Psilocybin saves lives. I have seen it with my own eyes on a clinical trial in London. One of the participants, a woman in her forties who had spent decades depressed, taking medications that left the illness untouched, felt bright and alive for the first time in years after just a single dose. But the government is blocking patient access.
This medicine is different from routinely prescribed antidepressants. Rather than a daily take at home tablet, psilocybin is administered once or twice in a controlled setting like a hospital or clinic. Two therapists sit beside the patient to offer psychological support as they go through their eight-hour ‘trip’. Guided by a specially chosen playlist, wearing eye shades and headphones, the patient is encouraged to accept whatever comes up, often facing their demons for the first time. The treatment is not just the experience of a different state of mind, like a holiday, it can be challenging and works by making therapy more potent.
Anyone who has struggled to quit tobacco can understand how incredible this is
Don’t take my word for the revolutionary potential of psilocybin assisted therapy. Look at the evidence from clinical trials. In one study there were clinically significant reductions in the symptoms of depression for six weeks, but its application is not limited to this condition. In another study after 3 doses around 80% of participants were abstinent from tobacco for a full year. Some of these patients had been smoking over 30 a day for 30+ years. Anyone who has struggled or seen someone struggle to quit tobacco can understand how incredible this is. There has also been success treating OCD, alcoholism and distress related to terminal cancer diagnosis, and we await the publication of data on the treatment of PTSD, functional neurological disorder and anorexia nervosa.
This compound, which occurs naturally in those ‘magic’ little mushrooms growing wild across the countryside, is one of the safest controlled drugs there is. It is not addictive, but still remains more tightly controlled than heroin. Why? Simply because over 50 years ago, when the Nixon White House initiated the international (and now failed) ‘war on drugs’, psilocybin’s medical potential was yet to be established. In the ensuing half century the UK government has never assessed the evidence for its Class A or Schedule 1 status.
I run the Psilocybin Rescheduling Project at the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy. Call me confident, or naive, but in the beginning we had a set of slides titled “How to Reschedule Psilocybin in 8 Months”. Four years down the line the campaign has been supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, CALM, SANE and Members of Parliament across all major parties, and polls show it is backed by public support of 4 to 1. We are asking for something very simple that could save or improve the lives of hundreds of thousands, but the government has still yet to act.
We want a review of the evidence justifying the current schedule of psilocybin. Such a review would point clearly to the need for psilocybin to be moved from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001. This would not change its Class A status, or the penalties around possession and supply, it would simply mean the Home Office stepping out of the way of research and psychiatrists being able to prescribe psilocybin as a medicine to those most likely to safely benefit from it. This is already possible in Australia and Canada.
Due to our campaigning, the Minister for Crime Policing and the Fireservice Chris Philp MP recently wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) requesting part 2 of their barriers to research report be published by the end of November. This week the report was released, albeit late. The recommendations extend the freedoms of research granted to drugs in Schedule 2 (like heroin and cocaine) to those in Schedule 1 (like psilocybin) and are of huge benefit to UK bioscience, but they do not go far enough.
There is a mental health crisis with 125 people taking their own lives each week
Removing barriers to research is a win for our campaign but it is only partial, and it misses the point. There is a mental health crisis with 125 people taking their own lives each week and psilocybin cannot be prescribed because of its Schedule 1 status. The new recommendations leave psilocybin in Schedule 1 and patients without access. Chris Philp MP needs to commission a review of the evidence and reschedule psilocybin in order to give patients the hope of feeling bright and alive once again.
