Psychedelic mushrooms

Psychedelic mushroom kit

OK, but does access to this altered state of mind brought on by a psychedelic trip really lead to increased wellness in healthy people? It depends on who you ask, and what “wellness” means to them, which makes the debate around psychedelics for healthy people a complicated one without definitive boundaries. Whereas the presence or absence of depression can be measured on a clinical, APA-approved scale, things like “betterment” and “self-improvement” in healthy people are subjective experiences that are hard to quantify. Wellness in this country is still measured against an absence of disorder rather than markers of self-actualization, and it’s not widely accepted that things like mystical experiences, creativity, and a sense of purpose are necessary for overall well-being. “It’s new territory for us as people measuring psychological effects, and it’s a challenge,” says Harriet de Wit, PhD, founder of the Human Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of Chicago. De Wit recently ran an LSD microdosing study with healthy volunteers. She said the participants didn’t show any improvements in mood, but they did report small boosts in feelings of “oneness,” “awe,” and “connection to a higher power.” While hard to measure, there’s mounting evidence to suggest these things can improve mental health and overall happiness — and that they may be needed now more than ever. Western societies are on the brink of a loneliness epidemic, which some experts blame for the rise of suicide, and the United States does seem to be sliding further into a mass existential crisis caused by a sense of meaninglessness. This type of “garden-variety unhappiness,” as Pollan puts it, is hard to treat. Those advocating for the use of psychedelics for healthy people believe a consciousness-expanding trip could help. Brad Burge, a spokesman for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), says that the organization believes that the mind-expanding benefits of psychedelics could “facilitate more holistic understandings of the world, and greater compassion for ourselves and for others.”

There’s another open question circling the use of psychedelics: their safety. Scientists still don’t have enough research to prove that these drugs are devoid of negative short- and long-term effects. This concern has launched a separate line of research into psychedelics for healthy people — one specifically focused on examining safety. Though de Wit’s study used healthy volunteers, one main purpose of the research was to examine the potential risks involved in microdosing LSD as a treatment for depression. (No adverse risks were found). According to Brad Burge, the Beckley Foundation, a psychedelic research and policy organization, is also currently running a safety study to see if there are any potential negative side effects of microdosing LSD (though the researchers will also take measurements around creativity). Knowing the risks associated with these drugs is a critical first step to considering a future where healthy people take psychedelics in the name of self-improvement. But it’s also foundational to psychedelics’ potential as a clinical intervention. Researchers are taking a top-down approach to advocating for the use of psychedelics: first proving the drugs’ efficacy as a treatment for mental illness, then showing that their ability to push the human mind to new realms of understanding could be beneficial to all. “Our long-term mission is to see these substances used in any setting by humans in which they can be used safely and effectively for any purpose,” says Burge. “But in order to do that, we need to work carefully and methodically to follow all the rules and regulations. That’s how we’re going to achieve the goal.”

Psychedelics for Healthy People. Psychedelics for Healthy People. Psychedelics for Healthy People