By The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has issued a license to Ohio State University that allows researchers to grow psilocybin mushrooms for use in scientific research. The license, granted to the State of Ohio and its partner, Inner State, a mental health and wellness research and development company, is the first license issued by the DEA to grow whole psilocybin mushrooms for research. is.
“This license is a major milestone not only for the states of Inner and Ohio, but for the field of psychedelic research as a whole,” Inner State CEO Ashley Walsh said in a statement Wednesday. quoted by Columbus dispatch.
Studies have shown that psilocybin, the main psychoactive compound in magic mushrooms, may have extraordinary potential as a treatment for several serious mental health conditions. increase. However, studies of psilocybin typically use laboratory-synthesized forms of the drug. A new license issued by the DEA allows Ohio and Inner to grow whole psilocybin mushrooms to produce the compound naturally. Under the terms of the license, all psilocybin mushroom cultivation takes place in federally registered facilities in accordance with strict DEA regulations.
Dr. Jason Slott, an Ohio State researcher, said, “By combining cutting-edge techniques in genomics and metabolomics, we have the opportunity to obtain high-resolution images of the chemical diversity of mushrooms that have been difficult to study for decades. You can get it,” he said. .
Researchers believe that using whole mushrooms in mental health studies may give participants the benefits of other compounds besides psilocybin, potentially providing additional therapeutic benefits. Walsh said psilocybin mushrooms have “multidimensional healing properties” and may be more effective in improving quality of life for people with severe mental illness.
Continuing research into psychedelics such as psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine suggests that these drugs have potential therapeutic benefits, especially for serious mental health conditions such as depression, addiction, and anxiety. shown.a study A 2020 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Psychiatry found that psilocybin-based psychotherapy was an effective and fast-acting treatment for a group of 24 participants with major depressive disorder. There was found. individual research A paper published in 2016 found that psilocybin treatment significantly and sustainably reduced depression and anxiety in patients with life-threatening cancer.
In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration designated MDMA as a breakthrough treatment for PTSD, streamlining clinical trials testing the drug’s efficacy. The following year, the FDA gave the same status to psilocybin as a breakthrough treatment for treatment-resistant depression.
Alan Davis is director of the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education in the Ohio State University School of Social Work, which he launched last year with the help of a private donation of $1.5 million. The center has developed a 25-hour continuing education program and an undergraduate minor in psychedelic studies. In January, the center began the first clinical trial examining the use of psilocybin as a treatment for veterans diagnosed with PTSD.
“We have now completed clinical trials in people with addiction, depression, PTSD, obsessive-compulsive disorder and social anxiety. [and] End-of-life pain of terminally ill patients Davis said monthly columbus at the beginning of this year. “All the studies so far show really promising effects.”
Ongoing research suggests that treatment with psychedelic drugs such as psilocybin, combined with psychotherapy, “may reduce and, for some people, improve their underlying mental health problems.” said Davis. “Some studies have found that these positive effects can last for six to 12 months.”
Other universities are also researching the therapeutic value of psilocybin and other psychedelics, but Ohio State University is the first to establish such a center in a social work setting, according to Davis. He added that educating professionals with degrees in social work is essential. This is because they are the largest part of the workforce in direct contact with patients in the clinical setting.
“Usually the only message out there is ‘drugs are bad, drugs are dangerous, don’t do drugs,'” Davis said. “It is intended to give people a foundational knowledge and make sense of all the interdisciplinary research that has been done on psychedelics.”
Sloth believes that much can be learned from mushrooms, noting that government bans have hampered research and set researchers back for decades at a time when biological sciences, especially genetics, have made great strides. . He hopes that recent efforts to destigmatize psychedelics will succeed and that research will continue to move forward.
“I don’t think psychedelics are going away. They get to the core of consciousness, the mind-body relationship,” Sloth said. “These are fundamental questions about who we are.”
