New bill could allow use of ‘magic mushrooms,’ study health benefits

[libertybele]

New bill could allow use of ‘magic mushrooms,’ study health benefits

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – Harvesting “magic mushrooms” in Florida could land you in prison. They contain psilocybin and cause a psychedelic effect which makes them illegal in Florida.

More than 10 grams of the mushrooms could get you 30 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. A new bill introduced would make the “magic mushrooms” legal and study their health benefits.

Will Soto of Fort Myers prefers to use them to make tea.

“I’ve actually used them medicinally for anxiety and processing trauma and grief, and I’ve had great results,” Soto said.

The National Alliance of Mental Health Illness called Florida’s mental health crisis an epidemic. They report 660,000 adults and 181,000 children live with severe mental illness in Florida.

“If there is something there that can provide a benefit physically, mentally, or otherwise for individuals we should pursue it,” said Steven Shea, who supports medical use.

The mushrooms contain psilocybin or a psychedelic that can treat addiction, depression, and anxiety.

Dr. Martha Rosenthal, a Physiology and Neuroscience professor at Florida Gulf Coast University, explained the drug shuts off parts of the brain that give negative self-image and negative ideas about others.

New bills being introduced would decriminalize the mushrooms and study their health benefits....................

https://nbc-2.com/news/state/2021/09/27/new-bill-could-allow-use-of-magic-mushrooms-study-health-benefits/

[Elderberry]

Magic Mushrooms May Be the Biggest Advance in Treating Depression Since Prozac

Newsweek By Adam Piore On 09/22/21

https://www.newsweek.com/2021/10/01/magic-mushrooms-may-biggest-advance-treating-depression-since-prozac-1631225.html

Magic-mushroom therapy is offering some hope for these hopeless cases. In the Hopkins study, published last year in JAMA Psychiatry, the therapy was four times more effective than traditional antidepressants. Two-thirds of participants showed a more-than 50-percent reduction in depression symptoms after one week; a month later, more than half were considered in remission, meaning they no longer qualified as being depressed.

Larger clinical trials underway in the United States and Europe are aimed at winning regulatory approval. Two studies that have enrolled more than 300 patients in 10 countries were given "breakthrough therapy" status in 2018 and 2019 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which will now expedite its review of the results. If the trials succeed, new protocols that combine psilocybin with psychotherapy in a clinical setting for the treatment of depression could be established quickly. Treatments could appear in clinics as early as 2024.

The rehabilitation of psilocybin as a medical treatment raises some concerns. Some scientists worry about the drug, which can induce psychosis in some people, becoming widely available outside of clinical settings. And they are loath to see a repeat of the 1960s embrace of recreational LSD, which caused much harm and set research into psychedelics back decades.

But many scientists in the mental health profession believe that the risks pale against the potential benefits, which include not only effective treatments for depression but also a new understanding of the neural basis of many mental health disorders. "We're convinced that the effects of these drugs are pretty profound and that there is a story that will be relevant to understanding new approaches to brain disease," says Jerrold Rosenbaum, a Harvard Medical School professor, former psychiatrist-in-chief at Massachusetts General hospital and leader of its new Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics.

In recent years some scientists have begun to uncover evidence that suggests one tantalizing possibility—that the drugs might somehow prompt the brain to release growth agents that not only send a global signal that allows the cells of the brain to rewire themselves and forge new connections. That the drugs may even catalyze the brain to begin regenerating itself.

In one study, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine used a laser-scanning microscope to peer into the brains of mice. In particular, they observed "dendritic spines," the branch-like projections on the end of neurons that allow them to communicate with neighboring brain cells. Chronic stress and depression are known to reduce the number of these neuronal connectors and cause existing ones to shrivel. When Yale researchers took a bunch of stressed-out, depressed mice with shriveled dendrites and fed them psilocybin, their dendrites bloomed.