An expanding community of clinical researchers, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations and drug developers are working to bring old psychoactive drugs – or medicines, to use the preferred term of psilocybin advocates – into new therapeutic uses. Early clinical successes with MDMA and psilocybin have now transitioned into large, late-stage trials, with the potential to upend psychiatric treatment standards for conditions including major depressive disorder (MDD), treatment-resistant depression, anxiety and depression associated with cancer, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction.
In depression specifically, the rapid onset of drugs like ketamine and psilocybin provide a crucial benefit to traditional therapies like...
