"Magic mushrooms" help smokers quit.

• Position: Tobacco Cessation - Brief article

Smokers who had failed many attempts to drop the habit did so after a carefully controlled and monitored use of psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic agent in so-called "magic mushrooms," in the context of a cognitive behavioral therapy treatment program, report researchers at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md.

The abstinence rate for study participants was 80% after six months, substantially higher than typical success rates in smoking cessation trials, indicates Matthew W. Johnson, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and corresponding author on the study.

Approximately 35% experience six-month success rates when taking varenicline, which widely is considered to be the most effective smoking cessation drug. Other treatments, including nicotine replacement and behavioral therapies, have success rates that are typically less than 30%.

The researchers, however, strongly caution that their study results are not an endorsement of do-it-yourself psychedelic drug use for smoking cessation, but instead are specific to the controlled administration of the drug in the context of a...