Once again, we see that the truth is often 180 degrees from what public health authorities keep telling us. LSD was banned decades ago due to being both highly “addictive” as well as apparently triggering lasting episodes of psychosis and/or anxiety. Yet, the study below demonstrates that in doses often used recreationally (100mcg), LSD is actually a potent anxiolytic and can almost completely eliminate anxiety for several months, with just a single dose. Just as importantly, the effects were immediate. Currently, medicine prescribes SSRI and benzodiazepines for anxiety disorders. The SSRI drugs do not really treat anxiety, but simply chemically lobotomized the patient so as to prevent the feeling of anything (including anxiety), which can hardly be considered a “treatment”. The latter, while relieving anxiety, requires daily dosing (sometimes multiple daily doses) and is highly habit-forming, with withdrawal effects so terrible that the flagship benzo Klonopin is virtually impossible to wean oneself off of. For those that do not believe me, simply search Youtube for “Klonopin withdrawal” (no quotes when you search) and see the horror stories, in high definition, for yourself. Even if there are cases where SSRI/benzos work, it often takes weeks to produce a noticeable effect, while in the LSD study, the effects were immediate. It is no wonder that LSD is banned. If it can cure most psychiatric conditions while making people intolerant to authoritarianism and hierarchical social structures, then such a drug will never see the light of day in mainstream psychiatry. We just have to wait for the company below (MindMend) to get approval for LSD as a psychiatric drug and then we can get it…at 100x the price of what it costs on the street. Oh, and last but not least, the primary mechanism of LSD is as a (partial) serotonin antagonist and full agonist of several dopamine receptors. So, yet another indictment of the “serotonin hypothesis” of anxiety and depression, and with it, the entire SSRI industry.
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/lsd-based-medication-yields-rapid-durable-response-2024a10008tg
https://www.newscientist.com/article/2495132-a-single-dose-of-lsd-seems-to-reduce-anxiety/
“…
HAMILTON: The drug, known as MM120, comes from MindMed, which funded the study. Participants were randomly assigned to get a placebo or one of four dosage levels of MM120. Lower doses had no significant effect, but Feifel says the two higher doses, which pretty much guaranteed a psychedelic experience, made a big difference.
FEIFEL: By the next day, the drug, for all intents and purposes, was out of their system, and yet the patient’s average anxiety was greatly reduced.
HAMILTON: Feifel says seeing a drug work so quickly was remarkable.
FEIFEL: The other remarkable thing about it was those improvements held out all the way to the end of the study, which was 12 weeks.
HAMILTON: Higher doses also relieved depression. The results appear in the journal of the American Medical Association, and Feifel says high-quality studies like this one are giving legitimacy to research on a range of psychedelics, like psilocybin and MDMA.
…”
