The debate about whether the NHS should use magic mushrooms to treat depression

Many clinical trials to test the use of psychedelic medicines for conditions such as depression have been underway since 2022 - with surprising results

The debate about whether the NHS should use magic mushrooms to treat depression

2 January 2026

[Pallab Ghosh profile image]

Pallab GhoshScience Correspondent

[BBC A treated image of a magic mushroom]
BBC

Listen to Pallab read this article

Larissa Hope believes psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, helped her through a difficult mental health condition.

Back when she was 17 and starting out as an actress, she was cast in the TV drama Skins, but the new-found fame brought out a previously buried trauma. She didn't find antidepressants effective - but that small dose of psilocybin, which she took under clinical supervision, marked a turning point.

"When I experienced it, I burst out crying," she says today. "It was the first time in my life I had ever felt a sense of belonging and safety in my body I kept saying, 'I'm home, I'm home'."

Now, almost 20 years on, Larissa maintains that it was this, along with therapy, helped her confront suicidal feelings.

Not everyone feels the same. Jules Evans, a university researcher, had a very different experience when he first took LSD, albeit for recreational purposes, back when he was 18.

The trip sent him into what he describes as a "deluded" state.

"I believed that everyone was talking about me, criticising me, judging me. I thought, I've permanently damaged myself; I've permanently lost my mind.

"It was the most terrifying experience of my life."

[A picture of a brain scan of a person who has not taken psychedelics next to the hyperactive brain of someone who has taken psychedelics]

A scan comparison shows a hyperactive brain of a psychedelic user next to someone who hasn't taken psychedelics

Today he is director of the Challenging Psychedelic Experiences Project, which helps people experiencing difficulties after taking psychedelics. He says he felt socially anxious and suffered from panic attacks years after his own experience and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

But these two starkly different experiences are at the heart of a dilemma currently facing doctors, regulators and politicians.

That is: should doctors be allowed to prescribe treatments that involve the use of magic mushrooms and other potentially useful psychedelic drugs?

Magic mushrooms and depression

The question has come to the fore amid a series of new studies that suggest psychedelic drugs could help treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, PTSD, trauma and addictions such as alcohol and gambling.

The use of psychedelic medicine is illegal at present unless in authorised research or clinical trials. But since 2022, more than 20 such trials have tested different psychedelic medicines for conditions such as depression, PTSD, and addiction.

The results of many of these studies suggest that the treatments can help, while several others have mixed or unclear results.

Only a few so far have clearly found no benefit on their main measures.

Results from one of the largest clinical trials into the use of psilocybin, by UK biotech firm Compass Pathways, is due later this year.

[Getty Images NHS sign]
Getty Images

*Prof Oliver Howes, chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Psychopharmacology Committee, sees psychedelics as a promising potential new treatment for psychiatric disorders, including for NHS patients*

The UK's medicines regulator is waiting for this data as it considers whether to relax the current tight restrictions and allow use of the psychedelic medicine outside research and trials.

Prof Oliver Howes, chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' Psychopharmacology Committee, is optimistic. He says he sees psychedelics as a promising potential new treatment for psychiatric disorders - including for patients in the NHS.

"One of the key messages is that this is something we desperately need - more treatments and better treatments for mental health disorders…

"These treatments are really interesting because they've shown promise in these small-scale studies… and have the potential to work quicker."

But he is also cautious, emphasising the need to see results from the trials. "It's really important that we get evidence and not overhype the potential benefits."

Others have also urged caution. A report by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, published in September 2025, warned of the potential dangers of psychedelics, and doctors also stress that taking psychedelic drugs is not just illegal but can also be harmful.

Faster acting, fewer side effects?

Drug use is as old as civilisation itself. Magic mushrooms, opium and cannabis have long been used for both recreation and rituals.

By the 1960s and 1970s, LSD, also known as acid, was used by the counterculture movement, with Harvard psychologist and counterculture guru, Timothy Leary, urging young people to "turn on, tune in, drop out". In other words, to turn on and awaken their inner potential, tune in to the state of society around them and to drop out of social norms of the time.

But soon, these drugs were associated with social unrest and moral decline.

[Getty Images Dr Timothy Leary speaking at a conference]
Getty Images

The late American psychologist Timothy Leary urged people in the 1960s to 'turn on, tune in, drop out'

By the time they were banned in the late 1960s and early 1970s, greater restrictions were being applied to scientific research around them too.

But a series of ground-breaking scientific developments in the 2010s by Prof David Nutt and his team at Imperial College London began a process that may well end up changing that.

Subsequent clinical trials on depressed patients indicated that psilocybin was at least as effective as conventional anti-depressants, and with fewer side effects. But there was another big advantage, according to Prof Nutt: how fast-acting it is.

"We thought rather than wait for eight weeks for antidepressants to switch off the part of the brain associated with depression, maybe psilocybin could switch it off in the space of a few minutes."

This view, although scientifically promising, is not universally accepted.

[Close up view from above of mushrooms]

A series of new studies that suggest psychedelic drugs could help treat depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and PTSD

Prof Nutt is a respected scientist, but his assertions have generated controversy.

He was dismissed in 2009 as chair of the government's drugs advisory body, the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, by the then Labour Home Secretary Alan Johnson, following certain public comments - such as claiming there was "not much difference" between the harm caused by horse-riding and ecstasy - which were seen as incompatible with his role as a government adviser.

In recent years, Prof Nutt's studies sparked many more investigations across the world on the potential therapeutic benefits of other psychedelic drugs.

Should they really be available on the NHS?

At University College London, neuroscientist Dr Ravi Das has been trying to understand why some habits harden into addictions while others fade away. He believes psychedelics may help find the answer.

The study he leads has been recruiting heavy drinkers to test whether dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a short-acting psychedelic also used as a recreational drug, can be used to to target the brain's memory and learning systems.

It builds on evidence suggesting psilocybin can disrupt habitual behaviours linked to addiction.

### 'I spent 30 years searching for secret to happiness - the answer isn't what I thought'

### Rise of vaccine distrust - why more of us are questioning jabs

[...]

Original source