Dutch Government Seeks To Ban Magic Mushrooms

[dread]

The Dutch cabinet has proposed a ban on the sale of all hallucinogenic "magic" mushrooms because they could induce life-threatening behaviour.
A bill will now pass to the Dutch parliament, where a majority of lawmakers are expected to back a ban after a teenage French girl who had eaten mushrooms died jumping from a bridge in 2007.


In recent years the Netherlands has looked to shed its "anything goes" image and has tightened laws on drug use and prostitution.

"If they succeed with this mushroom ban then I am sure they will try to ban things like cannabis as well. This is part of a wider trend," said Freddy Schaap of the VLOS.

http://www.javno.com/admin/redirect/static/drudgereport143754.html






Yeah...I guess that "anything goes" bullshit isnt working out to well for them.

 

[waltky]

Granny put magic mushrooms in Uncle Ferd's spaghetti but all he got was gas...

Magic mushrooms 'promising' in depression
Tue, 17 May 2016 - A hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms shows promise for people with untreatable depression, a tiny study suggests.

Eight patients were no longer depressed after the "mystical and spiritual" experience induced by the drug. The findings, in the Lancet Psychiatry, showed five of the patients were still depression-free after three months.[ Experts cautiously welcomed the findings as "promising, but not completely compelling". There have now been calls for the drug to be tested in larger trials.

Untreatable

At the start of the trial, nine of the patients had at least severe depression and three were moderately depressed. In one patient, symptoms had lasted for 30 years. All of them had tried at least two different treatments for depression, without success. One had tried 11. The study, at Imperial College London, initially gave patients a low dose of psilocybin, the hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms, to test for safety. They were then given a very high dose equivalent to "a lot of mushrooms", the researchers said. The psychedelic experience lasted up to six hours, peaking after the first two, and was accompanied by classical music and followed by psychological support. Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, one of the researchers, said: "These experiences with psilocybin can be incredibly profound, sometimes people have what they describe as mystical or spiritual-type experiences." Most patients had a rapid dip in their depressive symptoms, with predictable side-effects including anxiety, nausea and headaches.

Dr Carhart-Harris said: "Seeing effect sizes of this magnitude is very promising, they are very large effect sizes in any available treatment for depression. "We now need larger trials to understand whether the effects we saw in this study translate into long-term benefits." Fellow researcher Prof David Nutt said thoughts could become locked in an overly self-critical and negative mode in depression, and it was thought the drug acted as a "lubricant for the mind" that "liberates" the patient. He said psilocybin targeted the receptors in the brain that normally responded to the hormone serotonin, which was involved in mood. However, the study is anything but clear-cut. It is short, in a small number of people and has no placebo group. Larger trials use dummy, sugar pills or placebos so they can account for the enigmatic "placebo effect" in which people can get better when they think they are being treated. The researchers told the BBC "it is possible" all the improvement was down to the placebo effect although the duration of the benefit and change in outlook suggested something else was going on.

Dr Carhart-Harris said "this isn't a magic cure, we shouldn't infer too much" until larger trials had taken place. Prof Nutt said simply being able to perform the study using the hallucinogenic drug was a "landmark", as he criticised the "Kafkaesque" restrictions that had made the research difficult. Prof Nutt, who was fired as the government's drugs adviser for his outspoken views, said red tape had meant "it cost £1,500 to dose each patient, when in any sane world it might have cost £30". Prof Philip Cowen, from the University of Oxford, said: "The key observation that might eventually justify the use of a drug like psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression is demonstration of sustained benefit in patients who previously have experienced years of symptoms despite conventional treatments, which makes longer-term outcomes particularly important. "The data at three-month follow-up, a comparatively short time in patients with extensive illness duration, are promising, but not completely compelling." The research was backed by the Beckley Foundation and the UK's Medical Research Council.

Magic mushrooms 'promising' in depression - BBC News

 

[xband]

Psilocybin is a mild hallucinogen and the active ingredient in a magic mushroom. Eaten raw has an earthy taste but nothing compared to LSD visuals.

 

[waltky]

Magic mushrooms can treat depression...

Magic mushrooms can treat depression: Study
Saturday 14th October, 2017: A new study has found that the drug psilocybin, found in mushrooms, can help treat depression by helping them 'reset' their brains. The findings come from a study in which researchers used psilocybin - the psychoactive compound that occurs naturally in magic mushrooms - to treat a small number of patients with depression in whom conventional treatment had failed.

In the study, the researchers describe patient-reported benefits lasting up to five weeks after treatment, and believe the psychedelic compound may effectively reset the activity of key brain circuits known to play a role in depression. Comparison of images of patients' brains before and one day after they received the drug treatment revealed changes in brain activity that were associated with marked and lasting reductions in depressive symptoms. The authors note that while the initial results of the experimental therapy are exciting, they are limited by the small sample size as well as the absence of a control group - such as a placebo group - to directly contrast with the patients.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, Head of Psychedelic Research at Imperial, who led the study, said: "We have shown for the first time clear changes in brain activity in depressed people treated with psilocybin after failing to respond to conventional treatments. "Several of our patients described feeling 'reset' after the treatment and often used computer analogies. For example, one said he felt like his brain had been 'defragged' like a computer hard drive, and another said he felt 'rebooted'. Psilocybin may be giving these individuals the temporary 'kick start' they need to break out of their depressive states and these imaging results do tentatively support a 'reset' analogy. Similar brain effects to these have been seen with electroconvulsive therapy." Over the last decade or so, a number of clinical trials have been conducted into the safety and effectiveness of psychedelics in patients with conditions such as depression and addictions, yielding promising results.

In the recent Imperial trial, the first with psilocybin in depression, 20 patients with treatment-resistant form of the disorder were given two doses of psilocybin (10 mg and 25 mg), with the second dose a week after the first. Nineteen of these underwent initial brain imaging and then a second scan one day after the high dose treatment. Carhart-Harris and team used two main brain imaging methods to measure changes in blood flow and the crosstalk between brain regions, with patients reporting their depressive symptoms through completing clinical questionnaires. Immediately following treatment with psilocybin, patients reported a decrease in depressive symptoms - corresponding with anecdotal reports of an 'after-glow' effect characterised by improvements in mood and stress relief.

Functional MRI imaging revealed reduced blood flow in areas of the brain, including the amygdala, a small, almond-shaped region of the brain known to be involved in processing emotional responses, stress and fear. They also found increased stability in another brain network, previously linked to psilocybin's immediate effects as well as to depression itself. These findings provide a new window into what happens in the brains of people after they have 'come down' from a psychedelic, where an initial disintegration of brain networks during the drug 'trip', is followed by a re-integration afterwards.

Dr Carhart-Harris explained: "Through collecting these imaging data we have been able to provide a window into the after effects of psilocybin treatment in the brains of patients with chronic depression. Based on what we know from various brain imaging studies with psychedelics, as well as taking heed of what people say about their experiences, it may be that psychedelics do indeed 'reset' the brain networks associated with depression, effectively enabling them to be lifted from the depressed state." The authors warn that while the initial findings are encouraging, the research is at an early stage and that patients with depression should not attempt to self-medicate, as the team provided a special therapeutic context for the drug experience and things may go awry if the extensive psychological component of the treatment is neglected. The research has been published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Magic mushrooms can treat depression Study

See also:

Magic mushrooms can 'reset' depressed brain
Fri, 13 Oct 2017 - Psilocybin - the hallucinogenic ingredient in mushrooms - may help in depression, a study suggests.

A hallucinogen found in magic mushrooms can "reset" the brains of people with untreatable depression, raising hopes of a future treatment, scans suggest. The small study gave 19 patients a single dose of the psychedelic ingredient psilocybin. Half of patients ceased to be depressed and experienced changes in their brain activity that lasted about five weeks. However, the team at Imperial College London says people should not self-medicate. There has been a series of small studies suggesting psilocybin could have a role in depression by acting as a "lubricant for the mind" that allows people to escape a cycle of depressive symptoms. But the precise impact it might be having on brain activity was not known. The team at Imperial performed fMRI brain scans before treatment with psilocybin and then the day after (when the patients were "sober" again).

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, showed psilocybin affected two key areas of the brain.

* The amygdala - which is heavily involved in how we process emotions such as fear and anxiety - became less active. The greater the reduction, the greater the improvement in reported symptoms.
* The default-mode network - a collaboration of different brain regions - became more stable after taking psilocybin.

Dr Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial, said the depressed brain was being "clammed up" and the psychedelic experience "reset" it. He told the BBC News website: "Patients were very ready to use this analogy. Without any priming they would say, 'I've been reset, reborn, rebooted', and one patient said his brain had been defragged and cleaned up." However, this remains a small study and had no "control" group of healthy people with whom to compare the brain scans. Further, larger studies are still needed before psilocybin could be accepted as a treatment for depression.

However, there is no doubt new approaches to treatment are desperately needed. Prof Mitul Mehta, from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, said: "What is impressive about these preliminary findings is that brain changes occurred in the networks we know are involved in depression, after just a single dose of psilocybin. "This provides a clear rationale to now look at the longer-term mechanisms in controlled studies."

Magic mushrooms 'reset' depressed brain

See also:

Depression: A revolution in treatment?
24 August 2016 - It's not very often we get to talk about a revolution in understanding and treating depression and yet now doctors are talking about "one of the strongest discoveries in psychiatry for the last 20 years". It is based around the idea that some people are being betrayed by their fiercest protector. That their immune system is altering their brain.

The illness exacts a heavy toll on 350 million people around the world, among them Hayley Mason, from Cambridgeshire: "My depression gets so bad that I can't leave the bed, I can't leave the bedroom, I can't go downstairs and be with my partner and his kids. The 30-year-old added: "I can't have the TV on, I can't have noise and light, I have suicidal thoughts, I have self-harmed, I can't leave the house, I can't drive. "And just generally I am completely confined to my own home and everything else just feels too much." Anti-depressant drugs and psychological treatments, like cognitive behavioural therapy, help the majority of people. But many don't respond to existing therapies and so some scientists are now exploring a new frontier - whether the immune system could be causing depression. "I think we have to be quite radical," says Prof Ed Bullmore, the head of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge.

Depression is more than just in the mind and it may be more than just in the brain says Prof Pariante​

He's at the forefront of this new approach: "Recent history is telling us if we want to make therapeutic breakthroughs in an area which remains incredibly important in terms of disability and suffering then we've got to think differently." The focus is on an errant immune system causing inflammation in the body and altering mood. And Prof Bullmore argues that's something we can all relate to, if we just think back to the last time we had a cold or flu. He said: "Depression and inflammation often go hand in hand, if you have flu, the immune system reacts to that, you become inflamed and very often people find that their mood changes too. "Their behaviour changes, they may become less sociable, more sleepy, more withdrawn. "They may begin to have some of the negative ways of thinking that are characteristic of depression and all of that follows an infection."

It is a subtle and yet significant shift in thinking. The argument is we don't just feel sorry for ourselves when we are sick, but that the chemicals involved in inflammation are directly affecting our mood. Inflammation is part of the immune system's response to danger. It is a hugely complicated process to prepare our body to fight off hostile forces. If inflammation is too low then an infection can get out of hand. If it is too high, it causes damage. And for some reason, about one-third of depressed patients have consistently high levels of inflammation. Hayley is one of them: "I do have raised inflammation markers, I think normal is under 0.7 and mine is 40, it's coming up regularly in blood tests." There is now a patchwork quilt of evidence suggesting inflammation is more than something you simply find in some depressed patients, but is actually the cause of their disease. That the immune system can alter the workings of the brain.

Arthritis​

Joint pain

To explore this revolutionary new idea in depression, we visited an arthritis clinic at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. It is perhaps an unexpected location, but it was in clinics like this that doctors noticed something unusual. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by the immune system attacking the joints. And when patients were given precise anti-inflammatory drugs that calmed down specific parts of the immune response, their mood improved. Prof Iain McInnes, a consultant rheumatologist, said: "When we give these therapies we see a fairly rapid increase in a sense of well-being, mood state improving quite remarkably often disproportionately given the amount of inflammation we can see in their joints and their skin." It suggests the patients were not simply feeling happier as they were in less pain, but that something more profound was going on.

Prof McInnes added: "We scanned the brains of people with rheumatoid arthritis, we then gave them a very specific immune targeted therapy and then we imaged them again afterwards. "What we are starting to see when we give anti-inflammatory medicines is quite remarkable changes in the neuro-chemical circuitry in the brain. "The brain pathways involved in mediating depression were favourably changed in people who were given immune interventions." One possible explanation is that inflammatory chemicals enter the brain. There they interrupt the production of serotonin - a key neurotransmitter that's linked to mood.

Could I be depressed?

 

[Likkmee]

Will pizza be illegal too ?