With a checkered history of misconduct, how will psychedelic-assisted therapists be held accountable in the emerging legal field?

With the recent creation of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, we must remember that, while industrialized medicine has never attempted to serve all people, institutional histories vary from one organization to the next.

If we truly believe in the positive transformational power of visionary plant experiences, we must support each other to make real social change happen, less this transformation stagnates at the individual level.

After the murder of a Peruvian healer in 2018, traditional healers, local political figures, and nonprofit allies gathered to address the complexities that come with the influx of foreigners seeking ayahuasca in the Amazon.

Eight staff have quit The Third Wave and issued an open statement.

As psychedelic medicalization and the potential profits of a “virgin market” loom large, new organizations are increasingly looking to gain legitimacy within the field. Mainstreaming means the doors of this field are being thrown wide open.

The controlled narrative goes something like this: ayahuasca is good, and we need to control how people perceive it because this is a controlled substance we want to see legalized, a medicine we want to see legitimated. And if we have to sacrifice a few women who get themselves raped to keep ayahuasca’s name clean, so be it.

A few years ago, I witnessed the systematic silencing and shaming of Lily Kay Ross for having dared to call attention to severe abuses of power in the psychedelic space. Her extraordinary bravery in sharing her own experience with abuse was met with victim blaming and accusations of selfishness. Key members of the psychedelic research community turned on her for “jeopardizing” the entire field of psychedelic science with her “negativity” and “theatrics.”

Consent is really pretty simple but also apparently complicated, due to our inheritance of a messed up culture.

The research team at UConn studying MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD is now defunct.

Renaming adverse effects of psychedelic drugs as “challenging experiences” minimizes, almost trivializes, their negative effects.

Medellín attracts the attention of tourists seeking a new kind of experience: doing cocaine in the city of Pablo Escobar.

On Friday, November 3, 2017, Maine Governor Paul LePage (R) vetoed legislation to regulate cannabis sales in the state.

There is an urgent need for cultural humility in psychedelic science in order to prevent it from falling into the same limiting, and often unethical, traps that we see in Western science and medicine.

Social movements are remembered in history for the things they do and the actions they take, not for what they inadvertently hope will happen.

For the movement toward psychedelic consciousness to be as transformative as it can possibly be, it is our obligation as a psychedelic community to be aware of our shortcomings and to challenge them head-on.

When stubborn drives for inclusion and connection in the present betray a racially divided past, psychonauts may be able to attend to histories of exclusion, separation and disconnection in order to deepen our understanding and engagement in the present.

I feel safe openly advocating for the beneficial use of illicit substances because I have never been stopped by police without legitimate cause.

The War on Drugs is inherently anti-black. Most psychedelic users that I’ve encountered are hesitant to take a stance on the racial aspects of the drug war.

Let’s Talk About That.