Australia becomes first country to allow psychedelics for treatment of depression

Australia has become the first country to allow doctors to prescribe MDMA and magic mushrooms to treat depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). This move came in force on the 1^st of July after Australia’s drug watchdog Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) approved the move after deliberating for almost 3 years.

MDMA is a popular party drug which is also called ‘Ecstasy’ or ‘Molly’ and magic mushrooms are hallucinogenic mushrooms which contain a chemical called ‘Psilocybin’. Research shows that while these drugs were illicit, they were still used for recreational use and are effective in treating certain mental health disorders when combined with psychotherapy.

A phase 2 trial last year showed that 25mg dose of Psilocybin is twice as effective as 1mg dose in combating treatment resistant depression. Although, it had significant side effects, the phase 3 reports described it as a potential breakthrough treatment for PTSD.

While countries like the United States of America, Canada and Israel allow individual use of these drugs on compassionate grounds or in clinical trials, but on 1st July Australia will be the first to regulate the drugs as medications, to be prescribed by approved psychiatrists.   

Critics are suggesting that there is insufficient evidence to prove the usefulness of these drugs to cure depression and PTSD. “It’s not for everybody. We need to work out who these people are that are going to have bad experiences, and not recommend it,” Susan Rossell, a psychiatrist at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne told Nature.

“Instead, it seems the TGA has yielded to pressure from the public and lobby groups to increase access to these experimental treatments, outside of clinical trials. Sufficient levels of evidence have not yet been generated for broad-scale implementation to be justified,” the expert said.