Magic Medicine: A Documentary About Highs and Lows + Panel Discussion

The Maudsley Psychedelic Society is happy to host a screening of the documentary Magic Medicine. 

Over 4 years, filmmaker Monty Wates was given exclusive access to the first ever medical trial to give psilocybin (the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms) to a group of volunteers suffering from clinical depression.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with Dr James Rucker and Dr Camilla Day (two psychiatrists who worked on the trial), Crispin Blunt MP (Conservative Party, Chairman of the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group) and Jeff Smith MP (Labour Party).

During the discussion panel, we will hold a Q&A, opening up the conversation to all those in attendance.

Speaker Bios

Dr James Rucker is a Consultant Psychiatrist and a Senior Clinical Lecturer in mood disorders and psychopharmacology at the Centre for Affective Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King’s College London (UK). James completed his medical degree at University College London (UK) in 2003 before training in psychiatry at the Maudsley, Bethlem and Springfield Hospitals in South London. He completed his PhD in the molecular biology of mood disorders at King’s College London in 2012. He specialises clinically and academically in mental health problems predominantly associated with mood and is particularly interested in novel drug treatments and drug catalysed forms of psychotherapy in treatment resistant forms of depression and anxiety. He was a clinician in the first pilot study of psilocybin in treatment resistant depression led by Professor David Nutt at Imperial College London (UK). He currently holds a 5 year Clinician Scientist Fellowship awarded by the National Institute for Health Research to investigate psilocybin as a treatment for major depressive disorder resistant to standard treatments. He works with Professors Allan Young and Tony Cleare at the Centre for Affective Disorders, which is a specialist treatment centre for mood disorders and an academic health sciences centre for clinical trials in mood disorders and associated research. When he is not setting up clinical trials with psilocybin, he has an enduring love of electronic music in all its forms and will often be found at music festivals, where he also volunteers with charities that provide safe and supportive spaces for people having difficult drug experiences. He lives in South London.

Dr Camilla Day is a ST6 General Adult Psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley NHS Trust currently working in the Psychiatry Liaison department at St Thomas’ Hospital. She has an interest in psychiatric research, in particular psilocybin research, and many modalities of psychotherapy. She is also an honorary research associate for the Centre for Affective Disorders, Psychological Medicine Research Division , Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and is doing an MD Res investigating in particular the role of self-compassion in the psychological mechanism of effect via quantitative and qualitative methods. She will also be developing a pre-dose ‘set’ and ‘setting’ factor questionnaire and post-dose ‘self-compassion experience’ questionnaire to help to be able to predict psilocybin’s effect on people with treatment resistant depression in the future and shape the psychological support necessary.

Crispin Blunt MP,  Member of Parliament for Reigate and co-chair of the APPG for Drug Policy Reform . Crispin was elected MP for Reigate in 1997 having formerly served as an army officer. In Parliament, Crispin has served in the Shadow Cabinet with briefs including trade and energy, and security and counter-terrorism. He has served as both Minister for Prisons and as Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Crispin is currently co-chair of the APPG on Drug Policy Reform and the APPG for Humanism, secretary of the Global LGBT Rights APPG, and a Conservative Middle East Council Vice-Chair. This year Crispin set up and launched the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group whose objective is to promote evidence-based drug policy reform on the centre right.

Jeff Smith MP is the Labour MP for Manchester Withington, where he was born and raised. Before Jeff was elected in 2015, he had a career in event management and as a DJ in clubs and colleges across the north of England, seeing first-hand the central role music has played in Manchester’s history and culture. In 1997 he was elected as a councillor in my home ward of Old Moat, later becoming Executive Member for Education, for Finance and for Housing and Regeneration. In parliament, he seeks to represent the issues that matter to south Manchester residents, from the Government’s failure to fund local services to trying to maintain as close a partnership as possible with the EU following the Brexit referendum.

 

Tickets

General entry: 15GBP

Concession: 10GBP (Please enter the code 'discount' to receive the concession.)

Ticket sales will be channeled back into the psychedelic research at KCL.