Right Here in South Florida, an LSD-Like Drug Gets One Step Closer to Becoming Legal
Ever since the days of Geocities, mothers have been taking to the Internet to tell strangers, from behind a wall of pseudonyms, about the substances that help them get through their day. Blogs were where you could sing the praises of your own Mother’s Little Helper without fear of judgment. Sometime during the George W. Bush administration, a stay-at-home mom posted dark purple text on a yellow background about how she spent her long days with her two-year-old son looking forward to his bedtime, at which point she could smoke cigarettes and watch the reality TV shows she had Tivoed. During the first Obama administration, a woman who would today be called a “wine mom” wrote a think piece on Slate about how she never imbibes before 6:00 p.m., but once she does, the drudgery of coaxing her young daughter to eat and bathe and picking up an endless parade of Polly Pocket accessories off the floor becomes much more bearable. The Internet proliferated, and so did the prized substances in mothers’ confessions, even as an increasing number of mothers published confessions under their own names. By 2019, the consensus was that wine moms are so 2009, and now that several states have legalized recreational cannabis, even weed moms are basic; truly enlightened women cope with the pressures of motherhood by microdosing LSD. Soon, they might be able to do so legally. Here, our Miami drug crimes defense lawyer explains the current state of clinical trials on MM-120, a psychedelic drug similar in composition to LSD.
About the Almost Legal Acid Trip Clinical Trial
In a sage-scented, blacklight-lit room, patients are tripping on MM-120 as part of a phase II clinical trial. MM-120 isn’t not LSD. MM stands for MindMed, the New York-based biotech firm that manufactured the acid and is conducting the clinical trials; 12 is just a serial number. And it’s all happening right here in Lauderhill. The only difference is that street LSD degrades quickly when exposed to light or water; MM-120 is more shelf stable; it is the difference between buying pot brownies from a licensed dispensary and baking them in your kitchen based on a photo you took of the relevant page of your friend’s copy of the Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.
The patients in the study range in age from 18 to 74, and the only thing they have in common is a diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder. Each patient takes a gel tab that either contains a placebo or 25, 50, 100, or 200 micrograms of LSD; recreational LSD tabs sold on the street usually contain between 25 and 100 micrograms. Each patient remains in the “trip room” for ten to 12 hours, listening to a playlist curated by the scientists who designed the study, although patients may choose to bring their own Pink Floyd albums instead. So far, only a few patients have experienced a bad trip, but the designers of the study knows that it is a good idea to keep some even-tempered folks around to talk wayward psychonauts down from a freakout if necessary. The researchers then monitor the patients for the next twelve weeks as they report their anxiety symptoms. Unlike other clinical trials that test psychedelics as treatments for mental illnesses, this trial does not involve talk therapy, only acid.
Twelve weeks after the acid trip, nearly two thirds of the participants reported that their symptoms decreased. Nearly half of the participants have been completely asymptomatic since their one and only trip.
LSD’s Wild Ride With the Law
If LSD is such an effective treatment for anxiety, as every Deadhead and every Merry Prankster can tell you it is, then why didn’t this clinical trial happen sooner? In summary, the Controlled Substances Act got in the way. In 1970, the Controlled Substances Act categorized LSD as a Schedule I controlled substance, making it illegal for medical use or medical research; cannabis was in the same boat. In recent years, the FDA has allowed clinical trials to proceed for the safety and effectiveness of LSD, psilocybin, and MDMA in treating psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and opioid use disorder. Unless the federal government decides to move LSD to a different drug schedule, we could soon see legal leaps of logic surrounding medical LSD like we do today for medical marijuana.
Contact Our Criminal Defense Attorneys
A South Florida criminal defense lawyer can help you defend yourself against charges of illegal possession of LSD. Contact Ratzan & Faccidomo in Miami, Florida for a free, confidential consultation about your case.
Sources:
miaminewtimes.com/news/medmind-tests-lsd-as-anxiety-treatment-in-psychedelic-phase-ii-study-17157539
hightimes.com/psychedelics/fda-recognizes-lsd-equivalent-drug-with-breakthrough-therapy-label-for-anxiety-relief/
