I do think that making some (maybe all) “bad drugs” illegal without also making provision for academic and pharmaceutical studies was a mistake. We lost a lot of valuable time that way.

(We can be like they are) Come on, baby
(Don’t blame the Boomers) Baby, take my hand
(Don’t blame the Boomers) We’ll be able to fly
(Don’t blame the Boomers) Baby, I’m your man
La, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la
______________________

–The Blue Oyster Cult, “Don’t Fear the Reaper” (1978)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbJJ0q2YSc8\

My own take, based on more than occasional experience, is that marijuana, LSD and shrooms are interesting, potentially useful and even therapeutic, but they have been oversold, have random effects and important drawbacks.

I’m not expecting reliable mental health breakthroughs via psychedelics. But they will have fun trying.

Nonetheless, put into the context of alcohol or tobacco, psychedelics are relatively harmless.

Part of my internet browsing (“knowing how way leads on to way…”) recently turned up a few articles on what the pharmas are doing with “recreational drugs” in turns of actually studying their effects and some possible benefits.
FWIW

Of course, a lot of states legalized marijuana for “medical purposes,” and look where we are now.
One quote (2021) covers the gist of all similar posts.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/psychology-science/psychedelics-psychotherapy-05012021/

Despite their ill reputation, psychedelics such as Psilocybin, LSD, and MDMA (commonly known as Ecstasy) may be the missing puzzle piece to treating several mental disorders. Results from contemporary clinical trials testify for the drugs’ capacity in inducing positive, long-term alterations in mental health and well-being in both patients and healthy individuals, when taken under regulation and as a complement to psychotherapy.
…
The belief in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics has been around for decades. But now more than ever, scientists are carrying out intensive investigations to allow for their use alongside psychotherapy, and results are promising. Their use in psychiatry can be attributed to a group of pioneering psychiatrists in the 1950s that demonstrated the powerful effects of LSD as an adjunct to therapy, in treating a gamut of conditions such as alcoholism, depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, personality disorders, and even sexual dysfunctions.

Towards the 1970s, research on the use of hallucinogens in psychiatry has yielded over 1,000 scientific papers that contained findings from 40,000 subjects and 6 international conferences. Many of these studies weren’t reliable as the methodology conducted was flawed relative to contemporary guidelines.

Nonetheless, the preliminary findings were intriguing enough to warrant further research into the matter. Unfortunately, that would become impossible as the use of psychedelics became a point of contention when LSD hit the streets in 1963, and psychedelics became notorious as drugs of abuse that are linked to the counterculture. Eventually, research using psychedelics was halted in the late 1960s due to political and societal pressures leaving many questions unexplored.

The current situation …
…
Like the primary class of antidepressants, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), psychedelics act on serotonin receptors and enhance the brain’s neuroplasticity. Nonetheless, psychedelics have an additional effect best described by Franz Vollenweider, a psychiatrist and neurochemist at the University Hospital of Psychiatry in Zurich, Switzerland, he states that psychedelics “activate a therapeutic, dreamlike state, intensifying sensory perception, and memories pop up like little films.”. Therefore, the drug creates a receptive mental state and allows patients to be open to fresh ideas about how to view the past and the future, and this is where psychotherapy has a big role in breaking down false thought patterns that drive mental illnesses like depression and enforces positive ones.

This one does have a theory about what is going on (reported 2026).

https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/massive-new-study-reveals-how-psychedelics-actually-reorganize-the-human-brain/

You’ve likely seen some of the headlines: psychedelics aren’t just for getting high, they’re showing real medical promise. In some fields (like PTSD and addiction), they’re even being heralded as the next frontier of mental health. But if we’re being honest, it’s often hard to know where the hype ends and where the real scientific potential begins,

That’s because studying these drugs is a nightmare. For decades, red tape kept labs locked. When the gates finally opened, we were left with small, scattered studies that rarely agreed on the details.

Now, an international team of researchers has finally stepped in to add up all the info we have. They formed the BOLD Psychedelic Consortium and conducted a mega-analysis that integrates 11 independent datasets across five different drugs — psilocybin, LSD, mescaline, DMT, and the potent brew ayahuasca. This massive effort spanned three continents and five countries, involving 267 unique participants and over 500 individual brain scans.

The biggest takeaway? Psychedelics effectively “flatten” the brain’s organizational hierarchy.
…
This research could prove instrumental in figuring out exactly how psychedelics help the brain escape some of its problems. For instance, for someone trapped in the rigid, repetitive loops of deep depression or OCD, the brain’s hierarchy can feel less like an organizational tool and more like a prison. By proving that psychedelics flatten this structure, we’re seeing the physical mechanism of a mental reset.

That isn’t a full explanation. But for a field long divided by scattered findings, it is a meaningful step toward a common map.

Not that any of this is new.

https://www.zmescience.com/science/psychedelic-drugs-are-transforming-how-we-treat-mental-health/
(2022) “We’ve come full circle with science now supporting what shamans have been doing for centuries.”

https://www.zmescience.com/medicine/bronze-age-people-in-mediterranean-islands-were-taking-hallucinogenic-drugs-3000-years-ago/