As the clocks go back and Christmas lights begin to go up in towns and cities across the country, thoughts turn to the forthcoming new year. For many, that will mean reassessing their health and wellbeing, and January 1st will see many Irish smokers attempting to cut the habit. And now it seems the best way to do so is to take psilocybin, the active hallucinogenic agent in ‘Magic Mushrooms’.
Given that 5,200 Irish people annually, and one in every two smokers, will die of a tobacco-related disease, there is an entire industry built around conditioning people to kick the habit, be it patches, hypnosis, or cold turkey. But now a new study from Johns Hopkins University claims that, in carefully controlled settings, ‘Magic Mushrooms’ might well be the key to saying goodbye to cigarette.
In a lab, smokers were introduced to a course of psilocybin three times over two months, with the dosage increased each time. The research, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, showed that 80% of participants managed to abstain from smoking after six months. These results are considerably promising considering that the success rate of Varenicline, a prescription drug considered one of the most effective options for smokers trying to cut back, only has a 35% success rate after the same time period.
Nicotine replace therapies, such as patches, and behavioural therapies have, according to the researchers, a success rate of less than 30%.
Don't try this at home
The study’s volunteers were on average aged 55, and had been smoking 19 cigarettes a day for 31 years. All of the participants had tries and failed to quit smoking previously, and although some had previously experimented with hallucinogenic drugs in their youth, not one of them had attempted to use psilocybin to treat their nicotine addiction.
The active agent in the drugs has been increasingly touted by medical researchers for its potential health benefits that could be applied in the context of cognitive behavioural therapy programmes. CNN has previously reported that the chemical has been clinically proven to be effective at treating depression, anxiety, and obsessive compulsive disorder.
However, the researchers are not advising those desiring to kick the habit to go out and source Magic Mushrooms in order to attempt to recreate the study at home. Instead, they emphasise that the trial’s successes show that when long-time smokers are administered psilocybin pills – by medical professionals in controlled environments – these smokers can, through behavioural therapy, be encouraged out of addiction.
"Quitting smoking isn't a simple biological reaction to psilocybin, as with other medications that directly affect nicotine receptors," Dr. Matthew Johnson, the study's lead author and an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote. "When administered after careful preparation and in a therapeutic context, psilocybin can lead to deep reflection about one's life and spark motivation to change."
