Psychedelics Being Tested For Use In Treating Various Conditions

by Stephanie Stahl

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Psychedelic drugs have been illegal for decades, but now some doctors and patients are exploring psychedelics as a therapeutic agent for a range of medical conditions and psychological traumas.

Scientists say psychedelics are showing great promise as a therapeutic tool.

"It opens you up to yourself," said Andy Gold, a cancer patient.

With permission from the FDA, researchers are studying psychedelics in patients with life-threatening conditions, such as cancer.

"Patients with cancer, particularly advanced cancer, have significant levels of anxiety, depression," said psychiatrist Charles Grob, M.D. with the Heffter Research Institute at UCLA.

Grob headed up the trial and he says, while psilocybin wears off in a few hours, the benefit lasted for up to six months.

"The positive effects seem to sustain," said Grob.

"It's not addictive, and we've never had a freak-out," said psychiatrist Phil Wolfson, M.D.

Psychedelics include things like psilocybin, like so-called magic mushrooms, or LSD.

Brain scans from healthy volunteers may shed some light on how they work.

With LSD, scientists believe different regions of the brain communicate with each other, when they normally don't.

Psychedelics may free the mind.

"So, I was very pleasantly surprised that all I felt was...good!" said writer Ayelet Waldman. "I thought if anyone in the world is going to have a bad trip, it's going to be me. I mean, I can have a bad trip in a Pilates class."

Waldman has a mood disorder. She fell into terrible depression and her prescription medication stopped working.

Out of desperation, for one month only, she took tiny doses of LSD.

"It's possible that I experienced the mother of all placebo effects, I had a very good month," Waldman said.

The final FDA studies on the psychedelics will begin soon. If the drugs are approved, they could become available for in-patient therapy use as early as 2021.