Some months ago, an email advertising a docuseries on the medical uses of marijuana in the US popped into my inbox.  Leaf and I were interested, so we subscribed to watch it, for free with the opportunity to buy the DVDs if we wished to.  We had watched other docuseries on genetic modification, diabetes and dementia, so we knew more or less what to expect – interviews with experts in the field along with news of the current situation.

LIGIT GROWING

The series ‘THE SACRED PLANT’ was fascinating as well as eye-opening.  It highlighted just how crazy lawmakers can be, swayed as they are by lobbyists, their religious point of view, prejudice and ignorance.  In some States, medical and recreational marijuana are legal, in others only medical, in others neither.  There are laws about travelling with prescribed medical supplies by land or air from State to State.  Some would let the traveller pass through unchallenged, others refused permission.

If we look at the situation worldwide, the laws differ considerably in stringency or leniency or allow cannabis in all forms.  In Portugal, for instance, no drugs are illegal.  Result – a marked drop in the crime rate.

Naturally, we were keen to know if medical marijuana could be used to help Alzheimer’s.  Research revealed that there are three strains in particular which are recommended to help with the depression, sleep problems and general deterioration of some neural pathways.  However, as each case is different, we learned there is no hard and fast rule and it’s possible some patients might find no benefit at all.  It’s important to stress that anyone wishing to try a medical dosage would need to get informed medical advice.  Sadly, those physicians who are sufficiently au fait with the use of the plant as a medicine were, at the time of the showing of the docuseries, mostly to be found in the US, Canada and Israel.  The UK is clearly not one – the case of the Irish mother whose son suffered multiple epileptic fits each day and had to get her supplies in Canada only to have them confiscated on arriving home, was widely publicised. The morality of the official position on this was surely to be questioned.

WHEN LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING

Subsequent to our viewing of the docuseries, my general research into the current state of the hunt to find a cure for Alzheimer’s has taken me down a multitude of blind allies.  There has been a docuseries on AD called ‘Awakening from Altzheimer’s’.  This is being followed by another series by the same team entitled  ‘Regain your Brain, Regain your Life’ and a third due to start soon ‘The Science of Prevention’.  All three feature more or less the same group of ‘experts’ saying the same things.  They all believe they have important answers but, I fear, none of them really do. Although it is necessary to say their messages are frequently very valid, whether from the point of view of diet, the use of a variety of alternative therapies (which would include medical cannabis) or general lifestyle changes. I believe they are valuable for those in the very early stages of dementia as well as those who realise that age is the foremost contributory factor and want to take precautionary measures.

But what about those who are further down the line and for whom there appears, as yet, to be no cure or serious slowing down of symptoms?

In recent months, I’ve come across several extremely interesting articles on the use of mind-altering (psychedelic) drugs as treatments for such conditions as depression, PTSD, addiction and dementia.  Naturally, I have researched further.  Guardian and Observer articles have pointed me in helpful directions.

THE MAGIC OF MUSHROOMS (not all of them are safe to imbibe)

The main substances being tested are psilocybin (aka magic mushrooms), MDMA (aka ecstasy) and lysergic acid diethylamide (aka LSD).  Magic mushrooms are illegal, the use of ecstasy is legal in some countries, LSD is illegal although there is a doctor in Switzerland who is licensed to prescribe it as medicine.

Research is going on worldwide on all three substances and the results to date have been very encouraging.  In fact I remember seeing a documentary on English TV about the use of MDMA for the treatment of PTSD, addiction and depression.  All three test patients were effectively cured with one treatment (whoops – not a result the pharmaceutical companies would welcome!)

YES, PLEASE

As to LSD, the much and inaccurately maligned favourite of the hippie generation, in the nineties, a Google patent was taken out by DR JOHN OLNEY medical doctor and professor of psychiatry, pathology, and immunology at the Washington University School of Medicine, to cover his invention of methods and compositions in the treatment of Alzheimer’s using LSD.  He died in 2015.  He was known for his work on brain damage and coined the term excitotoxicity in his 1969 paper published in Science magazine. Olney’s lesions are named after him.

As to his findings: One or more symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are ameliorated by administration of a psychedelic compound, such as LSD, using the methods described herein. For example, the treatment can include administering from 2 to 30 μg (e.g., 25±5, 15±5 μg, 12.5±5 μg, 10±2 μg, 8±2 μg, 7.5±2.5 μg, 6±2 μg, or 4±2 μg of lysergic acid diethylamide or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof) to a subject with Alzheimer’s disease.

HEIGHTENED PERCEPTION

There are campaigners for the legal return of LSD such as PROFESSOR DAVID NUTT, neuropsychopharmacologist – professor Bristol University, Imperial College, London, Committee on Safety of Medicine, President European College of Neuropsychopharmalogy.  In 2009, whilst acting as chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, he was appointed by the government to advise in the reclassification of illegal drugs.  The results and conclusions of his research didn’t suit the Home Secretary, Alan Johnson, so he was dismissed.  Others in his team resigned as a result.  In a lecture to the Centre for Crime and Justice studies at King’s College, London, Nutt repeated his view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause and revealed that research showed that alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

Another tireless campaigner is AMANDA FEILDING, Countess of Weymiss and March, dubbed the Queen of Consciousness by the NEW SCIENTIST. According to a recent Observer article, her campaign to legalise LSD in Britain is gathering pace.

Amanda Feilding created the Beckley Foundation and was backed by ALFRED HOFMAN, the discoverer of LSD, as well as luminaries such as PROFESSOR COLIN BLAKEMORE, director of the Oxford University Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience, and his counterpart at Cambridge, PROFESSOR TREVOR ROBBINS.

HALLOWED HALLS

Extract from the Observer article:

 ‘In the past few years, since the controls on experimentation with psychedelics have been relaxed, the BECKLEY FOUNDATION has sponsored research programmes at Imperial College London and elsewhere to explore the effects of LSD on the brain, particularly in treating long-term depression. These studies are part of the science that begins to suggest psychedelics may have a role to play in treating everything from alcohol addiction to Alzheimer’s disease to post-traumatic stress disorder. Significant headlines first resulted from a Beckley-funded study at Johns Hopkins University in 2016, detailing the positive effects of using psilocybin, the active ingredient of magic mushrooms, to combat depression in terminally ill patients.

That study was the starting point for a book-length investigation by the influential New York Times writer MICHAEL POLLAN, ‘How to Change Your Mind: The New Science of Psychedelics‘, which topped the bestseller lists last year.’

As a fan of Michael Pollan, I will be ordering his new book.

In the meantime, we eagerly await the results of experiments on the use of psychedelics in the hope that they may eventually become available to treat AD.

VISIONS OF GOING BEYOND

Interestingly, there are those who have assumed that trippers from the 1960’s who are now suffering from dementia, must have brought it on themselves.  It seems, their assumptions may well be completely wrong and actually insulting.  I, for one, would never demonise without doing considerable research for myself, and not relying on ‘information’ put out by the media.

A little bit of history:

After I left school in the late ‘50’s, along with my friends at that time, I became a beatnik.  We campaigned with CND against the nuclear bomb, smoked pot, spouted poetry and listened to jazz. We were a friendly and innocuous group comprising, mainly, of students.  However, conventional folk were not impressed and when the more radical hippy generation followed in our footsteps, the establishment realised here could be a very real threat to their plans.  Capitalism was God and populations of consumers had to be encouraged to keep it all growing and growing.  Not only that, armies still needed to be kept up to strength. Youngsters who questioned conventional values, preferred to live in harmony with nature rather than exploiting her, expanded their consciousnesses and certainly didn’t want to fight, simply had to be quashed.  Hippies were deliberately misunderstood, mocked, hated and many became victims of establishment rules, media lies and misinformation in general.  Of course, as with any fringe group, there were hangers-on who behaved badly and tarnished the reputation of genuine followers of the movement.

EXPANDING OUR CONSCIOUSNESS

With honourable exceptions, ours has become an ultra-greedy generation that deprives many of the sick of natural and effective cures, that exploits vulnerable nations, slaughters animals by the billion and throws mountains of unwanted consumer goods and wrappings into the sea and across the land.  We are all now having to pay the price of past prejudices.  Our beautiful planet is being destroyed at an unprecedented rate.

I cannot help but hope that those who were so censorious of the young people whose motto was ‘Peace and Love’, have now realised that had they behaved differently, today’s younger generations might have a great future to look forward to.

SOME INTERESTING SITES:

OBSERVER: AMANDA FEILDING: ‘LSD CAN GET DEEP DOWN AND RESET THE BRAIN – LIKE SHAKING UP A SNOW GLOBE’

MAPS: POWER HALLUCINOGEN EYED AS TREATMENT FOR ALZHEIMER’S, CHRONIC PAIN

NEUROSCIENCE.COM:  THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON LSD

DAVID NUTT:  DAVID NUTT WIKIPEDIA

HUB – JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY:  HALLUCINOGENIC DRUG FOUND IN ‘MAGIC MUSHROOMS’ EASES DEPRESSION, ANXIETY IN PEOPLE WITH LIFE-THREATENING CANCER

GOOGLE PATENTS:  LSD FOR THE TREATMENT OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

GUARDIAN.CO.UK:  PSYCHEDELIC MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT EXPECTED TO BE APPROVED IN AUSTRALIA WITHIN THE NEXT FIVE YEARS