Mental Health - Catastrophe

By Ramana Annamraju MedBricks

(This part 1 of 3 Series)

Do not Condone drugs- Do not take drugs- This is a severe educational exercise - alternative to drugs.

Dr. Sunil Kumar Aggarwal of Seattle, Washington, is not an everyday Indian doctor you meet. He is creating his own version of David and Goliath's story. HIM Vs. mighty Institutions of American Medicine, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, (CMS), Federal Drug Administration (FDA), Drug Enforcement Authority (DEA), and a host of local and state medical boards. Who is on his side? The end-stage cancer-stricken mother of two from the Seattle area.

ERINN BALDESCHWILER’S breast cancer is terminal. The patients in her situation constantly worry about their loved ones and never-ending thoughts of dying. The fear and worries consume the remaining part of their lives. How do you treat dying patients with unrelenting depression?. Doctors have plenty of tools available on their hands for the sick but not for the dying. They are mostly left to hospice care and spiritual counselors.

Dr.Aggarwal, a Physical Medicine, and Rehabilitation specialist, and the doctor for Erinn Deschwiler, wants to prescribe a hallucinogenic drug called "Psilocybin." The drug goes by the street name Magic Mushrooms, Spirit drug, etc.. . This is a highly restrictive drug that can not be prescribed or administered. in the United States.

The Trump administration signed the "Right to Try" act allows physicians to administer even unapproved drugs on dying patients. Despite the law, the Federal agencies are reluctant to act upon it, to some extent rightly so. Dr.Aggarwal and his end-stage cancer patient Errin Baldeschwiler filed a lawsuit in federal courts.

Psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) and naturally occurring Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), LSD, Acid, belong to the same family of Psychedelic drugs. A high dosage of DMT is believed to create a blissful and mystical God-like presence. Ayahuasca brew, which contains DMT, is widely consumed by Amazonian Indians on ceremonial occasions for spiritual experience.

To the surprise of many, DMT is also found in the cerebrospinal fluid in human brains and spinal cords. The purpose of endogenous DMT in our brain is still under study. It is believed to release during the last gasps of death, thus creating the effect of seeing white lights and space-time distortions.

Late Terence McKenna,(1946-2000) an American Botanist, a former new-age hippie who frequently experimented with ‘Ayahuasca’ (DMT), vividly explains his experiences with DMT in several videos. Here is a short clip.

The 15 minutes drug-induced experience is believed to create a long-lasting effect on the brain.. It keeps the patients, free of those dreadful thoughts, particularly for end-stage cancer patients.

Reputable medical institutions started paying attention to the so-called magical powers of psychedelic drugs. Randomized trials between John Hopkins, NYU, UCLA came up with stunning outcomes for a single dose of "Psilocybin", against depression. It produced rapid antidepression and anti-anxiety effects in large magnitude. The data is surprising. 80% of the participants felt better. NYU Langone Health establishes first ever by any medical institution, "Center for Psychedelic Medicine." John Hopkin's study even suggests that "Psilocybin" can be effective for common depression and work better than traditional antidepressants.

It is not just terminally ill patients going through depression nowadays. The pandemic is putting humanity at the brink of a mental health catastrophe. Since 2019, anxiety rates have tripled, and overdose rates have skyrocketed. A growing percentage of youth in the U.S. live with major depression.

Over half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment. That is 27 million adults in the U.S. who are going untreated. Both domestic and street violence is lurking behind this untreated medical condition. The reality is policymakers and governments are lost. They have neither tools nor resources to address on a large scale mental health problems.

We are in serious trouble. Humanity is at a crossroads, survival vs extinction. Self-sufficiency is gone out of the window for most countries. With global dependency, two months of supply chain disruption can plunge the countries into more depression. The first symptom of systemic collapse is mental health. Next, racial, ethnic tensions and communal violence will follow. Every republic is in danger.

Psilocybin, DMT, and similar psychedelic drugs can put reset buttons on the human operating system. But it is not practical to provide drugs and individualized therapies to the entire population. Psilocybin is still classified as a schedule 1 substance, defined as having "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse." Studies are not large enough to Psilocybin" give a free hand. There is potential leakage from a controlled environment to recreational use. Though a small number, some subjects reported seeing monsters, kept them on edge with the use of "Psilocybin."

We need mass mental health treatment. In the world of despair, there is hope. The human spirit is indomitable. It is that part of a person which provides hope, strength, and courage to get up and face each day with a smile. There is an alternate mass treatment for mental health that is easily affordable, accessible, and legal.

It can bring the same results as psychedelic drugs. The prescription is without a prescription from a doctor, and absolutely no drugs are involved. It is unorthodox, I may say so, and it is quite a strange solution. The actual prescription is a "Mathematical Equation!", as a prescription!!!??. Hold that thought for my next column!

Part 2 Mental Health - Geometry connection

Part 3 Psychedelics =Math Equation - Prescription?