New Queens research lab will ask patients to get drunk, high for science
At a new research lab on the border of Nassau County and Queens, the goal is to get patients drunk and high.
Doctors at Zucker Hillside Hospital are seeking to better understand the power and the peril of alcohol and psychedelic drugs.
What doctors hope to learn
Participants will enter calming, inviting spaces and be given doses of controlled substances. Studies will examine both the therapeutic and impairing effects of cannabis, psilocybin, MDMA and alcohol.
The new neuro-psychopharmacology lab will help scientists understand how these substances really work, and doctors hope the research will also shed light on triggers of substance abuse.
Dr. Nehal Vadhan, psychedelic lab director with the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, said what seems like just a recreational activity may hold promise for serious mental illness, but only if better understood.
"We want to be able to develop treatments specifically for people who have psychiatric disorders. Only way we can do that is to understand how these drugs directly affect them," he said.
Researchers say a major goal is also to reduce the stigma around psychedelics by studying both their risks and their potential benefits.
How it works
In controlled spaces, participants will trip on magic mushrooms or ecstasy. In other rooms, patients can relax, watch TV and get high. One room is designed like a bar.
"They'll have snacks. They'll be able to drink preference drinks," research assistant Mady Slutzky said. "They'll experience the music, the TVs, maybe they'll like the sports game."
Therapists will watch from observation rooms, analyze vitals and test cognition throughout the trip.
"We want to see a nice robust intoxication because that's really what people generally, at least who have disordered use, are going for, and so we need to be able to study that directly," Vadhan said.
Participants will also be tested for impairment behind the wheel in a driving simulator.
But they will not be going through all of this alone.
"They're experiencing the psychedelics, and someone is there to guide them," Slutzky said.
The studies open up to participants and local volunteers this spring. Participants will not be allowed to drive home impaired.