AimThe study aimed to collect information concerning the increasing use of new psychoactive substances, commonly sold through online shops as 'Internet drugs' or 'legal highs', or in terms of masked products such as 'bath salts' and 'plant food'.MethodsThe Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Laboratory and the Swedish Poisons Information Centre h...
Maslow (1970) defined peak experiences as the most wonderful experiences of a person's life, which may include a sense of awe, well-being, or transcendence. Furthermore, recent research has suggested that psilocybin can produce experiences subjectively rated as uniquely meaningful and significant (Griffiths et al. 2006). It is therefore possible that psilocy...
Psychedelic drugs have long been known to be capable of inducing mystical or transcendental experiences. However, given the common "recreational" nature of much present-day psychedelic use, with typical doses tending to be lower than those commonly taken in the 1960s, the extent to which illicit use of psychedelics today is associated with mystical experienc...
"Magic mushrooms" is the most common name given to hallucinogenic fungi containing the psychoactive alkaloids psilocybin and psilocin. In recent years, fungis' sclerotia, commonly called "magic truffles" have become a form of supply of psychoactive Psilocybe alkaloids since Psilocybe sclerotia are not specifically included in the laws banning the sale, the p...
Introduction and aimsSimultaneous polysubstance use (SPU) is a common phenomenon, yet little is known about its role in substance use initiation.Design and methodsIn the present study, 226 cannabis users completed structured interviews about their substance use history. For each substance ever used, participants provided details of their age of first use, th...
BackgroundPsilocybin is a well-characterized classic hallucinogen (psychedelic) with a long history of religious use by indigenous cultures, and nonmedical use in modern societies. Although psilocybin is structurally related to migraine medications, and case studies suggest that psilocybin may be efficacious in treatment of cluster headache, little is known ...
Psychoactive drug use shows great diversity, but due to a disproportionate focus on problematic drug use, predominant nonproblematic drug use remains an understudied phenomenon. Historic and anecdotal evidence shows that natural sources of "psychedelic" drugs (e.g., mescaline and psilocybin) have been used in religious and spiritual settings for centuries, a...
The psychoactive substance 4-HO-MET (4-hydroxy-N-methyl-N-ethyltryptamine) with psychedelic qualities is one of many legal so-called Internet drugs. The aim of this qualitative study was to establish an understanding of what characterizes its recreational use. Very little is known about the effects of this substance. Twenty-five anonymous Swedish experience ...
IntroductionThe use of illicit drugs by students and the possible psychological repercussions in this population of young adults is an important public health issue. While some data in the literature suggest a relationship between cannabis and the occurrence of mental health disorders, and in particular psychotic illnesses, epidemiologic surveys have shown t...
BackgroundThis research focuses on the events leading to the 1968 U.S. federal prohibition of psilocybin. It is a study of duelling moral entrepreneurs-Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert vs. the Harvard University Administration. The goal is to show how the primary active compound in an ostensibly harmless fungus (the psilocybin mushroom) became controversial ...
This study assesses the availability of websites offering to sell psilocybin spores and psilocybin, a powerful hallucinogen contained in Psilocybe mushrooms. Over a 25-month period beginning in March 2003, eight searches were conducted in Google using the term "psilocybin spores." In each search the first 100 nonsponsored links obtained were scored by two in...
IntroductionProblems associated with the increasing abuse of plant-derived psychoactive substances have recently attracted attention. This study involved bioanalytical and clinical examinations of intoxication cases suspected to be linked to such plant materials.MethodsUrine samples were collected at emergency wards in Sweden from patients who either admitte...
Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART) is a novel ionization technique that provides for the rapid ionization of small molecules under ambient conditions. To investigate the trend of non-controlled psychotropic plants of abuse in Japan, a rapid screening method, without sample preparation, was developed using DART-time of flight mass spectrometer (TOFMS) for pl...
Indole alkaloids of Psilocybe cubensis have been reported to be the potential candidates for drug discovery in central nervous system (CNS) disorders. In this research, the effect of the harvesting light on increasing the active alkaloids of P. cubensis was investigated. Three different lighting conditions, that is, dim daylight, indirect daylight, and darkn...
It has been observed that agents with agonist activity at 5-HT2A receptors prevent neurotoxicity induced by the non-competitive NMDA antagonist, dizocilpine (MK-801). Subsequent behavioral studies reported complete antagonism by LSD and DOM of the stimulus effects of the related NMDA antagonist, phencyclidine [PCP]. The present study sought to extend those o...
Psychedelic drugs such as LSD and psilocybin are often claimed to be capable of inducing life-changing experiences described as mystical or transcendental, especially if high doses are taken. The present study examined possible enduring effects of such experiences by comparing users of psychedelic drugs (n = 88), users of nonpsychedelic illegal drugs (e.g., ...
Recreational Ecstasy/MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) users often take a variety of psychoactive drugs, but there is little empirical data on how these drug consumption patterns change with greater experience of Ecstasy. The aim of this study was to compare the polydrug usage patterns reported by non-Ecstasy users, novice Ecstasy users, moderate Ecst...
This study was performed on a representative sample of the Danish population in order to investigate the connection to the use of psychoactive drugs and quality of life (QOL) by way of a questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was mailed in February 1993 to 2,460 persons aged between 18 and 88, randomly selected from the CPR (Danish Central Register), ...
Psilocyn and psilocybin can be identified in different stages of developing psilocybe mushrooms. Knowing the various stages of the mushroom development can be useful when receiving evidence from illicit mushroom growing operations. Exhibits from three separate cases were submitted to the drug analysis section of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension ...
RationaleAyahuasca, a South American psychotropic plant tea, combines the psychedelic agent and 5-HT(2A/2C) agonist N, N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) with beta-carboline alkaloids showing monoamine oxidase-inhibiting properties. Current human research with psychedelics and entactogens has explored the possibility that drugs displaying agonist activity at the 5-H...
