The first controlled LSD study in more than 40 years was released today in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. The study, which evaluated 12 individual subjects, focused on the treatment of "anxiety, depression, as well as unresolved family and relationship issues" that accompany life-threatening illnesses. In the study, researchers found that there was a significant and lasting reduction in anxiety in the participants.
Of the dozen subjects, only one person had any prior experience with LSD. Aside from facing life-threatening illness, these were normal, otherwise healthy test subjects. Researchers excluded anyone with alcohol or drug dependence; psychological disorders (psychosis, bipolar or dissociative disorders); as well as neurocognitive impairment or women who were pregnant or nursing.
While the clinical trial—which was phase 2 double-blind, active placebo-controlled, and randomized—had a limited sample size, researchers wrote that it was "sufficient for a study primarily focused on safety and feasibility." Researchers reported that neither the experimental dose (200 µg of LSD) nor the active placebo (20 µg of LSD) "produced any drug-related severe adverse events, that is, no panic reaction, no suicidal crisis or psychotic state, and no medical or psychiatric emergencies requiring hospitalization." This is encouraging news for any future LSD research, which has battled decades of anti-psychedelic hysteria claiming the drug is unsafe for users.
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