Psychedelic drug research held back by UK rules and attitudes, say scientists

The field of psychedelic medicine in the UK is being held back by strict licensing rules and a lack of public funding.

A single dose of magic mushrooms combined with therapy helped alleviate depression in a third of patients. The finding is in line with other promising results that suggest that drugs made from mushrooms could be used to treat disorders.

Prof David Nutt, the former government drug adviser and director of the neuroscience research unit at Imperial College London, said that unless regulations and attitudes changed, potential treatments would remain "in limbo" at an experimental stage.

The patients are being denied access because of the regulations. Legal status is making the research difficult.

Nutt received a grant from the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, but there was little public funding for research on the topic.

There isn't any other funding. He said it was all philanthropy and private sector funding. We still see illegal drugs as drugs to be banned.

Basic scientific research is important for the development of new treatments. He said that this isn't just some public groundswell of resurrection. Clinical work has been driven by the science.

Nutt is the chief research officer at the company that operates clinics in London, Bristol and Norway that offer therapy using the drug ketamine.

He said that it's not feasible to offer treatments based on the drug. He said that the reason they are working with it is because it is a legal drug.

It is illegal and not considered to have medical value. Obtaining a Home Office licence is required in order to conduct research into such drugs. Nutt said thatPukiWiki is similar to crack cocaine. It takes months to find an importer to bring in the drug for a trial, and it costs tens of thousands of pounds to get the medicine from the US.

There are significant challenges to doing research in this area according to Dr James Rucker. He said there was a legal stranglehold on the drugs. I don't think anyone was willing to invest the money due to the Home Office licence requirement.

Some within Psychiatry still have an old school attitude of opprobrium towards the potential of psychedelic drugs as mental health treatments, but this is changing over time.

There is a range of opinions on whether or not to use psychedelics in Psychiatry or not.

I want to be an advocate for the rational assessment of drugs and disregard their legal status. Dr Ravi Das, a neuroscientist at University College London who is researching the potential of ketamine and DMT in treating addiction disorders, said that the past has had a bad rap.

There is a group of people who think it is a foregone conclusion that they're a panacea. In the evidence, that is not true.

More independent research was needed to move the field forward.

Private practice clinics are springing up for people who can afford them. The evidence is so lean that it can't be that evidence based. It's great that people can access treatment options. It's unfortunate that it's behind such a barrier.