Psychedelic Drugs

Shrooms, boomers, magic, psychedelic or hallucinogenic mushrooms are a fungi containing substance capable of causing the user to hallucinate. These types of mushrooms have been around for many years and exist in many different species. These fungi look just like an ordinary fungi but are illegal in many countries; just like other hallucinogenic drugs. They have many different effects on the body, which is why people buy and sell these "magic mushrooms".

Chemistry of LSD and Route of Access Classification Pharmacologically, the commonly abused hallucinogenic substances may be divided into two major groups. The indolealkylamines, including d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin, and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) bear a structural resemblance to the neurotransmitter 5-hydroxytryptamine (serotonin). The phenylethylamines, including mescaline and the phenylisopropylamines such as 2, 5-dimethoxy-4-methylamphetamine (DOM, "STP"), are structurally related to dopamine, norepinephrine, and the amphetamines (Gelenberg, Bassuk, Schoonover 1991). Doses Usual doses range from about 25 micrograms to more than 300 micrograms. LSD is known to posses a low level of

The N-methylated indoleamine derivative and serotonergic hallucinogen, DMT, is known to act as an agonist or antagonist of certain serotonin receptors within the human body. It is not to be confused with 5-MeO-DMT and is similar in chemical structure to the neurotransmitter serotonin. DMT is usually used in its base form, but is more stable as a

LSD relies almost completely on the serotonin neurons in the brain by rearranging and binding them together to create array of effects on the body. LSD is known for the way it reacts to receptor’s in a variety different ways, making the hallucinatory effects

Jyllian Kemsley Ph.D. is a chemical research scientist, and scientific research contributor to the CENtral Science’s Safety Zone blog that seeks to “cover science and technology, business and industry, government and policy, education, and employment aspects of the chemistry field”. Her article entitled “Psychedelic Compounds like Ecstasy May Be Good for More than Just a High", reports on the revolutionary research theory within the field of medicine that seeks to examine the prospective benefits of using psychoactive compounds in treating a number of mental conditions. The piece is well written, and presents a number of background studies that have evaluated the efficiency of these

Within the 1960’s a new form of drug was created and was said to be an essential pharmaceutical that should be in every doctor’s bag. This drug was called lysergic acid diethylamide, but is more commonly know as LSD. Albert Hofmann, as Swiss chemist, created this new drug in hopes that he might have found a profitable analeptic that could cure migraines. However, this was not the case. Hofmann decided to dose himself with the drug to see if it would help subdue headaches. He quickly discovered that this new

N,N-dimethyltryptamine(DMT) is a psychoactive chemical in the tryptamine family, which causes intense visuals and strong psychedelic mental affects when smoked, injected, snorted, or when swallowed orally (with an MAOI such as haramaline). DMT was first synthesized in 1931, and demonstrated to be hallucinogenic in 1956. It

A new wave study on hallucinogens, and other mind-altering substances, was organized to address whether these

Psychedelic chemicals are currently banned for any medical use and strictly limited in research to determine if they can be used effectively to help patient. With one out of ten people in America suffering from depression and one out of four people struggling with some type of mental illness not using every tool available to use seem foolish to limit the tools used by psychotherapist. During the next few pages I will discuss earlier uses for MDMA in psychotherapy and whether these results support or contradict these uses. This will be broken up into four sections; a brief overview of effects, couples therapy, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and schizophrenia.

Do the mentally ill commonly take psychiatric drugs because the drugs actually work, or do they take them because they believe that these drugs work? Robert Whitaker, the author of Anatomy of an Epidemic, suggests that psychiatric drugs may catalyze or possibly create mental and physical illnesses rather than improve mental health. However, psychedelic drugs, which are also psychoactive agents like psychiatric drugs, may be better alternatives. Aldous Huxley, the author of The Doors of Perception, proposes that psychedelic drugs can help people understand mental illness from a more personal perspective, and that they can also expand the mind. The recreational use of these drugs can uncover a hidden external reality, and in turn, enrich the spirit. But perhaps aside from recreational use, psychedelic drugs should be more widely used instead of psychiatric drugs to treat both the longtime and the newly mentally ill. Under moderated use, psychedelics not only profoundly enhance one’s creative vision but also provide therapeutic mental health benefits.

In his article “Psychedelic Psychotherapy: The Ethics of Medicine for the Soul,” Brian Anderson supports the use of psychedelics in transpersonal psychotherapy, a new field of mental illness treatment using psychology instead of medicine. More specifically, he recalls from scientific studies that psychedelics are capable of altering a person’s states of consciousness. According to Anderson,

Throughout history a multitude of human populations have been using and abusing a number of psychoactive drugs. These drugs can include very common substances such as caffeine to the more deadly but arguably just as addictive heroine. Further on the list of psychoactive drugs include those of the psychedelic variety. These would include the chemicals such as d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), peyote and psilocybin among others. All of which have hallucinogenic properties that tend to blur the line between fantasy and reality. How dangerous are these chemicals, and what are the consequences of sustained long term use? Due to the controversial nature of the use of psychedelic drugs in a medical setting, the study of short and long term effects

Although the hallucinations caused by the drug are short, the effect is almost instant. DMT is passing through three barriers with the help of three different active transport mechanisms to be compartmentalized and stored within the brain.With this process, high intracellular and vesicular concentrations of DMT can be achieved within neurons. The outlined stages of uptake reveal that considerable physiological effort is exerted for the accumulation and storage of DMT and suggest that it has vital importance, since only a few compounds such as glucose and amino acids are known to be treated with similar priority. These extensive specialized processes would not have evolved to target a toxic compound or merely because of the psychedelic effects of DMT. DMT is a powerful and psychologically dangerous drug because the trip is so strong for such a short amount of time the user can actually lose sense of reality and experience seeing aliens or beings from another

Ecstasy, a word stemming from Late Latin extasis, meaning "entrancement, astonishment, insanity; any displacement or removal from the proper place." The definition is rather spot on given the side effects that the hallucinogenic drug produces. Ecstasy or MDMA (Methylenedioxymethamphetamine) originates from Germany when chemist Anton Köllisch was performing trial and error experiments with Amphetamine. At the time of its creation, Köllisch worked for pharmaceutical company Merck, who later in 1913 patents the drug. Although ecstasy is seen as a highly addictive drug with no purpose in our society today the drug was actually meant to sold as a appetite supplement. Many of Köllisch did not believe their coworker when he stated the reasoning

An individual’s behavior and emotion becomes chemically altered often resulting in dependency, aggression, onset of diseases and poor judgement. This poses a dangerous threat to the neurotransmitters since they have multiple jobs in different parts of the brain. Drugs of abuse are able to exert influence over the brain reward pathway either by directly influencing the action of dopamine within the system, or by altering the activity of other neurotransmitters that exert a modulatory influence over this pathway. These drugs are often powerful and have been known to trigger schizophrenic behavior and can also cause a person to cease breathing, for example hallucinogens such as LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin are able to artificially stimulate the serotonin receptor (Sapolsky, 2005).