“The interest in psychedelics may also have something to do with a growing sense of frustration over the lack of promising new psychiatric drugs in the pipeline. Many of the current drugs are based on compounds discovered serendipitously in the 1950s, and true innovation has been so hard to come by that many companies are giving up.”
:: Wired covers the MAPS Conference ::
BONUS QUOTE
“Psychedelic scientists still face obstacles at every step of the process, from getting research funding, to getting the compounds themselves, to publishing the findings, says psychiatrist David Nutt of Imperial College London. Nutt recently won a large grant from the British government to conduct a clinical trial of psilocybin for depression. But red tape is holding it up.
To comply with the law, Nutt has to find a manufacturer who’s capable of making medical-grade psilocybin and has all the proper permits to make controlled substances. So far, he hasn’t found one. The study is on hold.
“The illegality of these drugs has profoundly distorted research and continues to do so,” Nutt said at the conference. “It’s one of the greatest scandals in modern research.”
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I’d say that not publishing negative data is a substantially bigger scandal but this is certainly something that should be of concern to people with depression.
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