I just finished writing a research paper on illicit substances in Australia. It seems that the government really struggle to find actual information and statistics that aren't overtly biased. It's ovious that the general public love to dabble with illicit substances including hallucinogens but keep it hidden from prying eyes for obvious reasons.

It would be lovely to see more positive statistics like these come out so that one day there might be a government controlled system to help more cases like these and then eventually open up personal use to the wider community, so we can all stop partaking in victemless crimes and instead achieve our own profound state of consciousness.

woo! To Amsterdam we go!

It’s a very interesting article that you have put up , but although there seems to be some positive side affects of this drug I don’t think it should be put up to treat depression because there also seems to be negative side affects as well such as experiencing anxiety for a short time . I do believe that if it where give to someone who was diagnosed for depression it could have serious side effects . As many other drugs do . I think there needs to further study done in this area for any conclusive results to be shown to the public .

Really cool article! There has been a great paper published at Melbourne Uni all about the constructive use of psilocybin not only as a treatment for the serious diseases you have mentioned but a general 'for legalisation' argument. The article is quite interesting as psilocybin seems to have very few negative neurophysiological effects with short term use, which in a supervised environment could be used quite effectively. This kind of mirrors statistics suggesting it is a 'once in a while' drug for most users. This makes you wonder whether, for most people, it just does straighten your head out?

Re: trenty. I think that you are misunderstanding the governments reluctance to alow mushrooms, cactus and alike on the streets. Although it is a 'victimless crime', you will find that people under the effects of hallucinogens commonly burn their retinas out from looking at the sun, get hit by cars because they think they are smaller/faster than they really are and jump of buildings because they think they can fly. Surely you can understand that making a drug that disconnects you from reality almost completely, to the point that you inadvertently commit suicide, might be a bad idea. Also, being a secondary victim of 'personal use', such as the driver of that car, puts innocent people at risk of the fun you might seen in your profound state of consciousness.

I think the key to this article is that they are suggesting controlled use, i.e. under supervision. Which, in short, I am all for.

If you want the paper I was referring to:

'Hallucinogens - David E Nichols'

"subjects escribed their egos and bodies vanishing ", I am all for a new ways to treat depression however i believe the treatment should return the affected person to a "normal" state and dont believe that experiencing your body vanishing is consistent with this

Like thousands of other Australians, I use Transcendent Compounds, such as psilocybin for religious purposes and certainly agree that these compounds can be potentially quite useful in terms of their ability to assist people with depression. 

I would suggest that the effect arises from the psychological changes that occur as a result of the highly spiritual nature of many people's experience. Feelings of transcendent connection with the Divine are generally positive, whether experienced through meditation, Transcendent Compounds, or even a spontaneous mystical experience.

The power of the compound psilocybin, is best highlighted by a direct quote from the John Hopkins Hospital research quoted in the article. In a paper published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology (see csp.org/psilocybin for links) the researchers reported:

At the 14-month follow-up, 58% and 67%, respectively, of volunteers rated the psilocybin-occasioned experience as being among the five most personally meaningful and among the five most spiritually significant experiences of their lives; 64% indicated that the experience increased well-being or life satisfaction; 58% met criteria for having had a ‘complete’ mystical experience.

 Given that people were reporting this sort of impact over a year after their experiences with the compound, only few would deny that these substances are powerful conduits to spiritual experiences that go well beyond anything that people are likely to experience within the course of a normal lifetime. Full blown mystical experiences are not particularly common! Given this, it is hardly surprising that some people should also experience significant psychological improvement.

These compounds need to be treated with respect. As the article stated, an awareness of “Set and Setting” (to which I would add “sitter) is vital, as is taking an appropriate dosage. These are very safe, but very powerful psychoactive compounds and not everybody will like the effects they create, just as not everyone will like horse riding. Just as only a fool would jump on a horse for the first time and try to gallop, so to do they attempt the equivalent with Transcendent Compounds. But by taking a threshold dose (defined as being the point where you can just detect some effect) and working slowly upwards, a person can get a feel for whether they wish to explore further.

Treating their use as some sort of a drinking game where whomever takes the biggest dose is some sort of hero is a recipe for disaster. Similarly, people who haven’t educated themselves about the effects, who are taking them in the wrong environment or while experiencing significant existing psychological issues are much more likely to end up having negative experiences that in turn undermine any chances of reaping benefits they can offer at a later date.