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...
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...
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...
Anthropologists have studied the use of hallucinogens as a spiritual tool by indigenous populations since the turn of the 20th century. However, literature is sparse in describing use by non-indigenous populations. Using a study population of students from a university in the Southwest United States, the current study investigated the spiritual development a...
Salvia divinorum is a hallucinogenic plant with ethnopharmacological and recreational uses. It differs from classic serotonergic hallucinogens such as LSD and psilocin in both phenomenology and potent agonist activity of the active component salvinorin A at κ-opioid receptors. Awareness of S. divinorum has grown recently, with both an increase in its public ...
Consumption of natural hallucinogenic substances continues to be a problem. In this case we report from a young male patient presenting with an acute coronary syndrome with significant ST-elevation after the abuse of psychoactive fungi, commonly referred to as "magic mushrooms". Coronary angiography excludes relevant coronary artery disease. In ventriculogra...
A survey of magic mushroom use was completed by 174 participants in 2004, a year when the sale of hallucinogenic mushrooms was not illegal in the UK. The data were collected in Edinburgh and Bristol (UK). Participants were a self-selecting convenience sample. Participants tended to be in their 20s, White-British, in education or employed; 64% were male. Part...
Hallucinogens. Nichols DE. Pharmacol Ther. 2004;101:131-181National Institute on Drug Abuse Web Site. Available at http://www.drugabuse.govThe Psychopharmacology of Hallucinogens. Abraham HD, Aldridge AM, Gogia P. Neuropsychopharmacol. 1996;14:285-298Toxic Psychoses as Pharmacological Models of Schizophrenia. Potvin S, Stip E, Roy J. Curr Psychiatr Rev. 2005...
ABSTRACT A comparison of personality factors on scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A) was conducted with a sample of adolescents referred to a residential substance abuse treatment program. A total of sixty adolescents identified with hallucinogen (n = 20), cannabis (n = 20), or methamphetamine (n = 20) as their drug o...
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...
MDMA ("Ecstasy") and its analogues such as MDE and MDA are amphetamine derivatives reported to produce an altered state with emotional overtones. Since more than ten years, ecstasy is after cannabis the most frequently used recreational drug by young adults, particularly in the so-called techno-scene. However, according to a recent survey there is an increas...
AimsTo describe the patterns of drug use at dance (rave) events in terms of prevalence, frequency, type of drugs used, patterns of use, access and risk-associated behaviours.DesignSelf-selecting participant-completed survey.SettingThree dance events in Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.ParticipantsOne hundred and twenty-two drug users (57% males, 43% females), 90% of ...
Substances capable of changing the functions of the central nervous system are widely distributed in plant kingdom, and many of them were discovered by ancient food-gatherers at the dawn of humanity. In the Old World only a few substances producing euphoria or altered states of consciousness and having habit-forming properties are still widely used. They are...
New trends in drug use in the United States of America have usually started in populations of young users in California. The use of hallucinogenic drugs (psychedelics), phencyclidine (PCP) and the smoking of cocaine free base were all first detected in populations of young Californian users. Five patterns of youthful drug use are described: experimental, soc...
