The Science of Magic Mushrooms: Researchers are Rediscovering Psychedelics

Magic mushrooms – and other psychedelic drugs – aren’t just for
laser-light shows anymore. They are in fact on the cutting edge of
medical research, where scientists are rediscovering how drugs used
for centures (if not millennia) can help people live better
lives.

Here’s a video produced by Reason TV’s Paul Feine and Alex
Manning that was originally released on November 4, 2013. It
documents how researchers such as Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins
University and Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial College London are
making real progress by using substances that have been demonized
and written out of polite (and sometimes simply legal)
conversation.

For
links and more go here.

The original writeup:

Published on Nov 4, 2013

Magic mushrooms have been used ritually by the native people of
Mesoamerica for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. In the 1950s,
R. Gordon Wasson and his wife traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico and
participated in a mushroom ritual. That experience led to a 1957
Life magazine article titled “Seeking the Magic Mushroom.” The
following year, the Swiss scientist Albert Hofman, who had been the
first to synthesize LSD in 1938, identified psilocybin and psilocin
as the active compounds in magic mushrooms. In 1960, Timothy Leary
and Richard Alpert founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project to study
the effects of psilocybin on humans. Harvard University famously
fired Leary and Alpert in 1963.

Serious study of magic mushrooms essentially ended when the
compounds psilocybin and psylocin were listed as Schedule I drugs
in 1971. However, people around the world have used magic mushrooms
with the goals of expanding consciousness and achieving spiritual
growth ever since it was popularized by the hippies in the the
1960s.

Despite its illegal status, researchers have once again started
studying the effects of psilocybin on humans. The results so far
have been intriguing. ReasonTV caught up with Roland Griffiths of
Johns Hopkins University and Robin Carhart-Harris of Imperial
College London at the Psychedelic Science 2013 conference in
Oakland, CA to learn what’s happening at the cutting edge of
psilocybin research.

Approximately 5 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine and Alex
Manning.

Go to http://reason.com/reason.tv for
downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason TV’s YouTube Channel
to receive automatic updates when new material goes live.

Feine and Manning are the makers of the great new feature-length
documentary, America’s Longest War. It’s available on DVD for
$11.95.
Go here for more details and to purchase.