#377 - The Future of Psychedelic Medicine 2

Share this episode: https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/377-the-future-of-psychedelic-medicine Sam Harris speaks with Dr. Jennifer Mitchell and Dr. Sarah Abedi about recent developments in research on psychedelics. They discuss the history of this research and the war on drugs, recent setbacks in the FDA approval process, MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the challenges of conducting this research, allegations of therapist misconduct, new therapeutic models for mental health treatment, psychoneuroimmunology, "non-psychedelic" psychedelics, good and bad trips, the FDA's coming decision on MDMA-assisted therapy, "right-to-try" policies for pharmaceuticals, the role of psychedelic therapists, the problem of having all this therapeutic work being done underground, and other topics. Petition to approve MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD: https://www.approvemdmatherapy.com/ Dr. Jennifer Mitchell is a professor in the UCSF Department of Neurology and Associate Chief of Staff for Research and Development at the San Francisco VA. Her research focuses on identifying and developing novel therapeutics for drug and alcohol abuse, PTSD, stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as on understanding the neural mechanisms responsible for these disorders. Dr. Mitchell has extensive and diverse experience with human and animal pharmacology, hypothesis-driven neuroscience, human proof-of-concept studies, and clinical trials. For the past few years, her work has centered around the development of psychedelic medicines for a broad range of mental health conditions, including PTSD. Website: https://profiles.ucsf.edu/jennifer.mitchell   Dr. Sarah Abedi is a board-certified emergency medicine physician and psychedelic facilitator for clinical trials. She has worked as a psychedelic facilitator at the Pacific Neuroscience Institute and is set to join the psilocybin and mindfulness study at the USC Center for Mindfulness Science. She works on policy change to expand funding for mental health research. She served as Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Campaign Manager for TREAT California, a citizen-driven ballot initiative aimed at establishing a $5 billion funding agency to explore novel therapeutics, including psychedelics. Currently, Dr. Abedi is the Chief Medical Officer of TREAT Humanity, an organization dedicated to advancing the research of mental health therapeutics, including psychedelics, through enhanced funding mechanisms. Website: www.sarahabedimd.com   Learning how to train your mind is the single greatest investment you can make in life. That’s why Sam Harris created the Waking Up app. From rational mindfulness practice to lessons on some of life’s most important topics, join Sam as he demystifies the practice of meditation and explores the theory behind it.  

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Join neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author Sam Harris as he explores important and controversial questions about the human mind, society, and current events. Sam Harris is the author of five New York Times bestsellers. His books include The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation, The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, Waking Up, and Islam and the Future of Tolerance (with Maajid Nawaz). The End of Faith won the 2005 PEN Award for Nonfiction. His writing and public lectures cover a wide range of topics—neuroscience, moral philosophy, religion, meditation practice, human violence, rationality—but generally focus on how a growing understanding of ourselves and the world is changing our sense of how we should live. Harris's work has been published in more than 20 languages and has been discussed in The New York Times, Time, Scientific American, Nature, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and many other journals. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Economist, The Times (London), The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Annals of Neurology, and elsewhere. Sam Harris received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA.