A study conducted by psychiatrist Charles Grob, a researcher at
Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, administered psilocybin — an active
component of psychedelic mushrooms — to cancer patients near the
end-of-life to see if it could reduce their fear of death. The
research, completed in 2008 and published in the Archives of
General Psychiatry in 2011, showed that the psychedelic could,
in fact, be administered safely and reduce the anxiety and
depression associated with the end-of-life. Grob is not alone in
his interest in the relationship between psychedelics and death-
related emotions. Dr. John Halpern, head of the Laboratory for
Integrative Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont,
Massachusetts, used MDMA (ecstasy) to quell the anxiety in two
patients with Stage 4 cancer. Ongoing studies at New York
University’s medical school and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical
Center are using psilocybin with terminally-ill patients. “This
research is in its very early stages,” Grob told the New York
Times, “but we’re getting cons