Presentation by Lena Hull

Peer-reviewed by Kacee Doan & Christopher Timbreza

Introduction:

Psilocybin has been present in the scientific community since the 1960s, but only recently has been considered for treatment of addiction. Swiss chemist Albert Hoffman was the first to extract psilocybin from Psilocybe mexicana in 1959 (Hoffman et al., 1959). Soon after this, in 1960, Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert conducted the controversial Harvard Psilocybin Project. This project was not entirely scientific; they tested 175 students, of which the majority said that they had learned something about themselves after taking psilocybin, and wanted to take it again. Later, Leary conducted tests on prisoners in Concord by giving them psilocybin then collecting qualitative data, and found a massive success rate. Prisoners were said to have very positive, “religious” experiences that inspired them to reform, something the prison system never did for them. Because of this, Learly proposed the use of psilocybin in the federal penal system as a sort of therapy but was denied (Leaman, 2011).

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