Just months after a Canadian medical professor revisited a 40-year-old experiment with LSD that kept some alcoholics sober since the sixties and researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) reported that the rave drug Ketamine might just be a viable treatment for depression, University of Arizona scientists say yet another illegal drug may have applications in treating mental illness.
Their study, published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, reports that psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic or "magic" mushrooms, drastically reduced or eliminated the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in nine patients in an FDA-approved preliminary study. These effects generally lasted between four and 24 hours, although some patients experienced relief for several days. While current medications take weeks to work, psilocybin began also working almost immediately.
Due to these promising results, researchers are interested in further expanding research on the drug, but caution against making too much of the findings and attempting self-medication with psychedelic drugs.
Read more:
Psychedelic mushrooms ease OCD symptoms
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