It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
New Jersey bill would legalize ‘magic mushrooms’ for medical, recreational use
2024/01/18
Psilocybin mushrooms stand ready for harvest in a humidified "fruiting chamber" in the basement of a private home on July 28, 2023, in Fairfield County, Connecticut.
- John Moore/Getty Images North America/TNS
New Jersey lawmakers have introduced a bill that would make it the third state to legalize “magic mushrooms.”
Under the legislation, anyone 21 and older could consume or grow the mushrooms for medical or recreational purposes.
The bill would also expunge past and pending offenses involving the psychedelic drug.
The state health department would oversee licenses for facilities for production and sales. Those sites would not be allowed in residential neighborhoods or within 1,000 feet of a school.
Residents would also be allowed to grow their supplies own at home in limited amounts for personal use.
Studies have shown that psilocybin — the naturally occurring chemical in psychedelic mushrooms that causes hallucinations — improves cognitive behavioral therapy for disorders like depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and even alcoholism.
Single dose of psilocybin reduces depression in phase 2 trial Credit: Cannabis_Pic / Adobe Stock
OCTOBER 22, 2023
Can psilocybin serve as a uniquely powerful and long-lasting treatment for depression? Since the renaissance of psychedelic research emerged in the 2000s, a growing body of studies suggests that psilocybin can reduce symptoms of conditions like major depressive disorder, anxiety, and end-of-life distress.
The most intriguing findings center on dosage: Some studies suggest that a single dose of psilocybin can yield therapeutic benefits that last long after the drug’s hallucinogenic effects wear off, possibly even months after ingesting one dose.
A study recently published in JAMA sheds new light on the therapeutic potential of psilocybin for depression. The randomized, double-blind phase 2 trial, conducted between 2019 and 2022, investigated the effects of a single dose of synthetic psilocybin on people with major depressive disorder.
The researchers found that “a 25-mg dose of psilocybin administered with psychological support was associated with a rapid and sustained antidepressant effect, measured as change in depressive symptom scores, compared with active placebo.”
Here are some of the key takeaways:The recent study featured a sample size of 104 people and a longer follow-up period than many previous studies on psilocybin and depression. The participants who received psilocybin showed significantly reduced depressive symptoms compared to those who received a placebo, though they also experienced more adverse events.
The improvements in depression were sustained over a six-week follow-up period.
“These findings add to evidence that psilocybin—when administered with psychological support—may hold promise as a novel intervention for [major depressive disorder],” the researchers noted.
The results are promising, though they come with a couple of caveats. A closer look at psilocybin and depression
For the study, the researchers recruited a total of 104 adult participants with moderate to severe major depressive disorder. After participants were given time, if needed, to stop psychotherapy and taper off any antidepressant medications they were taking, the researchers randomly sorted them into two groups.
One group of 51 people were assigned to get a single dose of psilocybin. The other group of 54 participants were given a placebo: niacin, a B vitamin that causes your face to “flush.” (The idea is that this reaction might make it harder for people to tell whether they got the drug or the placebo.) At the start of the study, neither the researchers nor the participants were told who received the psilocybin. Also, participants were given multiple sessions of psychological support, including during the psilocybin (or niacin) experience.
The main goal of the study was not to see whether depression decreased while people were experiencing the effects of psilocybin but rather to track changes in depressive symptoms in both groups at various timeframes over a six-week follow-up period. To do that, the researchers measured participants’ scores on the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS), which assesses the severity of depressive episodes. The researchers also had participants complete the Sheehan Disability Scale (SDS), which measures how symptoms impair functioning in daily life.
Participants completed both scales before taking either the psilocybin or the placebo, referred to as their baseline score, and also at follow-up periods: 2, 8, 15, 29, and 43 days after dosing.
The results revealed a statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of reduced depressive symptoms over the six-week period. The group that got psilocybin saw their MADRS scores decline by an average of 19.1 points, vs. 6.8 points in the placebo group
. A chart from the study showing changes in depression symptoms over time in the psilocybin and placebo groups. Credit: Raison CL, Sanacora G, Woolley J, et al. Single-Dose Psilocybin Treatment for Major Depressive Disorder: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2023;330(9):843–853. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.14530
By day 43, 58% of participants in the psilocybin group demonstrated a sustained response (defined as a 50% reduction from their baseline score), compared to 20% of the placebo group.
Although a sustained response is a good sign that an antidepressant is effective, it’s not the same as sustained remission, where depressive symptoms drop into the “normal” range. (While a greater share of the psilocybin group did go into remission compared to placebo, the difference wasn’t statistically significant.)
When it came to safety and tolerability, the researchers wrote, “Psilocybin was generally well-tolerated, with most AEs [adverse events] being of mild or moderate severity and generally limited to the acute dosing period.” However: “psilocybin treatment was associated with a higher rate of overall AEs and a higher rate of severe AEs compared with niacin, with these severe AEs being known effects of psilocybin.” Caveats and cautious optimism
It’s worth noting that not all participants stuck with the follow-ups. The placebo group had a higher dropout rate, with 44 of the initial 53 participants ultimately making it to the 43-day check-up. Meanwhile, all but one participant in the psilocybin group completed the study (one withdrew from the study due to a death in their family).
What explains the difference in dropout rates? It’s hard to say for sure, but one possibility is that people in the placebo group became less motivated to participate in the study because they knew they received niacin instead of psilocybin. This underscores what’s arguably the biggest problem with psychedelic research: complications with blinding.
To validate the therapeutic potential of any drug, researchers use randomized placebo-controlled trials, where some participants receive the drug while others receive a placebo. Ideally, this process is double blinded, meaning neither the participants nor the researchers know who received the drug until the study concludes. The goal is to minimize bias and ensure that any recorded effects are likely due to the drug itself and not participants’ or researchers’ expectations.
But psychedelics make blinding nearly impossible: If you take psilocybin — a hallucinogenic drug that radically alters your subjective experience of reality — you’re unlikely to mistake it for a B vitamin.
Expectation biases — whether in the participants, the researchers, or both — can also complicate psychedelic research. For example, people who agree to participate in studies on drugs like psilocybin, MDMA, or LSD might already have a strong belief that psychedelics can effectively treat mental health conditions.
“This is likely to lead to positive expectation (consciously, subconsciously or both) which is in turn likely to lead to improvements in symptoms after enrollment, regardless of the specific effects of the psychedelics,” noted a 2022 paper published in Psychopharmacology. “This effect also works conversely, in that positive expectations can fuel disappointment in trials of novel psychoactive medication when participants believe that they have been allocated to the placebo arm.”
Still, the results of the recent study are promising, and they add to a growing body of research showing that psilocybin and other psychedelics might possess therapeutic effects that can far outlast the trip experience itself. Considering that 29% of U.S. adults report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives, it’s arguably well worth exploring how psychedelics might help ease the burden of mental health problems.
So far, Oregon and Colorado are the only US states that have legalized psychedelic-assisted therapy, though initiatives in a handful of other states — California, Connecticut, and New Jersey — have aimed to pass similar legislation. Earlier in 2023, Australia became the first country to legalize the prescription of psychedelics, including psilocybin, for mental health conditions.
This article was originally published by our sister site, Freethink.
More and more surveys point to decreasing membership in religious institutions and a corresponding rise of “nones.” Many people might assume that this indicates the absence of belief or a lack of spirituality.
Particularly in the West, people tend to think about religion in terms of belief in a higher power, such as God. For many nones, however, spirituality does not need a god or the supernatural to address questions of purpose, meaning, belonging and well-being.
While abandoning mainstream religious affiliation, many turn to alternative expressions, including secular, atheist and psychedelic churches.
For about a decade, as a scholar who studies alternative expressions of spirituality, I have tracked these groups online, visited churches and interacted with attendees. At times, I have been able to attend services or simply visit locations. At other times, out of respect for participants, I have met members – but not during services and rituals.
These churches demonstrate not a rejection of religion, as surveys suggest, but continued interest in spiritual community, rituals and virtues.
Where members depart from traditional notions of religion and church, however, is within their practices and aims. Through psychedelic drugs, members believe they can directly experience the divine – as they define it – while gaining insight into their own and others’ well-being. Within the church, members participate in collective meaning-making rituals that fortify their everyday lives.
Distinctly, using psilocybin is not part of these activities, nor are instructions provided on conducting mushroom ceremonies. This is done on one’s own time, according to individual practices.
Through the church, members participate in practices to help cultivate the value of psychedelic exploration. These include a range of activities, from ice baths to meditation in a room with flashing lights. TDA also offers courses on growing psilocybin through its educational initiative “shroomiversity.”
To borrow from its stated mission, TDA works to connect “people to self, others and the Divine.” It also seeks to “protect responsible and religious use of psilocybin, and cultivate health and healing.” This mission does not deny the place of belief but highlights broader therapeutic concerns.
Louisville, Kentucky’s Psanctuary Church brings “people together for healing and connection to divine revelation through communion with sacred mushrooms.” Nondenominational, Psanctuary defines itself as a “Constitutional Church.”
Instead, it follows non-Western, indigenous and New Age understandings that view divinity as within everyone. It also reorients people from seeking salvation in a world to come by encouraging focus on the present.
Like TDA, religion for Psanctuary expresses the pursuit of “pure consciousness” as “the origin of health and well-being.” By experiencing this origin through psychedelics, members are “empowered to discover our own divinity.”
This dual emphasis on self-divinity and healing reflects common themes across psychedelic churches.
Commonly, mainstream religion requires believers to interact with the sacred through designated leaders or texts. At Zide Door and other psychedelic churches, the emphasis is on self-realization and interconnection through direct experience.
Psychedelics offer members firsthand access to religious understanding. Church, accordingly, becomes a place to support individual awakening.
Sacred Garden Community captures this shift. Also located in Oakland, SGC – as it announces on its website – is a “post-modern church” based on “faith of least dogma.” Through psychedelic sacraments, SGC claims to facilitate “direct experience of and relationship to Divine presence for individuals and community.”
Beyond the experience, SGC helps members integrate “the benefits” the “experience and relationship can bring” into everyday life. Like other psychedelic churches, SGC highlights how rejection of conventional religion is often accompanied by new avenues to pursue spirituality.
Ayahuasca churches and healing
A participant at an ayahuasca ceremony at a Hummingbird Church retreat in Hildale, Utah, in October 2022. AP Photo/Jessie Wardarski
Indigenous practitioners and scholars thus warn about both the appropriation and commodification of indigenous practices. While such concerns should not be ignored, ayahuasca churches tell us much about contemporary religion.
The turn to ayahuasca rituals highlights the growing connection between spiritual needs and healing. The emergence of ayahuasca churches in the U.S. suggests that such healing requires the support of community.
It also situates the divine in “earthly” terms. Members, they believe, “should seek within Nature that which is contributory to our health and well-being.”
Located in Orlando, Florida, members of Soul Quest Ayahuasca Church of Mother Earth believe likewise. As members contend, “What is of the Earth is our holy sacrament.” Like others, they position psychedelics “as tools” that benefit “physical health, spiritual growth, and personal evolution.”
Through ayahuasca, members of both churches see psychedelic rituals as aiding in individual rejuvenation. Once rejuvenated, members believe they help restore nature or assist in another’s healing.
Well-being as spirituality
Collectively, these churches demonstrate not a rejection of religion, as the term “none” might suggest, but an embrace of well-being as spirituality.
A key lesson members connect to psychedelics is the intrinsic sacredness of each person: The divine is not elsewhere but within everyone.
To be a none might reflect one’s total rejection of supernatural belief. But as psychedelic churches illustrate, identifying that way can also indicate spiritual pursuits that refuse to fit nicely within traditional religious categories. Morgan Shipley, Foglio Endowed Chair of Spirituality & Associate Chair of Religious Studies, Michigan State University
The human brain can change – but usually only slowly and with great effort, such as when learning a new sport or foreign language, or recovering from a stroke. Learning new skills correlates with changes in the brain, as evidenced by neuroscience research with animals and functional brain scans in people. Presumably, if you master Calculus 1, something is now different in your brain. Furthermore, motor neurons in the brain expand and contract depending on how often they are exercised – a neuronal reflection of “use it or lose it.”
People may wish their brains could change faster – not just when learning new skills, but also when overcoming problems like anxiety, depression and addictions.
Clinicians and scientists know there are times the brain can make rapid, enduring changes. Most often, these occur in the context of traumatic experiences, leaving an indelible imprint on the brain.
A transformative experience can be like a fork in the road, changing the path you are on. Westend61 via Getty Images
Social scientists call events like these psychologically transformative experiences or pivotal mental states. For the rest of us, they’re forks in the road. Presumably, these positive experiences quickly change some “wiring” in the brain.
How do these rapid, positive transformations happen? It seems the brain has a way to facilitate accelerated change. And here’s where it gets really interesting: Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy appears to tap into this natural neural mechanism. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy
Those who’ve had a psychedelic experience usually describe it as a mental journey that’s impossible to put into words. However, it can be conceptualized as an altered state of consciousness with distortions of perception, modified sense of self and rapidly changing emotions. Presumably there is a relaxation of the higher brain control, which allows deeper brain thoughts and feelings to emerge into conscious awareness.
Research suggests that new skills, memories and attitudes are encoded in the brain by new connections between neurons – sort of like branches of trees growing toward each other. Neuroscientists even call the pattern of growth arborization.
Researchers using a technique called two-photon microscopy can observe this process in living cells by following the formation and regression of spines on the neurons. The spines are one half of the synapses that allow for communication between one neuron and another.
Scientists have thought that enduring spine formation could be established only with focused, repetitive mental energy. However, a lab at Yale recently documented rapid spine formation in the frontal cortex of mice after one dose of psilocybin. Researchers found that mice given the mushroom-derived drug had about a 10% increase in spine formation. These changes had occurred when examined one day after treatment and endured for over a month.
Tiny spines along a neuron’s branches are a crucial part of how one neuron receives a message from another. Edmund S. Higgins
A mechanism for psychedelic-induced change
Psychoactive molecules primarily change brain function through the receptors on the neural cells. The serotonin receptor 5HT, the one famously tweaked by antidepressants, comes in a variety of subtypes. Psychedelics such as DMT, the active chemical in the plant-based psychedelic ayahuasca, stimulate a receptor cell type, called 5-HT2A. This receptor also appears to mediate the hyperplastic states when a brain is changing quickly.
These 5-HT2A receptors that DMT activates are not only on the neuron cell surface but also inside the neuron. It’s only the 5-HT2A receptor inside the cell that facilitates rapid change in neuronal structure. Serotonin can’t get through the cell membrane, which is why people don’t hallucinate when taking antidepressants like Prozac or Zoloft. The psychedelics, on the other hand, slip through the cell’s exterior and tweak the 5-HT2A receptor, stimulating dendritic growth and increased spine formation.
Here’s where this story all comes together. In addition to being the active ingredient in ayahuasca, DMT is an endogenous molecule synthesized naturally in mammalian brains. As such, human neurons are capable of producing their own “psychedelic” molecule, although likely in tiny quantities. It’s possible the brain uses its own endogenous DMT as a tool for change – as when forming dendritic spines on neurons – to encode pivotal mental states. And it’s possible psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy uses this naturally occurring neural mechanism to facilitate healing. A word of caution
In her essay collection “These Precious Days,” author Ann Patchett describes taking mushrooms with a friend who was struggling with pancreatic cancer. The friend had a mystical experience and came away feeling deeper connections to her family and friends. Patchett, on the other hand, said she spent eight hours “hacking up snakes in some pitch-black cauldron of lava at the center of the Earth.” It felt like death to her.
Psychedelics are powerful, and none of the classic psychedelic drugs, such as LSD, are approved yet for treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2019 did approve ketamine, in conjunction with an antidepressant, to treat depression in adults. Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy with MDMA (often called ecstasy or molly) for PTSD and psilocybin for depression are in Phase 3 trials.
Exploring what happens in the brain under the influence of psychedelics, while meditating and during hypnosis
by Ingrid Fadelli , Medical Xpress
Psilocybin, LSD, hypnosis, and meditation each induce distinct changes in rs-fcMRI. Paired t-tests were conducted to compare intervention vs. control for each ASC intervention method: (A) psilocybin (N=23), (B) LSD (N=25), (C) hypnosis (N=30), and (D) meditation (N=29). (A-D) Center shows the cluster pairs that survived connection thresholding (p<0.05 TFCE type I error protected). Red = increased connection between cluster pairs induced by intervention vs. control, blue = decreased connection between cluster pairs induced by intervention vs. control. Opacity of the connections is scaled according to the TFCE statistics for visual clarity. For further details about each cluster see Table S6, Table S7, Table S8, Table S9. The three brain images at the bottom of each panel depict the same ROI-to-ROI results in the sagittal, coronal, and axial planes. Network abbreviations: DAN = dorsal attention, sLOC = superior lateral occipital cortex, Cereb Crus = cerebellar crus, FPN = fronto parietal, Lang = language, ITG = inferior temporal gyrus, l/a/p DMN = lateral/anterior/posterior default mode, aPaHC = anterior parahippocampal cortex, STG = superior temporal gyrus, Som. Motor = somatormotor. r/l denotes both the left and right hemispheres. Credit:Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging(2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.07.003
Changes in a person's "normal" mental state after taking drugs, while meditating, during hypnosis or due to specific medical conditions have been a topic of study for several years now. Some of these mental changes, which are known as altered states of consciousness, have been found to have potentially beneficial effects, reducing stress and fostering greater well-being.
Researchers at University of Zurich's Psychiatric Hospital have recently been exploring the potential of psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) for treating depression and other mental disorders. In a recent paper published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, they compared the brains of people who had taken psychedelics to those of others who were meditating or were hypnotized.
"Our group has plenty of experience studying altered states," Nathalie Rieser, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Medical Xpress. "We have been investigating the effects of psychedelics on the brain in various studies, given that altered states of consciousness are becoming increasingly relevant in the treatment of psychiatric disorders. Anecdotally, people often report similarities in experiences induced by hypnosis, meditation, or psychedelics. However, our neurobiological understanding of these states is only just evolving."
While many studies looked at individual altered states of consciousness and how they manifest in the brain, comparisons between these states remain scarce. Rieser and her colleagues wished to fill this gap in the literature, by comparing the neural correlates of psychedelics, meditation and hypnosis.
"We did not know if the same neurobiological alterations give rise to the experience of all altered states or whether these states are different on a brain-level," Rieser said.
Rather than conducting a single experiment that collectively involved psychedelics, meditation and hypnosis, the researchers analyzed datasets conducted during four distinct experimental trials. The first two trials examined the effects of two different psychedelic drugs on the brain, namely psilocybin and LSD, while the last two focused on hypnosis and meditation.
Pharmacological vs. Non-Pharmacological ASC Interventions. (A) A 2x2 mixed ANOVA with a between-subjects factor of ASC intervention method (pharmacological (Ph) vs. non-pharmacological (N-Ph)) and a within-subjects factor State (intervention vs. control) was conducted. Pharmacological interventions (N=48) include psilocybin and LSD; non-pharmacological interventions (N=59) include hypnosis and meditation. Center shows the 22 cluster pairs that survived connection thresholding (p<0.05 TFCE type I error protected). Red = increased connection between cluster pairs induced by pharmacological vs. non-pharmacological interventions, blue = decreased connection between cluster pairs induced by pharmacological vs. non-pharmacological interventions. Opacity of the connections is scaled according to the TFCE statistic for visual clarity. The 132 ROIs used are arranged into 22 networks, and the relevant networks are displayed on the outer ring. The three brain images in the right column depict the same ROI-to-ROI connectivity results in the sagittal, coronal, and axial planes. For further details about each cluster see Table S10. (B) Confusion matrix showing the predicted vs. the true classifications of subjects' intervention vs. control ROI-to-ROI connectivity matrices into either pharmacological or non-pharmacological interventions. Green = correct predictions, red = incorrect predictions. (C) Model predictions per subject (as we used a leave-one-subject out cross-validation scheme each fold represents an individual subject). The y-axis shows each subject grouped by ASC intervention method. The x-axis shows whether the subjects were classified as having undergone the pharmacological intervention (negative function value), or non-pharmacological condition (positive function value). Credit: Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.07.003
"We combined four different datasets that were collected at the Psychiatric University Hospital in Zurich using the same MRI-scanner," Rieser explained. "For the psychedelic studies, we included healthy participants who subsequently received psilocybin, LSD, or a placebo, whereas the meditation and hypnosis studies were conducted with participants who were experts in the respective field to make sure they can reach the state in an MR environment."
During the team's four experimental trials, all participants were asked to simply lay inside an MRI scanner without completing any task or engaging in any activity. The MRI scanner recorded their brain activity both while they were in a normal state of consciousness and under the altered state of consciousness relevant to that trial (i.e., after taking psychedelics, while meditating or while under hypnosis).
"We analyzed the participants' brain activity throughout the whole brain and investigated whether different brain areas work together in a distinct way compared to the baseline scan," Rieser said. "Our findings showed that even though psilocybin, LSD, meditation and hypnosis induce overlapping subjective effects, the underlying brain changes are distinct."
The findings gathered by this team of researchers suggest that while some might report having similar experiences or feelings under these different states of consciousness, what is happening in their brain is actually very different. While psilocybin and LSD appeared to produce similar brain activity, the changes they induced were markedly different from those observed during meditation or hypnosis. This suggests that psychedelics, meditation and hypnosis have distinct underlying mechanisms of action and overall different effects on the brain.
Overall, these results suggest that these three distinct states may have synergistic therapeutic effects and may not therapeutically substitute each other. In the future, they could pave the way for further investigations of their unique strengths and benefits, potentially informing the development of new promising therapeutic strategies for psychiatric disorders.
"We are now simultaneously working on investigating mechanisms of action of psychedelics in healthy controls as well as their clinical application in the treatment of patients with alcohol use disorder and major depressive disorder," Rieser added. "We are assessing their efficacy and exploring brain, behavioral, and cognitive changes in response to psychedelic-assisted therapy. The current study is informing future investigations on optimizing psychedelic-assisted therapy."
More information: Flora F. Moujaes et al, Comparing neural correlates of consciousness: from psychedelics to hypnosis and meditation, Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2023.07.003
AOC and Crenshaw form unlikely team in bid to give troops access to psychedelic drugs
Michael Lee
FAUX NEWS Sun, July 16, 2023
Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. and Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, are forming an unlikely alliance, teaming up in a bid to allow troops access to psychedelic drugs.
"Psychedelics have shown so much promise," Ocasio-Cortez said of the effort, according to a report from the New York Daily News. "We desperately need the resources to treat PTSD, traumatic brain injury and depression. At least one in two PTSD patients cannot tolerate or do not respond adequately to existing treatments."
The progressive lawmaker's comments come as the military and Department of Veterans Affairs grapple with the growth of post-traumatic stress disorder in the ranks, an ailment that has doubled among veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan compared to Vietnam-era veterans. According to the VA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 450,000 combat veterans have suffered from a some sort of traumatic brain injury between 2000 and 2021.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
But new data suggest that unorthodox treatments with psychedelics help, leading Crenshaw and Ocasio-Cortez to form an unlikely alliance.
"This is a real wild coalition," Crenshaw, a Navy SEAL veteran who lost an eye in Afghanistan, said of his partnership with Ocasio-Cortez, according to the New York Daily News.
Crenshaw said the issue has personally touched him, recounting the stories of friends who have returned from war and were not cured of their aliments until they gained access to psychedelics, which are typically illegal in the United States.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw
"I was turned on to this issue because I had so many friends… who were going down to a specific clinic and doing ibogaine – one treatment of ibogaine would cure them," Crenshaw said.
The duo targeted this year's National Defense Authorization Act to introduce their proposal, managing to get a "watered-down version" of the bill they authored into the massive yearly legislation.
Crenshaw said House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., has promised the lawmakers to get a comprehensive version of the bill, which will include funding and clinical trials, in the legislation during meetings with the Senate to combine the two chamber's versions of the bill.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Meanwhile, Ocasio-Cortez called on veterans to apply pressure to the Senate to make sure the provision gains approval.
"I know the power of this community to rise up and make itself heard," Ocasio-Cortez said.
My grandfather hid the emotional toll of World War II from his family for decades
ALCOHOLISM RATES ROSE WITH THE RETURN OF WWII AND KOREA WAR VETS
Story by Chloe Melas • Yesterday - CNN
For decades after returning home from World War II, my grandfather did not talk about his wartime experiences.
Frank Murphy flew 21 perilous missions as a navigator of a B-17 for the Eighth Air Force’s 100th Bomb Group, nicknamed “the Bloody Hundredth.” The day his plane was shot down in 1943, two of the men in his crew died, and my grandfather considered himself lucky to have parachuted out of his burning aircraft and be captured by the Nazis.
For the next 18 months, he would endure deplorable conditions as a German prisoner of war, take part in a harrowing death march in subzero temperatures and by the time US Gen. George S. Patton’s troops liberated him, he had lost over 50 pounds and was riddled with dysentery, pneumonia and lice.
Everyone could see the physical toll of war on his body, but we didn’t know about his invisible wounds.
That is until 2001, more than 50 years after returning home, when my grandfather wrote a memoir, “Luck of the Draw: My Story of the Air War in Europe,” for our family. He originally self-published the book for our family but as I got older, I felt his story needed to reach a wider audience. After several years of gathering his original materials and photographs, I partnered with St. Martin’s Press to release the book in February and it is now a New York Times bestseller.
In his book, he wrote, “I often wonder why Providence allowed me to survive when so many others did not.”
My mother and his other three children said that their dad never spoke about the war during their childhood. It wasn’t until my mom read his book that she truly knew what he had gone through.
Even my grandmother Ann, his wife of 50 years, told me that she did not even know that her soon-to-be-husband had been a prisoner of war until right before they were married. What is PTSD?
Researching my grandfather’s time during the war, I’ve often wondered if he had post-traumatic stress disorder. I may never know whether he had PTSD or not — but in the 78 years since World War II ended, it’s so vital that the national conversation around this important topic is moving forward.
It’s had different names throughout history. After World War I, it was “shell shock”; post-World War II it was known as “combat fatigue,” and after Vietnam it was called “post-Vietnam syndrome.” In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized it as post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD.
Post-traumatic stress disorder “is a psychiatric disorder that may occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, series of events or set of circumstances. An individual may experience this as emotionally or physically harmful or life-threatening and may affect mental, physical, social, and/or spiritual well-being,” according to the American Psychiatric Association’s website. “Examples include natural disasters, serious accidents, terrorist acts, war/combat, rape/sexual assault, historical trauma, intimate partner violence and bullying.”
Do veterans have a brain injury?
Now professionals such as psychologist Shauna Springer and psychiatrist Frank Ochberg are advocating calling it post-traumatic brain injury.
“I refer to it as an injury because I’ve seen that there’s a biological component to being exposed to trauma as well as a psychological component that has always been with us,” Springer, chief psychologist at the Stella Center, told me. “And now I think we’re on the cusp of evolving the term further.”
Post-traumatic brain injury has always existed, Springer said, and people are finally talking about it.
“It’s kind of like saying that because the divorce rate was so much lower in previous generations that everybody had these great marriages,” she said, “but actually that was a factor of how much stigma there was about divorce and how dependent women were financially at that time without their own career options.”
Forty percent of medical discharges during WWII were for psychiatric conditions, most for combat stress, according to the National World War II Museum In New Orleans.
Veterans keep quiet about trauma
But veterans didn’t always mention their trauma when they came home from the war.
“When your grandfather and my grandfather served in World War II, they didn’t talk about it,” Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, told me.
“They came home and too often, you know, their therapy was drinking,” he said. “There was a generation of folks who had tremendous trauma and pain, and that overflowed into their families in ways that we still can’t even quantify.”
My grandfather was in the infamous Stalag Luft III prison camp, where “The Great Escape” took place. In his memoir, he writes about going to bed hungry, freezing and terrified of never knowing when the war would end.
“A prisoner of war experiences real-time feelings of helplessness and you’re on-your-own that cannot be imagined unless you have been there,” my grandpa relates in “Luck of the Draw.”
Inside Stalag 7A where Frank Murphy was a prisoner of war during WWII
. - Courtesy Murphy Collection
“It is difficult to put into words the sense of powerlessness and vulnerability one experiences when standing completely defenseless before a formidable armed wartime enemy of your country, knowing that the entire might of the United States is of no benefit to you.”
I have his book to remind me, but it’s hard to imagine what else he must have gone through, and the struggles he went through alone, once he was back home.
How are veterans today?
With so many US troops fighting abroad in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 years, the problems my grandpa faced haven’t gone away.
About 16 veterans commit suicide each day in the United States, according to a report by the US Department of Veterans Affairs. Asked for comment by CNN, the VA did not specify how many of those suicides were related to post-traumatic stress.
I became active in the fight for our veterans when I joined the board of directors for the National Museum of the Mighty Eighth Air Force near Savannah, Georgia, in 2015 in honor of my grandfather’s service.
I found allies in the cause when I joined the board, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Perry, who has been a vocal supporter of our nation’s veterans, was a pilot in the Air Force before entering politics and eventually becoming the US secretary of energy. His father, like my grandfather, served in the Eighth Air during WWII.
“My instinct here is warriors are very proud, and showing weakness in any form has historically been frowned upon,” he told me.
Perry’s attention to the emotional toll of war became heightened when he met Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. Luttrell had just returned home from a harrowing experience participating in Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005. (It went on to become a best-selling book and a 2013 film starring Mark Wahlberg called “Lone Survivor.”) Perry and his wife took Luttrell into their home and got him the psychological support he needed.
Chloe Melas is shown with her grandparents, Ann and Frank Murphy, in Atlanta in1989. (Courtesy Melas Family Collection) - Courtesy Melas Family Collection
Do psychedelic-assisted therapies help?
At same time, Perry was introduced to Amber and Marcus Capone, a couple who had started an organization called Veterans Exploring Treatment Solutions, or VETS, which provides resources, research and advocacy for US military veterans seeking treatment with psychedelic-assisted therapies.
They started the group after Marcus Capone returned home from multiple combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and was having suicidal thoughts.
“He didn’t understand why he couldn’t get better,” Amber Capone said. “He was trying so hard. I just thought of our kids and them living the rest of their lives without a father and how this would impact generations to come, and I just thought, I can’t stop fighting for him.”
Six years later, VETS says it has provided funding for more than 700 veterans to get access to psychedelic treatments at centers outside the country due to issues with legalization.
This is one of the reasons Perry has devoted years to supporting veterans and bipartisan legislation for psychedelic therapy for veterans.
“I know this whole concept, Rick Perry’s name and psychedelics in the same sentence, five years ago I would’ve kind of looked at you and said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ” Perry told me. “But I know kids that were really sick that are now about as close to normal as you can get.”
The legalization of psychedelic treatments varies in the United States. Only a handful of states such as New York, California and Arizona have active legislation proposed to decriminalize plant-based hallucinogens, such as psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic mushrooms,” and dimethyltryptamine, which is found in some plants used to brew ayahuasca.
While Oregon and Colorado are the only two US states to have decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms for those over 21, other states such as Texas and Maryland are conducting clinical trials with MDMA and ibogaine for those suffering from issues such as PTSD and depression.
Dr. David Rabin, a neuroscientist and board-certified psychiatrist, has been studying the effects of chronic stress on mental and physical health for nearly 20 years.
“We know that hugs feel good. We know that music makes us feel good if we like listening to our favorite songs, right? That is intuitive, but we don’t necessarily remember to breathe when we’re stressed out,” Rabin said.
“Psychedelic medicine is interesting because it works when it’s used properly,” he said. “It works as a therapy amplifier because it molecularly seems to do something in the brain that amplifies the neural pathways of safety that are set up by the therapeutic environment.”
Springer cofounded the Stella Center, a network of clinics that offer ketamine infusion therapy and dual sympathetic reset for those suffering from post-traumatic stress. Dual sympathetic reset is a procedure involving a local anesthetic injected next to a mass of sympathetic nerves in the neck called the stellate ganglion to help regulate an overactive sympathetic nervous system, according to Stella’s website.
“For some, it’s medication; for some, it’s a service dog,” said Rieckhoff of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “And I think everybody’s got to figure out what their right prescription is to meet their unique situation.”
Another individual bringing resources to veterans and their families is ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff.
While reporting in the field in Iraq in 2006, Woodruff had a near-death experience that changed the course of his life. An improvised explosive device struck him and his cameraman, and Woodruff was subsequently kept in a medically induced coma for 36 days.
During his recovery, he and his wife, Lee Woodruff, were inspired to launch their nonprofit, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, after getting to know veterans who were dealing with the impact of hidden injuries such as traumatic brain injuries.
“I would say almost every American wants to do something for veterans who served, but many don’t really know exactly where that support should go because it’s very complicated,” Bob Woodruff said. “We just kind of help people who want to do something, find the right direction to help people.”
To date, the foundation says it’s invested over $124 million in these programs and has given over 585 grants to veterans and their families
As for the future, Perry said it’s about continuing the conversation.
“I think mental health is the most undiagnosed and unknown malady that we have in modern society, potentially,” he said. “It was there all along.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how long Bob Woodruff was in a medically induced coma and misstated the term “dual sympathetic reset.”
