PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS

PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS

Subject: Science & tech

Context:  Psychedelic substances such as psilocybin, LSD and even MDMA are being studied by researchers for possible use in treatment of mental health conditions.

Concept:

• Psychedelic Drug, also called psychotomimetic drug or hallucinogen, any of the so-called mind-expanding drugs that are able to induce states of altered perception and thought, frequently with heightened awareness of sensory input but with diminished control over what is being experienced.
• One of the most common psychedelic drugs is d-lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD-25, which was synthesized in 1938 by a chemist working for Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland.
• LSD proved to be an extraordinarily powerful drug, hundreds or thousands of times more powerful than other substances such as mescaline and psilocin and psilocybin.
• LSD may induce sympathomimetic effects, such as an increased heart rate, but has not been shown to cause death directly.
• Chronic exposure, however, may lead to psychoses or difficulties with memory or abstract thinking.
• Although their effectiveness has not been proved, psychedelic drugs have been proposed as treatment aids for psychotherapy, alcoholism, and mental disorders.
• The actual mechanisms of the drugs are not fully understood, but these and other popular mood-altering substances appear to work by mimicking or supplanting the effects of naturally occurring neurotransmitters.
• Psychedelic drugs achieved their widest popularity during the 1960s and early ’70s, when drugs such as LSD were central to the “hippie” subculture in western Europe and the United States.