re: DEA announces that marijuana will remain a Schedule 1 drug - like LSD & heroin

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Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and Harvard University are investigating a variety of possible medical uses for LSD, such as psychiatric applications and treating chronic headaches. The studies began about a year ago. Currently, UCSF and Harvard University are the only schools in the U.S. to be running human studies on LSD.
In Switzerland, researchers are examining the possible therapeutic effects of the LSD on the intense anxiety experienced by patients with life-threatening disease, such as cancer.
The fact that researchers like Harvard professor Timothy Leary were among the proponents of recreational use of the drug in the '60s helped keep LSD blacklisted on many research campuses. According to UCSF researcher John Mendelson, M.D., that put a lot of researchers off, and it made it very hard for researchers to justify getting back into the field.
While the U.S. federal government made LSD illegal in 1966, the federal government never banned LSD for use in research. But for decades it was nearly impossible to get funding or federal approval.
In 1990, the FDA began researching possible psychedelics (including LSD and psilocybin) use for treating cluster headaches, depression, obsessive compulsion disorder, severe anxiety in cancer patients, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and addiction.
But doing the research has not been easy with government funders still leery and drug companies not interested in the compounds they can't patent. That pretty much leaves private donors.

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