The impact of drug control on wider research: Psychedelic mushroom exploration

Laws to control drugs have been progressively introduced since the early twentieth century to reduce non-medical use and drug-associated harm. Restrictions on what are now deemed ‘controlled drugs’ and, in New Zealand, ‘prohibited plants’ unjustly impact both medical care and research. The impact on research has frequently been cited in reference to the use of drugs in clinical research, such as the use of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and psychedelic drugs (lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin, and n,n-dimethyltryptamine (DMT)). The complexities and legal requirements involved in their use, or simply the inability to legally access these drugs at all, has limited research for decades. While restrictions on research into the clinical applications of these drugs have been commonly reported, legal restrictions also inhibit or severely restrict other research areas. This short paper describes the impedance that drug law can have on research in non-clinical areas, with a discussion of the impact of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1975 on research of mushroom-forming fungi in New Zealand.