Magic Mushrooms, Psilocybin Cubensis. (iStockphoto)
Four months after a handful of palliative care patients took psilocybin to alleviate end-of-life suffering, Health Canada paved the way for more than a dozen doctors to help develop that psychedelic drug to provide therapies for future use.
The Canadian Department of Health reported that it has issued 16 waivers to a group of nurses, doctors, therapists and social workers, allowing them to possess and use psilocybin for their personal training without fear of persecution among the country.
This is no small step. It’s a huge step, “said Sean O’Sullivan in the small town of Tillsonburg, Ontario. He is a physician and director of TheraPsil, a nonprofit advocating the therapeutic use of psilocybin.
Dr. Sean O’Sullivan is one of 16 healthcare professionals exempted from Canadian drug laws to use magic mushrooms. (Photo: CBC / Sean O’Sullivan)
This decision comes after the Canadian Department of Health granted four exemptions to palliative care patients last August from using the drug in end-of-life psychotherapy. Since then, other exemptions have been granted to patients wishing to consume magic mushrooms.
The exemptions granted to healthcare professionals will allow those who want to treat patients with psilocybin to understand what it feels like and how best to use it. These permits are valid for one year.
Psychedelic substances and treatment with these substances, such as psilocybin, is a growing area of scientific research and research. Because psilocybin is not an approved therapeutic, the availability of rigorous scientific evidence to demonstrate its safety and efficacy is limited, ”said Health Canada.
“The exemptions do not allow health professionals to prescribe or distribute psilocybin-containing mushrooms to anyone else. There are no medications containing psilocybin that have been approved by the Canadian Department of Health. The decision of the Department of Health Canada to grant these exemptions does not constitute an opinion or approval by the Department of Health Canada regarding psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy, training or the safety, efficacy or quality of psilocybin.
One gram of psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms. (AP Photo / Seth Wenig)
“This is a huge step the government has taken, and a very sensible one, in full accordance with the science and published literature. It is a very brave decision on the part of the government, ”said O’Sullivan.
Psychedelic therapies such as psilocybin and LSD have had a negative reputation, in part because of the war on drugs, O’Sullivan said.
“The war on drugs has been a total disaster all over the world. You have criminalized behavior that does not need to be criminalized. Cannabis has been legalized and the sky has not fallen, ”said O’Sullivan.
Among those who have obtained exemptions are psychiatrists affiliated with the University of Toronto, a community psychiatrist in Hamilton and his partner, as well as health professionals in Calgary and British Columbia.
Psilocybin allows the brain to bypass the “default mode network,” the part of our brain that deals with taxes, dinner, and the grocery list, and delves deeper into the subconscious mind.
“If you look at your network by default, you’ll see that the themes that come out are the same as last year and the year before and the decade before,” said O’Sullivan. Psychedelics disarm the web by default and allow a person to have new experiences in a carefully controlled clinical setting. When the standard mode network is rebuilt, it is not rebuilt in the same way as before.
So a single dose of a psychedelic drug can be more effective than years of talk therapy or medication, said Sean O’Sullivan, TheraPsil’s director.
Fuentes: CBC / K. Dubinski / Canadian Press / RCI