Posted on 04/07/2013 10:47:57 AM PDT by Jyotishi
Drugs made from magic mushrooms could help treat people with severe depression, a new study suggests.
Scientists believe that the chemical psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms, can turn down parts of the brain that are overactive in severely depressive patients, the Guardian reported.
The drug appears to stop patients dwelling on themselves and their own perceived inadequacies.
However, a bid by British scientists to carry out trials of psilocybin on patients in order to assess its full medical potential has been blocked by red tape relating to Britain’s strict drugs laws.
Professor David Nutt, professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, said that because magic mushrooms are rated as a class-A drug, their active chemical ingredient cannot be manufactured unless a special licence is granted.
“We haven’t started the study because finding companies that could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence is proving very difficult,” Nutt said.
“The whole field is so bedevilled by primitive old-fashioned attitudes. Even if you have a good idea, you may never get it into the clinic, it seems,” he added.
Research by Nutt has found that psilocybin switches off part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex.
It was known that this area is overactive in individuals suffering from depression.
In his tests on healthy individuals, it was found that psilocybin had a profound effect on making these volunteers feel happier weeks after they had taken the drug, Nutt said.
I took them a few times over 40 years ago. The dried ones were quite pleasant. Then somebody got a bag of “fresh” shrooms. In about 20 minutes I knew they weren’t real. Speed rush!!! They were probably ordinary mushrooms, bought at the store, and doused with something like LSD? and definitely Speed. Horrible! That episode ended my “experimentations.” Couldn’t trust what anything was.
I'm pretty certain there weren't any depressed folks at Woodstock.......
Fresh is the best!
However, it's all about where you are, and who you are with period!
And keep smiling!
Some people balk at medical pot products and say “what's next, medical meth?”
Well, prescription methamphetamine has been available for decades to “ADD/ADHD” patients. It can even be legally prescribed to children.
That's right, pure methamphetamine can be prescribed to kids for something we are not even sure is a disease. Brand name “Desoxyn”.
Synthetic heroin is prescribed to people all the time. Even for minor injuries. Some are stronger and more addictive than natural heroin.
So if super addictive/debilitating methamphetamine and heroin can be prescribed if someone says it helps them why not pot? Well, there's no money in plants people can grow at home but there's plenty of money in addictive expensive pills. Especially when most of those expensive pills are paid for by the taxpayer.
Want to see the real dopers sitting on welfare and popping pills on your dime? Work as a pharmacy delivery person for just one day. I say let the dopers grow their own instead of getting us to pay for their pills.
The WOD is simply another way to scam taxpayers and take freedoms away.
I never laughed SOOOOO hard in my life at the stupidest things than when I was shrooming. So hard my abdomen was sore the next day. I’ll be the first to tell you that it felt therapeutic...
By replacing it with Schizophrenia?
Shrooms are great if one could control the dosage. You just never know if 3 are enough or 6 are too many.
No one said they were. Researcher was looking for mood changes in normal individuals.
Quit trying to treat symptoms, and treat the underlying cause.
Well, neuropsychopharmacology is certainly meant to treat the underlying cause. I hope you aren't implying that all depression are situational in etiology. Would make it rather difficult to explain offspring raised separately from parents who manifest the same psychiatric symptoms, in addition to both possessing biochemical markers linked to the disorder.
Go ask Alice, I think she’ll know.
“Fresh is the best!”
I would agree, however, these were not fresh! They were store mushrooms soaked in speed and some psychedelic.
So is depression more prevalent in Japan and India?
Never tried them, but my guess is that you would be so out of your gourd you wouldn't know if you were depressed or not.
when I got out of the Army in 72 the first thing I did was stop cutting my hair. Then I ran into an old girl friend from high school and we dated for a while. She was all hippy chick and I was just a long haired country boy. We decided to got to Lubbock TX for a Ted Nugent concert and she brought a bag of mushrooms with her, I’d smoked pot in Vietnam but I wasn’t ready for this. I ate one before we left and one on the way and another when we got there. I still remember that concert like it was yesterday, had a blast.
Bull$h!t. The mind is not just a mix of chemicals.
Idiots think that you can just add or subtract a few chemicals and woila! everything is just great again.
WHAT? Depression is not just a “chemical imbalance”? You’d better avoid the depression & suicide threads, they’ll kill you there!
Oh wait, this IS a depression thread. Prepare for violent demise!
Also, as a defense attorney (former prosecutor), I now understand why the government sticks to its position. They aren't going to take away the ability of cops to smell marijuana during a traffic stop and get the camel's nose under the tent. The government markets and black markets would take a huge hit financially if marijuana prohibition was repealed.
Truthfully I have seen much worse come from the misuse of alcohol than just about anything. I've never heard of a college student overdosing on marijuana. I have seen many instances of lethal alcohol poisoning. Not to mention that alcoholics go through a withdraw from addition that can itself be fatal. None of those things can be said of marijuana.
I'm not pro drug, I really am just against paying hundreds of billions of dollars as a society never making a dent in the WOD while domestic law enforcement continues to militarize itself, and the cartels bank off of the logical consequences of prohibition. The solution to the “drug problem” has given us a police state problem in my opinion.
Just my thoughts FWIW.
Believe it or not they were legal in Japan up until about 10 years ago . Costly but a nice , mellow high if taken in small doses .
If researcher was looking for mood changes in normal individuals, then magic mushrooms would do the trick. Smart researcher, not only gets to get his friends high on class one drugs supplied by the Government, but gets paid to do it.
“Party at Doc’s house Dude!”
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