Can you please show me an update on prescribing low dose magic mushrooms to mental health patients?

Mushrooms and pot are not good for mental health patients, I worked in a private psychiatric hospital in college. Total loss of reality from doing drugs is not good.

I know people who microdose psilocybin and they swear by some improvements. However, there are risks.

“The question, however, is not just whether microdosing is effective, but also whether it’s safe. Until clinical trials are complete, we will not have a full answer, but there is already research to suggest that certain people may be vulnerable to negative side effects. In particular, some people may have psychotic episodes or other mental health issues triggered by taking psychedelics, especially if they have a history of psychosis or pre-existing risk for serious psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Although microdosing involves a much lower amount of the drug, it is still possible that the negative consequences may hold true.”

Please don’t do this unless it is under medical supervision.

@RedDeerGuy1 Never heard of this. Sounds dangerous to me.

I imagine that any psychoactive substance will have an effect on mental illness. There are hundreds (if not thousands) of psychoactive medications on the market. The wrong one at the wrong dose can have very serious/dangerous side effects. I imagine the same is true with psilocybin. I’m struggling to think of ideas worse than a mentally ill person experimenting on their own with powerful hallucinogenic drugs outside of a medical care facility. I guess raising a horde of genetically modified spiders the size of cars would be worse…

There was a lot of research being done in the 1970s about the therapeutic uses of hallucinogenic drugs. It was stopped by Nixon. Research is being done again and it is being shown that guided use can be very helpful. However, the experiences need to undertaken with the supervision of a trained therapist. I’m not sure how widely it is practiced as yet. I’ve read that such mediated experiences are very helpful for terminal cancer patients who are afraid of dying.

I believe Johns Hopkins was and is again one of the places where research is being done.

“Also what do you think about prescribing low dose psychedelics to the mental I’ll?”

I think it’s an extremely bad idea.

Microdosing to treat schizophrenia can swing either way. Not recommended to self-medicate.

Related story in today’s New York Times:

Can Magic Mushrooms Heal Us? A very promising mental health experiment is taking shape in Oregon.

Note the emphasis on (a) qualified supervision, (b) emergency response readiness, and (c) appropriate follow-through to integrate and act on insights gained.