A magic mushroom potion could become a treatment to help people dying from cancer, psychiatrists have reported.
A substance called psilocybin can help relieve anxiety and improve the mood of patients with advanced disease, researchers said.
The findings could bring psychedelic drugs back into psychiatry.
Substances such as LSD were once widely studied in psychiatry but were then outlawed when they entered the underworld of illegal drugs use.
Researchers in Los Angeles, California, gained US government approval to study the magic mushroom drug, testing it on 12 volunteers with advanced stage cancer.
They say that earlier studies had shown dying patients undergoing "psycho-spiritual epiphanies" and having a much reduced need for pain relief medication.
The drug was compared with a placebo and the patients studied for up to six months to test the long term effects.
Researcher Dr Charles Grob, of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, said: "We were able to revive this research under strict federal supervision and demonstrate that this is a field of study with great promise for alleviating anxiety and other psychiatric symptoms."
"We are working with a patient population that often does not respond well to conventional treatments.
"Following their treatments with psilocybin, the patients and their families reported benefit from the use of this hallucinogen in reducing their anxiety. This study shows psilocybin can be administered safely, and that further investigation of hallucinogens should be pursued to determine their potential benefits."
Arch Gen Psychiatry online September 6, 2010. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.116
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