Psilocybin Mushrooms
Credit: AP /Peter Dejong

NEW YORK — Research into mind-and perception-altering drugs flourished in the 1950s, then floundered amid an atmosphere of demonization and illegalization in the following decades, particularly under the Nixon and Reagan administrations.

Yet researchers are taking up the cause again, exploring the possibility that psychedelic compounds might effectively treat afflictions including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction and anxiety — much the same as their peers set out to do decades ago.

From Imperial College London to John Hopkins University in Baltimore and New York University, there are murmurs of a renaissance in psychedelic research and thought.

In 2006, Roland Griffiths, a psychopharmacologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a team of researchers published a groundbreaking article in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, “Psilocybin Can Occasion Mystical-Type Experiences Having Substantial and Sustained Personal Meaning and Spiritual Significance.” The paper concludes that, “When administered under supportive conditions, psilocybin occasioned experiences similar to spontaneously occurring mystical experiences.” Two-thirds of those involved in […]