{"id":18432,"date":"2024-12-16T13:04:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T14:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18432"},"modified":"2024-12-16T14:24:58","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T14:24:58","slug":"seeking-relief-from-brain-injury-some-veterans-turn-to-psychedelics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18432","title":{"rendered":"Seeking Relief From Brain Injury, Some Veterans Turn to Psychedelics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A van full of U.S. Special Operations veterans crossed the border into Mexico on a sunny day in July to execute a mission that, even to them, sounded pretty far out.<\/p>\n

Over a period of 48 hours, they planned to swallow a psychedelic extract from the bark of a West African shrub, fall into a void of dark hallucinations and then have their consciousness shattered by smoking the poison of a desert toad.<\/p>\n

The objective was to find what they had so far been unable to locate anywhere else: relief from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury symptoms.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does sound a little extreme, but I\u2019ve tried everything else, and it didn\u2019t work,\u201d said a retired Army Green Beret named Jason, who, like others in the van, asked that his full name not be published because of the stigma associated with using psychedelics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A long combat career exposed to weapons blasts<\/a> had left him struggling with depression and anger, a frayed memory and addled concentration. He was on the verge of divorce. Recently, he said, he had put a gun to his head.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if this will work,\u201d Jason said of psychedelic therapy. \u201cBut at this point, I have nothing to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A van full of U.S. Special Operations veterans crossed the border into Mexico on a sunny day in July to execute a mission that, even to them, sounded pretty far out.Over a period of 48 hours, they planned to swallow a psychedelic extract from the bark of a West African shrub, fall into a void of dark hallucinations and then have their consciousness shattered by smoking the poison of a desert toad.The objective was to find what they had so far been unable to locate anywhere else: relief from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury symptoms.\u201cIt does sound a little extreme, but I\u2019ve tried everything else, and it didn\u2019t work,\u201d said a retired Army Green Beret named Jason, who, like others in the van, asked that his full name not be published because of the stigma associated with using psychedelics.A long combat career exposed to weapons blasts had left him struggling with depression and anger, a frayed memory and addled concentration. He was on the verge of divorce. Recently, he said, he had put a gun to his head.\u201cI don\u2019t know if this will work,\u201d Jason said of psychedelic therapy. \u201cBut at this point, I have nothing to lose.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18434,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18432"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18435,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18432\/revisions\/18435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}