Due to the Controlled Substance Act of 1971, it has been challenging to secure federal funding for research on psychedelic compounds, forcing scientists to seek funding from philanthropists and write grants for unrelated work to sustain themselves. To accelerate therapeutic breakthroughs, government agencies like NIMH and NIH need to provide funding to cover clinical and basic research on psychedelic compounds.
Lack of funding may have been a hindrance in psychedelic research in the past but now with more resources available, advancements in the scientific understanding of psychedelics, growth in the pharmaceutical implementation of psychedelic medicines, and decriminalization allowing people to cultivate psychoactive plants and fungi for their own rituals and communities are all possible in the future.
The article discusses James Fadiman's book, The Psychedelic Explorer's Guide, as a good resource for finding a guide for psychedelic therapy. It also recommends reading books by maps.org and watching documentaries to learn from the experiences of people who have benefited from psychedelic therapies.
There is overlapping evidence that the use of psychedelic drugs creates wild and unusual experiences, reportedly healing depressed people back to normality. This has encouraged a group of scientists to embark on studies in an attempt to disburse psychedelic drugs on the market for treating depression.
The speaker talks about their involvement in large scientific projects related to classical psychedelics and their potential benefits in treating psychological or psychiatric disorders. They also express the desire to disappear into the wilderness for an extended period of time, which they find difficult to explain logically.
New data shows that psychedelics can have immense positive impact when used by someone who knows how to utilize them in the right set and setting, and this meshes with the data from the 60s and 70s that showed their effectiveness. The data coming from labs and academic centers is powerfully positive, particularly for psilocybin and LSD.