Erika Dyck Psychedelic Psychiatry: LSD on the Canadian Prairies (Winnipeg: The University of Manitoba Press, 2012).
Erika Dyck provides the reader and interesting view of early historical psychological research on LSD, lysergic acid diethyl-amide. This book is composed of Dyck’s scientific interpretation and dissection of earlier psychedelic psychiatry research by Humphry Osmond, and Abraham Hoffer. A Swiss biochemist named Albert Hofmann dissolved a minimal amount of d-lysergic acid diethyl-amide in a glass of water and digested this new synthetic drug in April 1943. Three hours later he begins to feel dizzy and his vision was distorted. Hofmann recollects this as a surreal journey as if what he saw was created by the famous paintings of Salvador Dali unexplained carnivalesque or at some moments even nightmarish hallucinations. The drug began gaining support from pharmaceutical companies as something that can possibly be beneficial for future scientific study. Saskatchewan soon became one of the epicenters harvesting break through biochemical innovation and experimentation with LSD from the 1950s to 1960s.
In the year 1944 Saskatchewan was the first province to elect the first social democratic, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) the party remained as the leaders for four consecutive four-year terms. The government had an interest in science, medicine, agriculture, and technology. This provincial power was one of the first to offer a funded health care system, in 1966 the Canadian federal government used the system created by the CCF. This is important to note because without the support, and accessible funding for research it allowed psychologist like Osmond, and Hoffer to investigate psychedelic psychiatr...
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...ibility with a wide range of experts and primary sources that the reader identifies as believable. As the reader Dyck compiled her knowledge and that of others that I was easily able to identify as key points to stress. She uses proper flow to organize a well balanced and exciting amount of sources that interest the reader and capture their attention to spread Dyck’s claims. She writes her historical novel based on solidifying themes and arguments with extensive sources that makes her claims hard to dismiss. Already I’ve researched other medical therapies using other sensitive illegal substances marijuana, MDMA, and cocaine that may be on breakthroughs of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and cancer related diseases. Maybe more funding should be invested in this research to better gain understanding and awareness of the possible valuable advances that these drugs may offer.
In the book High Price, highly credible author and neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Hart explains the misconceptions that everyone normally has about drugs and their users. He uses his own life experiences coming from a troubled neighborhood in Florida. The book consists of Hart’s life growing up with domestic violence in his household and the chance he had to come out and excel academically. He talks about the war on drugs and how within this war on drugs we were actually fighting the war with the wrong thing.
During a visit to Mexico, Gordon Wasson, a mycologist, discovered the use of psilocybin mushroom in spiritual ceremonies by Indian tribes. Upon experiencing the spiritual and hallucinatory effects of the mushroom, Wasson returned to the area accompanied by an experienced mycologist, Roger Heim, who managed to cultivate the mushroom once in France and send samples of it to the scientist who had discovered lysergic acid, Albert Hoffman. From the mushrooms, Hoffman successfully isolated two compounds which he further named psilocybin and psilocin. Analogs of these compounds were further synthesized and were employed mainly for psychotherapeutic uses. Many tests on psilocybin were made at Harvard University in the early 1960’s. However, along with LSD, psilocybin became a scheduled substance in 1970, making it illegal. During this time, psilocybin mushrooms became a part of the psychedelic and hippy movement and were used for recreational and spiritual purposes. Research on psilocybin ended in the late 1980’s because of strict rules imposed by the government but recently scientist have started researching on this chemical once more.
Stevenson, Garth. "Canadian Federalism: The Myth of the Status Quo." Reinventing Canada: Politics of the 21st Century. Ed. M. Janine Brodie and Linda Trimble. Toronto: Prentice Hall, 2003. 204-14. Print.
Hofmann, A. (1970, January 1). The Discovery of LSD. The Discovery of LSD. Retrieved May 12, 2014, from http://www.psychedelic-library.org/hofmann.htm
Harris, Jane. "Psychedelic, baby: an interview with Pipilotti Rist." Art Journal 59, no. 4 (December 15, 2000): 68-79. Art Full Text (H.W. Wilson), EBSCOhost (accessed May 28, 2012).
Bibliography 1) Friedman, Milton. “Prohibition and Drugs.” Newsweek. 1972 2) Potter, Beverly. The Healing Magic of Cannabis.
Although drugs are used in an illegal aspect for the most part, there are accounts of medical research to prove the positive effects on some patients with long-term diseas...
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
A largely debated topic in today's society is whether or not psychedelic drugs should be legalized for medicinal purposes and if they should, how this legalization would affect the communities in which they’re being prominently medicinally used. Although many scientists have argued that psychedelics pose a mental health risk, closer examination shows that communities would have a significantly lower depression rate if certain psychedelics were legalized. Now to fully understand how psychedelics could be beneficial or the opposite thereof, you’ll need to understand how they work and what they are. What a psychedelic drug is, the immediate effects, both mentally and physically, and how communities might benefit and function with the sudden use of these drugs.
Wesson, Donald R. "Psychedelic Drugs, Hippie Counterculture, Speed And Phenobarbital Treatment Of Sedative-Hypnotic Dependence: A Journey To The Haight Ashbury In The Sixties." Journal Of Psychoactive Drugs 2 (2011): 153. Academic OneFile. Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
2)Strassman, R. Human Hallucinogenic Drug Research: Regulatory, Clinical and Scientific Issues. Brain Res. 162. 1990.
Although in the modern world such drugs have developed an almost taboo status, it is impossible to ignore the tales of enlightenment reported by ancient cultures and even those rebels that use such drugs illegally today. While the American government has been one of the main influences on today’s society’s negative attitudes towards psychedelic drugs, they have granted some scientist and psychologists permission to experiment with such agents, and despite the controversy and varying results there seem to be many positive uses of psychedelic agents. These positive uses and the research that has been directed toward these uses will be reviewed in the following, as well as a brief history of psychedelic drugs.
This passage comes from The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen. In this passage Matthiessen describes what he has learned from the experiences he had with hallucinogenic drugs, such as ayahuasca, LSD, mescaline, and psilocybin. He is concerned mostly with the spiritual nature of such drugs, and reveals that while drugs are always harmful, they can provide a starting point for spiritual growth.
Nichols, D. E., & Chemel, B. R. (2011). LSD and the serotonin system's effects on human
To conclude, in the present Canadians are seeing change in PSE funding policies begin to come from the provinces. Due to the fact that “when Ottawa went against the grain and launched the Millennium Scholarship programs, provincial feathers, especially Quebec’s, were immediately ruffled,” provinces such as Quebec and British Columbia, among others, were motivated to “set up their own research funding agencies with the view to [maximize] the likelihood of obtaining funds from Ottawa,” (Bakvis 216). As for the legitimacy of cooperative federalism in Canada today, it seems as though executive federalism itself is turning largely paternalistic – at least in the sense of PSE. More often than not, in PSE funding, the federal government has taken the initiative while “one set of executives – those from provincial governments – was largely absent,” (Bakvis 218).