Research Projects

A Pilot Study of Psilocybin-Facilitated Addiction Treatment

The Beckley Foundation is proud to be collaborating with the distinguished team at Johns Hopkins University, led by Professor Roland Griffiths and Assistant Professor Matt Johnson, in the first study in modern times to harness the profound psychological effects of a psychedelic to aid the treatment of addiction.

During the last phase of psychedelic research 40 years ago, addiction treatment was highlighted as one of the areas in which psychedelics showed the greatest potential benefits. The current study will finally see this potential explored within a modern scientific framework, with the aim of providing an important new means of treating intractable addiction. Previous research has suggested that the mystical/spiritual experiences that psilocybin can promote might be integral to the efficacy of psychedelic-assisted treatments of addiction.

Using the knowledge gathered from previous psychedelic research, combined with a modern understanding of addiction, this study has developed an addiction-treatment programme that combines cognitive behavioural therapy and psilocybin-occasioned mystical experience.

Research exploring the therapeutic potential of psilocybin has greatly benefited from the recent publication of a critically acclaimed study into psilocybin as a means for eliciting mystical experiences . This found that psilocybin, when administered under comfortable, structured, interpersonally supported conditions to volunteers who reported regular participation in religious or spiritual activities, occasioned experiences which had marked similarities to classic mystical experiences and which were rated by the volunteers as having substantial personal meaning and spiritual significance. More than one-third of the volunteers said that their encounter with psilocybin was the single most spiritually significant experience in their lifetime. Furthermore, the volunteers attributed sustained positive changes in attitudes and behaviour to the experience, and these attributions were consistent with changes rated by friends and family. This indicates that psilocybin, when administered under the right circumstances, can bring about lasting positive changes in people's lives.

To carry out this study, psilocybin will be administered under highly supportive conditions to individuals who suffer some drug dependence and have already unsuccessfully tried to overcome. Participants will undergo several preparation meetings with session guides before two, day-long psilocybin sessions with a week's gap between them. Participants will meet with session guides the day after each session and weekly for 3 weeks after the last psilocybin session.

To maximise the benefits of this research, we will also be looking to test the proposal that hallucinogen-induced mystical experiences may boost the immune system and thereby have important implications for health and well-being, by measuring cytokine markers of immune function before the first and after the last psilocybin session.

As the first exploration of a classic psychedelic for the treatment of addiction in 40 years, this project has huge potential to develop our understanding of psychedelics, their impact on health and well-being, and their therapeutic potential, and to open up an important new front in combating some of the most intractable psychological problems of modern times. This study focuses on overcoming one of the most difficult addictions to break: nicotine addiction in cigarette smokers.

It is a travesty that there has been so little interest in research on their potential therapeutic benefits over the past 35 years. - Dave Nichols, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Purdue University, USA.

This project has huge potential to develop our understanding of psychedelics, their impact on health and well-being, and their therapeutic potential, and open up an important new front in combating some of the most intractable psychological problems of modern times.