A new analysis in the Canadian Medical Assn. Journal is opening up the door to using psychedelic drugs as a treatment for a variety of mental disorders.

After several decades of the North American medical establishment classifying psychedelic drugs such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin and methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) as drugs of abuse and not for use in medical treatments, the tides are finally changing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

There is now research being conducted in Switzerland, Canada, Brazil, Peru, Mexico and the United States that is finding psychedelic drugs to be of value adjunct to psychotherapy when treating addiction, post-traumatic stress as well as the depression that comes with terminal illness.

The studies are still being conducted on a small-scale, but there are larger trials in the planning stages as “more and more people are becoming interested and even jumping into the field to start trials themselves,” said senior author Matthew W. Johnson, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

Investigators are saying that the research “can conform to the rigorous scientific, ethical and safety standards expected of contemporary medical research,” the authors wrote in the new analysis, titled “Psychedelic medicine: a re-emerging therapeutic paradigm.”

The research demonstrates that drugs such as MDMA, LSD and psilocybin can in fact be highly effective in treating a very specific set of patients. But cost and time are also on the minds of researchers, helping them to draw awareness to the effectiveness of therapeutic uses of psychedelic drugs, including addiction treatment, a specific focus of Johnson.

In most recent times, the use of psychedelic drugs has been closely controlled. In all cases, regulations have required extensive screening of prospective patients, close monitoring during medication use as well as long-term, attentive follow-up.

But also when psychedelics have been used for treatment for MDMA in close connection with psychotherapy for PTSD or alcohol dependence, there have been enduring benefits.

With the passing of time from when psychedelics were known to be used as recreational drugs to a time when economy is becoming a most sought after factor in medical care, psychedelics are on the brink of becoming an effective alternative to existing therapies.

“It’s been a long road — this started back in the mid-late 1990s when the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] started to approve some of these very early studies. It’s been a cautious road, but one that’s data-driven. A big factor is really that enough time has passed for the sensationalism to kind of simmer down and for sober heads to say, ‘Hold on, let’s look at the evidence.'”