Psychedelic drugs are gaining attention in the pharmaceutical industry because of increasing scientific evidence of their potential benefits for people suffering with psychiatric disorders.
Hear from scientists leading ground-breaking work at Imperial College which suggests that psilocybin in Magic Mushrooms may ‘reset’ brain activity in people with depression.
Is there real scientific evidence of the benefits and drawbacks? What are the legal and cultural implications?
We’ll be having a balanced discussion and examining the evidence and research.
The Philosophy and Psychedelics Exeter Research Group is at the University of Exeter stimulates debate and research on psychedelic substances and their wider societal setting. The group’s founders will speak.
Join world experts David Nutt, Dr David Erritzoe, Professor Christine Hauskeller, Dr Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, and BBC host Ritula Shah to look at the medical, societal, and historical implications of these recent discoveries.
Come along to make questions and comments and join the conversation – or just sit and listen!
This event is part of Futures 2022
We are grateful to Dartington Trust for supporting this event
Speakers
David Nutt
The Edmond J Safra Chair in Neuropsychopharmacology
Faculty of Medicine, Department of Brain Sciences
Imperial College London
David Nutt is the Edmond J. Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and director of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Division of Brain Sciences.
David is Chair of DrugScience (formally the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs (ISCD) and President of the European Brain Council. He has edited the Journal of Psychopharmacology for over two decades and acts as the psychiatry drugs advisor to the British National Formulary. He has published over 400 original research papers, a similar number of reviews and books chapters, eight government reports on drugs and 27 books.
David broadcasts widely to the general public both on radio and television including BBC science and public affairs programmes on therapeutic as well as illicit drugs, their harms and their classification.
Christine Hauskeller
Philosophy
University of Exeter
Christine is a philosopher with training in sociology and psychology also. Her research interests include a range of topics in Moral Philosophy and Empirical Ethics, Feminist Philosophy and Decolonizing Approaches the Life Sciences (especially psychedelic psychotherapy, genetics and stem cell research), and Science and Technology Studies.
Ritula Shah (chair)
Lead Presenter, The World Tonight
BBC Radio 4
Previously producer of Today and presenter of Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4, Ritula Shah became the lead presenter of The World Tonight in 2013.
Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes
Research Fellow
Philosophy of Psychedelics Exeter Research Group
University of Exeter
Peter is an Anglo-Scandinavian philosopher of mind who specialises in the thought of Whitehead, Nietzsche, and Spinoza, and in fields pertaining to panpsychism and altered states of mind.
Peter is the author of Noumenautics (2015), Modes of Sentience (2021), co-editor of Bloomsbury’s Philosophy and Psychedelics (2022), the TEDx Talker on ‘psychedelics and consciousness‘, and he is inspiration to the inhuman philosopher Marvel Superhero, Karnak.