The latest Psilocybin study at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine set out to discover the "sweet spot" dose of pure chemical Psilocybin that would offer users all the positive benefits while minimizing the negative effects. Researchers screened volunteers between the ages of 29 and 62, ensuring that they were of sound mind and body (as the saying goes), and chose 18 to undergo five sessions lasting eight hours each and timed a month apart. At four of these, the volunteers would receive varying doses of the chemical and a placebo (no drug) at the remaining session.

In common with other studies at Hopkins, volunteers in this one were settled into a comfy couch in an aesthetically-pleasing, living-room-like environment during each session and were accompanied by trained monitors. The subjects were encouraged to lie back and relax, with mood-complementing classical and world music being played through headphones. Neither the volunteers or the monitors knew beforehand how much Psilocybin they were to receive at each session but subjects were given preparatory guidance and coaching.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers noted that the reported positive effects increased as higher doses were given, but also that there was a sharp increase in the negative aspects at the very highest dose. At the highest dose (30 mg/70 kg, p.o. - meaning "per oral" or by mouth), 78 percent of the volunteers were reporting one of the top five most spiritually significant happenings of their lives but those suffering anxiety, stress and fear episodes increased by six times, so that around a third of those participating in the study showed signs of psychological struggle.

By contrast, only one of the volunteers receiving the second highest dose (20mg/70 kg, p.o.) reported having negative issues, and all benefited from positive experiences, although with less intensity than at the highest dose. Critically, even the lowest amount used in the study resulted in notable and long-lasting positive changes in the attitudes, behavior, overall satisfaction and spiritual beliefs of the subjects during the period of study. These changes were also noticed by family members and friends.

"We seem to have found levels of the substance and particular conditions for its use that give a high probability of a profound and beneficial experience, a low enough probability of psychological struggle, and very little risk of any actual harm," says lead author of the study, Roland Griffiths, Ph.D.

Those who received a small taster before a higher dose were observed as being even more likely to reap the benefits than those who were only given the higher dose.

A month after the conclusion of the study, 61 percent rated the experience as being the single most important spiritual experience of their lives and 14 months later, 94 percent of the volunteers rated it in their top five.

Hmm, that should work out to between 2-3.5 g of dried mushrooms, if my back-of-the-envelope (literally) calculations are correct.

Blessings
~ND

^
we have the worlds largest best trained army of volunteer guinea pigs.
and its a fact jack.

the real joke is, "academia" is at least 20 yrs in our wake.

Tell me where the sign up sheet is and I'll be there, no doubt about it!

^
fact is , its essentially scientific plagiarism.
they could have asked us.....
but then , what good are they , if we already know.

next they are gonna declare hydro cactus as plausable.........
(and the utility of fire and the wheel)

if thats the big discovery,
cut off their funding and send the bux to nexus instead!
for that budget, we would have gladly told them to
"take 3 grams and call us in the morning"............
and ,it would have been expert experienced advice.

To be fair, I don't think any of us have conducted double blind experiments on psilocybin therapy...

2) The setting is controlled. This one should be obvious. If one person eats shrooms at a rave, one in a field, one at a house party, two with their loved ones, one for the 10th time, one for the first time, etc, there's no consistency with the set, setting, so getting a useful data set is hard.

4) This stuff forms policy. If you want psychedelics legalized for medical use, you need to speak the language of the Powers That Be. Erowid trip reports and earnest feelings will not get the job done.

5) This lays the ground work for more investigative work into the neurobiology of psychedelic drugs. Carhart-Harris et al would not have been able to do the groundbreaking modeling work that they have without Griffiths et al's work showing that psychedelics can be administered safely in a hospital environment.

We've had talks with the john hopkins crew and you can be sure they certainly are listening to us and very open to the knowledge we have gathered

It's not an 'us vs them' situation, it's rather an 'us and them versus misinformation/lack of knowledge/bad policies' scenario

Lets also remember that these scientists are NOT just co-opting things that we psychonauts have known for ages. Plenty of the studies being done on psilocybin in humans has been absolutely groundbreaking and these results are not things that anyone was likely to discover by just tripping by themselves or their loved ones, no matter how much introspection they engaged in.

Also, you'll never hear us admit it in public, for fear of loosing academic standing, but many people researching psychedelics have been touched by them in one way or another. Without outing myself too much, I work in neuroscience research, on a psychedelic project currently, and my psychedelic experiences have informed pretty much all of my research in one way or another, even the projects that have nothing to do with psychedelic drugs.

Blessings
~ND

are not things that anyone was likely to discover by just tripping by themselves or their loved ones, no matter how much introspection they engaged in.
~ND