Interesting findings from studies carried out in the 1960s show that a single dose of LSD may be enough to support alcoholics to give up drink entirely.

BBC Health News reports that data from the experiments, which involved six trials and over 500 patients, demonstrated a “significant beneficial effect” on alcoholism lasting for a few months after the treatment.

The powerful hallucinogen has been banned in the UK since 1966, just 23 years after it was first discovered. It is a long-acting drug that affects the levels of serotonin in the brain, which is a massive factor in behaviour, mood and perception.

And the results are pretty impressive – 59% of those given a single dose of LSD, between 210-800mg, demonstrated reduced levels of alcohol abuse compared with a 38% change in those undergoing alternative treatments.

While it would seem odd that this should be the case, Professor David Nutt, the former drug adviser for the UK Government, who was in fact sacked for his views on relaxing prohibitive measures on illegal drugs for research purposes, suggests that the results corroborate the notion that alcohol dependency needs to be cured by altering one’s outlook on life.

The analysis was carried out by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) and can be read about in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.