Psychedelic science 101

If you’d like to learn more about the current state of psychedelic research, there’s a good article in the New York Times magazine. I also recommend two interviews from the London Real program.

This show is an interview with Rick Doblin, the founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Rick is a Harvard-trained lawyer who has devoted his career to furthering psychedelic science and medicine. His organization sponsors a lot of the important research studies with MDMA and other psychedelics. He’s a very engaging speaker with a ton of good stories.

This show features Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris of the Department of Medicine at Imperial College, London. He’s a scientist doing fundamental research on the effects of psychedelics on the nervous system. In this interview, he gives an excellent and clear-headed overview of the field.

As you learn about this topic, you’ll discover that there’s a ton of material out there, some good and some questionable. When in doubt, please remember the best advice my mom ever gave me:

Keep your crap detector turned up on high.