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Mind Menders

Duration: 2 x 60'

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This compelling and confronting series investigates whether psychedelic drugs show promise in resetting our brains to help treat anxiety, depression and addiction.

Prepare for a mind-bending journey of discovery, as we explore this new frontier of medicine. One that promises to unlock our brain’s potential and offer a paradigm shift in psychiatric treatment, changing how we view and regulate psychedelic drugs.

For decades it’s been known that psychedelics could be the answer to a range of mental health afflictions, but the war on drugs in the late 1960s and 70s cancelled all promising research – until recently. Now New Zealand is leading the way in this pioneering field.

After investigating the pros and cons, presenter Sonia Gray decides to accept an offer to become a human guinea pig in a microdosing LSD trial. Alongside her experiential journey, we meet the scientists, experts, entrepreneurs and self-dosers, ordinary people who are desperate to mend their minds.

Episode 1:

After bravely sharing her own struggles with anxiety, presenter Sonia Gray is on a mission to seek better mental health treatment options and asks could psychedelic drugs be the answer? But these drugs are illegal because they are dangerous aren’t they?

Ultimately, Sonia decides there is only one way to know for sure by taking part in an experimental treatment, an 8-week microdosing LSD trial, the brainchild of Professor Suresh Muthukumaraswamy at Auckland University. Russell Brown, one of Aotearoa NZ’s leading journalists, is Sonia’s guide on her personal journey into the world of Psychedelics. We meet the psychonaut pioneers, NZ scientists, experts, entrepreneurs and self-dosers, ordinary kiwis who are desperate to mend their minds, and discover that the answer to helping treat our mental health might just be in the very substances that we’ve been taught to fear and avoid.

Episode 2:

Sonia Gray continues her investigation into Aotearoa NZ’s burgeoning psychedelic renaissance as she undergoes an 8-week microdosing LSD trial.

We follow the highs and lows of her personal journey; meet a brother and sister, who self-medicate with psilocybin, also known as “magic mushrooms”, and find out about this drug’s healing power to treat depression and addiction. We meet the scientists, healers, iwi leaders and a leading Māori entrepreneur, behind a world-first marae-led trial using indigenous mushrooms to help treat methamphetamine addiction in New Zealand’s East Cape region of Tairāwhiti. From LSD to ketamine, Sonia puts her mind on the line for science and also for her own mental health.

For Sky New Zealand

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