Backed by three top psychiatrists, 161 cluster headache sufferers in the UK have written an open letter to Home Office ministers Savid Javid and Kit Malthouse calling for politicians to reschedule psilocybin.
Cluster headache sufferers from ClusterBusters UK have said breaking the law pales in comparison to getting rid of the pain they live with. The organisation is the national branch of the global ClusterBusters organisation based in the US which works to improve the lives of cluster headache suffers.
In the open letter to Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Savid Javid, and Minister of State for Crime and Policing, Kit Malthouse, the 161 UK citizens call for the substance to be rescheduled from its Schedule 1 status in order to fight for symptom relief.
Cluster headaches are rare and debilitating neurological condition known as suicide headaches for their excruciating pain – currently untreatable with existing treatments. The condition affects 1 in 1000 people in the UK.
Psilocybin has shown promise in treating the condition and the citizens highlight it can also address the mental health impacts that stem from it.
The letter, which was written by ClusterBusters’ Vice President, Ainslie Course, states: “Sadly, there are very few medications which offer any relief whatsoever, and those that do are short-lasting at best but many, many people living with Cluster Headache have been successful in treating our condition with sub-hallucinogenic doses of psilocybin.
“Not only is this a way to treat the physical symptoms of our condition, but this medicine can also treat the associated mental ill health, that is the depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress related to knowing the excruciating pain will inevitably return.
“Psilocybin is helping hundreds of thousands of people to live a predominantly pain-free life with encouragingly long periods of remission. This medicine has saved my life and the lives of many others.”
Three top psychiatrists – President of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, Professor Allan Young, Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging, Professor Karl Friston and Regius Professor of Psychiatry, Head of the Department of Psychological Medicine, King’s College, London, Professor Simon Weseley – have also written in support of the suggestion.
They emphasise that psilocybin research can garner insights about the human brain: “When administered as a pharmacological challenge, changes in brain activity can be brought to light that inform our understanding of functional brain architectures and processing, advancing human knowledge and translational applications.”
Due to its classification as a Schedule 1 substance, psilocybin research is off-limits to numerous UK higher education institutions and businesses, they say, as many of these institutions “do not have the economic and temporal resources to secure the necessary licences.”
The psychiatrists also highlight that psilocybin can be used as an adjunct psychotherapeutic agent to treat conditions such as anorexia nervosa, obesity, post-traumatic stress disorder and addictions to substances such as alcohol, cocaine and tobacco.
The two letters are part of the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group’s (CDPRG) Psilocybin Access Rights campaign. Founder of the CDPRG, MP Crispin Blunt, held a meeting with Prime Minster Boris Johnson in May 2021 in which Johnson agreed the rescheduling of psilocybin into Schedule 2. However, there have been Home Office delays relating to a misinterpretation of existing legislation.
Blunt raised the question of rescheduling psilocybin in Parliament later in October, to which Johnson stated he would consider the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs’ (ACMD) advice on reducing barriers to research with controlled drugs, and would “get back to him as soon as possible”.
In their letter, the psychiatrists state: “The Government has confirmed that there has been no recent review of the evidence for psilocybin’s current scheduling,” calling for Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty to review the evidence that support rescheduling the substance.
“Having assessed the evidence and history of this legislation ourselves, we understand that there is not and has never been an evidential basis for psilocybin’s current scheduling, based as it is on the UN Single Convention on Psychotropic Substances 1971. This is strange given the emerging evidence of psilocybin’s therapeutic potential and clear neuroscience research utility.”
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