From Cosmos Magazine, Issue 77, Summer 2018 (Image by Max Sparber via Flickr)
Psychedelic drugs have long been outlawed. Now psychiatrists want them back.
ON A SWELTERING NEW YORK EVENING in August 2016, Jesse Noakes finally found relief from years of mind-numbing depression. As he sat on the sofa facing the therapist his gloom melted away, replaced by feelings of clarity, warmth and enthusiasm. “It was magical,” he says, “something that I was so, so desperate for.”
The Australian writer had spent his 20s cycling from one antidepressant to the next without relief. The therapy session that finally sliced through his mental miasma came at the end of a months-long global quest that took him to the Netherlands, Switzerland, and finally the US. It also took him to the wrong side of the law. That’s because his therapy session was boosted by a dose of MDMA, the active ingredient in the illegal party drug ecstasy.
Clandestine therapy sessions like these may soon be a thing of the past. Read more… Bring back that loving feeling, or purchase Issue 77 here…
