Do Psychedelics Help With Depression?

Going on a shroom, DMT or acid trip may not sound like a conventional therapy session, but there’s a psychedelic revolution going on in the world of mental health treatment. Illegal drugs previously associated with hippies and raves are now being used to treat PTSD, depression, anxiety, addiction and obsessive disorders.

This is the story of how incredible new research is bringing the therapeutic benefits of magic mushrooms, LSD, MDMA and DMT to light – and how the War on Drugs has needlessly held this research back for 50 years.

We examine the social implications of prohibition worldwide. Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and inequality across the globe.
Everyone loses – except, in a weird kind of way, the drugs themselves.

Magic Medicine

Can magic mushrooms cure depression?

Over two years we follow the first ever medical trial of psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms) being used to treat a group of volunteers suffering from clinical depression.

This remarkable film follows three volunteers and their families, and the ambitious staff running the trial, who are hoping this controversial treatment will have the power to transform millions of lives.

With deeply moving footage of the ‘trips’ the patients go on, as well as interviews providing scientific and political context, this intimate film is an absorbing portrait of the human cost of depression, and the inspirational people contributing to groundbreaking psychedelic research.

 

 

“Monty Wates’s documentary shows the work of Dr Robin Carhart-Harris at Imperial College London: after years of bureaucratic wrangling, he got permission to conduct research into the possibility that psilosybin – the psychoactive ingredient of magic mushrooms – could be used to treat depression. Is society’s taboo disapproval needlessly holding back our understanding of this issue?

We see three long-time sufferers of depression, sensitively interviewed about their lives… They are given a low, introductory dose of shroom-essence at the first session, and at the second the amount is stepped up. The results are startling”

Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

 

The God Cells: A Fetal Stem Cell Journey

Stem Cell research and therapy have been growing at a rapid rate over the past fifteen years. Scientific advances coupled with consumer demand have proven that stem cell therapy is the wave of the future, and is poised to change the face of medicine.

The only hurdles have been religious and regulatory roadblocks slowing down the approval process for fetal stem cell therapy, arguably the most contested and controversial form of stem cell therapy to date, due to them being harvested from abortions.

The God Cells takes the audience on a journey with those who seek the life changing fetal stem cell therapy abroad, while avoiding the seemingly insurmountable roadblocks at home.

“The demand is real, patients with current unmet medical needs are desperate and require this therapy, but the current regulatory and industry hurdles are making it near impossible for us to do our job and get these important stem cell therapies to those people in need. Because of this, many scientific organizations are taking their technology abroad to appease patient demand, because they feel the current regulatory hurdles are insurmountable.”

Randal Mills, PhD, President and CEO for California Institute For Regenerative Medicine

How America Got Hooked on Opioids

Any attempt to shut down the trade in drugs such as heroin,
cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine or weed invariably sets off a chain of events that just makes things worse, leaving a trail of death, illness, violence, slavery, addiction, crime and inequality across the globe. Everyone loses – except, in a weird kind of way, the drugs themselves.

Around 58,000 Americans were killed in the Vietnam War. But in 2017 alone, 70,237 Americans died of drug overdoses; the War on Drugs is like a Vietnam War every year.

This is the story of the North America Opioid Crisis – how an oversupply of the prescription drug oxycodone collided with fifty years of drug prohibition to create an epidemic every bit as serious as COVID-19.
This terrifying crisis reaches every corner of American life, far beyond the clichés of the ‘inner-city drug user’.

Sweat! The Human Superpower

Sweat! One of our least appreciated bodily functions, yet critical to being human. Scientists are only just beginning to uncover the incredible insights sweat can provide about illnesses, diet, and overall fitness and wellbeing.

Through a cast of quirky scientists, surgeons, zoologists, forensic experts, sauna enthusiasts, and exercise fanatics, the curious story of sweat is finally explored. Experiments reveal what makes it such an incredible coolant, demonstrating the hard limits of the human thermoregulation system and the fascinating ways sweat can help us better understand ourselves.

Along the way, it becomes clear that sweat is an often-overlooked but remarkable evolutionary success story—one of the defining traits that make us distinctly human. Join us as we embrace our soggy skin and learn to love our sweat!