At the Summit of the Americas in Cartagena last year, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos commissioned a report on the impact of current drug policies in the Latin America. The report outlines various alternative strategies for drug policy, which were presented to the public for the first time this Friday.  Beckley Foundation Director Amanda Feilding was honoured to attend the special ceremony in Bogotà, invited as a guest of Colombian President Santos and the Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, Juan Miguel Insulza. The address by Secretary General Insulza on presentation of the report can be read here.

The report, titled The Drug Problem in the Americas, has two parts. The first is the “Analytical Report”, which summarizes trends in drug use, trafficking, gang-related violence and institutional instability, taking into account country-specific situations. This section of the report emphasises the importance of dealing with drug misuse as a health issue, not a criminal issue.

The second part of the report, dubbed the “Scenario Report”, distills elements from various pro-reform arguments into four, broad-based potential models for reform. This section outlines potential paths towards reform, heavily promoting the importance of flexibility and multilateral cooperation between countries and governing bodies.

President Santos welcomed the OAS report, making clear that the analysis is not intended as a manual for reform, but rather as a launch point for future debate. “No one is defending any position, neither legalisation, nor regulation, nor war at any cost. This report should form the basis of a long-postponed discussion,” Santos explained.

That discussion is scheduled to continue in two weeks time at the OAS General Assembly, which is being held in Antigua, Guatemala, from the 4 – 6 June. Amanda Feilding will be in attendance at the OAS General Assembly, after which the discussion will be brought to Europe when President Santos visits the UK.

In the foreword to the report, OAS Secretary General Insulza explains that the world is in a better position to have well-informed discussions about drug policies today than it was 40 years ago. He continued by explaining that “growing media attention regarding this phenomenon in many countries, including on social media, reflects a world in which there is far greater awareness of the violence and suffering associated with the drug problem. We also enjoy a much better grasp of the human and social costs not only of drug use but also of the production and transit of controlled substances.”

Building on the global call for reform, the second part of the report, the Scenario Report, outlines the steps by which this change can become a reality. The OAS report outlines four key paths to change, each relating to a unique central focus: Institution building, experimentation with legalisation models, capacity of the community response, and failure to reach a shared vision for addressing the problem. All three of these scenarios are accompanied by a consideration of foreseen drawbacks and pitfalls that should be borne in mind and compensated for if any of these plans is implemented.

The first scenario shows how investment in institutions can restore their ability to maintain economic and social security, while the second scenario, experimentation with legalisation models, paints a picture of how things might look with multilaterally regulated markets. The third scenario highlights community response, illustrating how local governments and NGOs can deliver services that enable communities to fortify themselves against drug-related crime.

The fourth, most publicized scenario gives an impression of what the hemisphere will look like if states fail to come to a cooperative agreement for reform. By continuing down our current path, the OAS predicts there will be a disproportionate increase in damages to countries where prohibition efforts are based. The scenario projects that these societal damages will lead those countries to unilaterally abandon the War on Drugs and instead divert resources to other, more results-oriented issues such as health, education and civil policing. This model paints a grim picture of the ramifications, showing how things may worsen, increasing the ease with which narcotics are supplied to consumer countries.

The release of this report marks an important turning point in the dialogue around drug policy reform. The report has been described by some as a “game-changing” moment in the War on Drugs, and has secured the attention of major international media outlets including the Guardian and New York Times. The OAS report sends a message that Latin America is prepared to take a new stance drug policy, with or without support from the international community.

Meditation is both an ancient spiritual practice as well as a contemporary technique for relaxing the body and calming the mind. It is recognized as a component of almost all religions, and has been practiced for over 5,000 years. Research suggests that meditation is of therapeutic advantage in the treatment of many clinical disorders such as epilepsy, although the basis of this effect in terms of electrical brain activity and other processes is unclear.

The Beckley Foundation has carried out numerous research collaborations investigating the neurobiological basis of the meditative experience. We have discovered the meditation is associated with dramatic modulations of brain activity. We are planning to investigate the role that neurotransmitters and changes in blood supply play in the higher states of consciousness brought about by meditation.

The internet has made accessing drugs easier than ever, and more appealing than ever.

Legal highs, technically known as New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), have undoubtedly captured the media’s attention in recent years. With headlines claiming that a new psychoactive chemical was hitting the shelves every week, it is hard to deny that legal highs represent a burgeoning new trend in the market.

The easy accessibility of these NPS via the internet heightens their popularity. Using encrypted networks, drug users can anonymously send untraceable, online-only currency that renders their identity invisible to authorities. By using a web-based platform, users avoid high-risk situations, traceable phone calls, and face-to-face transactions on the corner.

In addition to creating a low-risk purchasing environment, online users can rate dealers and rank the quality of products. This rating system gives perspective buyers insight and access to information unavailable through a traditional, in-person transaction. Knowing the quality of a product is the third-party verification that some consumers need to justify a purchase.

With an anonymous, risk-free transaction model and no unanswered questions on what you’ll actually get, the web has long-term implications on how we buy, sell, and use drugs.

Journalist Mike Power charts the history of the UK drug market in his recently published book titled “Drugs 2.0 – The Web Revolution that’s Changing How the World Gets High.”  Power marks the emergence of mephedrone as the turning point from traditional gang-sourced narcotics to a mixed trade involving underground chemical innovators that developed new substances and released them into the world.

It also tells of the world’s first online transaction- an unspecified quantity of marijuana-  traded between students at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1970s, marking the start of this new online transaction base.

The book covers a number of other issues relating to the global drug problem, simultaneously exploring the situation within the Latin American context. He uses case studies from Guatemala- which the Beckley Foundation has advised on its policy- to further highlight the influence and intricacy of the global drug supply network.

On Monday, Jeremy Browne, Liberal Democrat MP and Minister of State for Crime Prevention left for Portugal, marking the beginning of his tour investigating alternative drug policy frameworks around the world.

The plan was announced in response to the report of the Home Affairs Select Committee on Drugs (to which the Beckley Foundation submitted evidence), which recommended the formation of a rapid royal commission to investigate alternatives to our current framework, to report by 2015. At the time, Theresa May rejected this suggestion, saying ”the government does not believe there is a case for fundamentally re-thinking the UK’s approach to drugs – a royal commission is simply not necessary.”

However, she did later concedes to send Jeremy Browne upon this fact finding mission to investigate and assess alternative drug policy approaches. In what could be seen as official acknowledgement of the shift in Westminster attitudes on this issue, May justified her decision by saying:

“we must continue to listen and learn from emerging trends, new evidence and international comparators. In particular we will build on the commitment in the drug strategy to ‘review new evidence of what works in other countries and what we can learn from it’ and conduct a study on international comparators to learn more from the approach in other countries.”

Hopefully, Jeremy Browne will find such evidence in Portugal, where decriminalisation of possession combined with stepped up addiction treatment and harm reduction measures has resulted in a significant drop in HIV infection and drug-related deaths. Being caught in possession of up to 1g of Heroin or 25g of marijuana gets a user a meeting with a ‘dissuasion commission’ where addicts are offered treatment, but can also be subjected to alternative sanctions. Whilst in Portugal, Browne will also visit the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, where Europe-wide drug statistics are consolidated and analysed.

Browne will then travel on to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the city mayor is planning a three year experiment in legalising marijuana for residents (the plan has been criticised by neighbouring cities and is yet to receive official endorsement). Browne will also be looking into the city’s safe injection rooms, known as fixing rooms locally, where addicts can safely inject their own narcotic substances without fear of arrest. The opinions he forms may well prove important in the future of the safe consumption rooms being considered by Brighton Council.

Among the 10 or so other countries he is scheduled to visit, Sweden also stands out. It has long held a privileged position in arguments favouring drug prohibitionism due to its zero-tolerance approach and record for having one of the lowest incidences for drug use in Europe, especially for cannabis. However, the proportion of overall problematic drug use is exceptionally high, and drug-related mortality is similarly elevated.

The US is also being touted as another destination for the Home Office team. The states of Washington and Colorado are well on their way to becoming the first places on the globe to implement a fully legal, regulated marijuana industry; from crop to customer.* They represent unique experiments in drug policy and will produce a wealth of valuable and previously unavailable information.

Commenting on his fact-finding mission, Browne has echoed the Home Secretary’s sentiment in maintaining that current laws surrounding the misuse of drugs in the UK are working – pointing out that heroin use is at its lowest since records began and more addicts are successfully completing treatment than ever before. But he adds that he’ll “keep an open mind.” If he sticks to his word, he should have some valuable new insights to share with Theresa May on his return.

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*The Uruguayan government has made a similar proposal for a regulated marijuana market, but this is awaiting public consultation and at current writing seems likely to be implemented – if at all – after the Washington and Colorado markets.

US President Barack Obama recently travelled across Central America, meeting Heads of State and discussing economic development in the region. He met with President Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico to discuss further developing the relationship between their countries. Since being elected to office, President Peña Nieto has made it clear that he would like to turn the attention of law enforcement away from going after cartel bosses and towards lowering levels of civil disturbance and street crime.

A quiet but persistent murmur that could undermine the work of the new Mexican administration is the fact that Peña Nieto’s party, the PRI, was known to be friendly with cartels during its long reign, before being ousted by the National Action Party in 2006.

President Peña Nieto wants to change the conversation to better promote the economic potential of his country, and  focus less on the horrific drug-related violence, which has been responsible for the deaths of at least 60,000 Mexicans and the disappearance of 25,000 more since 2006.

Obama’s message mirrored this change in emphasis, highlighting the importance of economic growth as a means for reducing criminal activity – in addition to the ongoing military intervention. He also said that he hoped economic progress would be fostered by a continued increase in trade between the two countries, and that he had confidence that a new bill to provide a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants would be accepted.

Obama then went on to Costa Rica where he promoted the same increased emphasis on broad economic development above tackling organised crime. He went on to say that the US is to step down from its dominating enforcement role across the region, letting Central American countries take control of their own security.

Some commentators have criticised the change, saying that whatever the shift in official rhetoric, the difficulties faced by citizens across the region remain the same. Some even see interdiction efforts aimed at reducing drug trafficking as a major driver behind economic growth, and would prefer that they weren’t scaled back in order to invest in other programs.

Nevertheless, Mexican authorities are still determined to take the lead in the domestic fight against drug traffickers. A new intervention strategy, issued shortly after Peña Nieto took office, allows US personnel to continue operating within the country, but revokes US access to Mexican central intelligence hubs. A further element of the plan is to form a 10,000-strong ‘super’ police force, which would combine military discipline with police tactics in an effort to keep violence to a minimum.

America will continue providing intelligence and technical assistance to aid Mexico’s new strategy, but the Mexican Intelligence Agency will now co-ordinate intelligence across national agencies. Previously US officials would dictate and vet who could receive intelligence.

A reduced focus on bringing down cartel bosses has been viewed with suspicion by some US officials, but others have privately acknowledged an overemphasis on bellicose rhetoric and high-profile hunts under the previous Mexican administration, all while the lawlessness in Mexico spiraled out of control.

It remains to be seen whether Mexico will be capable of maintaining control on its domestic security, but this shift in political vocabulary could yet signal the biggest shake-up of global drug policy for decades. Only time will tell if the endless chase of a continuously shifting roster of drug-lords can finally be replaced by institutional reform.

News sources

Time

New York Times

Miami Herald

Washington Post

The Raw Story

Below is the text of Amanda Feilding’s introductory address at the Psychedelic Science Conference 2013. The Beckley Foundation, which Amanda founded and directs, was a co-host of the conference along with MAPS, Heffter, and the Council for Spiritual Practices. Read Amanda’s main talk here. Videos of both talks will be available soon. 

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How nice to be here!  Thank you MAPS for all your organisation of this event!  What a lot has happened over the last two years.  At last, touch wood, the tide appears to be on the turn, in both science and policy.  And, finally, the potential benefits of psychedelics are beginning to be recognised.

In 1998, I became a foundation – a course of action I highly recommend to you all!  I set up the Beckley Foundation to work in two complimentary areas – science and policy.

The aim of the Policy Programme was to reform global drug policy, by encouraging evidence-based policies founded on the principles of health, harm reduction, cost-effectiveness and human rights.

The aim of the Scientific Programme was to break the taboo on scientific research into how the psychedelics and cannabis affect brain-function and consciousness, and into how they might be used to benefit  mankind.

It has been a long, hard journey, but finally we are seeing results in both policy and science – each feeding the other.

Over the last two years, the Beckley Policy Programme has achieved some exciting breakthroughs.  In 2011, we launched our Global Initiative for Drug Policy Reform, with an international conference at the House of Lords in London, and a Public Letter calling for an end to the War on Drugs, and for new approaches based on scientific evidence.  The Letter has been signed by 7 former Presidents, including Jimmy Carter, and 2 ruling Presidents, by 12 Nobel laureates and dozens of global notables, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

In 2012, I was invited by President Otto Perez Molina of Guatemala to advise him and his government on how to reform drug policy, so as to lower violence and corruption. To that end we produced a report Paths for Reform, which he announced at Davos.  I also advised the President to convene a Summit of Latin American Presidents, to be chaired by Jimmy Carter.  This Summit will take place later this year, at the Mayan pyramid of Tikal in Guatemala.  It will be chaired by Presidents Perez Molina and Jimmy Carter, and by George Soros.

The President of Guatemala is the world’s leading advocate for the reform of global drug policy.  The ill-conceived prohibitionist policies of the last 50 years have caused more global suffering than any other policy.  The time has now come for drug policies to be based on scientific evidence, and for the scientific community to open up the doors of research into the potential benefits of psychoactive substances.

Consciousness is the core of our being.  Psychedelic compounds have the capacity to change this core, so as to loosen it from the constraints of its conditioning, and open it up to new fields of awareness.

Our ancient forebears recognised the value of these altered states of consciousness, and made them the central core of their society – out of which religion, culture and healing grew.

Modern man has made a terrible mistake by criminalising this magic key to man’s deeper soul, a key which opens up his capacity for greater compassion, awareness and creativity.

We here today are incredibly lucky to be at the forefront of the task of correcting this mistake and opening up the potential for society to make use of this most valuable aid.

It is only by gaining a scientific understanding of how these substances work in the brain that we will be able to free them from the misconceptions of the taboo, and harness their capacity to help man overcome some of his problems and develop more fully.

In the 1950s and 60s, LSD was hailed as the new wonder drug for psychotherapy and the development of a better understanding of consciousness.  Its prohibition in 1967 ended this scientific flowering.  Ethical approvals became virtually impossible to obtain.  Scientists, institutions and funders shunned the field for fear of jeopardising their reputations.

I grew up in the 1960s, before psychedelics became illegal.  I recognised LSD as an incredible enhancer of potential, an opener of doors to new fields of awareness and cognition, and to emotional and spiritual development. I realised the importance of gaining scientific understanding into how these powerful substances work in the brain, and how they might best be used for the benefit of mankind.

It was incredibly sad to see the cancer of prohibition spread under the banner of the War on Drugs.  Not only have these prohibitionist policies caused devastating collateral damage to public health, society and human rights, but they have also prevented 80% of the world’s population having access to pain-killing medication, and have blocked one of the most promising fields of scientific research, in a manner reminiscent of the excesses of the Inquisition.

I was highly aware of the absurdity of the classification system for drugs in the UK and the US. In 2003, I approached the leading British neuroscientist, Professor Colin Blakemore, to propose a new classification system for drugs, including alcohol and tobacco, which would evaluate both the harms and benefits of each substance.  But the concept of benefits was at that time taboo, so no research into them had been done.

So, at the Beckley seminar in 2003, Colin presented a paper describing “A Scientifically-based scale of Harm for all Social Drugs.” This scale was later developed by Professor David Nutt – who happily will be here on Sunday to talk about the Beckley/Imperial Scientific Programme – and in 2007 this paper was published in the Lancet, and has since become internationally influential.

It demonstrates the fact that the current scheduling of drugs – on which sentencing is based – has no scientific basis. Alcohol, which currently kills 2.5 million people globally each year, and tobacco, which kills 5 million, are legal, while MDMA and the psychedelics, which kill hardly anybody, are in the highest schedule of harms, defined as having no medical use, and attracting jail sentences whose length would make even Stalin hesitate.

Now at last we are beginning to build the evidence base of those benefits – and that is something to celebrate.  However, although the process has begun, there are still enormous obstacles because of the illegal status of these substances, which makes them fantastically difficult and expensive to work with.  Under the UN drug conventions, the severity of control of these compounds is on a par with that for nuclear weapons!

On Sunday afternoon, I will be presenting, with our collaborators, two projects from the Beckley Foundation’s Scientific Programme.

Firstly,  Roland Griffiths, Matt Johnson and I will be talking about our collaboration at Johns Hopkins, the first pilot study in modern times to use a psychedelic as an aid in overcoming addiction – in this case using psilocybin to overcome nicotine addiction.  The results so far have been outstandingly successful. They show that with the aid of psilocybin, psychotherapy can overcome even the most treatment-resistant addiction.  They also demonstrate how valuable it would be to follow up this pilot study with a full clinical trial.

Secondly, David Nutt, Robin Carhart-Harris and I will be discussing the latest exciting developments in the Beckley/Imperial Psychopharmacological Research Programme, which has now completed some pioneering neuro-scientific studies into the effects of psilocybin and MDMA.  These studies provide important new insights into how these compounds alter brain-function, thereby adding to our understanding of that most elusive but central concept – consciousness.

Our psilocybin studies showed, for the first time, how, in the resting state, psilocybin reduces the blood-flow, particularly to the Default Mode Network, the DMN.  This system sits at the top of the brain’s hierarchy, exerting a top-down control of other brain regions, which feed their information into the DMN, to be either repressed or routed onwards.  This Default Mode Network is a major part of the physiological basis of the ego & super-ego, as described by Freud.

Interestingly, the subjective strength of the psychedelic experience was correlated with the degree of reduction of blood supply to the Default Mode Network.

By reducing the blood-flow to the DMN, and reducing its repressive activity, sensory and emotional impulses which would normally be repressed can reach consciousness, and users experience a more spontaneous and unconstrained mode of thinking – a more fluid and plastic state of consciousness.  This state more readily allows access to areas of the brain normally kept repressed.  There is a loosening of ego-boundaries, so that the distinction between inner and outer worlds becomes blurred.

This facilitates access to more spiritual and novel modes of thinking, and to repressed trauma.

The Default Mode Network comprises high-level cortical centres that are highly connected to each other and to sub-cortical systems.  These centres include the medial pre-frontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.  Interestingly, the medial prefrontal cortex is hyper-active in depression, and the fact that psilocybin reduces its activity, suggests that psilocybin could be a novel treatment for depression.  This discovery has resulted in the UK Medical Research Council providing over £500,000 to undertake a clinical study to further investigate the treatment of depression with psilocybin.

Our MDMA study has shown how MDMA reduces blood supply to the limbic area and how it results in the experience of positive memories being more positive than with placebo, and in the experience of negative memories being less painful.  This gives a neuroscientific explanation of why MDMA can be such a valuable ally in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: it both facilitates access to repressed memories, and makes them less painful to recall and therefore easier to work through and re-integrate into consciousness.

The Beckley/Imperial College research programme has thus already provided:

• new understandings about consciousness itself;
• a promising new pathway for treating one of the scourges of our time – depression;
• and a new scientific explanantion of why MDMA and psilocybin can provide such invaluable aids to the psychotherapy of mental trauma.

Looking forwards, we have recently received ethical approvals for the world’s first study to investigate the effects of LSD using the latest brain-imaging technology – fMRI and MEG.  I so look forward to not only researching how LSD can help treat many of man’s mental and physical illnesses, but also how it can help stimulate creativity and a higher level of awareness – less constrained by the shackles of conditioning…And after LSD,  we will investigate the effects of ayahuasca and cannabis.

And finally, as today is the 70^th anniversary of Albert Hofmann’s first intentional LSD trip, I am happy to announce that the Beckley Foundation and Oxford University Press have just co-published a new edition of Albert’s book, LSD My Problem Child and Insights/Outlooks, beautifully translated by Jonathan Ott.

Read Amanda’s main talk here

Below is the text of Amanda Feilding’s talk at the Psychedelic Science Conference 2013. The Beckley Foundation, which Amanda founded and directs, was a co-host of the conference along with MAPS, Heffter, and the Council for Spiritual Practices.  Read Amanda’s introductory address here. Videos of both talks will be available soon. 

What exciting times we live in!  At last I feel we are on the cusp of great discoveries!

After decades in the wilderness, psychedelic science is experiencing a renaissance, as the taboo on scientific research is being broken down. The research being carried out, by the Beckley Foundation and others around the world, is starting to bear valuable fruit – not only in our understanding of brain function and consciousness, but, very importantly, also in terms of new clinical applications.

In this talk, I would like to briefly touch upon:

Firstly, why neuroscientific research is so important, and why I set up the Beckley Foundation;

secondly, how our pilot studies cast new light on the mechanisms underlying the changes in consciousness brought about by psychedelics, and suggest new avenues of treatment for major scourges like depression;

thirdly, give a neuroscientific explanation of why psilocybin and MDMA can be such valuable aids for psychotherapy; and

lastly, I hope to briefly mention why reforming global drug policy, and rebasing it on scientific evidence rather than on ideology and panic, is so important for improving human well-being and promoting good science and therapy.

If it is well directed, a neuroscientific pilot study can provide invaluable information about changes in cerebral circulation and brain function, as well as showing how a psychoactive compound affects consciousness and how it may be harnessed to overcome trauma and enhance health, wellbeing and creativity.

Brain-imaging studies are an ideal complement to clinical trials. They provide new discoveries to drive medical advances, as well as new explanations that give medical research a powerful neuroscientific underpinning.

In 1966, I became passionately – one could say compulsively – interested in the physiological mechanisms underlying altered states of consciousness and the ego.  I had met a Dutch scientist of exceptional insight, Bart Huges, who had developed two new hypotheses: one concerning the irrigation of the brain, and the changes in blood supply to the brain underlying altered states of consciousness; and the second, describing the physiological basis of the ego, as a conditioned reflex mechanism, based on word recognition, which directs blood to those brain centres most essential for survival, while repressing blood flow to other brain centres. This was the first time that a mechanistic explanation of the ego had been given.

It also provided the first explanation of how brain functioning can be altered by such practices as meditation, yogic breathing and the ingestion of psychoactive substances, to name but a few. The underlying theory was that these practices brought about a change in blood supply to the brain, together with a loosening of the repressive control of the ego-mechanism over consciousness

This new explanation of the ego as a system superimposed over the rest of the brain could not in those days be tested.

However, with the development of more advanced brain-imaging technologies, and particularly fMRI in the early 1990s, it became possible to observe the changes in blood supply and brain function, correlated with subjective experience, during altered states of consciousness.

In 1998 I set up the Beckley Foundation with two main aims: firstly, to investigate consciousness and its changing states using these new technologies, and secondly, to reform global drug policy – ambitious tasks! I invited some of the world’s leading scientists – including Albert Hofmann, Sasha Shulgin, Colin Blakemore, Dave Nutt, Les Iversen, and Dave Nichols among others – to form a Scientific Advisory Board.

In 2007, Dave Nutt and I agreed to embark on a collaborative programme of research. I was keen to start with psychedelics, but Dave advised caution, so we started with cannabis. In 2009, when Dave moved from Bristol to Imperial College, London, we set up the Beckley/Imperial Psychopharmacological Research Programme, and started a series of pilot studies, using psilocybin.  The research was conducted by Robin Carhart-Harris, who together with Dave is here today and will tell you more about the programme.

So much for the background.

The programme has proved to be a dream come true.  With very little funding, we have targeted our research to look at changes in blood-supply and brain function, underlying the changes in consciousness brought about by psychedelics.  The findings have been both surprising and exciting.

Last year, we started publishing our results from a series of studies using fMRI and MEG, imaging the brains of volunteers, who had received an intravenous infusion of psilocybin or placebo.

The findings were confirmed with two different fMRI imaging techniques, ASL and BOLD, which both give information about the changes in blood flow that result from the brain’s metabolic activity. The results were further confirmed and expanded using MEG imaging, which maps changes in brain activity by recording magnetic field changes produced by electrical currents, i.e. neural activity.

Contrary to our expectations – particularly mine – we found that, compared with placebo, psilocybin decreases blood flow and activity, particularly to the network of highly interconnected brain regions known as the default mode network or DMN. All the data showed reductions in blood flow and neural activity to this important network, and the degree of the reduction correlated with the subjective effects of psychedelic experience. That is, more intense subjective experiences correlated with larger decreases in blood flow to the Default Mode Network. We also found that the centres of the network became less connected with each other and with other brain regions.

The default mode network closely corresponds with Bart Huges’ conception of the ego as a top-down controlling mechanism.

The brain is not a free-for-all among independent systems but a federation of inter-dependent components that is hierarchically organised. The DMN sits at the top of this hierarchy, exerting a top-down control on other brain regions, which feed their information into it, to be either repressed or routed onwards.

The censoring activity of this superimposed mechanism reflects Aldous Huxley’s metaphor of the brain as a ‘reducing valve’, as well as Bart’s description of the ego as a conditioned reflex mechanism, which censors what is allowed to enter consciousness by controlling the distribution of the blood in the brain.  As in Bart’s model of the ego, the development of the default mode network begins after infancy, during the time when language and self-control are being acquired through conditioning.

The Default Mode Network accounts for much of the brain’s intrinsic activity, and is particularly active in the ‘resting state’, i.e. when we finish a task and are engaged in inwardly-directed thinking such as introspection, day-dreaming, and the recollection of autobiographical memories. Conversely, when we engage in externally-focused tasks, the activity of the DMN decreases, while activity in the so-called task-positive networks increases. In normal consciousness, the default mode and the task-positive networks are strongly anti-correlated – i.e. as one becomes more active, the other becomes less active. Taken together, these networks form the neurobiological basis of the ego/superego as described by Freud, and later elaborated by Bart.

Thus the default mode network comprises high-level cortical nodes that are highly connected to each other and to sub-cortical systems. These centres include the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex as well as parts of the thalamus and other areas.

Psilocybin acts by constricting the flow of blood to the Default Mode Network, and thereby decreasing its controlling and repressive activity. Thus, sensory and emotional impulses, which would normally be repressed, reach consciousness, and users experience a spontaneous, unconstrained mode of thinking – a more fluid and plastic state of consciousness. This state more readily allows access to areas of the brain normally kept repressed, e.g traumatic memories or spiritual awareness.

Also, under psilocybin, the anti-correlation between the internally-focused Default Mode Network and the externally-focused task-positive networks becomes weaker: the two networks become coupled, tending to act in synchrony. This also happens in meditation and psychosis. As a result of this coupling, there is a loosening of ego-boundaries, as the distinction between inner and outer worlds becomes blurred.

Most importantly, the subjective intensity of the psychedelic experience correlates with the extent to which the activity of the Default Mode Network is reduced.

It is worth noting that the centres of the Default Mode Network, whose blood flow and activity are particularly reduced by psilocybin, include the medial prefrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.

Interestingly, it has been observed that, in people suffering from depression, the medial prefrontal cortex exhibits both chronically raised activity, and increased connectivity with the posterior cingulate cortex. This hyperactivity results in thinking becoming rigid and inflexible, leading to an endless cycle of self-obsessed, negative rumination.

Our finding that psilocybin decreases both the activity of the medial prefrontal cortex and its connectivity with the posterior cingulate cortex, suggests that the drug may provide a valuable new avenue of treatment for depression, hopefully allowing the rigidly negative patterns of thought to be reset.

Recognising the value of this research, the UK’s Medical Research Council has awarded over half a million pounds for a clinical trial to further investigate the use of psilocybin as a treatment for depression.

Our brain-imaging study into the effects of psilocybin is the first time that anyone has shown that the most basic effect of psychedelics is to reduce blood flow to the Default Mode Network, thereby lessening the grip of the control mechanism and permitting a looser style of awareness to surface into consciousness. This would explain why the psychedelics are conducive, not only to accessing repressed memories and alleviating depression, but also to experiencing mystical states, to enhanced creativity, and to seeing the unity and interconnectedness of all things and our place in the greater whole.

All of these characteristics can enhance the nobler aspects of the human personality.

Thus our research studies with both psilocybin and MDMA have gone a long way to giving a neuroscientific explanation as to why these compounds can be such valuable aids in psychotherapy… whether it is overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder, addiction, or anxiety associated with a terminal illness. By facilitating the access to repressed memories, even those which have, for much of a lifetime, been closed off from conscious thought, the psychedelics facilitate the washing out of toxic memories, which can free the person from their unconscious grip.

Most of our studies imaged the brains of participants in the resting state. However, in some of the studies with both psilocybin and MDMA, we asked participants to perform a series of memory tasks, so we were able to correlate the brain-imaging findings with their subjective reports, and to compare both psilocybin and MDMA with placebo.

With psilocybin, subjects recalled a series of pre-arranged positive autobiographical memories. With MDMA, they were asked to recall both favourite and worst memories.

When we introduced the memory-recall task with psilocybin, we found an increase in blood flow and brain activity in visual and other sensory regions of the cortex during the period of recollection, as opposed to a deactivation of these regions under placebo. Correlating with the brain-imaging findings, subjects reported their memories as significantly more vivid, ‘real’ and visual under psilocybin than under placebo. Furthermore, the vividness of the memories showed a positive correlation to the subjective wellbeing reported later by participants.

In the memory-recall study with MDMA, subjects rated their favourite memories as more vivid, emotional and positive than with placebo. Correspondingly, several brain regions were more strongly activated after MDMA than after placebo.

In contrast to favourite memories, which showed increased emotional intensity after MDMA, worst memories were rated as less negative after MDMA than after placebo. Corresponding with the subjective findings, the brain-imaging showed that areas involved in emotional response to negative memories were less activated after MDMA than after placebo.

This provides a neuroscientific explanation for the clinical observations that MDMA is helpful in the treatment of PTSD. By decreasing the brain’s emotional response to painful memories, MDMA allows these memories to be recollected without the patient becoming overwhelmed, so that the traumatic memories can be worked through in the therapeutic setting.

I’m delighted to say that last month our protocol for an LSD-study gained ethical approvals. The study will investigate the physiological and neural mechanisms underlying the subjective effects of LSD, as well as its effects on perceptual and cognitive functions. This exciting research will be the first ever study to use modern brain-imaging technology during an LSD-experience. I am hopeful that it will provide even more significant advances then the psilocybin and MDMA research, both in our understanding of brain function and consciousness, and in the development of potential new clinical applications.

In this study, I am keen to introduce more task-related activities, in order to stimulate brain activity, and to investigate whether, with the addition of inspirational stimulation, the brain activity and corresponding blood supply shows a greater increase with LSD than with placebo, as I hypothesise it will.  We plan to make a short video with inspiring music and wonderful images, to show to the participant, which may trigger a mystical experience, which can then be mapped using fMRI & MEG.

I am particularly excited about this study, as I have wanted to investigate the neurobiology underlying the LSD-experience for over 40 years.  Also, I promised Albert Hofmann that, as a 100^th birthday present, I would open the doors to scientific research into his beloved elixir.

In order to test the hypothesis that psychedelics potentiate creativity, we need to develop new creativity tests, as the ones currently on offer do not catch the kinds of creativity engendered by psychedelics and cannabis.

I’d now like to say a few words about another of the Beckley’s collaborative scientific projects.

In 2008, in collaboration with Roland Griffiths’ wonderful group at Johns Hopkins, we conducted the first study in modern times to harness the power of a psychedelic in treating addiction, in this case to nicotine. The protocol uses an intensive course of psychotherapy including three sessions with psilocybin.

Initial results have been absolutely remarkable, with almost every participant who has received psilocybin managing to quit smoking and to remain verifiably abstinent on follow-up. There has been no return to regular smoking. This success rate is far in advance of what we see with any other method for treating addiction.

After the initial phase of the study, it received a valuable boost in funding from the Heffter Institute, enabling the pilot study to be expanded. On completion of the pilot study, it will be very important to follow it up with a full clinical study.  Roland Griffith and Matt Johnson will tell you more about this study in a minute.

I believe our Beckley/Imperial studies demonstrate how well brain-imaging studies complement clinical studies. They show how psilocybin loosens the control of the repressing and organising system of the brain, and temporarily grants the brain a greater degree of fluidity and plasticity, in which old restrictions are broken and there is a greater capacity to form new connections. Importantly, once formed, these new connections are enduring – so a change brought about by a relatively brief psilocybin experience can become consolidated and lasting. Many are the people who have told one that a psychedelic experience from long ago changed their life for the better.

I am very excited about the work the Beckley Foundation Scientific Programme can do over the next few years.

Over the past 15 years, I have built up a network of collaborative partnerships with leading scientists at some of the best institutions around the world.

Through my years of study of the subject of altered states of conscious, I feel I have a good idea of what are the most promising areas to investigate.

I am so fortunate to have the pleasure of working with some of the best and most dedicated scientists in the world, many of whom also have access to the latest brain-imaging technology. I am also enormously grateful to the far-sighted and trusting funders who give the indispensible donations, without which we cannot do the work….

I feel the Beckley Foundation is now in a unique position to carry out cutting-edge research in this most important area of human development – consciousness research.

By great good luck, I find myself in a secret garden with an orchard of trees, heavy with low-hanging fruit.

I would just like to say that, if we can only increase our funding, we could enormously increase our output of great science into how these substances – and associated practices – work in the brain, and how we can harness them to benefit mankind.

Thank you very much.

The Global Drug Survey aims to assess people’s drug taking habits and how these habits affect their lives by providing an anonymous survey for users. The results of the second Global Drug Survey, launched in 2012 and taken by a record 22,000 people in its 4 week run, have been published this month in the music publication mixmag. 

The initiative is the brainchild of Dr Adam Winstock, a consultant clinical psychiatrist on the NHS and a research associate at Kings College London. He is joined by a panel of experts including Annette Dale-Perera, a research fellow at Imperial College London who is also a Director at DrugScope, as well as a former Director of the National Treatment Agency and a former commissioner at the UKDPC; and Dr. John Ramsey, an analytical toxicologist at St George’s University London who monitors emergence of new psychoactive drugs by analysing the substances found in “Amnesty Bins” in night-clubs. GPs, lawyers and drug users were also consulted in designing the survey.

Participants were self-selected and accessed the survey through adverts in the Guardian newspaper, the dance music and clubbing magazine mixmag and the Gay Times. Information about the demographic of responders is not yet available for this survey, but in 2012, the vast majority (62.7%) of participants accessed the survey through the Guardian, and most were aged between 18-30, with 20.6% of respondents falling outside this range. The upshot of this, as is acknowledged on the Global Drug Survey website, is that inferences can only be made for the group of participants who are more likely to be those who use drugs or who are already interested in the issue, and cannot be extrapolated to the general population.

However, the rigorous design of the questions and the large number of participants compared to similar studies in the past are great strengths to the online method. The information extracted from this study is up to date and very relevant to the largest drug-using demographic group in the UK. Yet more value will come from this initiative as participation grows and as trends are identified in historical data. We hope as time goes on, more data from the survey will become available and look forward to finding out what new insights might be revealed next year.

Major Findings

Cannabis

70.8% of UK respondents had used cannabis in the 12 months prior to taking the survey, making it the most popular illegal drug. A vast majority (83%) usually smoked their cannabis, with a further 13% preferring a pipe, a bong or a vaporiser. Almost 50% of respondents used 1/4 of a gram or less per day and 81% smoked less than a gram, with the majority of people spending £10 on that amount.

MDMA

67% of UK respondents reported taking MDMA in the last 12 months, putting it in the number two spot for most used illicit drug. In a departure from the traditional image of ecstasy, the most popular form of MDMA is in crystals rather than pills, with 60.8% of those taking MDMA favouring this preparation. Reportedly this is because the quality is perceived to be higher (despite there being no relationship between appearance and strength) and because it is easier to measure out a dose. Oral ingestion remains the preferred method  of administering MDMA, with only 15% of users snorting it. 85% of MDMA users usually use less than half a gram per session, costing an average of £40 per gram or between £5-10 for a pill.

Cocaine

41.5% of UK respondents reported taking cocaine in the last 12 months. The survey revealed further development of the two-tier market for the substance. A gram of standard cocaine can typically be bought for around £50, whereas a gram of “luxury” cocaine will cost from £80 to over £100. 67% of those who reported using this higher-tier cocaine reported that the quality was higher. Cocaine was also rated as the worst value for money of all commonly used drugs, scoring an average 2.7 out of 10. The second worst was alcohol with a score of 5.3.

Alcohol

95.1% of respondents reported having a drink at some point in the last 12 months. This is unsurprising considering this is the most widely available drug in the UK. However, it is interesting to note that, in a series of questions designed to investigate the positive and negative effects of the various drugs surveyed, alcohol was ranked as the top drug in four out of eight of the negative categories, appearing in the top three for all eight negative categories and only ranking third in one of the positive categories (Help in coping with life). It also ranked as the drug most likely to make people worry about someone else’s usage.

Other drugs

Mystery powders – 14% of respondents had taken a substance at a party or in a club without knowing what it was.

New Psychoactive Substances/Legal Highs – 12% of respondents reported having taken a legal high, indicating the market for these is still relatively small despite a large amount of media coverage.

Mephedrone and Ketamine – Use of both amongst regular clubbers has decreased since 2012. Mephedrone was reported as producing the worst hangover in the days following use.

(The Global Drug Survey is a commercial enterprise and as such the full results are not publicly available. Select analysis and comment is available from media partners mixmag, the Guardian and the Gay Times)

The Psychedelic Science conference was held in Oakland California on 18 – 22 April. The Beckley Foundation was a co-host of the conference along with MAPS, Heffter, and the Council for Spiritual Practices. Read Beckley Foundation founder and director Amanda Feilding’s introductory address here, and her main talk here. Videos of both talks will be available soon. 

The Psychedelic Science conference, co-hosted by the Beckley Foundation [1], brought together researchers from around the world to discuss research, clinical trials, and medical discoveries involving psychedelic substances. Representatives from 33 countries traveled to San Francisco last weekend to share the latest medical discoveries involving psychedelic substances., highlighting the efficacy and therapeutic potential of psilocybin, MDMA, cannabis, LSD and ayahuasca.

Amanda Feilding, Founder and Director of the Beckley Foundation, delivered opening remarks, welcoming the international community to this important meeting of minds while explaining the tremendous promise of the field. She suggested that the taboo plaguing psychedelic research may finally have begun to fade, pointing out some of the promising trials and pilot studies that have been conducted since the last Psychedelic Science conference in 2010.

On Sunday, she presented an in-depth report of the Beckley Foundation’s research, focusing on our investigations into the effects of psilocybin and MDMA and their possible therapeutic potential for treatment of disorders including major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and even nicotine addiction (smoking).

Professor David Nutt also spoke at the conference, delivering a thorough presentation on the Beckley-Imperial Psychedelic Research Programme, which carried out the first advanced imaging (using both MRI and MEG techniques) of the effects of psilocybin and MDMA on the human brain.

Amanda and Professor Nutt also discussed the value of this research both for neuroscience and for clinical development, and the deleterious effect of government restrictions on scientific research with the psychedelics.

The Psychedelic Science conference was an opportunity to mingle, connect, discuss, and learn from the best researchers around the world.  Coming together is an important step in the knowledge process, fostering knowledge transfer and information sharing while providing an opportunity to connect, collaborate, and inspire.

The Beckley Foundation looks forward to the next Psychedelic Science conference, which is tentatively planned for April 2014.

[1]Psychedelic Science was hosted by the Beckley Foundation, MAPS, Heffter, and the Council for Spiritual Practices (CSP).

The new US National Drug Control Strategy was released this week. It outlines what the administration calls a ‘smarter approach to drug policy in America – one based on the premise that addiction is a disease that can be prevented and treated’.

The plan is billed as having an increased focus on evidence-based prevention and treatment initiatives, including sending non-violent offenders to treatment instead of jail. The strategy includes a $10.7 billion budget to support drug education programs and increase treatment availability; the establishment of more ‘drug courts’ (diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment); and a new rule in the Affordable Care Act requiring insurance companies to cover treatment for substance use disorders.

However, the majority of the budget is still allocated to law enforcement – 58% versus 42% for treatment and prevention. This marks a slight improvement from the previous budget (62% on interdiction and enforcement versus 38% on treatment), but the balance still clearly prioritises the criminal justice approach.

The strategy has swiftly drawn criticism from drug policy groups, who sense that the administration is trying to ‘have it both ways’ – calling addiction a disease and a public health issue but then insisting on handling addicts within the criminal justice system. Bill Piper, Director of Home Affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, commented: ‘I know of no other health issue where people get arrested if they don’t get better’.

The strategy also persistently fails to make an adequate distinction between drug use, abuse, and addiction. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that nearly 90% of drug use is non-problematic to the user or society, so it is puzzling to see all drug users medicalised as addicts requiring public health interventions. Drug use should not be considered a harm in and of itself – indeed non-problematic users take drugs because of the perceived benefits. Evidence-based policies must acknowledge this.

Another point to consider is the number of striking ommissions from the report:

1. Harm reduction initiatives

Despite the focus on addiction and addiction treatment, there is no mention of harm-reduction policies that are supported by evidence from other countries, such as supervised injection facilities and free testing of street drugs.

2. Blocking of drug research by federal agencies

Despite the emphasis on ‘science’ in the report, and an emphasis on federal support for studies on drug addiction, the strategy makes no mention of the federal suppression of research into the potential benefits of cannabis or other drugs, including medical marijuana research.

3. Marijuana liberalisation developments in the US

The recent legalisation of marijuana in Colorado and Washington is also not mentioned, despite its huge importance for drug policy dialogue in the US and elsewhere. The availability of medical marijuana in 19 states is also overlooked.

4. The international reform movement

Lastly, there is no discussion of the changing international landscape. Latin American countries in particular have been vocal about the need for change in the current drug control system, and the upcoming summit of the Organization of American States has ‘Alternative Strategies for Combatting Drugs’ as its theme – a topic that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. Two reports on the hemispheric approach to drugs (commissioned at the last summit) will be released in May, analysing the current approach and proposing a series of alternatives.  This will be the highest level discussion of alternative drug policies to date, yet the US seems set to ignore these international developments.

Overall, the increase in spending on treatment is a positive move for US drug policy, but the same evidence-based and science-driven thinking needs to be applied across the board, taking account of the experience of non-problematic users and analysing the domestic and international repercussions of the current enforcement-led approach.