Psychedelic Substance Abuse

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD is a hallucinogenic drug that can be taken orally, injected or even absorbed through the skin. Once LSD has entered the body, it starts to take effects on the levels of serotonin in the brain which can cause; hallucinations, mood change, and even sensory distortion. After taking LSD, the effects on the brain usually last from 6 to 9 hours depending on multiple factors; the dosage of LSD taken, the subject taking LSD, and even the user 's mood can affect the duration of LSD use. LSD is a non-lethal, non-addictive, and a non-habit forming drug that has little to no effect on the long-term health of an individual. However, LSD has been illegal since the 1960 's. Not only did availability of LSD become scarce with the criminalization of the substance, but the legislation also put a halt on the research of the chemical as well. Much of the way LSD interacts with the brain has been left unknown. This derivative from the rye fungus Ergot has been the source of controversy that has left many people wondering why LSD has been classified as a drug that is just as dangerous to use as heroin. It becomes difficult for an individual to understand how legislation could criminalize a chemical without completely understanding how it functions and affects people. LSD should be legalized for scientific, medical and recreational usage.

Since the 20th century, many medical professionals and researchers have been attempting to utilize psychedelic drugs in psychological illnesses treatments. In many testing cases, these psychedelic drugs were having hallucination effects on the patients. For examples, psychedelic drugs such as LSD and methoxamine are capable of changing a person’s moods, feelings, or even behaviors in either positive or negative ways. However, after decades of restriction on psychedelic drugs in 1960s, hallucinogens have been researched constantly in order to find a proper ways to utilize them in medicine. In other words, medical experts have been testing these drugs occasionally on patients, raising questions about medical ethics as a result. For instance, various patients reported to experience drug addiction, violent or suicidal thoughts, and physical syndromes such as coma, seizures, or loss of muscular coordination. Therefore, not only the testing of psychedelic drugs causes ethical debates, but the use of these drugs in general also questions whether they should be used in medicine at all.

The systematic scheduling of drugs in the United States is arbitrary which leads to a discriminative social injustice. Some psychedelic substances such as Psilocybin are schedule 1 drugs, while alcohol and nicotine are legal. According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) both alcohol and nicotine are proven to be harmful and addictive (2017). Conversely, Psychedelic substances have not been proven to be addictive. This equates to a social injustice that discriminates over someone who may prefer the effects of psilocybin to nicotine, even under the science that has shown nicotine and alcohol have a higher potential for abuse. Unfortunately, many political factors come into play regarding the legal status of drugs and industries such as the pharmaceutical, tobacco and alcohol industries, who harbor the most money and have an influence in the legality of drugs whether they are safe or not. While legalizing psychedelic substances would most likely cut into profits for these large industries they would bring about economic benefits as well.

Although prescribed use of psilocybin is rare nowadays for medicinal purposes; many tests have been done on its medicinal uses in patients with personality disorders. Some tests have shown a noticeable reduction in obsessive compulsive disorder as a result of psilocybin use. Psilocybin has also been tested and is sometimes administered to cancer patients and has been proven to ease mental stress and the emotional baggage caused by cancer by changing the patient’s perspective on his/her situation and life in general. This compound has also been proven to reduce the pain resulting from cluster headaches in 85 % of patients tested and distanced the frequency of the attacks in 96% of patients.

Jyllian Kemsley Ph.D. is a chemical research scientist, and scientific research contributor to the CENtral Science’s Safety Zone blog that seeks to “cover science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education, and employment aspects of the chemistry field”. Her article entitled “Psychedelic Compounds like Ecstasy May Be Good for More than Just a High", reports on the revolutionary research theory within the field of medicine that seeks to examine the prospective benefits of using psychoactive compounds in treating a number of mental conditions. The piece is well written, and presents a number of background studies that have evaluated the efficiency of these

Anxiety and depression give into the power of the potent psilocybin. Emerging studies show the incredible therapeutic experience of psilocybin with sustained treatment. In a study at the New York University, in a study of psilocybin treatment for anxiety and depression, one patient described the experience saying, “Magic mushrooms trump Xanax resoundingly. Rather than getting rid of one’s anxiety, Xanax just numbs it until the medication’s effects wear off. At that point another pill is required. In his words “you’re not taking it and it solves your problem. You take it and you solve your problem yourself.” Prescription drugs often exacerbate one’s condition or manifest an addiction to the drug prescribed. These drugs are costly and toxic to the body; psilocybin is free and is proving to be unhazardous to health in recent studies. (Westlund

There are many substances in this world that are used and abused in order to achieve pleasing psychoactive effects. Two substances of such nature that are abused in today’s society are alcohol and LSD. Alcohol is a liquid that is derived from the fermentation of grains and/or fruit (7). LSD is an ingestible form of lysergic acid which is derived from a fungus called ergot. Both of these drugs are drastically different with minimal similarities, primarily because alcohol is classified as a depressant and LSD is classified as a hallucinogen. Even though these drugs differ in many ways, they are commonly used in unison.

Throughout history a multitude of human populations have been using and abusing a number of psychoactive drugs. These drugs can include very common substances such as caffeine to the more deadly but arguably just as addictive heroine. Further on the list of psychoactive drugs include those of the psychedelic variety. These would include the chemicals such as d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), peyote and psilocybin among others. All of which have hallucinogenic properties that tend to blur the line between fantasy and reality. How dangerous are these chemicals, and what are the consequences of sustained long term use? Due to the controversial nature of the use of psychedelic drugs in a medical setting, the study of short and long term effects

developed several chemical compounds with aspirations to succeed in the pharmaceutical market. They ended up developing MDMA, but it was not used to treat anxiety until the 1970’s (Cromer, 2013). It did not come under harsh scrutiny by the FDA until the 1980’s due to the growing recreational usage in society (Sessa and Nutt, 2014). This obviously lead to a significant halt in researching this drug, but some clinical trials were able to succeed. However, they had inconclusive results and they still do today. Now that science has come such a long way, scientists are able to better study how the drug works and the long and short-term effects it can have on those taking the drug. Christian, Grey, and Sorg claim that the effects of MDMA set in approximately 20 minutes after ingestion and its effects can last from four to six hours (Christian, Grey, and Sorg, 2015). A psychologist or team of psychologists will administer the drug to the patient and listen to them as they talk about their problems. They will generally not direct the conversation, but allow the patient to direct it and focus on the point of trauma when they feel comfortable and ready. This drug causes an increase in the production of serotonin in the brain, a chemical that is responsible for making people feel content and extremely happy (Cromer, 2013). These feelings of happiness and bliss will then lead the patient to feel more comfortable with their

When mentioning psychedelics, the majority of people think of hippies taking drugs and hallucinating. Even though psychedelics is connected with a negative view it can be a catalyst in psychological growth and a medicine that has the potential to help treat patients with mental disorders. Most people believe that mental disorders are rare and occurs in “other people”. In fact, mental disorders are a lot more common than people believe. Most families are often caught off guard when learning one of them has a mental illness. To many families, it can be physically and emotionally exhausting, and can make us feel vulnerable to the judgments of others.

Shrooms, boomers, magic, psychedelic or hallucinogenic mushrooms are a fungi containing substance capable of causing the user to hallucinate. These types of mushrooms have been around for many years and exist in many different species. These fungi look just like an ordinary fungi but are illegal in many countries; just like other hallucinogenic drugs. They have many different effects on the body, which is why people buy and sell these "magic mushrooms".

Ecstasy (MDMA) has recently gained popularity in the media due to the dramatic increase in its use by Americans, especially teens and young adults. This has lead to a surge in research efforts to determine the short and long-term physical and neurological risks that are associated with the drug. It has been discovered that Ecstasy is one of the most dangerous drugs currently available on the streets of America. It poses serious risks to its users both psychically and neurologically, being known to cause damage to major organ systems in the body, including the liver, heart and brain. Psychically, there are temporary negative side effects that occur while the drug is still active in the body, and also long-term

Drugs have been around for a very long time. They are used for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons include relaxation, socialization, curiosity, stress relief, or a form of escapism. However, most people don’t know the threats and danger that it can cause to the body. In this paper, we are going to examine the changes that happen inside the brain due to the effects of different drugs. We will look closely at how drugs such as hallucinogens, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, and cannabis affect an individual psychologically. I will explain the origin of the drugs, how a person feels while on the drug, how the drugs

Lysergic Acid Diethylamide also known as LSD or Acid is a hallucinogenic/psychedelic drug that has mind-altering effects on the human body. This paper focuses on the attempted therapeutic, medicinal, recreational, etc. applications of LSD with the goal of “curing” or helping to mitigate some other undesired effect. Use of LSD is not without its own risks so a portion of this paper will also focus on potential problems with short/long-term LSD treatment applications. This paper is by no means cumulative or holistic in its approach to this subject and seeks only to inform the reader on an aspect of legal applications of otherwise illegal drugs.

It is no secret that drug use has the ability to completely alter a person’s state of consciousness, whether it be through extreme euphoria, increased hyperactivity, pain relief or psychedelic hallucinations. Although many drugs are used for medical purposes, the global issue of recreational drug use is now being fronted as an extremely serious matter that is steadily on the uprise. Recreational drug use is often associated with negativity, addiction and as having serious physical and mental repercussions. One of the few class of drugs that is often associated with both positive and negative connotations are hallucinogens, otherwise known as “psychedelics”, which have powerful altering effects on ones sense of perception, brain function