Brad, Kevin, and Joe discuss: Dr Robin Carhart-Harris is the first scientist in over 40 years to test LSD on humans - and you're next
Stanislav Grof, 1975: "psychedelics, used responsibly and with proper caution, would be for psychiatry what the microscope is for biology or the telescope is for astronomy”.
Professor David Nutt: "I think it's the worst censorship of research since the Catholic Church banned the telescope.”
See also: Nutt calls the outlaw of entheogens "the worst case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus and Galileo"
Carhart-Harris scanned test subjects’ brains with an fMRI scanner while they were on LSD, showing for the first time higher activity in the hippocampus, which is involved in memory.
Schedule I drugs: "high potential for abuse”, "no currently accepted medical use”, "lack of accepted safety” – LSD; really?
Carhart-Harris: "It's slightly hypothetical, but it's based on what we know about the way the brain works, which is that it settles into configurations of activity that seem to underly certain psychopathologies. Depression and addictions rest on reinforced patterns of brain activity, and a psychedelic will introduce a relative chaos. Patterns that have become reinforced disintegrate under the drug. I've used the metaphor of shaking a snow globe”
Carhart-Harris: "music can do a number of things. It can have a steadying influence, but it can also help facilitate emotional release.”