Prescription psychodelics: A Solution to the Opiate Epidemic?

Dosed

Directed by Jason Wade Hammonds (2019)

Film Review

This is a fascinating film about a Canadian heroin addict who faces the bleak choice between killing herself and seeking treatment with illegal psychodelic drugs. She has already tried several rounds of residential drug treatment and every psychotropic drug available. At the start of the documentary, she is relapsing several times a month despite being on Methadone maintenance, which makes her tired and depressed.

She initially starts with increasing doses of psilocybin (magic mushrooms), both in informal settings and under the supervision of counselors in specialized clinics.  Although the drug temporarily alleviates her anxiety and panic attacks (her main complaints), the effect dissipates after a few days and she relapses.

She eventually gains admittance to a Ibogaine* treatment center, where she attempts to detox off Methadone and heroin over a period of two weeks. The Ibogaine is believed to work in two ways: 1) by reactivating endogenous brain opiate receptors that have been shut down by the heroin and Methadone and 2) by helping patients connect (in a supportive environment) with original traumatic events that triggered the addition.

She takes two doses of Ibogaine five days apart. On day nine she has a massive panic attack, relapses and is started back on 80 mg long acting morphine (easier to detox from than Methadone) a day. She is then admitted her for a third Ibogaine dose to help her detox off the morphine.

Four months later she is totally off all all opiates and receiving monthly mega dose psilocybin or Ibogaine (in a therapeutic setting) to control the panic attacks. After seven months, the panic attacks are under control with monthly microdosing with Ibogaine and/or psilocybin

After 12 months she is totally of opiates and volunteering full time working with patients with mental health and addiction problems.

The film features many prominent psychodelics researchers and practitioners, including Dr Gabor Mate, who interviews her to assess her suitability for psychodelic treatment. There seems to be consensus among researchers that psilocybin, MDMA (ecstasy) and Ibogaine will be the first psychodelics the US government licenses for prescription.

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*Ibogaine is currently licensed for prescription in Canada for heroin withdrawal.

The full film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

 

 

 

Psychedelics: A Miracle Cure for PTSD?

Soldiers of the Vine

Directed by Charles Shaw (2016)

Film Review

This documentary traces the experience of six US veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who undergo treatment with the psychedelic ayahuasca, owing to their failure to respond to conventional treatment.*

Ex-GIs who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer extremely high rates of PTSD, traumatic brain injury and suicidal depression. They commit suicide at twice the rate of the general population and US prisons, mental hospitals and homeless shelters are full of disabled veterans.

Studies show that psychedelic drugs, such as ayahuasca and ibogaine** are often helpful in treating heroin addiction and alcoholism. Their use in PTSD is still experimental.

In the film the six veterans travel to the Amazon jungle, where ayahasca is viewed as a sacred plant, to undergo a nine day healing ceremony with an indigenous shaman.

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*Western medicine has no recognized treatment for PTSD.

**Ibogaine is legal for treating drug addiction in over 190 countries, including Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Russia, China and Ukraine. See Why Are We Sending Vets to Costa Rico (and Canada and Mexico).

The Ugly History of the War on Drugs

Exile Nation: An Oral History of the War on Drugs

Directed by Charles Shaw (2011)

Film Review

In laying out the sordid history of the US prison industrial complex, Exile Nation helps us understand how the US came to have the largest prison population in the world, far exceeding that of China, which has over four times as many people.

A significant proportion of US inmates are African Americans and Hispanics locked up for “victimless” drug offenses. At present 500,000 of American’s 2.3 million prison population is inside for using heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine. Thirty thousand are there for cannabis possession.

The documentary intersperses commentary by “experts” (cops, judges, sociologists, psychiatrists, defense attorneys, jail monitors, medical marijuana activists and prison rights advocates) with those of ex-offenders.

The US Invents Mass Incarceration

Crime rates in the US first reached a high point in 1830, largely due to high levels of alcohol abuse. The US would be the first country in the modern era to introduce mass incarceration as punishment for law breaking. The Pennsylvania Quakers believed that locking people up would force them to “repent” – the origin of the word penitentiary. The experiment failed. Studies consistently show that imprisoning convicts neither rehabilitates them nor discourages them from re-offending.

Nixon’s War on Drugs

Nineteenth century crime rates slowly declined, plateauing during the Civil War era. From then on, they remained constant until the 1970s, when Nixon declared the first war on drugs. His primary target was the immense social movements of the late sixties and early seventies. Nixon couldn’t constitutionally punish hippies for opposing the Vietnam War nor African Americans for demanding the right to vote. Instead he targeted their behavior, ie the widespread use of marijuana, LSD and cocaine that accompanied these movements.

In doing so, Nixon deliberately ignored the recommendation of a 1972 bipartisan commission that recommended that marijuana use be criminalized.

Reagan’s War on Drugs

The prison industrial complex received a second major boost in 1984, when Reagan declared a second war on drugs. Unlike Nixon, who envisioned drug arrests as a form of social control, Reagan used the drug war (particularly against crack, a new bargain basement form of cocaine) to demonize African Americans and win votes from white blue collar workers.

The Mainstream Media Revolts

The media turned against the drug war and prison industrial complex in the 1990s, with Ted Koppel producing several excellent documentaries highlighting the drawbacks of mass incarceration. The resulting shift in public opinion would lead the federal government and many states to begin downsizing their prison populations. Sadly 9-11 and the War on Terror interrupted this process.

A high point for me were the interviews with medical marijuana activists describing the history of their movement (leading to the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes in 23 states sates).

I also really liked the sections on the medical use of MDMA (ecstasy) in treating post traumatic disorder and the psychedelic ibogaine in treating heroin addiction.