Scientists are working to capture the benefits without the hallucinations.
 | By Alexandra Sifferlin Senior Staff Editor, Opinion |
Psychedelics have long been viewed as providing a potential breakthrough in addressing depression and PTSD, especially for people who do not respond to other treatments, such as certain antidepressant medications that are often prescribed. |
Those who have taken psychedelics in clinical trials describe the hallucinations that accompany the drugs as transformative. "It forced me to reconcile with the mortality of being human," one study subject shared. "It alleviated my anxiety and gave meaning to my life." |
Despite these dispatches, as the health writer Dana Smith reports for Times Opinion, some scientists want to turn what's currently a mind-bending experience into a banal one. They are working to develop molecules based on psychedelics that provide the psychological benefits of the drugs without the hallucinations. |
The reasons largely have to do with scale. There are concerns that psychedelic therapy for depression and PTSD will not be easily accessible if it is approved for use in its current form. People may not want to trip or may find the treatment overwhelming. They also have to use the drugs in a clinic under supervision. If the same effects could be gained by taking a pill in the morning, scientists reason, millions more people might be able to benefit. |
Other researchers are skeptical that people can be healed without a trip. "To them, the powerful emotional and mystical experiences caused by psychedelics are what lead to people's therapeutic breakthroughs," Smith writes. |
The good news is that, regardless of the drugs' form, the results of trials suggest that they have the potential to change the way depression is treated going forward. "That's because the truly revolutionary vision of both psychedelic therapy and its non-psychedelic chemical cousins is to take the medications not on a daily or weekly basis, but only once or twice and potentially be healed for good," she writes. |
As one expert asked her: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had a drug that you can take at bedtime and you woke up the next day and you were no longer depressed?" |
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