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LSD will cure drug addiction.
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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In Britain, the first results of studies on the use of LSD to treat drug addiction and mental disorders were made public, in which twenty young people took part. At this stage, we are talking only about the interim results of the experiments; the final conclusions will be made in the autumn of 2015.
LSD is a synthetic psychoactive substance that was first obtained in the late 1930s by the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann.
After the discovery of the substance, it was intended to use LSD in psychiatry to treat mental disorders, in particular to treat schizophrenia.
The first experiments in this area showed the great potential of the drug, but then the use of LSD among young people got out of control and led to a major political scandal, after which the drug was completely banned, both for medical purposes and for restoring performance or expanding consciousness, which was often used by various spiritual movements.
The head of the new research project, David Nutt, an employee of Imperial College in London, noted that if the therapeutic effect of LSD and its ability to neutralize pathologies in the functioning of the brain that occur as a result of drug addiction or depression are confirmed during the experiments, then it will be possible to take a new look at the work carried out in the 60s related to the effect of LSD on the human psyche, especially the part that studied the effect of the drug on drug addicts.
David Nutt served for a long time on the UK government's Committee on Drug Abuse, but he resigned from his post in 2009 amid a scandal. Nutt said marijuana and some other soft drugs were less dangerous than they were made out to be and should not be equated with hard drugs such as heroin or cocaine. He said tobacco and alcohol were far more dangerous to human health than soft drugs.
After David Nutt was dismissed from the committee in disgrace, he founded the Independent Scientific Committee on Drug Problems. After the 2011 reform, Nutt said that the committee he founded should replace a government organization whose decisions are based more on politics than on the opinion of drug scientists. During the “silent war,” Nutt’s company took an important step: it began to study the possibility of using LSD in psychiatric practice. A group of specialists gathered 20 volunteers who agreed to take a dose of the drug and undergo magnetic resonance imaging.
According to David Nutt, his group will publish the results of the research in one of the well-known scientific journals.
But now the public has learned what sensations the participants in the experiments experienced after taking LSD. After the experts provide data on the positive effect of the drug on the human psyche, they will ask the UK government to allow them to continue working in this direction.
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