Medical Psychedelics
We are working to break down barriers to research and access to medical psychedelics, focussing on psilocybin, the active compound in magic mushrooms, which has shown potential for the treatment of depression, addictions & other mental health conditions, and highlighting the absence of an evidential basis for its current scheduling.
-
March 2024
Our Co-chair, Charlotte Nichols MP raised a PMQ on the topic of facilitating research and access to psilocybin.
-
February 2024
CEBDP hosted two academic roundtables on barriers to research beyond those imposed by Schedule 1, addressing in particular the MHRA and HMG funding for non-commercial research. Strategic next steps were identified.
-
December 2023
The release of ACMD’s Part 2 Report on Barriers to Researching Schedule 1 Drugs finally happened in late December, recommending the extension of Schedule 2 research rights to all drugs in Schedule 1 - this represents a huge win for the campaign but does not go far enough.
-
October 2023
We met with Chris Philp MP on the urgent need to facilitate research and patient access, leading him to write to the ACMD asking for their part 2 report to be released by the end of November, and setting up a meeting with CEBDP and DHSC.
-
May 2023
After the debate a Point of Order was raised due to the Home Office sending Rob Jenrick MP Minister for Immigration in place of Chris Philp MP.
-
July 2023
-
May 2023
In a historical first 26 cross party members of parliament came together to raise the issue of the need for psilocybin access rights in the main chamber of the house of commons, and the motion was passed. The debate was followed by a segment on Newsnight and GB News, as well as coverage in print.
-
May 2023
A letter from the CDPRG, CALM, SANE, Heroic Hearts Project UK, Cluster Busters, Drug Science and the Royal College of Psychiatrists called for the Home Office to Reschedule Psilocybin.
-
May 2023
Following consultations and submissions of evidence from the CDPRG the PRU produced a brief for their parliamentarian members.
-
May 2023
Following a first, flawed report receiving feedback comments from the CDPRG the House of Commons Library updated their report to more accurately reflect the historical injustice of psilocybin’s Schedule 1 status and therapeutic utility.
-
March 2023
Warning the Home Office and giving them time to prepare their responses to the first ever Back Bench Business Debate to be held on psilocybin access rights, backed by 26 MPs across the house.
-
April 2023
This campaign aims to identify and mitigate barriers to patient access post market authorisation. A green paper detailing the findings from multiple stakeholder engagement meetings and providing our recommendations is in preparation. The UKCP, one of the foremost psychotherapeutic accreditation bodies pledged their ongoing support.
-
-
March 2023
-
March 2023
-
March 2023
-
February 2023
The Psilocybin Access Rights campaign set up six billboards around London asking the question: ‘Could magic mushrooms be medicine?’ The billboard campaign is in support of efforts to press the Home Office to reschedule psilocybin as a Schedule 2 substance. An article in the London Evening Standard, prompted by the campaign, points out that ‘Since the early 2000s, clinical research into compounds like psilocybin… has returned promising results in the treatment of mental health disorders. These have proven so promising that from July 2023 psychiatrists in Australia will be able to prescribe psilocybin and MDMA as treatments for depression and PTSD.’
-
January 2023
-
December 2022
-
September 2022
The Psilocybin Access Rights (#PAR) campaign’s government petition for the rescheduling of psilocybin went live on the third of August 2022. It reached 10,000 signatures in under 2 months, leading the government to respond.
You can view the petition here.
and read the government’s response, as well as CDPRG’s comments on the details of that response, here.
-
August 2022
The Psilocybin Access Rights campaign (#PAR) campaign was launched at Medicine Festival 2022. It involved collecting testimonies from the public, sending PAR postcards to MPs and the public launch of the PAR website and the petition.
-
July 2022
The request was made in a letter sent by Professor David Nutt as part of a collaboration between DrugScience’s medical psychedelics working group and the CDPRG.
-
June 2022
-
April 2022
In spring 2022 we produced a report on the current barriers to research into psilocybin and other controlled drugs in the UK. This report was sent to the ACMD and the Home Office in response to the recommendations made by the ACMD in Part 1 of their “Barriers to Research” report. It reiterates that rescheduling with restrictions is the best course of action for research into psilocybin and other controlled drugs.
-
February 2022
Leading psychiatrists wrote to the Home Office in support of an open letter signed by 161 brave cluster headache sufferers, urgently calling for the rescheduling of psilocybin.
"Prof Allan Young, Prof Karl Friston and Prof Simon Wessely want the ministers to commission… the chief medical officer for England, ‘to assess the evidence for the harms and utility of psilocybin with a view to rescheduling this promising medicine and experimentally useful compound at the earliest opportunity.’”
-
February 2022
The infographic below was sent by our non-remunerated chair Crispin Blunt MP in collaboration with Charlotte Nicholls MP. It notes that a majority of the public supports reform in the direction of rescheduling.
-
January 2022
Charlotte Nichols MP asked then-PM Boris Johnson to reschedule psilocybin, invoking the plight of veterans with post-combat trauma, which can be uniquely effectively alleviated by psychedelic-assisted therapies. Those in need must currently travel to other jurisdictions to access healing with psilocybin.
-
November 2021
The CDPRG produced a report detailing our concerns with a de minimis quota being recommended in the case of psilocybin. We sent the report to the ACMD and the Home Office, in response to the former’s July 2021 report, Considerations of barriers to research (Part 1), concerning SCRAs, in which a recommendation was made for a de minimis quota to facilitate research into SCRAs.
-
-
August 2021
CDPRG Psilocybin Rescheduling Project Manager Timmy Davis launched the Psilocybin Access Rights campaign at Breaking Convention 2021.
-
May 2021
Then-PM Boris Johnson MP confirmed he had signed off on a decision to reschedule psilocybin in a meeting with CDPRG chairman Crispin Blunt MP in May 2021.
-
March 2021
The ACMD announced their intention to investigate barriers to researching drugs beyond synthetic cannabinoids, including psychedelics, and open a call for evidence. This follows the Medicinal Use of Psilocybin report and the APPG meeting, as well as the background parliamentary work done by the CDPRG.
While this represented a win for the campaign, further work was required to mitigate against inappropriate recommendations and responses which may have left the issue of the lack of the evidential basis for psilocybin's current scheduling unaddressed.
-
October 2020
The evidence collated from the APPG meeting was presented by hand to the Home Office Minister for Crime, Policing and the Fire service by Crispin Blunt MP and Jeff Smith MP.
-
September 2020
The committees heard expert commentary from the front lines of the UK's battle against the mental health crisis, which made clear that Britain has got to unlock the therapeutic potential of psilocybin. The CDPRG is thankful to our collaborators for coming together to recreate these corresponding presentations for public release.
-
August 2020
A series of news articles were written in August 2020 after a number of Police & Crime Commissioners publicly advocated the rescheduling of psilocybin (as well as cannabis for medical purposes). A number of the headlines erroneously conflated rescheduling with legalisation.
-
July 2020
Our flagship report on the Medicinal Use of Psilocybin examines the issues surrounding psilocybin's current scheduling including the substantial barriers to research suffered by UK scientists. These include increased costs, duration and stigma associated with obtaining Schedule 1 licenses from the Home Office. In the report the CDRPG put forward the solution to these difficulties: the rescheduling of psilocybin from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001, with restrictions which would allow for research to be undertaken uninhibited whilst mitigating against inappropriate prescribing and diversion. This solution would also mean that psilocybin's Scheduling would be appropriate to the emerging evidence of its relative harms and utility in medicine and research.
-
January 2020
A round table of academics and advocates was held to determine the best course of action to run a public and political campaign on the issue.
-
August 2019
A group of international academics held a meeting at Breaking Convention 2019 where the idea was developed to run a project addressing the need to facilitate research and patient access by assessing the evidence for psilocybin’s Schedule 1 status.
