an interesting RAND Europe report below that deals with the classifications of drugs in the UK. Mushrooms, a bit like cannabis, are the subject of frequent debate about whether they should be exempted in some medical cases from sanctions for use and also about whether it is too strict to have them as class A drugs in the same category, for example, as heroin (for cannabis the debate is whether they should be downgraded from Class B). A couple of researchers have begun to examine the use of the active agents in magic mushrooms in treating OCD and the report also references some interesting papers on the physiological effects of mushrooms.
i would like to do some work on the behavioural economics aspects of different types of drugs. there is a lot of economics work on cannabis, heroin and cocaine. but i havent seen anything to date on hallucinogenics. mushrooms could be really interesting in this regard. RAND cite a figure of 340,000 people using them in the UK in 2004/5. the demand for this type of experience is an interesting to study. i would also be interested in comparing the socio-economic profile of usage to the socio-economic profile of convictions.
http://rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/2006/RAND_TR362.pdf
5 comments:
It's amazing that a drug that causes you to develop magical thinking can be used for relief from magical thinking in the form of obsessive thoughts. I don't know the neurobiology but I guess it could be a bit like giving the stimulant ritalin to hyperactive kids to improve chemical deficits in that case raising dopamine in the frontal lobes. What next, horse tranquilizers for chronic fatigue?
I think the use of mushrooms in Ireland will have reduced significantly in the last year since they stopped selling them over the counter, which was an absolute disgrace in the first place. The clampdown was brought on by an inevitable accident where an unfortunate guy leaped from a building whislt on them. There was, however, another recent case in Cork where a man died in a forest after taking them at a party indicating they're still fairly available.
I reckon he psychedilic images of the 60's strawberry fields and tangerine trees and such contribute to many peoples sense of intrigue towards mushrooms and also more recent drug centred films like 'fear and loathing in las vegas'.
Bad trips can put many people off the drug, there are also cases where taking large doses of mushrooms brings on paranoid schizophrenia and also depression amongst those who have a vulnerability and others who are left with permanent alterations to their visual centres.
Michael,
Surely you can't advocate unrestricted availability of a psychedlic substance such as magic mushrooms?
Our society is not sophisticated enough to make it safe for this drug to be consumed. I thought it was a positive step forward when this drug was illegalise, but we can debate this offline.
Perhaps a result of poor punctuation in a couple of my sentences Martin but my general aim was actually to point to the detrimental effects of halluciongenic mushrooms and the dangers of their previous widespread availablility.
My apologies Michael. On a re-reading I can see that I clearly misinterpreted you!
How's about adults make choices for ourselves. Governments are about to take us head first into despair with the economy why should we have them dictate everything we consume drugs or otherwise. I see alcohol is still being sold, how many deaths this year again? There's no contest.
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