The psychedelic renaissance | Stephen Bright | TEDxUniMelb

Psychedelic drugs: a dangerous and illegal scourge; a harmless way to “turn on, tune in, drop out” – or a valuable treatment for mental illness? Research is showing that substances like MDMA and magic mushrooms, long banished to society’s fringes, are proving effective in treating everything from PTSD to nicotine addiction. In this talk, Stephen Bright explores the recent re-emergence of psychedelic science and discusses why this field is absent from the Australian research landscape.

Dr Stephen Bright is a clinically-trained psychologist. He is a Senior Lecturer of Addiction at Edith Cowan University in Perth and a founding board member of PRISM, an Australian not-for-profit set up to advance the cause of psychedelic research.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx.

So in 1943,

Albert Hofmann, a Swiss chemist,

was developing potential medications
for the treatment of migraine

when he's accidentally exposed to one.

He felt a little odd and went home,

but he had a pretty good idea
of what he'd been exposed to.

So three days later,

he went back to the lab
and took 250 micrograms of LSD.

(Laughter)

In those days, that was seen
as a minute amount to be taking.

Drugs and medications were administered

in the milligram range,
not the microgram range,

but we know now
that was a pretty solid dose.

(Laughter)

So as the effects came on, he realized
the lab was not the right place to be,

and so he hopped on his bicycle,
and he started riding home.

And he describes the vivid imagery,
the beauty in nature.

And he went on
to self-experiment with LSD,

noting that it had these profound effects.

But he didn't know
what the clinical utility of it was.

So LSD was sent out
to researchers around the world,

and it led to thousands
of papers being published,

demonstrating that
LSD-assisted psychotherapy

was effective in treating
a range of psychological disorders.

One of those researchers
was Timothy Leary,

professor in psychology
at Harvard University.

But unfortunately, Timothy's
methodologies got a little loose.

At the end there, he was giving out LSD
to anyone that would pretty much take it.

(Laughter)

So he was fired from Harvard, but -

(Laughter)

this was a time of cultural revolution.

Young Americans were taking LSD en masse,
and Leary became their figurehead.

He was seen on national television

telling the youth
to "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

This was not a good time
for a cultural revolution.

The US was at war with Vietnam,

and the authorities noticed
that those that were protesting the war

were taking LSD.

So LSD was seen as a threat
to the very American institution,

and in 1968 it was banned,
and this is the start of the war on drugs.

It was then banned
internationally in 1971,

the same year President Nixon said
that drugs are public enemy number one.

The drugs he was referring to?

Psychedelics.

Sadly, it also meant the end
of psychedelic science.

With prohibition came
a propaganda campaign

with myths so powerful they've been
perpetuated into the present day.

One myth is that LSD may be contaminated
with the poison strychnine.

So powerful is this myth
that it's contained in the fourth edition

of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual
of Mental Disorders,

published by the
American Psychiatric Association,

where it states that one of the dangers
of taking LSD is exposure to strychnine.

Now, this is the diagnostic manual

that psychologists and psychiatrists
around the world use.

Fortunately, in its most recent edition,

published in 2013,

reference to this has been removed,

because there's never been
any strychnine detected;

there's no evidence to indicate
that strychnine would be contained in LSD.

And yet still it was published
in this very distinguished book.

There's the concern that if you take LSD,
you're going to lose your mind.

In a literature review of all
the clinical studies that were conducted

before the prohibition of LSD,

they found that less that 0.01% of people
that participated in the trials

experienced any symptoms of psychosis,

either during or after their
psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.

And it's important here

that I distinguish between the medical
application of psychedelic drugs,

which I'm talking about,

and the recreational use of those drugs,
which we've become so familiar with.

Then, in 1990,

Dr Rick Strassman,

a psychiatrist who was trained
during the era of psychedelic therapy

and dreamed of being
a psychedelic therapist,

was able to re-engage
in psychedelic research.

He was encouraged by his supervisor
to examine the drug dimethyl-tryptamine

because the university
wouldn't know what it was!

(Laughter)

Dimethyl-tryptamine is possibly the most
potent psychedelic known to humankind.

It's used by shamans in South America
to enter the spirit world.

He was encouraged to do
some small-scale blood studies,

just looking at
the metabolism of the drug.

But what he found far more profound
were the participants' experiences.

They reported being transported
to parallel dimensions

where there were entities
communicating with them.

Eventually Strassman
wrapped up his research

because he felt it was unethical

to be pushing people
off this psychological abyss

without knowing where they were going.

But it was too late.

He had opened Pandora's Box.

And we subsequently have seen
an explosion of psychedelic research,

what's now being referred to
as the "Psychedelic Renaissance."

So what have we learnt?

We've learnt a lot about the brain.

But what really excites me
as a clinically-trained psychologist

is mounting evidence
that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies

are effective in the treatment for people
who don't respond to current therapies

for a range of mental health conditions.

So let's look at the evidence.

We used to think that psychedelics
turned on parts of the mind.

We've now learnt
[that] what it actually does

is turn off a part of the brain
called the "default mode network."

The default mode network
is a series of neural pathways

that connect certain areas
of the brain together,

while preventing other parts
of the brain cross-talking.

It's active whenever
you're in a wakeful state.

It becomes more active when
you engage in autobiographical narration,

you know, that little voice in your head.

And it becomes hyperactive
when people experience depression and OCD.

So what happens with psychedelics
is it turns the default mode network off.

So what does that look like?

The picture you can see here
is the brain not on psychedelics

and the brain on psychedelics.

See all the intercommunication
and connectivity

that's happening
between parts of the brain

that would never normally communicate.

And it's been hypothesized
that this is the reason

that people experience creativity
and have spiritual experiences

when they take psychedelic drugs.

But more importantly,
it's been hypothesized

that this increased communication
and increased connectivity in the brain

could help treat people who are
treatment-resistant with depression.

Because with all this interconnectivity
happening in the brain,

perhaps they can overcome
their entrenched beliefs

and see the world from
a completely different perspective.

And this has been tested recently

by a research group
at Imperial College London.

They gave people psilocybin, which is
the active ingredient in magic mushrooms,

to twelve people

who were treatment-resistant
in the context of psychotherapy.

The results?

When given the psilocybin,

there was a significant reduction
in depression symptoms.

And this was maintained for many people
at a three-month follow-up.

What's more interesting is

[that] because they were doing
brain scans at the time,

the people that had the most significant
reductions in depressive symptoms

were those whose default mode network
was turned off the most.

Addiction is another area
where we see poor outcomes.

A group at Johns Hopkins University

conducted a trial of
psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy

for the treatment of tobacco addiction.

The results were astonishing -

they found that 80% had quit smoking
at a six-month follow-up -

when you consider
the leading pharmaceutical today

for the treatment of tobacco cessation
is only effective for 25% of people.

This group is now
recruiting more participants

and conducting clinical trials to gather
further evidence for this treatment.

Meanwhile, at New York University,
they're recruiting 140 people

to conduct a clinical trial to evaluate
whether psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy

is effective for people
with alcohol dependence.

We've also found that psychedelics
can help people die with dignity.

Numerous studies have been published now.

Clinical trials, showing that when
psychedelic-assisted therapy

is provided to people
who are experiencing end-stage cancer,

they see a significant reduction
in anxiety symptoms,

an increase in the quality of their life,

and their relationships
with their significant others improve.

Another disorder
that's extremely debilitating

is post-traumatic stress disorder.

The current treatments we have
are only effective for 30% of people.

Those that don't respond to treatment

are at risk of addiction,
of relationship breakdown, and suicide.

In the first clinical trial
of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy

for people who are treatment-resistant
with post-traumatic stress disorder,

[they] found that there was
a significant improvement.

In fact,

83% of participants no longer met
the diagnostic criteria for PTSD

after receiving
MDMA-assisted psychotherapy.

And this was sustained
for three-and-a-half years follow-up.

This study has now been replicated

in Israel, Colorado, Canada, Switzerland,

and the sponsor of the trial,

the Multidisciplinary Association
for Psychedelic Studies,

has been able to pull that data,

they have approached
the US Food and Drug Administration

and now have approval
to conduct Phase 3 clinical trials.

Why is this significant?

Phase 3 clinical trials are the final
stage before a drug becomes a medicine.

And so in the next few years,
we will see MDMA as a medicine

for the treatment of PTSD, in the US.

So, I've mentioned a number
of countries: Israel, Canada, UK.

There's other countries engaged
in the psychedelic renaissance as well:

Brazil, the Czech Republic,
even New Zealand,

but there's one country
I've not mentioned.

What is it?

Why is there no psychedelic
research in Australia?

(Laughter)

Well, I can tell you
it's not through a lack of effort.

In 2011, given that I believe that
these compounds, these psychedelic drugs,

could assist in the suffering
of hundreds of thousands of Australians,

I helped form Psychedelic Research
in Science and Medicine,

Australia's first and only not-for-profit
incorporated organization

that has a mission

to initiate, fund and facilitate
psychedelic research in Australia.

We've developed a strong
collaboration with MAPS,

and so our first attempt
was to conduct, basically, the same trial

that they've been doing in the US,
in Israel, in Colorado, in Switzerland;

except we wanted to focus on war veterans.

The reason being was strategic.

What kills more Australian soldiers
than anything else?

You beat me to the punch!

It's not bombs; it's not bullets;

it's suicide.

This is an epidemic.

We thought this would gain public support,

and we submitted the research protocol
to an independent ethics committee.

They had no problem with the methodology;

they didn't have a problem
with administering MDMA to war veterans

with post-traumatic stress disorder
that had not responded to treatment,

but they were concerned

that it wasn't being conducted
in an academic environment.

So we sought out a professor

who would come on board
as the Chief Investigator.

He was based at a Victorian university,

and last year we submitted the protocol

to that Victorian university's
ethics committee.

Before it reached the ethics committee,

the Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor
stepped in and vetoed it.

She said, "We're not conducting
this sort of research at our university."

And we believe this is the result
of academic conservatism.

So what do I mean by that?

Well, when you think of people
who use illicit drugs,

most people don't experience harm.

Yet all the research we conduct

is focused on this small group
who do experience harm.

It's been described by Mugford
as the pathological paradigm of drug use.

(Laughter)

Drugs are not illegal
because they're harmful;

they're perceived as harmful
because they're illegal,

and only research
that perceptuates that perception

is funded by the government.

And this is a major barrier to conducting
psychedelic science in Australia,

because we want to demonstrate

the therapeutic benefit
of these illicit substances.

Further, there's vested interests

in people who are delivering and
investigating the conventional treatments.

They say they work.

Meanwhile, institutions are getting
significant government funding

to perpetuate the idea that illicit drugs,
including psychedelics, are harmful.

This has not led us to give up.

In the past six months,
we've published the first two papers

on psychedelic science
in the Australian scientific literature.

We hope that this will increase
the awareness of academics,

increase the awareness
of healthcare providers

so that we can have another go

and get MDMA-assisted psychotherapy
and other psychedelic research

underway in Australia.

Because if we don't act now,

and if we don't start a psychedelic
science program in Australia,

hundreds of thousands
of Australians will continue to suffer.

War veterans will continue
to commit suicide,

or MDMA becomes a medicine in the US,

so they fly to the US to get treatment.

How long will it take

before Australia joins
the international psychedelic renaissance?

Thank you.

(Applause)