Friday, February 08, 2008

1997 BBC Horizon on psychedelics in medicine

If you're bored of endless drug policy debate here's a distracting and fascinating curio from the BBC archives that has cropped up on Google Video; the legendary Horizon edition on the use of psychedelic drugs in medicine:



courtesy of the MindHacks blog:

"It came at an interesting time in psychedelic drug research - when the authorities were still touchy (they'd only raided Shulgin's licensed lab three years earlier) but were just starting to allow some stirrings of research since they'd shut it down almost completely in the 1960s.

The programme looks at the history of psychedelic drug research when it was still easily possible, focusing on Osmond and Hoffer's early work on using LSD in treating addiction and facilitating psychotherapy.

It's also got loads of great historical footage from the early research but also talks to the new generation of researchers looking at compounds such as ayahuasca and ibogaine, who are now the senior figures in this growing area.

Unfortunately, the video is a bit grainy in places but it's quite watchable and it's got a great soundtrack."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The quality is terrible and there are annoying subtitles, but there are some interesting snippets, eg. legal ayahuasca (DMT) use in Brazil.

Rick Strassman's groundbreaking DMT research is mentioned, but I recommend his very readable "The Spirit Molecule" for a full account.