Tripping up addiction: the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of problematic drug and alcohol use

- Psilocybin may reduce alcohol and tobacco use in addicted samples.
- Ibogaine and ayahuasca have shown promise in the treatment of various addictions through observational studies.
- Ketamine has been used to treat alcohol dependence and reduces cocaine self-administration in the human laboratory.
- Randomised controlled trials are greatly needed to further test the efficacy of all of these compounds.
- Psychedelic drugs may have their therapeutic qualities due to anti-depressant effects, stimulating neuroplasticity and long-term psychological changes.

Psychedelic drugs have been used as treatments in indigenous cultures for thousands of years. Yet, due to their legal status, there has been limited scientific research into the therapeutic potential of these compounds for psychiatric disorders. In the absence of other effective treatments however, researchers have begun again to systematically investigate such compounds and there is now evidence pointing to the use of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of addiction. In this review we focus on human evidence for the effectiveness of preparations used by indigenous cultures in the Amazon (ayahausca) and Africa (ibogaine) and worldwide (psilocybin), and more recently synthetised drugs such as the serotonergic hallucinogen LSD and the dissociative anaesthetic ketamine. Potential mechanisms explored are anti-depressant effects, changes in neuroplasticity and existential psychological effects of these drugs.