The future for psychedelic-assisted therapy
A discussion will be held at the Byron Theatre next Tuesday where a panel of experts will talk about the future of psychedelic-assisted therapy in Australia.
The Australian public is understandably confused about psychedelic-assisted therapy. Australian psychedelic-assisted therapy was way behind the field until a shock announcement by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) in February 2023 that led Australia to become the first country in the world to confirm psychedelic-assisted therapy as a mainstream treatment.
Despite psychedelic-assisted therapy being approved as a mainstream clinical treatment from 1 July 2023, it is still practically impossible for Australians to access psychedelic-assisted therapy in a clinical practice.
The rollout appears to be happening at a snail’s pace and is likely to be exorbitantly expensive – well out of the reach of those who need it most.
Last week Seven spoke to Dr Stephen Bright, PhD (Clin Psych), MAPS, who is the Senior Lecturer on Addiction at the School of Medical & Health Sciences at the Edith Cowan University.
Dr Bright, what’s going on with psychedelics?
In the context of the TGA announcement, psychiatrists in Australia would be able to become authorised to prescribe MDMA for the treatment of PTSD and some treatment-resistant depression.
There’s been a lot of media hype and some misinformation around what this means. While Psychedelic Institute Australia is doing some training in Byron Bay the week the panel’s running, we thought we would use it as an opportunity to open up a conversation with the Byron community given that various stereotypes exist around what the community might think about psychedelics.
What’s at the heart of why this sort of treatment is so important for you?
There’s good evidence that these treatments can be effective for people that don’t respond to other treatments. And I’ve worked in the drug space for the past 20 years advocating for decriminalisation, harm reduction, and ultimately, some sort of regulated safe supply.
In a nutshell, I don’t have any problem with people wanting to alter their state of consciousness through any drug, providing there’s no harm to other people. But when we’re talking about this in the context of mental health, it makes it a whole lot more complex. And I think if you speak to anybody that’s had a powerful psychedelic experience they would attest that it can have a profound impact on a person’s life.
From my personal perspective, it’s really important that as this is starting to be rolled out – as something that’s going to be mainstream and the public is going to be able to access – to ensure that it’s done in a way that people are able to make informed decisions and have a good understanding of what the potential implications are of having a psychedelic experience. Things like ontological shock or questioning one’s religious beliefs, and those sorts of things, it can have a really powerful impact on people’s life trajectory.
I don’t have any problem with people doing that in their own time and usually people are doing that in a fairly informed way, but when we’re rolling this out as a mental health treatment, it sort of makes things a little more dangerous in terms of the information that’s been put out, and the potential hype and expectations that people are going to have coming into these treatments – and the potential disappointment, because they’re definitely not working for everyone in the clinical trials.
It is an experimental treatment at this stage, Australia is the first country to allow the drugs to be prescribed outside of clinical research.
Other members of the panel include: A/Prof Petra Skeffington (Murdoch University), Renee Harvey (Enosis Therapeutics), and Prof James Bennett-Levy (Southern Cross University). The panel will be facilitated by Mick O’Regan.
What’s the future for Psychedelic-assisted therapy? will be held next Tuesday, 13 February at the Byron Theatre at 6pm.
All proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to Fletcher Street Cottage to support the work it does with Byron Bay’s homeless.
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