"Carine McLaughlin was a smoker for 46 years and said she tried everything to quit before being given psilocybin at Johns Hopkins last year. Psilocybin itself is non-addictive.
Anderson Cooper: Do you remember what, like, specifically what you were seeing or?
Carine McLaughlin: Yes. The ceiling of this room were clouds, like, heavy rain clouds. And gradually they were lowering. And I thought I was gonna suffocate from the clouds.
That was more than a year ago; she says she hasn't smoked since. The study she took part in is still ongoing, but in an earlier, small study of just 15 long-term smokers, 80% had quit six months after taking psilocybin. That's double the rate of any over-the-counter smoking cessation product.
Roland Griffiths: They come to a profound shift of world view. And essentially, a shift in sense of self that I think--
Anderson Cooper: They-- they see their life in a different way? "
Anderson Cooper: Do you remember what, like, specifically what you were seeing or?
Carine McLaughlin: Yes. The ceiling of this room were clouds, like, heavy rain clouds. And gradually they were lowering. And I thought I was gonna suffocate from the clouds.
That was more than a year ago; she says she hasn't smoked since. The study she took part in is still ongoing, but in an earlier, small study of just 15 long-term smokers, 80% had quit six months after taking psilocybin. That's double the rate of any over-the-counter smoking cessation product.
Roland Griffiths: They come to a profound shift of world view. And essentially, a shift in sense of self that I think--
Anderson Cooper: They-- they see their life in a different way? "