'Right to die' debate must include the 'right to try' psilocybin, advocates urge

29 November 2024, 07:14

The Assisted Dying Bill raises important questions about how we support individuals with a terminal diagnosis.

At the heart of the debate is a shared aim of protecting people at a vulnerable time of life, particularly in making end-of-life care decisions - but we can’t do this without also allowing them to explore every treatment option available, giving them every opportunity to increase the quality and longevity of their life, and to make a decision with an unclouded mind.

Distress, depression and anxiety are often cited as significant factors in the euthanasia debate, so we must prioritise expanding treatment options that can improve mental wellbeing and ease suffering.

A clear example of this is psilocybin, a natural compound that - when used in a therapeutic setting - was found to reduce anxiety and depression in 80% of patients with a life-threatening cancer diagnosis.

Allowing prescriptions of psilocybin could have a significant impact on the quality of life of people with terminal diagnoses. In Canada, where terminally ill patients have access to medically assisted dying they also have the ability to access this potential treatment for their end of life anxiety.

Canada’s Special Access Programme and Section 56 exemptions provide humane and effective alternatives to those considering assisted dying.

The way for the Home Office to facilitate access to this medicine for those facing the end of life is to ask the ACMD to assess the evidence for rescheduling psilocybin.

This would be the first time that the evidence has ever been assessed by the government. Moving psilocybin to Schedule 2 of the Misuse of Drugs Regulations would allow doctors to use their discretion in prescribing it to those who may benefit.

Psilocybin is consistently found to be the safest of all controlled drugs and has been shown to be effective in the treatment of depression, anorexia, OCD and addictions to alcohol and tobacco.

A Home Office decision to reschedule psilocybin could open up new treatments in healthcare, not only to significantly improve quality of life for the dying, but also reducing pressures on the NHS and supporting those suffering from depression back into work.

The rescheduling of psilocybin is a small change, easily done, that could positively affect the lives of thousands. Personal autonomy must be the priority in end-of-life decision making so ethically, we can’t have a ‘right to die’ discussion without first giving patients the ‘right to try’.

• Timmy Davis, co-founder of PAR and for the Centre for Evidence Based Drug Policy.

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