Psychedelic revival: research on forbidden drugs.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings

BEFORE HE became notorious as an apostle of chemically catalyzed enlightenment and lost his job at Harvard, Timothy Leary investigated the use of psilocybin and LSD in rehabilitating alcoholics and convicts. Such psychotherapeutic applications, explored in more than 1,000 papers and dozens of books in the 1950s and '60s, were largely forgotten in the hysteria prompted by the widespread recreational use of psychedelics. LSD and similar drugs were soon banned, putting a stop to studies of their benefits.

Four decades later, psychedelic research is returning to Harvard, where psychiatrist John Halpern plans to give MDMA (a.k.a. Ecstasy) to late-stage cancer patients to relieve their anxiety and to help them come to terms with death. The study was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in December, and the Drug Enforcement Administration was expected to issue the required federal license after a March visit to the research site.

Halpern's work is part of a recent resurgence in psychedelic research prompted largely by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, an organization dedicated to exploring the benefits of...