Usually, it’s impossible to say exactly when an idea, particularly a culturally fraught one about handshake drugs and mental health, makes the leap from fringe to mainstream.
But usually isn’t always. And when it comes to the notion that party drugs like mushrooms, ecstasy and LSD should become non-party drugs – legally regulated treatments for a range of mental health woes – the leap might be happening right now.
UC Irvine said last month that its Sue and Bill Gross School of Nursing is now one of two California schools (UC Davis is the other) planning to start teaching future mental health nurses how psychedelics can be used to treat depression, anxiety, PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) and addiction, among other maladies.
The school also has tabbed assistant clinical professor Chris Cleary, a mental health nurse with a doctorate in nursing and an active practice in Los Alamitos, to lead the new program, which is likely to start over the next 24 months.
“It’s got to be a supportive part of a broader treatment plan, but it’s pretty clear that (psychedelics) are helpful in ways that some other medications might not be for some, or even a lot of, people,” Cleary said.
“That’s what the research is supporting.”
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