First LSD Study in Decades Shows Encouraging Results

A study on the therapeutic benefits of LSD, the first after four decades, has shown that the drug can significantly reduce anxiety in people with serious ailments.

The study, published in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, was the first of its kind conducted in over 40 years due to a shared "taboo" on LSD research among the scientific community that developed following the late 1970s.

In the study, researchers administered controlled dosages of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) to a dozen patients suffering from a number of terminal illnesses, including advanced-stage cancers.

The study started on April 23, 2008 and after a long-term observational period, a follow-up examination was conducted on August 8, 2012. Researcher noted that 11 of the 12 subject has not taken LSD ever before prior to the study.

According to the study, researchers administered a full 200-microgram dose of LSD to eight of the study participants while four other received only 20 micrograms initially. The participants were then included in a dew LSD-assisted therapy sessions designed to help reduce anxiety separated by a coupled weeks. Each therapy session could last for the entire time that the LSD lasted -- up to 10 hours.

Interestingly, researchers found that while the full-dosage LSD patients reported a nearly 20 percent reduction in anxiety over the course of the study, the partial-dose patients reported increased levels of anxiety. When these four reduced-dose participants were switched to full LSD dosages later in the trial, they too reported decreased levels of anxiety, which varied.

In a press release accompanying the historic publication of the study's results, one participant, an Austrian patient named Peter, described his experience.

"[The therapy] has brought back some lost emotion and ability to trust... the universe didn't seem like such a trap, but like a revelation of utter beauty," Peter said.

Researchers concluded the study saying that while results varied among the patients, the benefits of the LSD-assisted therapy remained positive among all participants. More importantly, the researchers noted that this study showed no adverse side-effects from the therapy, helping the research community on the whole understand that LSD studies can be made safe for participants, even if LSD treatment is a long way away from being recommended for the general public.

The study was published in The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease on March 6.