Some more big news for the psychedelic medicine industry — the US government will fund a study on the effects of psychedelics on nicotine addiction.
Dr. Matthew W. Johnson, lead researcher for psychedelics at Johns Hopkins, announced the news yesterday on Twitter.
Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Dr. Johnson will be the lead investigator of the clinical trial looking at the effects of psilocybin on tobacco addiction.
Johns Hopkins has been studying the potential benefits of psilocybin for smoking cessation for years, publishing a study in 2014 with impressive results. Dr. Johnson and his colleagues have been continuing this work, pushing several psychedelic studies forward. Recently Johns Hopkins signed a 5-year collaborative research agreement with Mydecine, and will take part in the company’s upcoming Phase 2/3 trial of psilocybin for nicotine addiction.
Not since psychedelics were made illegal during the 1970s “war on drugs” has the federal government funded research into the benefits of psychedelics. So this is an important step forward in bringing psychedelics back into mainstream science. Along with the FDA continuing to approve a variety of psychedelics through the clinical trial process, this news shows that the federal government is increasingly open to putting its support behind the legitimacy of psychedelic medicine.
We’ll keep an eye out for more details of this new government-funded study, but with Johns Hopkins and Dr. Johnson at the helm, and with the growing amount of evidence around psilocybin’s potential to treat addiction, we’re hopeful the news will be good for both the industry and those looking for help.
Looking for more on Johns Hopkins’ studies on smoking addiction? See our feature Quitting Smoking with Magic Mushrooms: Exploring the Historic Hopkins Clinical Trials Investigating Psilocybin for Smoking Cessation