Anxiety DisordersDepressive DisordersObsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD)Tobacco/Nicotine Use Disorder (TUD)Palliative & End-of-Life DistressSubstance Use Disorders (SUD)Psilocybin

The Heffter Research Institute: Past and Hopeful Future

This essay describes the history and the development of the Heffter Research Institute, in their ongoing efforts to supply psilocybin for the purposes of fundamental and applied clinical research, with a prospective outlook that psilocybin will one day be recognized to have legitimate medical value and integrated within a specialized therapeutic practice.

Authors

David Nichols

Published

March 11, 2014

Journal of Psychoactive Drugs

meta Study

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Abstract

This essay describes the founding of the Heffter Research Institute in 1993 and its development up to the present. The Institute is the only scientific research organization dedicated to scientific research into the medical value of psychedelics, and it has particularly focused on the use of psilocybin. The first clinical treatment study was of the value of psilocybin in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Next was a UCLA study of psilocybin to treat end-of-life distress in end-stage cancer patients. While that study was ongoing, a trial was started at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to study the efficacy of psilocybin in treating anxiety and depression resulting from a cancer diagnosis. Following the successful completion of the UCLA project, a larger study was started at New York University, which is near completion. A pilot study of the value of psilocybin in treating alcoholism at the University of New Mexico also is nearing completion, with a larger two-site study being planned. Other studies underway involve the use of psilocybin in a smoking cessation program and a study of the effects of psilocybin in long-term meditators, both at JHU. The institute is now planning for a Phase 3 clinical trial of psilocybin to treat distress in end-stage cancer patients.

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Research Summary of 'The Heffter Research Institute: Past and Hopeful Future'

Introduction

Nichols presents a retrospective account of the founding and development of the Heffter Research Institute from its incorporation in 1993 through activities up to 2013. He frames the Institute's origin against the broader historical backdrop in which psychedelic clinical research largely ceased following the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, leaving a long gap between pre-1970 clinical work and renewed efforts decades later. The introduction emphasises the perceived need for private funding and institutional credibility to restart high-quality clinical research with classic psychedelics, particularly psilocybin. The essay sets out to describe how the Institute was established, the strategic choices made about which projects to support, the practical challenges of funding and regulation, and the specific clinical and basic-science studies Heffter has funded or catalysed. Nichols signals that the Institute has focused especially on psilocybin and on enabling trials at major academic centres, and that its activities aim ultimately to advance psilocybin toward regulatory approval for a defined medical indication.