Since 1998 the Beckley Foundation has been a force for change in fields of consciousness and drug policy research. The Beckley Foundation has initiated numerous world-class research projects into the practices that alter our conscious states and the policies that seek to regulate some of these practices. This work has led to the development of numerous notable achievements, which you can find out more about here:
Achievements
Published in the British Journal of Psychiatry Implications for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study with psilocybin, February 2012 Background Psilocybin is a classic psychedelic drug that has a history of use in psychotherapy. One of the rationales for its use was that it aids emotional insight by lowering psychological defences. Aims To [...]
Background Cannabis is subject to international control by the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, as amended in 1972 (http://www.incb.org/incb/convention_1961.html), and it is also affected by the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (http://www.incb.org/incb/convention_1988.html). Because a basic principle of these conventions is that legitimate use of substances covered by them [...]
Through the Beckley Foundation’s continued collaboration with Prof. Yuri Moskalenko, one of the world’s leading experts on cerebral circulation, we are learning more and more about a vital measure of cerebral functioning: cranial compliance. Cranial compliance is a measure of the functioning of the cranial system as a whole: the skull, the brain tissue, and [...]
The ISSDP was initiated at the Beckley Foundation Global Drug Policy Seminar 2004. Currently the ISSDP Coordinating Committee is chaired by Professor Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, USA . Its Vice-President is Alison Ritter, Associate Professor at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Australia. The other Committee members are: Henri Bergeron (Senior [...]
For many years the Beckley Foundation has been working at opening up psychedelic research in the UK. Finally Amanda Feilding has been successful initiating and collaborating on a project that is currently being managed by Dr Robin Carhart-Harris under the supervision of Professor David Nutt, Head of Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, and Chair of [...]
Studies initiated and supported by the Beckley Foundation include: The first LSD research on humans for more than thirty years. The first fMRI study of the effect of a hallucinogen on brain function. Investigations into the medicinal and therapeutic uses of illegal drugs. Comparison of the health risks of legal drugs (alcohol and nicotine) versus [...]
Achievements of the Beckley Foundation in the field of Drug Policy include: Beckley Foundation Seminars: These highly influential seminars have been instrumental in persuading policy-makers and opinion-formers to accept the need for drugs policy reform. Scale of Harm: Beckley introduced the principal of the Scale of Harm – a scientifically-based measure of the relative risks associated with [...]
Development of a Rational Scale to Assess the Harm of Drugs of Potential Misuse Article in the Lancet 2007: 369, 1047-1053 (Full Text) One of the recurring themes of the Beckley Foundation seminars over the last few years has been highlighting the haphazard and inflexible nature of the current classification system for illegal drugs, which [...]
The Beckley Foundation’s Global Cannabis Commission is now published as a book in association with Oxford University Press entitled: ‘Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate’ Cannabis, marijuana, pot, ganja – it goes by many names – is by far the most widely used illegal substance, and accounts for more arrests than any other drug. Politicians the [...]
