Psychedelic drug found to benefit cancer patients

LOS ANGELES — The psychedelic drug psilocybin, the active ingredient in "magic mushrooms," can improve mood and reduce anxiety and depression in terminal cancer patients, Los Angeles researchers reported Monday.

A single modest dose of the hallucinogen, whose reputation was severely tarnished by widespread nonmedical use in the psychedelic '60s, can improve patients' functioning for as long as six months, allowing them to spend their last days with more peace, researchers said.

The research was a pilot study involving only 12 patients, but it is viewed as a first step in restoring the drug to respectability.

"This is a landmark study in many ways," said Dr. Stephen Ross, clinical director of the Center of Excellence on Addiction at New York University's Langone Medical Center, who was not involved in the research. "This is the first time a paper like this has come out in a prestigious psychiatric journal in 40 years."

The research conducted on psychedelic drugs in the 1950s and '60s "was promising, but by no means did it reach the kinds of scientific standards that we would expect today," added behavioral biologist Roland Griffiths of Johns Hopkins University, who was also not involved in the study.

Both Ross and Griffiths have studies examining the use of psilocybin in cancer patients, but Dr. Charles Grob, a psychiatrist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, is the first to report results.

Grob and his colleagues studied 12 patients, ages 36 to 58, with advanced-stage cancer and anxiety resulting from their diagnoses.

Subjects were given the drugs in a hospital research unit and were then closely monitored for six hours. They were encouraged to lie in bed, wear eyeshades and listen to music during the sessions.

The patients were given a relatively low dose of psilocybin, 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.

Nonetheless, the team reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, all patients reported a significant improvement in mood for at least two weeks after the psilocybin treatment and up to a six-month improvement on a scale that measures depression and anxiety.

Most also reported a decreased need for narcotic pain relievers. No adverse reactions were observed.