Medical Uses for Schedule I Drugs

The subject of illicit drugs is a sensitive subject for many. For better or for worse, American culture is saturated with an anti-illicit drug mentality. The U.S. Government spends billions of dollars a year to find, capture, and incarcerate sellers and users of illegal drugs. Numerous advertisement campaigns expound the dangers of drugs to anyone who will listen, and schools across the nation participate in special programs to warn and educate children on the negative effects of drug abuse. It is true, the recreational use and abuse of scheduled substances is a very dangerous thing. Addictions and overdoses kill and otherwise ruin the lives of people all across the country. A certain number of illegal drugs, however, are categorically mislabeled. Drugs such as LSD, ibogaine, and cannabidiol remain illegal despite medical usefulness in the treatment of a great number of ailments, including psychological disorders, addiction, and cancer.

So what is so special about these drugs? After all, other illicit substances, such as methamphetamine and ketamine are used quite frequently as treatment for ADHD and as a general anesthetic. The problem lies in the way this country criminalizes drugs. The collection of anti-drug laws as we know them today began in 1970 with the enactment of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act amidst the social and political turmoil that rippled through American culture in the late 1960's and early '70's. A child clause of this act, called the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), created a series of categories, or schedules, meant to rank drugs according to their relative danger and legitimate medical usefulness. Currently there are five such schedules, with Schedule I holding drugs that have the highest potential for abuse, while Schedule V the least so. Conversely, drugs that are most useful in medicine are placed in Schedule V, while drugs with no medical usefulness are placed in Schedule I.

Schedule I drugs are those that, according to the CSA, have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use, and are prohibitively dangerous to use, even under medical supervision. This, however, is not actually the case. Drugs such as the aforementioned LSD, ibogaine, and cannabis have the possibility to treat a vast number of medical conditions, yet are kept out the hands of doctors and researchers because of this scheduling system.

LSD, formally called lysergic acid diethylamide, is a hallucinogenic substance first synthesized in 1938 by chemist Albert Hoffman of Sandoz Laboratories in Switzerland. Renowned for being a powerful psychoactive, the effects of LSD can be felt in doses as small as 20 to 30 micrograms.(Greiner, 208) Though originally and incorrectly thought to artificially induce schizophrenia, research into the drug's use as a treatment for a number of psychiatric illnesses continued until it was outlawed in 1970. One area in which LSD has shown promise is in the treatment of alcoholism. In a 1960 experiment, twelve alcoholics were treated for their condition with a combination of threshold doses of LSD and psychotherapy sessions. Through the use of psychotherapy assisted by LSD, ten of the twelve patients felt that they had gained deeper insight into the nature of their addiction, and “The interpretations which were arrived at almost invariably revealed the basic problems of each patient which were directly related to the excessive use of alcohol” (Rolo, 89).

The use of LSD is not limited to treatment of alcoholism, however. Indeed, LSD has been used in the treatment of a wide array of psychological illnesses, as demonstrated in a 1954 experiment. Thirty-six patients, all diagnosed with a variety of psychiatric issues such as depression, schizoid personality, psychopathic personality, anxiety neurosis, and obsessional neurosis, were subject to treatment consisting of psychotherapy in conjunction with regular doses of LSD. The results speak for themselves. Of the thirty-six patients, thirty-three showed signs of improvement, while fourteen were cured of their afflictions completely. Furthermore, LSD treatments in seventeen cases were able to improve the condition of the patient while previous treatment had been unable to do so. The experiment also showed that, “unlike other treatments LSD was almost as effective in [patients] who had been ill for up to 10 years, as it was in more recent cases” (Sandison, 754). It should be clear then, that LSD does indeed have legitimate medical use, and often will succeed where other treatments will not.

If, then, LSD has legitimate medical use, perhaps there are other reasons why it is listed as Schedule I. Perhaps it has a high potential for abuse, or is prohibitively unsafe, as per the Schedule I requirements of the Controlled Substances Act. If LSD were shown to be either of those things, then it would certainly be ethical to outlaw this substance. Treatment of alcoholism with LSD would be useless is LSD was addicting in and of itself, and medical professionals would forgo the use of LSD for treating mental illnesses if it could possibly kill or otherwise injure patients. Neither of these, however, are true. LSD is not physically addicting, does not induce chronic drug-seeking behavior, and has no noticeable withdrawal symptoms (Dribben). Furthermore, it is, by comparison even to drugs in lower schedules, very safe. A lethal dose of LSD is estimated to be, “about 14,000 [micrograms]. But one person who took 40,000 [micrograms] survived. In the only case of death reportedly caused by overdose...the quantity of LSD in the blood indicated that 320,000 [micrograms] had been injected intravenously." (Stafford, 70). Considering that the threshold dose of LSD is around 20 micrograms, this puts the suspected lethal dose by the most conservative estimates to be around 700 times the useful dose. Other estimates put the lethal limit at around 1600 times the threshold dose (Gable, 690). These facts reveal that LSD is less harmful, less dangerous, and less addicting than many drugs that are listed Schedule II and below, yet is still kept out of research labs and doctors' offices.

LSD, however, is not the only Schedule I drug to have possible medical use. Ibogaine is a psychologically active compound found naturally occurring in a number of plants, namely those of the dogbane family. The psychotropic effects of ibogaine have been compared to a dream, “in which childhood memories flicker through the mind like movies” (Koerner, 82). The notion that ibogaine could be used in the treatment of heroine, and other opioid addictions, came with the life-changing experience of Howard Lotsof. Lotsof, a heroine addict, college dropout, and New York resident, first tried a recreational dose of ibogaine in 1962. The subsequent thirty-six hour psychedelic journey reportedly cured him of his heroine addiction. He states, “It wasn't until the next day when I walked out of my house, I realized, 'Gee, I'm clean, I'm not going through withdrawal'” (Koerner, 82).

Due to scheduling reasons, research into the use of ibogaine for opioid addiction treatment has been largely based on hearsay. However, a study into its addiction-inhibiting effects was conducted in 1999 with help from Lotsof himself. (Alper, “Treatment of acute opioid withdrawal with ibogaine” 234-242) Thirty-three heroine addicted patients were administered doses of ibogaine ranging from six to twenty-nine milligrams per kilogram of body weight, and were monitored for withdrawal symptoms and drug-seeking behavior over the subsequent 72 hour period. After the three hour onset of the treatment, twenty-five patients showed no withdrawal symptoms or drug seeking behavior for the remaining 72 hour period. Four patients, showing no signs of withdrawal, nonetheless returned to heroine use within the period of the experiment. Two other patients showed mild withdrawal symptoms such as sweating and chills, but still exhibited no drug seeking behavior. There was one fatality, however pathologists were unable to implicate ibogaine as the cause.

Reliable information on the safety and potential for abuse of ibogaine is, again, sparse due to its legal status in much of the developed world. The little information that is available, however, speaks to its relative safety. Ibogaine has shown itself to be at least as safe as methadone, a Schedule II drug widely used to treat opiate addictions, with one death per 427 treatment episodes with ibogaine (Alper, “The ibogaine medical subculture”), and one death per 364 treatment episodes with methadone (Gibson). It should be noted that the treatment episodes of ibogaine occur largely without qualified medical supervision, and thus may prove to be even safer in the hands of western medical professionals. Despite the even relative risks of ibogaine, keeping it so tightly restricted is only hindering medical advancement. Whether or not it turns out to be safe enough for widespread treatment programs, at least it would have been pursued by the medical community. As it stands now, patients are unethically being denied a possible treatment option simply because it might be more dangerous than its legal counterparts.

Another Schedule I drug, cannabis, is showing a good deal of promise in medical field. More specifically, it is a cannbinoid related to THC called cannabidiol that holds the greatest potential for medical use, and despite having no psychoactive properties is listed as Schedule I. Cannabidiol itself is an anti-psychotic component of cannabis, having been shown to moderate the effects of THC. As THC induces a form of artificial psychosis, the inhibiting effects of cannibidiol could be used to treat actual psychosis. This has been shown true in a number of experiments, such as one in 1995 where cannabidiol was shown to drastically reduce schizophrenia symptoms without inducing negative side effects. (Zuardi, 427)

Cannabidiol has also been implicated for the treatment of type-1 diabetes. In a 2005 experiment, non-obese diabetic female mice were given doses of cannabidiol at five milligrams per kilogram body weight per day. (Weiss, 145) In the group of control mice, 86% developed diabetes within 14 weeks, while in the group treated with cannabidiol, only 30% developed full-blown diabetes. Furthermore, in the treated mice that did contract diabetes, the onset was much later, at a median of 20 weeks instead of 14. In a similar experiment, 60% of mice treated with cannabidiol remained diabetes-free for 26 weeks, compared to 0% diabetes-free control mice.

If that weren't enough, cannabidiol has the potential to treat cancer as well. In a comparative test of several cannabinoids, such as tetrahydracannabinol, cannabigerol, cannabichromene, cannabidiol-acid, and THC-acid, it was shown that cannabidiol was the most potent cancer cell growth inhibitor. (Ligresti, 3) In another experiment, cannabidiol successfully inhibited leukemia cell growth in 61% of cell lines. In combination with radiation therapy, inhibition of cell growth occurred in 91% of cell lines (Mechoulam, 1690).

For a drug with so many useful properties, surely there must be a catch. The problem, however, is a recurring one. True, there is a distinct lack of direct, clinical studies into the safety of cannabidiol, however that does not mean it is impossible to gauge the toxicity of this substance. A pain relieving drug known as Sativex containing both tetrahydracannabinol and cannabidiol was recently approved by Canada's health agency, and has been shown to have few serious side effects, beyond nausea, dizziness, and sleepiness (gwpharm.com, “FAQ”). Furthermore, cannabidiol is a primary component in marijuana, a recreational drug with widespread use throughout the US and the rest of the world. If cannabidiol were prohibitively dangerous, it should manifest in deaths or medical complications in marijuana users. There are, however, no recorded cases of death by marijuana (“Study Finds No Link”). The ethical issue is clear cut in this case. Cannabidiol has vast potential for legitimate medical use, few, if any, harmful side effects, and, as it's not psychoactive, no potential for abuse. Yet, it is still listed in the most restrictive illicit substance category this nation has.

The three drugs discussed, LSD, ibogaine, and cannabidiol, have all been shown to either directly treat a number of illnesses, or display disease-inhibiting traits that could be developed into a usable drug. Similarly, they have been shown to be incredibly safe, and have little potential for abuse. Further research or treatment is hindered by the fact that all these substances are listed as Schedule I, despite the fact that these drugs do not fit the Schedule I definition. The consequences of the mis-scheduling of these drugs means that patients, both now and in the future, will go without treatment for their ailments. While drugs exist that could help improve or even save the lives of people suffering from schizophrenia, addiction, cancer, or diabetes, it would be wholly unethical and immoral to keep them out of the hands of doctors and researchers. This, however, is exactly the kind of situation the current scheduling system creates.


=====Works Cited=====


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Weiss, L., et al. "Cannabidiol lowers incidence of diabetes in non-obese diabetic mice." Autoimmunity 39.2 (Mar. 2006): 143-151. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. 29 Oct. 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
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Sandison, R.A., et al. “The Therapeutic Value of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide in Mental Illness” Journal of Mental Science 100.491 (1954): 753-754.

Zuardi, A.W., et al. “Cannabidiol, a Cannabis Sativa Constituent, as an Antipsychotic Drug” Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research 39 (2006): 421-429.

Ligresti, Alessia, et al. Anti-tumor activity of plant cannabinoids with
emphasis on the effect of cannabidiol on human breast carcinoma. Fisciano, Italy: Dipartimento di Biologia e Patologia Cellulare e Molecolare, Università di Napoli, 2006.

Greiner T, et al. “Psychopathology and Psychophysiology of Minimal LSD-25 Dosage; a
Preliminary Dosage-Response Spectrum” AMA Arch Neurol Psychiatry 79.2 (1958):208-210.

Peter Stafford. Psychedelics Encyclopedia. Berkley: Ronin Publishing, 1992

Jonathan Ott. Pharmacotheon: Entheogenic drugs, their plant sources and history. Kennewik: Natural Products Co., 1993

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Gable, RS. "Comparison of acute lethal toxicity of commonly abused psychoactive substances." Addiction 99.6 (June 2004): 686-696. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. EBSCO. 24 Nov. 2008 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=2004130120&site=ehost-live&scope=site>.

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ok thats nice...

whats the point again?

Idiots looking for excusses to justify using drugs. They have their place but lsd isn't the magical answer to everything. Treat psychs like fables, fiction but still offering good learning opportunities and new ways of considering things but no, we do not require lsd revolution ot pernamentaly better society and if we did indeed that is a sorry statement on us all. They have their place but I am sick of ppl thinking lsd is illegal as it would make us beyond control of the feds, paranoia bull shit.