The problem with banning anything out of a fear of the unknown is that many unknowns will remain.<\/p>\n
Such is the story of many psychedelic drugs in the U.S.<\/p>\n
While the government has experimented with various psychedelic compounds (take the CIA’s secret attempts at LSD mind-control between 1953 to 1964<\/em>) over the years prohibition has become the name of the game.<\/p>\n In response to a cultural upheaval beginning in the 1960s that saw more and more people independently experimenting with mind-altering drugs<\/strong>, the U.S. government has cracked down on every psychedelic it can muster, often without first exploring their potential medical uses.<\/p>\n The U.S. Department of Justice has demonized psychedelics, listing many of them (including LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and MDMA<\/em>) as felony-status, schedule I substances with “high potential for abuse<\/strong>” and no medical value.<\/p>\n The reality the government, and Western world at large\u00a0has failed to acknowledge is that psychedelic drugs aren\u2019t just something free-spirited hippies eat to feel trippy and dance naked (not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that<\/em>).<\/p>\n Psychoactive mushrooms have been part of human healing practices since before recorded history, and ayahuasca\u2014the brew of various psychoactive plant decoctions that is increasingly popular in the West<\/a>\u2014remains a medicinal staple for the people of Amazonian Peru.<\/p>\n More recently, the psychedelic chemical compounds MDMA and LSD were both originally developed to help treat psychiatric patients.<\/p>\n The Western war on drugs mindset has led most of the mainstream medical world to dismiss psychedelics altogether, but a handful of dedicated researchers have refused to let fear and politics keep them from exploring.<\/p>\n These researchers have petitioned the government for permission to conduct research on those highly classified substances<\/strong>, and after decades of scientific drought, a few studies have received the go-ahead.<\/p>\n Now, the evidence is stacking up to show the enormous potential of psychedelics for treating everything from cancer to PTSD to addiction.<\/p>\n The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS<\/em>), a pharmaceutical research and educational nonprofit based in Santa Cruz, Calif. is at the forefront of psychedelic science. It funds researchers around the world to conduct government-approved, placebo-controlled, clinical studies of various psychedelic drugs.<\/p>\n Since its founding in the ’80s, MAPS has gathered a wealth of insight into the interactions between psychedelics and the human mind. This June it decided to share its insights with the masses by offering its first-ever, open-enrollment online psychedelics course.<\/p>\n The live, 5-session interactive video course, \u201cPsychedelic Science<\/strong>: How to Apply What We\u2019re Learning to Your Life<\/span>,\u201d co-produced by Evolver Learning Labs<\/a>, brought together experts in psychedelic science, medicine, art, and spirituality.<\/p>\n Gabor Mat\u00e8, a medical doctor, speaker, and author from Vancouver, has worked with psychedelic medicine among aboriginal people, as well as in contemporary, non-indigenous healing circles. He contends that therapy assisted by psychedelics–ayahuasca in particular–can untangle complex, unconscious psychological stresses.<\/p>\n As a speaker for the MAPS course, Mat\u00e8 said, \u201cThe issue of psychedelic healing goes to the very heart of what it means to have an illness in the first place.<\/em>\u201d According to Mate–and most of the non-Western world–the mind and body are not separate entities but work in tandem. He believes many illnesses are a result of pent-up psychological and\/or spiritual traumas.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Western medical model, illness is something bad that happens to a person usually because of bad behaviors on their part, like smoking cigarettes and getting lung cancer or even having the wrong genes,<\/em>\u201d he said. \u201cBut for the most part, we don\u2019t look at the possibility that the illness is not just misfortune but actually represents something about that person\u2019s life.<\/em><\/p>\n For instance, cancer, or rheumatoid arthritis, or depression, or drug addiction, or ADHD, or whatever form your illness takes, may be a representation of what’s happened to you in life and how you have coped with life.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s only Western medicine that separates the mind from the body,\u201d he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Much of Mat\u00e8\u2019s work centers around the idea that many illnesses are the body\u2019s response over time to unaddressed psychological traumas. His main focuses are two illnesses the modern medical model has yet to “cure”<\/strong>: cancer and addiction<\/span>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I’m asserting is that, whether looking at cancer or addiction, what we\u2019re seeing is the impact of life experience,\u201d Mat\u00e8 said. \u201cWe know already that in the womb the emotional states of the mother have the significant physiological impact on the physiology of the developing child. \u2026 And we know that what happens early in life \u2026 has a profound effect on the developing brain of the child. What really happens is that copying patterns child develops early in life show up as diseases later on.\u201d<\/p>\n Psychedelics, Mat\u00e8 contends, have the potential to address diseases like addiction and cancer because they open up the user\u2019s mind to addressing traumas that were otherwise blocked out.<\/p>\n Regarding addiction, Mat\u00e8 said emotional trauma\u2019s impact on the developing brain during childhood, \u201cinterferes with brain circuit that later on becomes involved in the addiction process.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe trauma gives the child a sense of deep emotional pain they will try to soothe later on,<\/em>[\/fusion_text][fusion_text][with substances],\u201d he said. \u201cThe trauma makes you believe you are isolated in the world without help– no support, no love, no caring. …Which of course, goes in the face of the spiritual awareness that we’re all one, it\u2019s all one world and we\u2019re all connected. There’s that sense of separation, pain, and disordered brain circuit.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Mat\u00e8 argues that psychedelics used in the proper setting, with a trained therapist or shaman, can help people address the underlying psychological, emotional and spiritual conditions that are \u201cunderneath all these conditions Western medicine thinks are separate and accidental.\u201d<\/p>\n Being hospitalized or incarcerated while under the influence of a psychedelic is a recipe for nightmarish visions, paranoia, and an all-around \u201cbad trip.\u201d Unfortunately, these are the default reactions of most emergency personnel who deal with people experiencing drug-induced acute psychiatric crises.<\/p>\n Linnae Pont\u00e9, a harm reduction coordinator for MAPS, works to shift the way we deal with psychedelic drug users to a more practical, public-health-oriented system that won\u2019t land people with debt-inducing hospital bills or dark marks on their permanent records just because they were tripping. Often, as MAPS has learned, all that’s required to make this happen is to provide a safe space where people can essentially trip out in peace.<\/p>\n Her job is to travel to places where people are using psychedelics en masse<\/strong>, e.g. festivals and raves\u00a0and help reduce the potentially negative effects of recreational psychedelic use. She does this by providing safe spaces, away from the noise, where people are surrounded by support.<\/p>\n The Zendo Project provides a tent-like structure designed for relaxation, complete with pillows, lamps, and hammocks to be used at festivals and raves. Pont\u00e9 and a team of volunteers set these structures up at various events so people can visit if they\u2019re overstimulated. They coordinate their efforts with emergency personnel and law enforcement, who are usually happy to cooperate.<\/p>\n \u201cThe overall mission of the Zendo project is to provide a safe space for anybody having a difficult experience to transform it into one that can offer valuable learning and some personal growth,<\/em>\u201d Pont\u00e9 said during the course.<\/p>\n Similar to the way MAPS trains its psychedelic therapists, all Zendo volunteers complete training in how to oversee people on psychedelics and sit with them during their experiences. They are also trained in how to help people talk through their experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cPsychedelics are\u00a0an\u00a0incredibly powerful tool,<\/em>” Pont\u00e9 said. “They’re non-specific amplifiers: they bring to the surface whatever is at the depths of our psyche, and sometimes we\u2019re absolutely unaware of it at the time.<\/em> And that is why \u2026 the psychedelic experience is all about set and setting.”<\/p>\n Pont\u00e9 outlined the four basic principles of psychedelic Harm Reduction, which she uses to train Zendo volunteers. The principles are largely derived from MAPS\u2019s training guides for psychedelic therapists. While the principles are designed for harm reduction event volunteers, they are helpful lessons for anyone interested in using psychedelics.<\/p>\n * Create a Safe Space.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are many ways to do this, but basically it’s just any space a person is able to relax into their experience,\u201d Pont\u00e9 said. \u201cIdeally [they\u2019re] in a place to close their eyes, lay down, and not be stepped on or talked at, so they can just really feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n * Sitting, Not Guiding<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re actually doing is just holding space and being a non-directive guide for people,\u201d Pont\u00e9 said. \u201cI do believe psychedelics open us up to being more in touch with this inner healing capacity we have.\u201d<\/p>\n * Talk Through, Not Down<\/p>\n Pont\u00e9 said when helping someone, the tendency is often to talk down to them or attempt to tell them what to do. This principle reminds us to help the psychedelic user by, for example reminding them that they are safe rather than telling them to calm down.<\/p>\n * Difficult Is Not the Same as Bad<\/p>\n To explain this principle, Pont\u00e9 quotes Carl Jung: \u201cThere is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.<\/em>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n MAPS has sponsored several government-approved MDMA studies to date, which looked at the drug\u2019s ability to help treat people with severe PTSD and anxiety. For all studies, participants took placebo-controlled doses of the “ecstasy” drug and therapists talked them through their experiences. So far, Doblin explained, the results have been overwhelmingly positive.<\/p>\n Doblin predicted that within the next decade MDMA-assisted therapy will be legal and doctor-prescribed.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been working for 28 years and have another seven or so to go before MDMA is available as a prescription medicine,<\/em>\u201d Doblin said, noting that MAPS was founded as a response to the government outlawing MDMA. \u201cWe have clearly got outcome data that will enable us to develop MDMA into a prescription medication.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n MAPS\u2019s first pilot study, which looked at MDMA’s potential to treat people with PTSD, had such successful results in helping \u201cpeople who had been stuck for a long time with PTSD,\u201d that it looked like the FDA would approve it as a prescription drug, Doblin said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor people who are so stuck in the fear reaction, they have to their trauma, psychotherapy alone can only take them so far,<\/em>\u201d he said. \u201cThe addition of MDMA makes much more progress. When combined with supportive psychotherapy, people can make great progress.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Even more encouraging than the initial results was a long-term analysis of those pilot study participants. It showed that an average of 3.5 years after treatment, the benefits of MDMA-assisted therapy were sustained.<\/p>\nHumans have used psychedelics since before we were painting on cave walls, not just for fun but for healing.<\/h2>\n
Here are five key lessons from the course.<\/h3>\n
1. Psychedelics could redefine the way we perceive and treat \u201cillness,” and could unlock health mysteries like cancer and addiction.<\/h4>\n
Psychedelics, he claims, can help the mind cope with those deep-held, often repressed traumas, which in turn allows the body to heal itself.<\/h5>\n
2. Set and setting are keys to safe and effective psychedelic experiences.<\/h4>\n
3. The 4 Principles of Harm Reduction<\/h4>\n
4. MDMA isn\u2019t just a dance party drug\u2014it could help treat PTSD and anxiety.<\/h4>\n
Every participant’s PTSD diminished significantly, and the study showed that MDMA was contributing more to the therapy than the therapist.<\/h5>\n