Story Archives of 'Substance Abuse'

In the fall of 1965, Harvard professor Timothy Leary embarked on the Harvard Psilocybin Project in the hopes of finding new ways to reform convicted criminals, treat alcoholism, and help the population at large.

Leary’s project was shut down, but decades later, hallucinogens retained their mystique in popular culture. Benicio del Toro espoused the benefits of LSD to client Hunter S. Thompson, played by Johnny Depp, in the 1998 cult favorite Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Your attorney probably won’t recommend a dose of whatever’s in that brown bottle, but your doctor might. The medical and psychological community is studying hallucinogenics with renewed interest. The journal Neurology recently reported that LSD can be more effective than migraine medication for treating cluster headaches, and a study from the University of Arizona found that psychedelic mushrooms can offer temporary relief from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Arran Frood has been investigating the mental health community’s acceptance of hallucinogens for the Telegraph UK and joins us on the line now from England with more on the mental health community’s renewed interest in hallucinogenic drugs.

Telegraph UK: Can mind-altering drugs have mental health benefits?

Nature News: Ecstasy could augment the benefits of psychotherapy

Nature News: Illegal drug shows promise in treating trauma symptoms

The Independent: LSD Cured My Headache

(Photo courtesy Mod as Hell via Flickr/CreativeCommons)

We're entering a brave new world of cognitive enhancement by prescription. You can take Prozac to improve your mood, Klonopin before going to a party or Adderall before an important exam. Imagine popping a pill to become more faithful, or slipping your child a hormone to make him trust you.

It's not too far off in the future. Scientists are in the early stages of developing neuroenhancers to improve memory, encourage fidelity, and increase trust. It could be decades before these drugs come to market, but ethicists are already considering their moral implications. Here with more is David Edmonds. He wrote about the "age of enhancement" in Prospect Magazine and joins us from the BBC where he is executive producer of "The New Europe."

Prospect Magazine: The Age of Enhancement

(Photo by blue out via Flickr/Creative Commons)

Over the past several months, NHPR’s health reporter Elaine Grant has been producing a series of stories on prescription drug abuse in the state. She’s looked at how abusers are buying and stealing pills, the role hospitals and pharmacies are playing in the problem, what’s being done to combat the abuse and the money that addicts are costing the state each year. We'll talk with Elaine and the people she interviewed about the growing problem of prescription drug abuse in the Granite State.

Guests

• Elaine Grant, NHPR’s health reporter
• Dr. Gil Fanciullo, director of Pain Management at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center
• Philip Bradley, an assistant New Hampshire attorney general in the Medicaid Fraud unit

We'll also hear from

• Cindy Desrosiers, group coordinator for Allies in Substance Abuse Prevention (ASAP), a task force aimed at preventing substance abuse in Rockingham County
• Jackie Abikoff, executive director of the Horizons Counseling Center in Gilford