Interest in therapeutic use of psychedelic drugs on the rise, says research review

published on September 8, 2015 by Erin Ellis in The Vancouver Sun

Vancouver-based study part of trend with its work on PTSD

Research in Vancouver on psychedelic drugs as a possible treatment for mental illness is part of a worldwide renaissance of the formerly sidelined area.

“The door to research has opened and many have walked through,” says Mark Haden, board chairman of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Canada.

A paper published Tuesday in the Canadian Medical Association Journal notes a resurgence of such work around the world, which was discredited in the 1970s by governments who called psychedelics “drugs of abuse with no recognized medical value.”

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Dr. Evan Wood, a UBC professor and medical director of addiction services at Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care, wrote the Canadian Medical Association Journal analysis with co-authors Kenneth W. Tupper, Matthew W. Johnson and Richard Yensen.

They summed up existing research about LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), psilocybin found in magic mushrooms, dimethyltryptamine (DMT, an active ingredient in the Amazonian hallucinogenic ayahuasca), mescaline and MDMA, including