Serotonergic Psychoactive Compounds as a Treatment for Addiction, Anxiety, and Depression: Their Efficacy and Legality

Kohrt Commons; Plyler Hall

The United States is a leader in world-wide medical innovation, but currently we face an epidemic of mental health disorders. Serotonergic psychoactive compounds such as psilocybin, mescaline, DMT, and LSD are currently being studied as potential treatments to be used in psychiatric medicine. Currently these substances are prohibited and designated to the strictest classification of drugs, Schedule I. Schedule I indicates that a substance should be highly addictive, dangerous, and confer no medical benefit. Because of this scheduling these drugs have been difficult to study and there has been a delay in the advancement of treatments using these compounds for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. However, those studies that have been performed have so far demonstrated that these compounds can be used safely and, in many cases, may be superior to treatments that are currently available for those suffering. It is time that we end this social stigma and allow for the researchers to find out whether these substances are of beneficial importance to psychiatric medicine so that patients, who currently have no alternative, may be able to receive the help that they so desperately need and deserve.