How YOU have paid to help legalise lethal mind-bending party drugs
. . . because your taxes have been spent to test their use for depression — in a programme backed by an aristocratic cheerleader for LSD
They were the mind-altering drugs of the Sixties, but now lysergic acid diethylamide (better known as LSD), magic mushrooms and a range of other banned psychedelic drugs are making a comeback. Not on the party scene, but as the focus of researchers who believe they could treat a variety of mental health problems, including depression.
British researchers are at the forefront of this renaissance of hallucinogenics. But, as Good health can reveal, a key organisation funding their work is a pressure group with a parallel agenda.
In addition to supporting research into the potential therapeutic benefits of banned drugs, the Beckley Foundation — created by Amanda Feilding, a wealthy countess who’s spent a lifetime advocating the benefits of LSD — is working ‘to erode the pervasive taboo surrounding . . . recreational drug use’.
It would be wrong to dismiss the ‘ Cannabis Countess’ (who’s previously advocated legalising the drug) as simply a colourful character.
For here we reveal the extent of her influence in this controversial area, both in funding the research and also actively participating ‘ in the inception, design, and writing up’ of no fewer than 37 studies — despite the fact that she has no scientific qualifications.
In 2012, there were just 58 papers exploring the effects and possible medical benefits of LSD, psilocybin ( the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and ayahuasca, a mind-altering plant used in rituals by Amazon tribes. In the past year alone, there have been at least 135.
In the vanguard are researchers at Imperial College London. Known as the Psychedelic Research Group, they’re exploring the potential of banned drugs for treating conditions including depression and even for dealing with grief.
One of the key figures is David Nutt, the psychiatrist and professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial who, in 2009, had to resign as the government’s chief drugs adviser after he said that LSD, ecstasy and cannabis were less harmful than alcohol. SINCe
then, Professor Nutt has collaborated with the Beckley Foundation and its founder Feilding — the two are co-directors of what is described by the foundation as the Beckley Imperial Research Programme. Despite lacking scientific qualifications, Feilding is co-author of 24 papers published by researchers at Imperial College London and is one of the 32-member team of the Psychedelic Research Group, as is Professor Nutt.
Feilding’s involvement may raise a serious question about her foundation’s twin agendas.
On its website, it seeks donations to ‘support psychedelic research’, but also ‘drug policy reform’. Feilding herself insists that the war on drugs has failed and has campaigned tirelessly for reform.
In Jamaica, where Feilding has a house, the foundation played a role in the government’s decision to decriminalise cannabis.
At a conference in 2015, Feilding expressed the hope that ‘ the United Kingdom will learn some lessons from Jamaica’s progress, and will at least begin by recognising the rights of those in need of access to cannabis for medicinal and religious purposes’.
But more disturbing, perhaps, is her support for ‘ microdosing’, where small amounts of psychedelics are taken supposedly to achieve greater creativity; worryingly, some are reportedly using it to treat depression and anxiety.
At a psychedelics conference in the U.S. last year, Feilding spoke of her use of LSD when younger to ‘hit that sweet spot, where vitality and creativity are enhanced’, a practice she compared to ‘ what people are now doing with microdosing’.
She added that microdosing ‘may indeed be the way we break down barriers, and make the psychedelic experience more accessible to people at large’.
Another member of the Beckley Imperial Research Programme with links to the countercultural aspects of psychedelic drugs is Dr Robin Carhart-harris, a frequent co-author on papers with Feilding.
In 2016, he addressed a London conference of The Psychedelic Society, which ‘ advocates the careful use of psychedelics as a tool for personal and spiritual development’ (such drugs, it says, are banned solely ‘on the basis of unsubstantiated health risks and tabloid hysteria’).
This isn’t the first time scientists have experimented with mindaltering drugs for mental health conditions. Between 1954 and 1965 psychiatrists at British hospitals used LSD to treat patients. This ended in 1966, when it was banned amid fears it caused delusions and suicidal thoughts. BUT
according to Professor Nutt, clinical use and studies before the ban showed that patients with disorders such as depression had ‘sometimes benefited considerably’ from the ability of ‘the classical psychedelic drugs . . . to “loosen” otherwise fixed, maladaptive patterns of cognition and behaviour, particularly when given in a supportive, therapeutic setting’.
he believes such drugs ‘may have a place in the treatment of neurotic disorders, particularly depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, addictions and in the psychological challenges associated with death’.
But for psychedelic treatment to become a reality, what’s needed are large- scale scientific trials. Now, thanks to the support of the Beckley Foundation, that’s about to happen.
Imperial’s Psychedelic Research Group has been recruiting patients with long-term depression for a major trial comparing the effects of a six- week course of the antidepressant escitalopram with a single dose of psilocybin. Dr Carhart-harris, Professor Nutt and Feilding are the leading members of the research team.
Imperial wouldn’t say if funding is forthcoming from the Beckley
Foundation for this study. But in a response to a Freedom of Information request we sent, it revealed that since 2009 it has received ‘a total of £108,519’ from the Foundation for ‘research projects’.
Public funding has also been provided for psychedelic research. In 2012, the Medical Research Council (MRC) gave Professor nutt £ 500,000 for research into psilocybin to treat major depression.
The next year they gave him £250,000 for a study on psilocybin and schizophrenia. And the national Institute for Health Research, the research arm of the nHS, told us it funded ‘a small proportion’ of Professor nutt’s salary.
The new trial follows on from a series of studies by Professor nutt and colleagues at other UK institutions since 2010 involving psilocybin for depression.
Some involved healthy volunteers. But then, in 2016, a team from Imperial, University College LLondon, Barts Health NHS Trust, King’s College and the Maudsley Hospital coconducted the first trial with patients. Involving just 12 ppeople, it was designed to investigate the safety and feasibility of psilocybin for major longterm depression. As The Lancet Psychiatry reported, eight of the patients were ‘depression-free’ one week after treatment; five were still clear after three months. But all experienced ‘ transient anxiety’ and nine also reported ‘transient confusion or thought disorder’.
Last December, Compass Pathways, a new UK company whose expert advisers include Dr Carhart-Harris and Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, former chair of the drug watchdog the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, announced a programme of clinical trials of psilocybin.
In the past few years, the Psychedelic Research Group has also looked at the potential use of drugs such as LSD.
But are yet more drugs, not least mind-altering psychedelic ones, really the solution for conditions such as depression?
In fact, the recommended treatment is psychological therapy. But as the British Medical Association found this year, thousands of patients with serious mental health problems were waiting up to two years for treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy. Too often ‘ the only thing on offer to patients with depression is medication, which often has significant unwanted side- effects and does not help everyone’, says Anne Cooke, editor of the British Psychological Society report, Understanding Psychosis And Schizophrenia.
As for the use of psychedelics to treat mental health problems, Ms Cooke, a consultant clinical psychologist at Canterbury Christ Church University, adds: ‘My understanding is they could be used as an adjunct to psychological therapy, to try to help the person enter a frame of mind where they can make best use of the therapy.
‘But the same can sometimes be achieved by other means, such as relaxation methods. And, as we know, these drugs can also have adverse effects, so it’s important to exercise caution.’
Paul Kinderman, a professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool and a member of the Council for evidencebased Psychiatry, agrees drugs such as psilocybin ‘might help’ encourage ‘flexible thinking’.
He’s even advising a european research project looking at psilocybin for depression.
But he says it’s ‘important we’re very cautious with drugs such as psilocybin and LSD’ and says he’s ‘ pretty sceptical’ generally about drug treatments for mental health: ‘I really worry that a lot of people in the mental health system have been prescribed too large quantities of too many drugs for too long.’
Amanda Feilding declined to comment.