Psychedelics 2.0
Yale University Press eBooks – October 27, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Decades of stringent drug scheduling, classifying psychedelics like psilocybin and mescaline as Schedule I hallucinogens since 1970, severely hampered scientific inquiry. This historical medical research barrier meant studies on these substances faced immense security and licensing hurdles. Yet, by the mid-2010s, a new front emerged in Psychedelics and Drug Studies. Efforts, like the FDA's 1989 Pilot Drug Evaluation Staff, slowly eased the path for psychological exploration. Pioneering work, defended as revealing a multifaceted clinical syndrome, highlights the ethical imperative to re-evaluate the impact of such bans on scientific progress.
Abstract
This chapter focuses on psychedelics as another emerging front in the war over the war on drugs in the mid 2010s, with most psychedelic substances, such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin, being Schedule I listed since 1970. It explains how the scheduling imposed significant barriers to scientific research on hallucinogenic substances and their effects, through stringent security requirements, FDA approval, and expensive DEA licensing fees for institutions working with the drugs. It also recounts the creation of the Pilot Drug Evaluation Staff by the FDA in 1989, which made it easier for the scientific community to liaise with the administration. The chapter refers to Dr. Richard Strassman, who managed to get a research protocol involving DMT and psilocybin off the ground. It details how Strassman defended his work by arguing that hallucinogens elicit a multifaceted clinical syndrome.