PSYCHEDELIC DRUGS AND PSYCHOLOGY

Abstract

Scientific interest in psychedelic drugs has increased exponentially over the past decade. Just in the last few years, small controlled clinical trials examining the potential therapeutic utility of psilocybin-assisted therapy in patients suffering from anxiety, depression, and substance abuse have reported extremely positive outcomes. Hallucinogen has perhaps been most widely used in scientific literature and is the legal designation used to classify these substances in many countries. Unfortunately, it also is a misnomer because these compounds rarely evoke true hallucinations and do not normally impair reality testing. Furthermore, a wide range of psychoactive substances, including cannabinoids, dissociative anesthetics, anticholinergics, and entactogens such as MDMA, can produce “hallucinogenic” effects. Hence, LSD-like drugs are often referred to as classical hallucinogens or serotonergic hallucinogens in order to distinguish them from other drug classes.