "I think I'm going to die", you will create your own personal hell.

People think "innocence" isn't a feeling -- it's a judgment. They're wrong. Mushrooms evoke a feeling of innocence that brings the typical user back to a childhood state of mind. And while children are pretty stupid (no fault of their own), their perception is typically void of petty judgments adults cling to (by fault of their own). In this newfound awareness, just like a kid, you feel that anything is possible and yearn for adventure. It's a wonderful experience and is what makes mushrooms my #1 recommended drug.

Sounds exactly like every time I smoke weed. Including that disappointing expectation of becoming sober and blissfully unaware of my flaws. Have never tried any psychedelics, but some of my bad "trips" with weed (sometimes involving delusions and hallucinations) make me wary.

negative feedback: also useful outside the realm of amplifiers.

Our civilization is slowly getting to the point where that advice will get taken seriously.

For some reason eating fruit while on mushrooms is very satisfying to me. It makes me think about how the earth provides delicious fleshy fruit that literally grows on trees, and all of the other trippy thoughts that come with conceptualizing what a piece of fruit actually is.

Also, increased vitamin C.

Eating oranges while tripping on shrooms was a very intense experience to me. I agree with OP's statement, a comfy place with calm music and fresh fruit is all you need.

vitamins

The variance in potency is negligible, especially when compared to the variance in potency of LSD doses. It is generally known amongst those taking mushrooms that 2 - 3 grams is within most people's comfort level. The real variance comes from how dry the mushrooms are - mushrooms that are more moist will be less potent. This is why a responsible mushroom grower will thoroughly dry their mushrooms before consuming them.

The psilocybin in a mushroom is going to be psilocybin in a mushroom.

Maybe the brush was a bit broad.

However, studies interpreted more broadly than warranted can lead the unwary down deep, expensive, counterproductive dead ends. This happens all the time as the popular media get ahold stories, especially those relating to drug treatments and nutrition.

Consider the headline: "Magic mushrooms found to lift severe depression in clinical trial."

That conclusion is out of line with the way in which the experiment was conducted, especially given the high tendency for large placebo effects in such studies. Without proper controls, the conclusion that magic mushrooms lift severe depression is next to useless.

Agreed. One might say to take the conclusion with a grain of salt, but "next to useless" is being overly dismissive.

Exactly that, though, the placebo effect of interest would only be induced on people who haven't tripped.

That aside, and of course accepting that states induced by psilocybin and other substances are unobtainable by any other means, you are still nowhere near saying that these same substances can _reliably_ be used to treat depression. Furthermore, this course of treatment also needs to _reliably_ not make depression worse or trigger other types of anxiety that could trigger other medical conditions. Clearly, exactly what a aperson does under the influence of these substances can remarkably impact the results of the studies, so the techniques being used are being judged in these experiments just as much as the substances being used.

One shouldn't be dismissive of these studies, but also one should understand that the techniques used aren't the end-of-the-line in terms of potential these substances may have. on the other side of the token, we must also tread carefully. We must first do no harm!

Right! This made me laugh, the idea of a placebo with magic mushrooms.

Just because something is really hard (or impossible) to do right, doesn't mean we should do it wrong and then pretend that it was done right.

This is definitely what it feels like at least.

A sense of raw novelty is evoked with our lack of understanding of the world around us becomes focused front and center.

Everything is beautiful in its own right. And the fractals in all of existence thoughts and visions run infinitely deep but we can almost grasp them.

Yes, this is exactly how I'd describe it. I remember watching The Hobbit and being blown away. I felt like a kid all over again.

Did it help you realize that you didn't have problems?

Something like that. This is actually a pretty common sentiment. I know a lot of people who experimented with psychedelics in their 20s who in their 30s have said some variation of, "I don't think I'd want to do them now. I have too many things on my mind."

They were probably easier problems at a younger age...

I've found that as I get older, I'm in positions where because I have a number of responsibilities to my child, partner, coworkers, and community I have to force myself to put various issues "off the table" for conscious thought.

These responsibilities often entail dealing with a great deal more ethical ambiguity and have far fewer simple answers.

In addition to that, over the years I've learned many new facts about the world which indicate that I'm not as nice or good a person as I had previously understood myself to be.

At least in my case as, I get older I feel have both fewer options and the world is more complex than I had thought it was when I was when I was younger.

So my assumption has been that saying "I don't need to deal with XYZ" is probably far more common as folks get older.

And this doesn't seem to be a bad strategy.

On one hand, most large issues either resolve themselves are outside of any person's actions. On the other hand, I may gain even further insight about things as I age.

So I think that "hiding more from ourselves as we age" is probably normal.

I sure as hell don't have the optimism to look at the world with a head full of acid at this point in my life-- it's a horrible shit show of violence and greed even when I'm sober, and every year the possibility of doing much about it via individual action becomes less tenable.

But who knows, maybe I'll age into having some clearer understandings that will leave me more optimistic as I move into my 40s and 50s. Or get better at ignoring the vast problems.

I think in Johns Hopkins studies they were using amphetamines, and also they recruited people who were hallucinogenic-naive.

Not true, you'd be surprised what the mind is able to do on its own. Besides both groups should be exposed to "trippy" stimulus, which for the naive would be enough. Seen non-alcoholic experiments where the unknowning participants showed ALL the signs of having had alcohol; that is until they were told they were not drinking alcohol.

> I wonder what could be given as placebo tho.

I don't know about this trial specifically, but they usually use something like methylphenidate or nicotene.

Except for one minor contact high at a party, I never even experienced weed.

I have a friend who had strikingly similar experiences as a child. She quit school for a while and got high daily -- mostly weed, as I understand it. About the age of 21 or 22, she got herself back into school and now has a very successful professional career.

Drugs may indeed destroy some people. But, the messaging is far too simple -- and simplistic.

And, those people often are not helped. They are simply castigated and ostracized.

I don't mean, at all, to make light of such circumstances. And, I have currently been helping someone -- help to the tune of dozens of hours per week and hundreds of miles driven, and hundreds of dollars -- who came darned close to being lost, herself.

I'd still trade my life for hers. She's lived hers -- mistakes and all.

Sure. They had an incredibly bad time with the trip, far worse than what you usually associate with a bad trip. Violence, screaming, paranoia, gibberish. All stuff (maybe apart from the violence) that can happen on a bad one, but this was extreme. Setting was familiar and safe, no external stresses during the period. This was his first time with mushrooms, although regular cannabis smoker (which also might have caused an issue). Regular dose.

The next few days he was still recovering, but thoughts still very scattered and incoherent. Unfortunately this didn't taper off. I had not seen him for a few weeks until his family were in contact. The behaviour had become drastically worse, violence and paranoia. Eventually he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

From what I have read, with a certain kind of predisposition it would have probably manifested itself later in his life if he was unlucky.

I don't want to put people off Psilocybin as it can be an incredible thing. Just be damn careful and do your research.

Wanted to add my own story to this - freshman year in college, guy in my dorm takes LSD with friends. He goes completely berserk, starts breaking anything he can get his hands on, causes thousands of dollars of property damage. At some point his friends could no longer handle him, and locked him out of their room. He starts wandering through the hallways and begins urinating/defecating everywhere (even on himself). He was taken to the hospital by the police (which is a truly horrible place to come down from a trip).

He developed schizophrenia and had to drop out of college (a very good one). Never found out what became of him. His parents were extremely embarrassed and apologetic, having to pay for all of the destroyed property. Most of the monetary restitution went toward replacing textbooks that were ripped to shreds.

I can see where you got “conspiracy theory” out of that, but I would disagree: it has more to do with ordinary human behaviour.

It’s easy to keep things the way they are, even if that results in greater long-term cost and harm. This is particularly true if you’re the one in power and you stand to benefit from keeping things as they are—whether because you can make money from it, or just because you think it’s morally right.

You see this also in code: it’s “easier” to keep modifying a clunky legacy codebase than to rewrite it, even if rewriting would result in overall better software. It’s not usually a conspiracy to create inefficiency, but a series of penny-wise decisions often has the same pound-foolish effect.

Of course, I agree that if society’s attitude toward drugs changes, politics will naturally catch up.

I don't think there is much of a stigma around hallucinogens compared to Heroin or other opioids. Peyote has long been legal to use. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peyote#Legality

On the other hand, much of the stigma comes from the illegality.

I think prior comment is saying that police routinely ruin people's lives by locking them up over drug use.

Some chronic pain and cancer patients see dramatically improved quality of life with medical marijuana.

> Also, their 'please renew' campaign was quite deceiptful, sending us some kind of "you owe $$$!!!" notice that was really "you owe $$$ if you want to resubscribe".

It amazes me how the entire magazine industry is like this. The most staid and respectable publications have circulation departments that make my local used car dealer look like a saint. It's a huge disconnect, and has always bothered me.

I've had that with them, too. While it's true that they're not super detailed, I'm also not an expert in every field, and in the majority of articles I found it a good balance. But years later, perhaps I've moved beyond that.

I subscribed for several years until I got tired of their political agenda. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was a feature article on cleaning up landmines in southeast asia. Now, surely this is an important topic, but it's not what I come to a science magazine to read about.

From there I moved to American Scientist magazine, which I found a bit deeper in many cases, and much better regarding editorializing.

It used to be so good back in the early 90s!

I know there's been an effort to use the word "Cannabis" as a way to sound legitimate, instead of pot/weed/marijuana. Do you react better to 'cannabis'?

Well every medical marijuana dispensary I've seen looks like a head shop. Granny walks in with arthritis and walks out with her "blueberry kush" and wearing a crochet rainbow hat.

> That's not to say there aren't any potential health benefits but "toking herb" (or whatever) isn't the best way to present them to people who still demonize it

> Whenever pot-culture words come up in "reporting" about medical treatments I immediately tune out

Ever think that you're contributing to the problem? Just ignore the editorializing.

That's not how it works though. Many of the people running the cannabis studies have mentioned that the THC or CBD cannabanoids don't work alone. Cannabis has over 100 such cannabanoids. Nobody is definitively certain of the effects of this list outside of the 5 main ones.

So "cutting all stuff that's potentially giving by-effects" is idealistic and not currently possible without reducing the efficacy of the cannabis.

There are about 113 cannabinoids in weed, while that pot spray only contains 2. With reefer, exact doses do not matter because unlike most medicine, its active ingredients are endogenous and non-toxic.

I'm sorry that 420 culture causes your bias, but that's not a fault of the plant.

A return to science...