The Life Altering Power of Magic Mushrooms and Why the Government Doesn’t Want You to Know About it

The war against drugs has left a lot of victims in its wake, and chief amongst them is the pursuit of knowledge and growth of medical research. The way marijuana prohibition is presently being torn apart, is the same way the prohibition of psychedelics will be dismantled.

Over the years, different world civilizations have taken advantage of the mystical experience of psychedelic substances by using magic mushrooms, mescaline, and ayahuasca to carry out religious rites and healing.

It was not until the 1940’s that western medicine began to discover the healing powers of psychedelics in the treatment of addiction and psychiatric disorders. It was used to treat thousands of people and was rapidly becoming recognized as mainstream medicine, only for the worst form of oppression to occur.

In 1967 and 70, the American and British government prohibited all psychedelic substances. People began to realize the awful truth about the fact that their government had plans to subject the world to a state of war, and that they intended to keep them sedated under the guise of consumerism. They used boots and truncheon to bring the enlightenment of that era to a halt. In this global age, where information can easily be disseminated without the influence of the state, we shall continue medical research on psychedelic substances. Scientists are beginning to challenge the classification of psychedelics as “class A” in the UK and “schedule 1” (US) substances, which characterizes it as lacking medical relevance and having a high addiction potential.

The unjustifiable Schedule 1, and Class A prohibition has really put a clog in the wheel of research. Getting the required license to embark on trials can last for as long as two years, and everybody involved, from the manufacture, to the researcher, down to the hospital, must acquire this license. It also stipulates that the drugs have to be bolted to a wall in a safe in a locked room that is within another locked room, like a toxic substance. Another consequence of prohibition is that it makes procurement a lot more expensive, making it very difficult to get funding while pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to produce the necessary products required to carry out the study.

In spite of all these hurdles, modern research is once again uncovering the power of psychedelics to treat disorders like depression, anxiety and addiction. The chosen drug for the clinical study is psilocybin – the active ingredient within “magic mushrooms” which lacks the power and lasting effect of LSD or mescaline.

Tony Bossis and Stephen Ross carried out a clinical trial at New York University in 2014, which produced amazing results in patients with advanced cancer suffering from anxiety.

“According to Ross, cancer patients receiving just a single dose of psilocybin experienced immediate and dramatic reductions in anxiety and depression, improvements that were sustained for at least six months.

{The patients} were saying things like ‘I understand love is the most powerful force on the planet,’ or ‘I had an encounter with my cancer, this black cloud of smoke.’ People who had been palpably scared of death—they lost their fear. The fact that a drug given once can have such an effect for so long is an unprecedented finding. We have never had anything like it in the psychiatric field.”

Roland Griffiths and Katherine Maclean had carried out prior studies before this at Johns Hopkins, and they discovered that psilocybin led to a mystical experience in their subjects. From the Pahnke-Richards Mystical Experience Questionnaire, they discovered that, the ‘completeness’ brought about by this mystical experience, includes, progress in personal well-being, openness, satisfaction with life, and a positive change in behavior for close to 14 months following the experience.

Griffiths also carried out a study on the treatment of smoking addiction using psilocybin, with remarkable results. About 80% of the subjects of the study abstained from smoking for 6 months after undergoing the treatment, which is a higher success rate than any other nicotine-replacement therapy in existence. According to one of the subjects, “Smoking seemed irrelevant, so I stopped.”

An evaluation of some of the trials carried out in the 60s and 70s revealed that LSD was able to help people overcome alcohol dependence as effectively as any treatment in existence today.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) plays a huge role in the understanding of the mechanisms of the treatment of addiction and depression with psychedelics. Psychedelics, through the stimulation of serotin 2A receptors can decrease activity in some parts of the brain, particularly the “the default mode network” (DMN) which is connected to our deep-rooted thought patterns and behaviors. Reducing DMN stimulation can help people break away from brain patterns that are destructive.

John Hopkins Medicine carried out an exhaustive survey which supports the conclusion of the clinical research which holds that “A history of psychedelic drug use is associated with less psychological distress and fewer suicidal thoughts, planning and attempts…”

There’s a research carried out with FMRI which reveals that, the brain goes into a pattern of activity akin to a dream state, when under the influence of psilocybin. The primitive parts of the brain connected to memory, emotions, and arousal assume a more synchronized position, while the part involving a higher level of thought and the “sense of self” assume an unsynchronized role.

40 years later, it appears that science and logic is beginning to leave a dent in the amour of prohibition. Prominent medical schools, including organizations like the Heffter Research Institute and the Beckley Foundation, are beginning to stand against oppression and are returning psychedelics back to mainstream medicine.

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