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According to the results of a new study conducted by MindMed, just 100 micrograms of the hallucinogen can halve anxiety within weeks. As a result of this successful clinical trial, the US Food and Drug Administration has granted breakthrough therapy status to the biopharmaceutical company’s proprietary treatment.
Following decades of demonisation and criminalisation, psychedelic drugs are being proved to have profound implications for a field that’s seen few pharmacological advancements since the 60s.
Namely the treatment of intractable conditions such as depression, PTSD, and addiction, which time and time again these mind-altering substances have shown genuine promise in alleviating the symptoms of.
Now more than ever before – amid a mental health crisis that has care services bursting at the seams – there’s a great body of evidence regarding their enormous medical potential as well as a recognition that we are in dire need of new therapeutic tools.
Thankfully, the psychedelic renaissance is well underway, despite the complications the status of hallucinogens as controlled compounds brings, such as making it bureaucratically challenging and expensive to progress them through clinical trials.
During the last decade, we’ve seen universities race to set up research centres, investors pour millions into the market, US states begin to loosen restrictions, and advocates argue psychedelics could help us solve seemingly intractable crises like environmental destruction and economic inequity.
‘There’s been a sea change in attitudes about what not long ago was considered fringe science,’ said Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics, in 2021.
‘Given the urgency of the mental health crisis, there’s great curiosity and hope about psychedelics.’
Some three years later, and this curiosity has materialised as the FDA granting ‘breakthrough therapy status’ – the recognition that a drug has demonstrated evidence of clinical efficacy in meeting an unmet medical need with mortality associated with it – for one compound in particular to be used as a powerful aid in treating an increasingly unhappy society.
The substance in question is lysergic acid diethylamide, commonly known as LSD, which Mind Medicine Inc. has just proved to be successful at halving anxiety within weeks.
The biopharmaceutical company, which develops novel products to treat brain disorders, revealed the findings on Friday, declaring that a mere 100 micrograms of MM120 – the salt form of LSD – can provide immediate and sustained relief to patients suffering from generalised anxiety disorder.
