There is a remarkable lack of research into a drug that some scientists initially considered to be a key tool in understanding consciousness, and that has since been shown to help people deal with anxiety and depression. The new study on the impact of LSD on the brain is the first in the UK since the drug was banned in 1966. Incredibly, it鈥檚 also the first anywhere to use brain scans taken while a person is under the influence of the drug.
Nowadays, we associate LSD with hippies murmuring about the nature of reality, but it wasn鈥檛 always this way. Between the invention of the drug in 1952 and its banning in the UK, around a thousand papers on it were published.
Then LSD was made illegal. The UK Home Office promised to allow scientists to continue experiments with the drug, and it鈥檚 true that they remain legal. But they are also effectively impossible. The obstacles against research 鈥� regulatory, financial, professional and political 鈥� are just too high for any sensible person to cope with.
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Research using outlawed drugs with no accepted medical value requires a . It takes about a year to get and involves a barrage of criminal record checks. All told, its price tag comes in at about 拢5000, with a costly annual top-up assessment to follow.
But then the real cost kicks in. The drug used has to be up to Good Manufacturing Practice standard 鈥� a benchmark required in scientific and medical tests. That鈥檚 hard to secure for a prohibited substance and means the price becomes prohibitively expensive. One firm quoted 拢3000 per 2-milligram dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms.
Reputation at stake
But the regulatory and financial requirements are just half the story. The most pernicious deterrent to drug research is reputational risk.
鈥溞影稍磗 are scared that if they work in this field they鈥檒l be stigmatised,鈥� says David Nutt of Imperial College London, one of the authors of the latest study. 鈥淭here鈥檚 this enormous terror that pervades everywhere. If you work with illegal drugs, you鈥檙e seen as an outsider, as complicit in breaking the law.鈥�
Sometimes the political risks are explicit. When Nutt鈥檚 experiments involving LSD and MDMA were featured in TV documentaries 2011 and 2012, he was subject to several .
Institutions tend not to hand out grants for such politically toxic experiments. The study published today was only possible because the , a charitable trust that advocates drug reform and supports research, went on a massive fundraising campaign.
It鈥檚 a shame because recent research in the US and Switzerland has shown that LSD may be useful in . The new study also suggests the drug may be beneficial in therapy, particularly around depression, in a way similar to that envisioned by researchers in the 50s and 60s.
Taken individually, the disincentives in the UK are not earth-shattering. But put them together and research is made all but impossible. After all, what sort of scientist wants to wait a year to do an experiment which is prohibitively expensive, has no grants available, and whose conclusion will see them being attacked by politicians and frowned on by colleagues?
It鈥檚 an old political trick: maintaining legality while snuffing out possibility. In the case of research into illicit drugs, it鈥檚 one the Home Office has delivered very effectively.
It suits the status quo that no such experiments exist, because the findings could complicate the case for prohibition. If it were shown that LSD or ecstasy were useful in therapy, or that cannabis had definite medical benefits, there鈥檚 a risk that patients鈥� groups would demand reform of the law. They would be a far more potent political force than the motley collection of liberals currently calling for change.
