The active chemical in magic mushrooms should be made available on the NHS as a mental health treatment, a former Labour frontbencher has said.
Charlotte Nichols was shadow minister for women and equalities until September 2021. She stepped down from the role voluntarily, citing personal reasons.
Ms Nichols has now told The Telegraph that she had no choice but to resign her frontbench role after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a violent crime.
She said that research into the use of magic mushrooms to treat the illness has since given her hope that the “person I was before my diagnosis is still in there somewhere” – and that there is evidence enough already to prescribe the Class A drug.
“You can’t cure PTSD as such,” she said. “But there is clear real-world evidence that psilocybin therapy can get people to a point where they no longer meet the diagnostic criteria for the condition, which means that they no longer have to live with it in the same way.
“I think this is something that I would very much like to see available on the NHS.
“For the different mental health conditions where psilocybin assisted therapy can be helpful, whether it’s PTSD or something else, it’s likely that you would try other forms of therapy or medication first. But for people that that hasn’t worked for, this should be an option, and it should be up to your doctor and your psychiatrist to determine your suitability for it.”
Psilocybin – the hallucinogenic chemical in magic mushrooms – remains a Class A drug in Britain. The substance is also placed under Schedule 1 by the Home Office, meaning that it is deemed to have high potential for abuse and little to no medical value, and so cannot be given out by doctors.
Campaigners have called for psilocybin to be re-classed as a Schedule 2 drug, meaning that it could be prescribed by doctors and pharmacists while remaining illegal to possess for recreational purposes.
The Home Office was recently told by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) that psilocybin should be moved to schedule 2. A spokesman said that the Home Office would “respond to the ACMD’s recommendations in due course”.
Ms Nichols recalled being told she “just couldn’t handle being an MP” when she developed PTSD symptoms, which happened after she was the victim of a violent crime in 2021.
The Warrington North MP spent a month as an in-patient at a psychiatric unit, when her condition was so severe that she “would have died” if not for the specialist care she received.
It was there that she first spoke to doctors about whether therapy assisted by psilocybin could help treat her own PTSD symptoms.
She said: “It would have been illegal for my consultant psychiatrist to even suggest places I could look into getting psilocybin therapy. He sort of gave me a wink and said, that’s one for the politicians to sort out, knowing full well I’m a Member of Parliament.”
‘Egregious two-tiered system’
Since July, doctors in Australia have been able to prescribe psilocybin-assisted therapy for patients who have PTSD or treatment-resistant depression. A single treatment session can come at a cost of up to $2,500, however.
Ms Nichols has reluctantly paid for private psychotherapy while she remains on an NHS waiting list. The care she received while an in-patient and afterwards has brought her symptoms down “from a 10 to a four” she said, but estimated that her hospital stay may have cost the NHS as much as £50,000.
She added that her own case was an example of the “egregious two-tiered system” for mental health treatment in Britain.
Were doctors able to prescribe psilocybin, it would not only “give people their lives back” but would “reduce the future ongoing indefinite cost to the NHS, and to patients themselves who are forced to go private”, she said.
Ms Nichols told The Telegraph that she has not raised the issue with Sir Keir Starmer directly, but believes that a change in the law is likely to happen within the next parliament.
She said: “I’m yet to hear from any of my constituents that they’re against what I’m campaigning for.”
Speaking about a potential return to the frontbench, she said: “If I was offered a chance to serve in a Labour government, that would be fantastic, but I’m not waiting by the phone.
“It can sometimes be easier to push issues like this as a campaigning backbencher. Either way I will be beavering away with this until it gets done.”
