# Οι ψυχοτρόπες ουσίες



## Costas (Jun 16, 2013)

*Restrictive drug laws censor science, researchers say* (Reuters)
_The outlawing of drugs such as cannabis, magic mushrooms and other psychoactive substances amounts to scientific censorship and is hampering research into potentially important medicinal uses, leading scientists argued on Wednesday._

Laws and international conventions dating back to the 1960s have set back research in key areas such as consciousness by decades, they argued in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience.

"The decision to outlaw these drugs was based on their perceived dangers, but in many cases the harms have been overstated," said David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.

In a statement accompanying the Nature Reviews paper, he said the laws amounted "to *the worst case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus and Galileo*".

"The laws have never been updated despite scientific advances and growing evidence that many of these drugs are relatively safe. And there appears to be no way for the international community to make such changes," he said.

"This hindering of research and therapy is motivated by politics, not science."

Nutt and Leslie King, both former British government drugs advisers, and co-author David Nichols of the University of North Carolina, called for the use of psychoactive drugs in research to be exempted from severe restrictions.

"If we adopted a more rational approach to drug regulation, it would empower researchers to make advances in the study of consciousness and brain mechanisms of psychosis, and could lead to major treatment innovations in areas such as depression and PTSD," Nutt said.

Nutt *was sacked as a government adviser* in 2009 after publicly criticizing the government for ignoring scientific advice on cannabis and ecstasy. He has conducted a small human trial using psilocybin, the psychedelic ingredient in magic mushrooms.

*His study, using volunteers, suggested the drug had the potential to alleviate severe forms of depression in people who did not respond to other treatments.
*
But in April, Nutt said his plans to conduct the first full clinical trial to explore psilocybin as a treatment had stalled because of stringent rules on the use of illegal drugs in research.

The scientists said their call for reform had been endorsed by the British Neuroscience Association and the British Association for Psychopharmacology.

(Editing by Andrew Roche)


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## daeman (Jun 16, 2013)

...
_*Altered States*_ is a 1980 American science fiction-horror film adaptation of a novel by the same name by playwright and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky. It was the only novel that Chayefsky ever wrote, as well as his final film. Both the novel and the film are based on John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation research conducted in isolation tanks under the influence of psychoactive drugs like ketamine and LSD.








Spoiler



Edward Jessup (William Hurt) is a university professor of abnormal psychology who, while studying schizophrenia, begins to think that "our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking states." Jessup begins experimenting with sensory-deprivation using a flotation tank, aided by two like-minded researchers (Balaban, Haid). At a faculty party he meets fellow "wonder kid" Emily (Brown) and the two eventually marry.

When Edward hears of a Mexican tribe that experiences shared illusion states, he travels to Mexico to participate in what is apparently an Ayahuasca Ceremony. During the walk into to bush his guide states that the indigenous tribe they are meeting works with Amanita muscaria which they are collecting for next year's ceremonies. An indigenous elder was seen with Banisteriopsis caapi root in his hand prior to cutting Jessup's hand, adding blood to the mixture he is preparing. Immediately after consumption Edward experiences bizarre, intense imagery. He returns to the U.S. with a tincture and begins taking it orally before each session in the flotation tank where he experiences a series of increasingly drastic psychological and physical transformations.
[...]


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## Costas (Jun 16, 2013)

*Alexander Shulgin* (Wikipedia)
Alexander "Sasha" Theodore Shulgin[1] (born June 17, 1925) is an American medicinal chemist, biochemist, pharmacologist, psychopharmacologist, and author. Shulgin is credited with introducing MDMA ("ecstasy") to psychologists in the late 1970s for psychopharmaceutical use. He discovered, synthesized, and bioassayed over 230 psychoactive compounds, and evaluated them for their psychedelic and/or entactogenic potential.
In 1991 and 1997, he and his wife Ann Shulgin authored the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL, extensively describing their work and personal experiences with these psychoactive drugs, subdivided into two classes of organic compounds - phenethylamines and tryptamines. Shulgin performed seminal work into the descriptive synthesis of many of these compounds. Some of Shulgin's noteworthy discoveries include compounds of the 2C* family (such as 2C-B) and compounds of the DOx family (such as DOM).
Due in part to Shulgin's extensive work in the field of psychedelic research and the rational drug design of psychedelic drugs, he has since been dubbed the "godfather of psychedelics".


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