Psychedelic

Psychedelic Stigma

Since the 1960s Political ploy of the "War on Drugs," many possible medications have been barred from patients and clinical testing.  One such example is the popular psychedelic mushroom.  In these fungi, there is a substance known as "psilocybin," that suppresses existing memories.  This would prove vital for patients currently treated with serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) or MDMA (ecstasy), like those who suffer from PTSD, Clinical Depression, and terminal cancers.  While psilocybin alters memory recollection, it has a longer efficacy period and fewer physical risks than similar treatments. Why, 60 years later, are these political choices still affecting scientific research and patient health?  These regulatory delays revolve around legal inertia--what has been enacted continues to be enforced unless met with significant enough opposing force.  It's time that these regulations were done away with and allowed for the testing of potential alleviations that were once taboo.  This age-old stigma is not worth the well-being of cancer patients suffering from existential anxiety, trauma patients still haunted by their pasts, and other individuals battling their own psychological gargantuan.  Inhibitors change the way your brain works and this proves exponentially more harmful than a treatment that requires fewer doses for the same, if not better, results.