Clinical depression causes misery for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Around one in five patients fails to respond to any treatment and even among those who do recover relapse rates are high and get progressively worse with each successive episode. The most widely used class of antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can lift some people out of severe depression and help them stay well, but they don’t work for everyone and among the many side-effects are anxiety, weight gain and sexual dysfunction.

Since the SSRIs became available in the 1980s no new class of drugs has emerged, so the news that there may already be a more effective type of antidepressant in existence that is safe and well tolerated is tantalising. The catch is that to possess or supply these chemicals runs the risk of an unlimited fine or prison sentence …

This blogpost was published on the Guardian’s website, Tuesday 17 May 2016. Read on… 

Also well worth a read is the comment piece published in the Guardian on the same day by Amanda Feilding, drugs law reform campaigner and director of the Beckley Foundation, which collaborated with Imperial College London on this research:

We saw magic mushrooms lift long-term depression. It’s time for a change of perception