Are hallucinogenic drugs losing their stigma?

We are in the midst of a ‘psychedelic renaissance’. Not since the 1950s and early 1960s has there been so much interest in researching the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. The FDA approved a ketamine derivative for medicinal use in 2019, and has given both MDMA and psilocybin (the psycho-active ingredient in magic mushrooms) ‘breakthrough therapy’ status, putting the drugs on a fast track to approval in the US, with the UK likely to follow suit.

Professor David Nutt is a neuropsycho-pharmacologist (say that three times fast) and head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, London. He was the UK’s ‘drug tsar’ before getting sacked in 2009 for claiming that LSD and Ecstasy are less dangerous than cigarettes, alcohol or horseback riding. (His views have been more welcome in Australia, where the traditionally conservative regulator legalised psychedelic therapy this year, after lobbying by Nutt.)

In Psychedelics, his sixth book, Nutt is unabashedly gung-ho about the benefits: psilocybin ‘will be the biggest innovation in psychiatry treatment for 50 years’, he writes.