In addition to the massive loss of life that the Coronavirus is causing, another major impact of the quarantines and lockdowns that go along with it will be on the mental health aspect.
Mind Medicine Australia is one of the many organizations trying to help people cope with this. The charity enables the development of regulatory-approved and research-backed psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for the treatment of mental ill-health in Australia.
The organization is in these times is advocating for the use of MDMA and psilocybin, which is found in magic mushrooms, to treat people struggling with mental health issues after lockdown.
While Australias Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt last week established coronavirus mental wellbeing support services, including a new digital and phone support services, others like this charity are pushing for medicinal use of psychedelics. Calling on the Australian government in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the registered charity has called to offer this treatment as part of the mental health support its federal health minister has established for these times.
Mind Medicine Australia’s board member Andrew Robb said to ABC, that psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is “potentially the most significant innovation in mental health we’ve seen in decades. We would be derelict in our duty as a country if we didn’t take this opportunity to grab hold of this technology, and then see it’s introduced in a way which can potentially provide very significant benefit to many Australians.”
He went on to note that, “When we come out of this (pandemic), there will literally be tens of thousands of people coming out the other end of this needing treatment and help.” He further criticized the lack of “any major move forward in this mental health space for decades.”
Similar clinical trials for the use of MDMA to support mental health have been around as well. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has conducted clinical trials of MDMA for PTSD and they later approved early access to MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people with life-threatening psychological conditions.
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