9 ms·

Imperial College London Launches a Centre for Psychedelics Research

175 points by open-source-ux 8y ago

open-source-ux 8y ago
Launch video here: https://vimeo.com/332560919 https://vimeo.com/332560919
trashE 8y ago
Nice, so we're only 60 years behind the best timeline
- dokem 8y ago
  Maybe they are so powerful it has taken us 60 years to ready ourselves.
modzu 8y ago
does this mean we can free leonard? my idea of justice doesnt include non-violent academics serving life sentences for manufacturing psychedelics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard
- rudiv 8y ago
  I had heard of his story in pop culture references (the van with enough acid to dose a major city) before, but did not know as much about him till I saw your comment and perused his Wikipedia page. This passage was particularly interesting to me: > Pickard was the first American researcher to predict an epidemic of fentanyl and carfentanyl. At Harvard, he was appointed as a research associate in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where he was a drug policy fellow in the ad hoc Harvard Initiative on Drugs and Addictions, under the Program in Mind, Brain and Behavior.[6] In a presentation at the Harvard Faculty Club in 1996, Pickard proposed that fentanyl and carfentanyl use would become epidemic, and suggested specific policies for preventing wide-spread abuse. Pickard's prediction was 20 years in advance of the 2018 opioid crisis.[6] > In federal court on March 12-13, 2003, Pickard testified in detail on this prediction, based upon his research among more than 200 addicts in Boston and Moscow and his study of rare fentanyl use. Original overheads from the Harvard Faculty Club presentation were seized by DEA in a Boston locker in November, 2000, and retained by the agency until trial in 2003, where they were entered as defense exhibits. This testimony, as a public record, was more than 15 years before the actual epidemic occurred.[7] Given that the man is currently imprisoned because he manufactured substances that the government deemed the harmful to specify because of their potential for abuse, it's hard not to conclude that either he is a hypocrite or the people who imprisoned him are.
  - modzu 8y ago
    lsd is neither addictive nor toxic
    - viktorvamos 8y ago
      addictive is quite a loose term, things like weed and acid may not cause a chemical addiction - but they are extremely habit forming.
      - jMyles 8y ago
        LSD is habit forming? ...and although many people (myself included) use cannabis in a habitual way, I don't think it's "extremely" habit forming. If cannabis represents the extreme in this metric, then it is a very flat extreme since it also has to include sugar, crack cocaine, nicotine, etc, users of which obviously develop much more dire habits much more quickly. I don't know that either of these are habit forming so much as that people realize their benefit and choose to use them in some sort of routine.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
        viktorvamos 8y ago
        sorry i was referring to microdosing lsd. everyone has their experiences, personally i know a few people whos smoking habits have been detrimental to themselves. i think theres this mantra of "its not addictive - legalise it!" when there are other qualities of these substances that may cause issues, however it's very hard to place weed on a scale of consumption benefit compared to other substances. For me, smoking a lot of weed deprecates my memory significantly, something which i value quite highly, things like sugar and nicotine to not do this. dire effects of these habits are also hard to quantify - i value mental health over physical health... i'd rather be addicted to cigs than be addicted [sic] to weed!
      - XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
        Not in the same manner of alcoholism or stimulant/opioid addiction. Especially the psychedelic drugs. They punish harshly for trying to "trip" multiple times in a row. You'd have to take an absurd amount to abuse it in the same manner as the classical "hard" drugs. It's incredibly easy to restrain oneself to a 1xweek usage. It's like a incredibly cheap Friday night trip to the movies in that context. t. Someone who's tripped hundreds of times with no ill symptoms PS: Sunrises are so godamn beautiful on the comedown. If only one could bequeath the beauty of such moments as a shareable gift.
- 781 8y ago
  > in addition to millions of dollars in United States currency, Pickard also handled millions in Dutch guilders and Canadian bank notes. He preferred to deal in ƒ1000 notes or Canadian $1000 notes (discontinued since 2000 in Canada) because it meant less bulk cash to have on hand. He required his distributors to convert all lower currencies into $50 or $100 notes at the least so as not to cause problems. It's one thing to make LSD for yourself, but he was selling millions of dollars worth of it.
  - jMyles 8y ago
    ...and in so doing, performing a great public service.
inflatableDodo 8y ago
Judging from the success with clinical research into marijuana, if this is successful we can look forward to a future in which family members of the UK government can sell clinical psychedelics all over the world while still insisting at home that it has no medical benefit and is only used by criminals.
- cies 8y ago
  > criminals I've never accepted some behaviour to be criminal without a victim. Pedantic gov'tal meddling, waste of resources at best, a way to lock up lefty/hippy/non-whites at worst. Passing laws that make victimless behaviour illegal should be criminal. Let's make that a constitutional law...
  - inflatableDodo 8y ago
    >Passing laws that make victimless behaviour illegal should be criminal. Let's make that a constitutional law... I'm for metalaws so long as the punishment isn't just some mild sanction. I have always been a fan of heavy metalaws.
    - cies 8y ago
      Here it's more simple. Any law that's unconstitutional is simply not effective. But heay, why not also put guillotine on the law passer. :)
  - qwerty456127 8y ago
    I think exactly the same yet legalizing everything victim-less can be a hard target to reach. There is, however, an easier concept: laws that are scientifically and logically unreasonable should be cancelled.
    - vidarh 8y ago
      I keep suggesting that laws should have "acceptance tests" in the form of a stated intent in a form that must be possible to invalidate if the premises are wrong. You'd need a mechanism to challenge laws both on the basis that the intent is not met and on the basis that the stated intent is too unclear.
bellerose 8y ago
It will be nice when the religious old generation with their ideology die off. The repressive outcomes restricting a better timeline from proceeding earlier is so sad to witness. Speaking as an LGBT person who has witnessed suicide among peers and when this treatment likely could help the tolls of abuse in correlation to antiquated beliefs. Thanks to the dying god.
- tim333 8y ago
  I'm not sure there's much in religion about no psychedelics?
  - RhodesianHunter 8y ago
    There is strong overlap between religious affiliated politics and zero tolerance for many things.
  - mrob 8y ago
    I've heard some Christians claim it counts as "witchcraft" (KJV translation of φαρμακεία (pharmakeia), which is specifically referring to drug use, and the origin of the English word "pharmacy"). Considering also the use of the word "entheogen" (meaning a substance that manifests a god within you) by some users of psychedelics, and historical pagan use of psychedelics, this seems reasonable.
  - fsloth 8y ago
    Sure there is. Churches would love to have a monopoly on providing religious experiences. Any profound experience not associated with church practice is a direct threat to church hegemony.
  - jokowueu 8y ago
    The good Friday experiment was done in a church . There is a nice follow up by Dr Rick doblin about that . Many religions use psychedelics so it's generally not something outside of it
- mistermann 8y ago
  Do you feel a sense of hypocrisy in your words?
llamathrowaway 8y ago
Fun fact: Aldous Huxley, author of, among others, the Door of Perception, was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the biologist who was the first dean of Royal School of Mines, which later became a part of the Imperial College.
- Jimmed 8y ago
  They even named the building which houses the department of computing after him!
oofabz 8y ago
What about MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies? They've been around for decades and have done great work. Aren't they the first?
- KingFelix 8y ago
  Who knows, but MAPS is awesome and doing some amazing things. Also most likely doing a lot of heaving lifting when it comes to protocols and allowing for more room / research. Its all good news!
dj_gitmo 8y ago
I look forward to the day when Psychedelic are a normal, and even boring, topic of research and medicine.
miles 8y ago
From a comment by /u/oredna in /r/Psychonaut yesterday[0]: > Worth noting that the actual first is the Center for Psychedelic Studies at the University of Toronto[1]. We were recently featured in a National Post piece[2]. We've been in touch with the author to inform them that it's inaccurate to call ICL's the first given that we already exist. > That said, this is great news! More psychedelic research, and we're hopefully all going to be collaborating and working together as we move forward. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/bhkak8/imperial_college_london_launches_worlds_first/elvojzt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/bhkak8/imperial... [1] http://cps.radlab.zone/ http://cps.radlab.zone/ [2] https://nationalpost.com/health/health-and-wellness/is-microdosing-lsd-a-solution-to-the-crisis-of-meaning-in-modern-life-new-canadian-study-may-provide-answers https://nationalpost.com/health/health-and-wellness/is-micro...
- dang 8y ago
  Ok, s/world's first/a/. Thanks!
- feedbeef 8y ago
  > That said, this is great news! Great news indeed. Scientific progress into psychedelics needs to be celebrated. We also need to celebrate specific individuals in the field, like Drs. Nichols (father and son both), for their continuing scientific contributions and persistence, often in the face of governmental and industrial opposition [1]. 1. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gypbnx/psychedelic-drug-chemist-dave-nichols https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gypbnx/psychedeli...
DonHopkins 8y ago
Not Reed College decades ago??! https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/kottke-lsd-steve-jobs/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/kottke-lsd-steve... >Just a few years before Jobs' death, it was psychedelics that put Kottke back in touch with Jobs. Albert Hoffmann, who discovered LSD, was turning 100 and soliciting financial support for psychedelics research. Kottke was asked to connect Hoffmann with Jobs, which he did; but Kottke doesn't believe that the introduction resulted in any monetary contributions.
Vulkum 8y ago
They have conducted some of these studies some years ago. One of the was a study on the effects of LSD [0][1] on the brain, and I if I recall correctly they were also looking for test subjects for shrooms around the same time. [0]https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/171699/the-brain-lsd-revealed-first-scans/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/171699/the-brain-lsd-reveale... [1]https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2016/04/05/1518377113.full.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2016/04/05/151837711...
Jessica_Martin 8y ago
That's wonderful news. It's about time that there was some progressiveness into the substance use field. Hopefully this will also provide insights on treating addictions from other drugs and alcohol.

open-source-ux 8y ago

Launch video here: https://vimeo.com/332560919 https://vimeo.com/332560919

trashE 8y ago

Nice, so we're only 60 years behind the best timeline

dokem 8y ago
Maybe they are so powerful it has taken us 60 years to ready ourselves.

modzu 8y ago

does this mean we can free leonard? my idea of justice doesnt include non-violent academics serving life sentences for manufacturing psychedelics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Leonard_Pickard

rudiv 8y ago
I had heard of his story in pop culture references (the van with enough acid to dose a major city) before, but did not know as much about him till I saw your comment and perused his Wikipedia page. This passage was particularly interesting to me: > Pickard was the first American researcher to predict an epidemic of fentanyl and carfentanyl. At Harvard, he was appointed as a research associate in neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, where he was a drug policy fellow in the ad hoc Harvard Initiative on Drugs and Addictions, under the Program in Mind, Brain and Behavior.[6] In a presentation at the Harvard Faculty Club in 1996, Pickard proposed that fentanyl and carfentanyl use would become epidemic, and suggested specific policies for preventing wide-spread abuse. Pickard's prediction was 20 years in advance of the 2018 opioid crisis.[6] > In federal court on March 12-13, 2003, Pickard testified in detail on this prediction, based upon his research among more than 200 addicts in Boston and Moscow and his study of rare fentanyl use. Original overheads from the Harvard Faculty Club presentation were seized by DEA in a Boston locker in November, 2000, and retained by the agency until trial in 2003, where they were entered as defense exhibits. This testimony, as a public record, was more than 15 years before the actual epidemic occurred.[7] Given that the man is currently imprisoned because he manufactured substances that the government deemed the harmful to specify because of their potential for abuse, it's hard not to conclude that either he is a hypocrite or the people who imprisoned him are.
- modzu 8y ago
  lsd is neither addictive nor toxic
  - viktorvamos 8y ago
    addictive is quite a loose term, things like weed and acid may not cause a chemical addiction - but they are extremely habit forming.
    - jMyles 8y ago
      LSD is habit forming? ...and although many people (myself included) use cannabis in a habitual way, I don't think it's "extremely" habit forming. If cannabis represents the extreme in this metric, then it is a very flat extreme since it also has to include sugar, crack cocaine, nicotine, etc, users of which obviously develop much more dire habits much more quickly. I don't know that either of these are habit forming so much as that people realize their benefit and choose to use them in some sort of routine.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - viktorvamos 8y ago
        sorry i was referring to microdosing lsd. everyone has their experiences, personally i know a few people whos smoking habits have been detrimental to themselves. i think theres this mantra of "its not addictive - legalise it!" when there are other qualities of these substances that may cause issues, however it's very hard to place weed on a scale of consumption benefit compared to other substances. For me, smoking a lot of weed deprecates my memory significantly, something which i value quite highly, things like sugar and nicotine to not do this. dire effects of these habits are also hard to quantify - i value mental health over physical health... i'd rather be addicted to cigs than be addicted [sic] to weed!
    - XaoDaoCaoCao 8y ago
      Not in the same manner of alcoholism or stimulant/opioid addiction. Especially the psychedelic drugs. They punish harshly for trying to "trip" multiple times in a row. You'd have to take an absurd amount to abuse it in the same manner as the classical "hard" drugs. It's incredibly easy to restrain oneself to a 1xweek usage. It's like a incredibly cheap Friday night trip to the movies in that context. t. Someone who's tripped hundreds of times with no ill symptoms PS: Sunrises are so godamn beautiful on the comedown. If only one could bequeath the beauty of such moments as a shareable gift.
781 8y ago
> in addition to millions of dollars in United States currency, Pickard also handled millions in Dutch guilders and Canadian bank notes. He preferred to deal in ƒ1000 notes or Canadian $1000 notes (discontinued since 2000 in Canada) because it meant less bulk cash to have on hand. He required his distributors to convert all lower currencies into $50 or $100 notes at the least so as not to cause problems. It's one thing to make LSD for yourself, but he was selling millions of dollars worth of it.
- jMyles 8y ago
  ...and in so doing, performing a great public service.

inflatableDodo 8y ago

Judging from the success with clinical research into marijuana, if this is successful we can look forward to a future in which family members of the UK government can sell clinical psychedelics all over the world while still insisting at home that it has no medical benefit and is only used by criminals.

cies 8y ago
> criminals I've never accepted some behaviour to be criminal without a victim. Pedantic gov'tal meddling, waste of resources at best, a way to lock up lefty/hippy/non-whites at worst. Passing laws that make victimless behaviour illegal should be criminal. Let's make that a constitutional law...
- inflatableDodo 8y ago
  >Passing laws that make victimless behaviour illegal should be criminal. Let's make that a constitutional law... I'm for metalaws so long as the punishment isn't just some mild sanction. I have always been a fan of heavy metalaws.
  - cies 8y ago
    Here it's more simple. Any law that's unconstitutional is simply not effective. But heay, why not also put guillotine on the law passer. :)
- qwerty456127 8y ago
  I think exactly the same yet legalizing everything victim-less can be a hard target to reach. There is, however, an easier concept: laws that are scientifically and logically unreasonable should be cancelled.
  - vidarh 8y ago
    I keep suggesting that laws should have "acceptance tests" in the form of a stated intent in a form that must be possible to invalidate if the premises are wrong. You'd need a mechanism to challenge laws both on the basis that the intent is not met and on the basis that the stated intent is too unclear.

bellerose 8y ago

It will be nice when the religious old generation with their ideology die off. The repressive outcomes restricting a better timeline from proceeding earlier is so sad to witness. Speaking as an LGBT person who has witnessed suicide among peers and when this treatment likely could help the tolls of abuse in correlation to antiquated beliefs. Thanks to the dying god.

tim333 8y ago
I'm not sure there's much in religion about no psychedelics?
- RhodesianHunter 8y ago
  There is strong overlap between religious affiliated politics and zero tolerance for many things.
- mrob 8y ago
  I've heard some Christians claim it counts as "witchcraft" (KJV translation of φαρμακεία (pharmakeia), which is specifically referring to drug use, and the origin of the English word "pharmacy"). Considering also the use of the word "entheogen" (meaning a substance that manifests a god within you) by some users of psychedelics, and historical pagan use of psychedelics, this seems reasonable.
- fsloth 8y ago
  Sure there is. Churches would love to have a monopoly on providing religious experiences. Any profound experience not associated with church practice is a direct threat to church hegemony.
- jokowueu 8y ago
  The good Friday experiment was done in a church . There is a nice follow up by Dr Rick doblin about that . Many religions use psychedelics so it's generally not something outside of it
mistermann 8y ago
Do you feel a sense of hypocrisy in your words?

llamathrowaway 8y ago

Fun fact: Aldous Huxley, author of, among others, the Door of Perception, was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the biologist who was the first dean of Royal School of Mines, which later became a part of the Imperial College.

Jimmed 8y ago
They even named the building which houses the department of computing after him!

oofabz 8y ago

What about MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies? They've been around for decades and have done great work. Aren't they the first?

KingFelix 8y ago
Who knows, but MAPS is awesome and doing some amazing things. Also most likely doing a lot of heaving lifting when it comes to protocols and allowing for more room / research. Its all good news!

dj_gitmo 8y ago

I look forward to the day when Psychedelic are a normal, and even boring, topic of research and medicine.

miles 8y ago

From a comment by /u/oredna in /r/Psychonaut yesterday[0]: > Worth noting that the actual first is the Center for Psychedelic Studies at the University of Toronto[1]. We were recently featured in a National Post piece[2]. We've been in touch with the author to inform them that it's inaccurate to call ICL's the first given that we already exist. > That said, this is great news! More psychedelic research, and we're hopefully all going to be collaborating and working together as we move forward. [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/bhkak8/imperial_college_london_launches_worlds_first/elvojzt/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Psychonaut/comments/bhkak8/imperial... [1] http://cps.radlab.zone/ http://cps.radlab.zone/ [2] https://nationalpost.com/health/health-and-wellness/is-microdosing-lsd-a-solution-to-the-crisis-of-meaning-in-modern-life-new-canadian-study-may-provide-answers https://nationalpost.com/health/health-and-wellness/is-micro...

dang 8y ago
Ok, s/world's first/a/. Thanks!
feedbeef 8y ago
> That said, this is great news! Great news indeed. Scientific progress into psychedelics needs to be celebrated. We also need to celebrate specific individuals in the field, like Drs. Nichols (father and son both), for their continuing scientific contributions and persistence, often in the face of governmental and industrial opposition [1]. 1. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gypbnx/psychedelic-drug-chemist-dave-nichols https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gypbnx/psychedeli...

DonHopkins 8y ago

Not Reed College decades ago??! https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/kottke-lsd-steve-jobs/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2015/01/25/technology/kottke-lsd-steve... >Just a few years before Jobs' death, it was psychedelics that put Kottke back in touch with Jobs. Albert Hoffmann, who discovered LSD, was turning 100 and soliciting financial support for psychedelics research. Kottke was asked to connect Hoffmann with Jobs, which he did; but Kottke doesn't believe that the introduction resulted in any monetary contributions.

Vulkum 8y ago

They have conducted some of these studies some years ago. One of the was a study on the effects of LSD [0][1] on the brain, and I if I recall correctly they were also looking for test subjects for shrooms around the same time. [0]https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/171699/the-brain-lsd-revealed-first-scans/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/171699/the-brain-lsd-reveale... [1]https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2016/04/05/1518377113.full.pdf https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2016/04/05/151837711...

Jessica_Martin 8y ago

That's wonderful news. It's about time that there was some progressiveness into the substance use field. Hopefully this will also provide insights on treating addictions from other drugs and alcohol.