By Alaina Perdon
Elm Staff Writer
Depression has plagued the public at an increasing rate for decades, with a plethora of existing antidepressant drugs and therapies yielding only modest results. With depression rates still on the rise and a seemingly exhausted arsenal of cures, scientists have turned to a unique source for a solution: psilocybin, the hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms.
Though potentially viewed as peculiar, the drug serves as a beacon of hope to the mental health community. The Food and Drug Administration has approved and embarked upon multi-phase testing of psilocybin to address “treatment-resistant” mental illnesses, including depression that shows no response to currently existing medicines.
The unconventional treatment has sparked controversy, as there are a number of concerns regarding addiction, especially in the midst of the nation’s ongoing opioid epidemic.
While such concerns are not unfounded, the positive evidence provided by researchers of the drug already far outweighs the detrimental side effects, which can exist with any type of drug.
In the most recently released reports from Johns Hopkins University, researchers state the psychedelic compound significantly decreased symptoms in patients for eight months following just a single treatment. Every patient tested showed a decrease in symptoms to some degree, ranging from 23 to 100 percent.
This success rate is significantly higher than that of any previously developed drug — a phenomenal feat and hopeful development. The more than 100 million individuals afflicted by previously untreatable depression may not have to suffer any longer, an aspiration that is especially significant considering a majority of this faction are young people.
In fact, health professionals believe psychedelic psilocybin may be most effective on the developing brains of teens. In non-Western cultures, psychedelics are widely used to treat mental illness in children and teens.
This recent shift in medicine toward nontraditional practices, which researchers describe as the “psychedelic renaissance,” may be the hope this troubled demographic deserves. Opposition to such practices arise from the “taboo” confabulation regarding alternative medicine disseminated by modern Western doctors.
Such a mindset only hinders progress and deprives individuals of the assistance they so desperately need, and cessation of such research will only increase the body count seen as a result of untreated mental illness.
The psychedelic renaissance may be the next mental healthcare revolution, and research on the effects of psychedelic psilocybin will benefit both the medical professional community and those afflicted by mental illnesses. Despite controversy, it is crucial for such research to continue, as the most remarkable of scientific discoveries arise when one challenges the boundaries of conventionality.