Australia is set to become the first country in the world to legalize clinical prescribing of MDMA, better known as ecstasy, and psilocybin — the main psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms — for certain mental health disorders.
Starting July 1, authorized psychiatrists will be able to prescribe MDMA for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression, according to a February news release. Both drugs are otherwise illegal in Australia.
The 2021 findings of a phase 3 trial showed that MDMA may be a “potential breakthrough treatment” for the disorder. For psilocybin and treatment-resistant forms of depression, a 2022 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine that involved 233 participants found that a dose of 25 milligrams of a synthetic version of psilocybin reduced depression scores over a period of three weeks. However, the researchers found that the effects wore off after about three months.
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