Decades of prohibition have failed to stop psychedelic drug use while blocking research and treatment options, raising questions about the basis of current laws.

“Tune in, turn on, and drop out.” Timothy Leary, the Harvard psychologist and champion of psychedelic drugs, first uttered that iconic phrase 60 years ago. A year later California became the first jurisdiction to prohibit LSD. But last Saturday, President Donald Trump (of all people) directed that his administration move quicker to review certain psychedelic drugs.

The global push to criminalise psilocybins, LSD and other similar drugs from the late 1960s onwards was, and still is, based not on public health grounds, but ignorance, prejudice and fear by law makers.

As we now know, Timothy Leary was right. His research at Harvard, with his colleague Richard Alpert that commenced in 1960 was called the Harvard Psilocybin Project. Psilocybin is a hallucinogen found in some species of mushrooms (LSD is a chemical formulation).

Harvard University’s biography of Leary – that they have anything on him is to their credit given US President Richard Nixon called him the “most dangerous man in America” – says the project was seeking to document the effects of psilocybin ‘on human consciousness by administering it to volunteer subjects and recording........

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