Are hallucinogenic drugs losing their stigma?
We are in the midst of a ‘psychedelic renaissance’. Not since the 1950s and early 1960s has there been so much interest in researching the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. The FDA approved a ketamine derivative for medicinal use in 2019, and has given both MDMA and psilocybin (the psycho-active ingredient in magic mushrooms) ‘breakthrough therapy’ status, putting the drugs on a fast track to approval in the US, with the UK likely to follow suit. Professor David Nutt is a neuropsycho-pharmacologist (say that three times fast) and head of the Centre for Psychedelic Research at Imperial College, London. He was the UK’s ‘drug tsar’ before getting sacked in 2009 for
