Magic Mushroom Treatment for Depression Stalled Due To Drug Law

A novel treatment to cure depression using an ingredient in magic mushrooms is being delayed due to the existing U.K. and EU rules on the use of illegal drugs, claims Professor David Nutt.

David Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College, London, has shown how psilocybin, the hallucinogenic ingredient present in magic mushrooms has the potential to improve severe forms of depression in those who have failed to respond to anti-depressant treatments.

But he claims that the current drug laws are hindering his research as psilocybin is a Class A drug making it impossible to use it in the research.

"The reason we haven't started the study is because finding companies who could manufacture the drug and who are prepared to go through the regulatory hoops to get the licence, which can take up to a year and triple the price, is proving very difficult. The whole situation is bedevilled by this primitive, old-fashioned attitude that Schedule 1 drugs could never have therapeutic potential," Prof Nutt said in a press statement.

Prof Nutt and his team have shown that when injected in healthy subjects psilocybin turns off the front part of the brain known as anterior cingulated cortex that is said to be overactive in depression.

He also found that action of magic mushroom is to cut down the circuit in the brain that is the 'default mode network', which the anterior cingulated cortex is a part of. This default network controls a person's thoughts about themselves.

His team received £550,000 by the Medical Research Council to initiate a three year project to test the effect of psilocybin drug on people who are suffering from depression.

The team would select people who have failed previous treatment. Thirty patients would be given synthetic form of psilocybin and 30 will receive placebo.

The patients will receive the drug during two, three carefully controlled 30-60 minute session in which the first session will have low dose to see the adverse response and the second will be a higher dose that is a therapeutic dose and then they can have the third dose which will be the booster dose.

During the periods they will have guided talking therapy that will help them discover their negative thinking and issues that are upsetting their life.

The ethical approval for this trial was granted in March and the professor intends to commence the study within six months.