Psychedelic drugs gain new interest as therapy for anxiety

The big white pill was brought to her in a chalice. She'd already held hands with her two therapists and expressed her wishes for what it would help her do.

She swallowed it, lay on the couch with her eyes covered, and waited. And then it came.

"The world was made up of jewels and I was in a dome," she recalled. Surrounded by brilliant, kaleidoscopic colors, she saw the dome open up to admit "this most incredible luminescence that made everything even more beautiful."

Tears trickled down her face as she saw "how beautiful the world could actually be."

That's how Nicky Edlich, 67, began her first-ever trip on a psychedelic drug last year.

She says it has greatly helped her psychotherapeutic treatment for anxiety from her advanced ovarian cancer.

And for researchers, it was another small step toward showing that hallucinogens can one day help doctors treat conditions like cancer anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The New York University study Edlich participated in is among a handful now going on in the United States and elsewhere with drugs like LSD, Ecstasy and psilocybin, the main ingredient of "magic mushrooms."

"There is now more psychedelic research taking place in the world than at any time in the last 40 years," said Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which funds some of the work.

He said more than 1,200 people attended a conference in California last weekend on psychedelic science. But doing the research is not easy, Doblin and others say.

Government funders are still leery, and drug companies aren't interested in the compounds they can't patent. That pretty much leaves private donors.

"There's still a lot of resistance to it," said David Nichols, a Purdue University professor of medicinal chemistry.

"When you tell people you're treating people with psychedelics, the first thing that comes to mind is Day-Glo art and tie-dyed shirts."