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March 27, 2013
I didn't know it back in the 1970s when I was experimenting with psychedelics
but others were looking at applications other than an altered state of
consciousness.
My "experiments" weren't as meticulous, nefarious, or luxurious as some. Aldous
Huxley made meticulous notes on the afternoon he took mescaline, from which he
wrote The Doors of Perception. A CIA-backed project in a Montreal hospital
illegally used LSD, tape loops and sensory deprivation in a macabre attempt to
erase memories of unsuspecting patients. A hospital based in a B.C. mansion
hosted Hollywood celebrities who paid $1,000 for a 12-hour LSD therapy session.
Someone dear to me had been institutionalized because of mental illness and it
seemed to me that these powerful psychedelics might have a therapeutic
application. So did others.
Psychedelics were already being used by psychiatrist R.D. Laing in London. He
was treating celebrities such as Sean Connery with LSD says Taras Grescoe in the
Globe and Mail. And in the U.S., actor Cary Grant was amazed at the results of
LSD therapy. "Why didn't I do this sooner?" he said.
It also seemed to me that psychedelics might also provide an insight into mental
illness. Again, others thought the same. The staff at Weyburn Mental Hospital in
Saskatchewan were encouraged to take LSD to empathize with schizophrenic
patients. It was in Weyburn that the term psychedelic ("manifesting a clear
mind") was coined by Humphry Osmond, the British psychiatrist who had introduced
Huxley to mescaline.
All that investigation came to a grinding halt when psychoactive drugs moved out
of the arena of scientific investigation and into the realm of pop culture. The
acid guru Timothy Leary advised hippies to "Turn on, tune in, drop out." So much
for manifesting a clear mind; now experimentation was lost in the fog of drugs,
sexual liberation, and rock and roll.
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IThe response from politicians was the prohibition of psychedelics, a
policy, like the prohibition of alcohol, that was doomed to fail.
Only now are researchers returning to study valuable applications of
psychoactive drugs. It took years to approve but Health Canada has
authorized a study on the therapeutic use of MDMA (ecstasy). The study is
sponsored by the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies.
MDMA has shown promise in treating post-traumatic stress disorder and the
timing couldn't be better for the thousands of Canadian soldiers returning
from war with PTSD.
Although first patented in 1912, MDMA was rediscovered by a California
psychologist who was impressed by it's ability to produce “intoxication,
disinhibition and clarity.”
One of the MAPS team, Andrew Feldmár, who studied with Scottish psychedelic
pioneer R.D. Laing, says: “Having PTSD is like having an alarm permanently
going off in your head,” he says, “Under the influence of the drug, you go
to what was unspeakable – the rape, the torture, the abuse – and you begin
to speak about it. MDMA is an empathogen: It opens your heart, releases you
from shame, and puts you in the present moment."
In the absence of research and era of prohibition, Canadians are
self-medicating with disastrous results. Unable to find treatment for their
mental illness, they are turning to dangerous street drugs and black-market
prescription narcotics such OxyContin.
Canadians have been deprived of treatment long enough. The delay in
development of psychedelics has left too many ruined lives.
David Charbonneau is the owner of Thompson Studio
He can be reached at
dcharbonneau13@shaw.ca
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