Amanda Feilding - Beckley Foundation

Beckley Foundation

Through the Beckley Foundation, Feilding is engaged in a programme of research using psychedelics and the latest brain imaging technology as tools to understand brain function and consciousness.

In 2007, her LSD study on consciousness was one of the first involving LSD and human participants since the late 1980s.

She is also collaborating on other psychedelic research projects. These include: investigating the efficacy of using psilocybin as an aid to psychotherapy in overcoming addiction; a set of brain imaging study investigating the effects of psilocybin and MDMA on cerebral blood supply and the recall of distant memories; the neurophysiology underlying the effects of cannabis that the users find beneficial; the effects of cannabis on the creative process; the effects of the different components of cannabis and the importance of the THC/CBD ratio in mental health.

Feilding is also active in drugs policy reform, arguing that benefits as well as harms should be considered in forming policies. In 2007, Feilding convened the Global Cannabis Commission Report, authored by a group of leading drug policy analysts, which lays out a blueprint for possible reforms of cannabis control policies at national and international levels. The Report was presented at the 10-yearly UN General Assembly Global Drug Policy Review in Vienna in March 2009 (the Beckley Foundation is a UN accredited NGO). The Cannabis Commission Report is being published by Oxford University Press and the Beckley Foundation.