Could psychedelics become legal in the US?
(Picture: Getty Images)Last year, when Joe Biden was sworn into the US presidential office, advocates started ruminating whether the US federal government might finally embrace the psychedelic revolution.
As it stands psilocybin, the active chemical in magic mushrooms, is illegal in the US. Classed as a Schedule one drug by the Department of Justice – alongside heroin and LSD – regulators deem that it has “a high potential for abuse and serve no legitimate medical purpose in the United States”.
But, thanks to research and support among qualified healthcare professionals and practitioners, the use of psychedelics as an effective alternative treatment for mental illnesses – such as depression, PTSD, addiction and more – has gained traction in the past few years. In fact, local-based initiatives have even been leading local reform unchallenged, such as Oregon legalising psilocybin therapy and decriminalising all drugs, and Washington DC decriminalising all plant-based psychedelics in 2020.
Now, those who promote the use of psychedelics are optimistic that, alongside local reform, there will also be federal movement towards ending prohibition under Biden in the US.
Since entering office, both Biden and vice president Kamala Harris have campaigned on decriminalising marijuana use and offering clemency for marijuana possession. Although Biden made some progress on the promise in April, with three pardons and reduced sentences for 75 offenders, the unconditional pardon announced on October 6 has sent the industry into overdrive.
For the first time in decades, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has begun funding psychedelic research, and many of the country’s premier universities have been racing to set up psychedelic-research centres. A number of them have also entered into partnerships with drug companies, which are seeking to patent new therapies — and share any future profits. Because of this, according to InsightAce Analytic, a market-research firm, the psychedelic-therapeutics market was worth $3.6 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $8.3 billion by 2028.
Lawyer Shane Pennington, who is the co-author of the On Drugs newsletter, explained to Benzinga earlier this week how Biden ordering a review of cannabis as a Schedule One drug “could revolutionise federal drug law”. Even though some psychedelics have an FDA “breakthrough therapy” stamp of approval, the substances still remain Schedule One. The CSA is federal law and this classification creates constraints on psychedelic research and access across different states, just like cannabis. However, the federal government rescheduling cannabis could require the DEA and FDA to reinterpret why cannabis is Schedule One, and such an interpretation could also apply to psychedelics.
Although humans have been tripping on magic mushrooms for thousands of years, there has been a long and difficult relationship between governments and the drug. In the early 1950s, magic mushrooms were first popularised in America when a photo essay featuring an American banker and mushroom enthusiast, R Gordon Wasson, was published in LIFE magazine.
Between 1950 and 1965, some 40,000 patients had been prescribed one form of LSD therapy or another, as treatment for neurosis, schizophrenia, and psychopathy. It was even prescribed to children with autism. What’s more, more than 1,000 scientific papers and six international conferences were produced as research into the potential therapeutic effects of LSD and other hallucinogens.
That was until the summer of 1967, when LSD increasingly came to be viewed as a drug of abuse. It also became closely associated with student riots and anti-war demonstrations, and thus was outlawed by the US federal government in 1968, with Dr Humphrey Osmond and Abram Hoffer (two leaders of the original psychedelics revolution) comparing the legislation to the Victorian reaction to anaesthetics.
Of course, there are concerns here. Psychotropic medicines can cause life-threatening heart problems, disorention and anxiety, and long-term effects can include depression - psychosis has been reported in some users with existing mental-health issues. ‘Softer’ drugs like cannabis and magic mushrooms have also been seen as gateway drugs at a time when opioid use is spiralling out of control in the States - fentanyl overdoses are now the number one cause of death among adults under the age of 45 in America.
That said, there have been recent studies into the use of hallucinogens to treat addiction issues, like alcoholism, and there’s interest in its uses as part of controlled treatments to fit alongside therapy.
Now it seems we are on the precipice of a psychedelic renaissance, that could once again see the federal government joining the revolution.
