Canada is one of the most progressive and flexible countries as far as regulatory reforms that pave way for more efficient and healthy medical applications are concerned. It was thus no surprise when the country’s healthy regulatory authority Health Canada made its stance clear and positive on psychedelics and their potential medical applications.
2020 was quite a challenging year particularly due to the global pandemic and it was also the year that governments across the world started to acknowledge that the mental health crisis was getting out of hand. Canada was one of those countries and it was particularly open to the idea that psychedelics can provide relief to people suffering from mental health illnesses.
Health Canada collaborated with numerous organizations in 2020 to explore psychedelic therapies. The federal health agency has a program through which doctors can apply for approval on behalf of their patients, to use restricted drugs. This program proved to be quite useful for people like Thomas Hartle, a 52-year-old cancer patient suffering from stage-4 colon cancer.
Understanding the benefits of psychedelics in special cases
Hartle suffered from existential anxiety which led him to seek help from a non-profit organization called TheraPsil. The organization is allowed to conduct medical research using psychedelics through the Canada’s Controlled Drugs and Substances Ac. TheraPsil uses psilocybin to treat clinically depressed and terminally ill patients like Hartle.
Hartle’s experience with psilocybin eased his anxiety about death and helped him to deal with his impending demise. He also noted that the psychedelic experience also came with other benefits such as pain relief from migraines that he has experienced ever since he was a child.
The state-funded assisted dying program in Canada is just one of the areas that can benefit from psychedelics such as psilocybin. Researchers also believe that it would be best to also allow doctors to go through psychedelic experiences so that they will be in a better position to guide patients through it. Researchers also insist that it is best for patients to go through therapy right after a psychedelic trip especially if they are mental health patients because therapy paired with psychedelic trips might yield better results.
