Australia has become the first country to allow the use of medicines containing the psychedelic substances psilocybin (present in the so-called hallucinogenic mushrooms) and MDMA (known as ecstasy) after its approval by the drug regulatory entity in the country as of July 1.
The Therapeutic Assets Administration (TGA) issued a statement on Friday, picked up this Saturday by the country’s main media, in which it allows both substances to be prescribed by “psychiatrists specifically authorized for the treatment of some mental health ailments.”
The regulatory body allows the prescription of the synthetic drug MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine) for the treatment of post traumatic stress syndrome and psilocybin for depressions that do not improve with other treatments. “These are the only two diseases for which there is sufficient evidence of potential benefit for some patients,” the statement said.
To prescribe drugs with these substances, psychiatrists must receive approval from the TGA, which will submit it to the judgment of an ethical research committee. The TGA recognized the “lack of options” for patients with mental illnesses who resist treatment, but recalls that controls are necessary for possible adverse effects of these therapies and that for uses outside of the two ailments mentioned, they continue to be prohibited substances .
Although there are no licensed products on the Australian market containing either of these two substances, the TGA will allow licensed psychiatrists to legally source “unapproved drugs“that contain them.
