Listen now (29 mins) | Listen Now Psychedelic agents or drugs, for example Lysergic Acid Diethylamide or LSD (a cereal fungus and first synthesized in 1938), were widely researched for their therapeutic potential through the 1950s. Among other noted users of these agents was the actor, Cary Grant. However, when these drugs escaped the research lab in the 1960s, moral panic set in. America's youth would, it was feared, "turn on, tune in and drop out" (a phrase popularized the Berkeley/Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary) and social upheaval would ensue. By 1970 LSD, psilocybin and other psychedelic agents were banned for both research and recreational use purposes. Beginning in the 1990s the FDA began giving limited approval to conduct psychedelic-related efficacy studies. Two decades later it appears the US has now, finally, turned the corner on researching the potential wide spread therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. This was again made evident last month when by Johns Hopkins announced opening its Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research. This announcement was preceded in April by the Imperial College in London announcing the opening of its Centre for Psychedelic Research.