Covering: up to December 2013. Over the past decade, there has been a growing transition in recreational drugs from natural materials (marijuana, hashish, opium), natural products (morphine, cocaine), or their simple derivatives (heroin), to synthetic agents more potent than their natural prototypes, which are sometimes less harmful in the short term, or tha...
This essay describes the founding of the Heffter Research Institute in 1993 and its development up to the present. The Institute is the only scientific research organization dedicated to scientific research into the medical value of psychedelics, and it has particularly focused on the use of psilocybin. The first clinical treatment study was of the value of ...
Psilocybin-occasioned mystical experiences have been linked to persisting effects in healthy volunteers including positive changes in behavior, attitudes, and values, and increases in the personality domain of openness. In an open-label pilot-study of psilocybin-facilitated smoking addiction treatment, 15 smokers received 2 or 3 doses of psilocybin in the co...
BackgroundThis report documents the phenomenology of the subjective experiences of 15 healthy psychedelic experienced volunteers who were involved in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study that was designed to image the brain effects of intravenous psilocybin.MethodsThe participants underwent a semi-structured interview exploring the effects of...
Current treatments for addiction are frequently ineffective. Hallucinogenic therapy has been indicated as helpful for a range of substance use disorders, yet this approach remains understudied and publicly unavailable. It is nonetheless a promising treatment, which has significant, long-term beneficial effects with single doses and a profile characterized by...
A web-based survey was used to consult the opinions of experienced drug users on matters related to drug harms. We identified a rare sample of 93 drug users with personal experience with 11 different illicit drugs that are widely used in the UK. Asked to assess the relative harms of these drugs, they ranked alcohol and tobacco as the most harmful, and three ...
BackgroundThe classical serotonergic psychedelics LSD, psilocybin, mescaline are not known to cause brain damage and are regarded as non-addictive. Clinical studies do not suggest that psychedelics cause long-term mental health problems. Psychedelics have been used in the Americas for thousands of years. Over 30 million people currently living in the US have...
Methoxetamine (MXE), a ketamine analogue, is one of the new "legal highs" sold on the Internet. The aim of this qualitative study was to provide an initial understanding of what characterizes the experiences induced by MXE. Anonymously written reports (33 persons) on the effects of MXE were collected from public Internet forums and analyzed using the Empiric...
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...
BackgroundRecreational usage and attitudes toward psilocybin-containing hallucinogenic mushrooms among college students are seldom explored.MethodsWe surveyed 882 randomly selected undergraduates at Skidmore College in upstate New York and quantified whether participants had ever used psilocybin mushrooms, their attitudes toward the drug, and polydrug use.Re...
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...
ObjectiveTo describe patterns of simultaneous polysubstance use (SPU) among Danish 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) ("Ecstasy") and hallucinogen users.MethodsA cross-sectional survey of 98 active MDMA and/or hallucinogen users recruited through homepage advertisements, flyers, and word of mouth in Denmark. Lifetime and recent substance use and SPU at...
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 ...
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Searchable psilocybin and psilocin bibliometric database.