State Will Investigate Research on Psilocybin

The drugs control section of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health has launched an investigation of research involving psilocybin at Harvard's Center for Research in Personality.

Alfred J. Murphy, senior food and drug inspector at the Department, will meet with David C. McClelland, head of the center, and others concerned with the consciousness-expanding drug beginning today. Health officials say they did not know of the use of the drug at the University until reading an article on it in Friday's Boston Herald.

Psilocybin is classified as a "new drug" by the Federal Food and Drug Administration and hence is not available for general prescription until investigations indicate whether it is dangerous or not. Under inter-state commerce regulations it can be shipped only to qualified researchers.

Manufacturer Decides Qualifications

The drug-manufacturer is responsible for determining whether the psychiatrist or psychologist is properly qualified, on the basis of questionnaires filed by the researcher. Sandoz Pharmaceutical of New Jersey, which accomplished the first synthesis of LSD, is providing the psilocybin used by Richard Alpert, assistant professor of Clinical Psychology, and Timothy Leary, lecturer on Clinical Psychology, in their research on graduate student subjects.

State officials are "looking into" the use of the drug at Harvard to determine if it is habit-forming or "harmful." Massachusetts has special provisions making illegal the possession of the habit forming drugs peyote and mescaline.

Leary and Alpert denied Saturday that psilocybin has any physiological after-effects, but admitted that "negative" psychological changes could occur, "depending on the individual's response to the experiment." Leary stated that the dosage would have to be increased "100 times" to cause permanent physiological damage.

Dana L. Farnsworth, director of University Health Services, said that the Health Services "neither approves nor disapproves" of the controversial research projects, which have been criticized as "irresponsible" and "anti-intellectual" by other members of the Center for Research in Personality.