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Pharmacy Information Resources : Psychoactive Pharmaceutical Resources

Overview

This page contains resources and information relating to psychoactive pharmaceuticals, including databases, articles, books, and additional resources.


Photo of mushrooms

Image by Andreas from Pixabay

Databases

Select Books (for additional books, see the Library Catalog)

Book cover for Acid Revival

Acid Revival: The psychedelic renaissance and the quest for medical legitimacy

By Danielle Giffort

Publication Date: 2020

"This colorful and accessible history of the rise, fall, and reemergence of psychedelic medicine is infused with intriguing narratives and personalities—a story for popular science aficionados as well as for scholars of the history of science and medicine."

Disruptive Psychopharmacology book cover

Disruptive Psychopharmacology

Edited by Frederick S. Barett and Katrin H. Preller

Publication Date: 2022

"The current volume provides a comprehensive review of the state of the science of psychedelic therapies, including discussion of models and approaches to psychedelic therapies as well as the current status of safety and efficacy data for mood, substance use, trauma, obsessive-compulsive, neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative disorders, neurological, and inflammatory disorders."

Mescaline book cover

Mescaline: A global history of the first psychedelic

By Mike Jay

Publication Date: 2019

"Drawing on botany, pharmacology, ethnography, and the mind sciences and examining the mescaline experiences of figures from William James to Walter Benjamin to Hunter S. Thompson, this is an enthralling narrative of mescaline's many lives."

Drugged book cover

Drugged: The science and culture behind psychotropic drugs

By Richard Miller

Publication Date: 2014

"In 'Drugged,' Miller takes readers on an eye-opening tour of psychotropic drugs, describing the various kinds, how they were discovered and developed, and how they have played multiple roles in virtually every culture."

Book cover for The Expanding World Ayahuasca Diaspora

The Expanding World Ayahuasca Diaspora : Appropriation, Integration and Legislation

Edited by Michael J. Winkelman and Thomas B. Roberts

Publication Date: 2018

"The Expanding World Ayahuasca Diaspora continues to explore how certain alternative global religious groups, shamanic tourism industries and recreational drug milieus grounded in the consumption of the traditionally Amazonian psychoactive drink ayahuasca embody various challenges associated with modern societies."

Book cover for Handbook of medical hallucinogens

Handbook of medical hallucinogens

Edited by Charles S. Grob, Jim Grigsby

Publication Date: 2021

"The book begins with a thorough discussion of the pharmacology of what are often called the 'classic' or 'serotonergic' hallucinogens, for which Nichols prefers the term 'psychedelics.' Following this are several chapters exploring the social, cultural, and political contexts in which the hallucinogens have been used over time. The book also provides an introduction to research conducted in the fields of anthropology and ethnobotany.

Sacred bliss book cover

Sacred bliss : a spiritual history of cannabis

By Mark S. Ferrara

Publication Date: 2016

"Sacred Bliss challenges traditional attitudes about cannabis by tracing its essential role in the spiritual and curative traditions of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas from prehistory to the present day...Today, the growing utilization of medical cannabis to alleviate the pain and symptoms of physical illness raises the possibility of using cannabis to treat the mind along with the body. By engaging sacred and secular texts from around the world, Sacred Bliss demonstrates that throughout religious history, cannabis has offered access to increased imagination and creativity, heightened perspective and insight, and deeper levels of thought."

Additional Resources

Videos

Psychedelics and Mental Health (PBS Wisconsin)

Cody Wenthur, Assistant Professor in the School of Pharmacy at UW-Madison describes how psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy may be used to treat end-of-life anxiety, treatment resistant depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.


Psychedelics as Therapeutics: Gaps, Challenges and Opportunities

The 2022 NIH Workshop on Psychedelics as Therapeutics was conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Recordings of this workshop can be accessed via this link.