November 5, 2018 – FDA and Psilocybin

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Anchor lead: Should the FDA approve psilocybin as a medicine? Elizabeth Tracey reports

Psilocybin is a drug that the FDA currently categorizes as having no clinical value, but an initiative underway at Johns Hopkins and several other research facilities is underway to change that. That’s because when used properly, and under specific conditions, the hallucinogenic drug can be quite helpful. Matthew Johnson, a psilocybin researcher at Johns Hopkins, comments.

Johnson: We want to start a dialogue about the appropriate scheduling and the appropriate regulations for psilocybin if and when FDA approves it as a medicine.  So there are several disorders for which there are very promising data. None of them are at the point where FDA is going to approve within the next year or so but we may very well be there within the next five years or so.   :27

Johnson and colleagues believe even more convincing data of psilocybin’s usefulness is accumulating. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.