HALLUCINOGEN

HALLUCINOGEN. While many drugs speed up or depress the central nervous system, there is a class of drugs that distorts how we feel, hear, see, smell, taste, and think. Called hallucinogens because users often hallucinate, or experience nonexistent sensations, these drugs are also known as psychedelic, or mind-bending, drugs. Some hallucinogens come from natural sources; others are made in laboratories. Examples of natural hallucinogens are mescaline, psilocybin, DMT, and marijuana. Mescaline, which has been used …

…indiscriminately, they may also have therapeutic uses in medicine when administered under controlled circumstances. A synthetic form of THC, the active principle in marijuana, has been approved for prescription use by persons who suffer from the severe nausea that often accompanies cancer chemotherapy and for whom other antinausea drugs are unsuitable or ineffective. LSD was once used to treat persons with certain mental disorders, but such use was abandoned because of the drug's harmful effects.