Psychedelics May Have Health Benefits

(MYFOX NATIONAL) - Scientists are studying the possible health benefits of LSD, marijuana, ecstasy and other psychedelic drugs.

According to the Guardian , a growing number of people are using the drugs to help them cope with conditions such as cluster headaches and chronic anxiety attacks.

Research was carried out in the 1950s and 1960s into psychedelics, and in some places they were even used as a treatment for anxiety, depression and addiction. But a backlash against LSD -- due to concerns that the powerful hallucinogen was becoming widespread as a recreational drug, and fear that excessive use could trigger mental health conditions such as schizophrenia -- led to prohibition of research in the 1970s.

Now, though, researchers are looking again at whether LSD and other psychedelics might help patients.

A study at the University of California in Berkeley, was the first research into LSD to get approval from regulators and ethics bodies since the 1970s. Those in the study are the first to be allowed to take LSD legally in decades as part of research into whether it aids creativity.

In another study, psychiatrist Dr. John Halpern of Harvard Medical School found that almost all of 53 people with cluster headaches who illegally took LSD obtained relief from the searing pain.

"If you handle LSD with care, it isn't any more dangerous than other therapies," said Dr. Peter Gasser, the psychiatrist leading a Swiss trial dealing with terminally people trying to cope with anxiety brought on by impending death.

Most doctors still consider LSD and other psychedelic drugs dangerous because their effects are unpredictable and can cause panic .