Daily Archives: June 24, 2017

Perhaps it is unsurprising that Ana Lily Amirpours sophomore movie, The Bad Batch, is controversialit depicts a harsh dystopian desert world in which characters are dismembered for food and society is brutally divided into the haves and the have-nots (the titular bad batch). Much of the conversation online about the movie, though, has not focused on the political allegory or graphic nature of the films violence, but whom that violence is aimed at. During a screening earlier this month at Chicagos Music Box, a woman named Bianca Xunise asked Amirpour the following questions: Was it a conscious decision to have all the black people have the most gruesome deaths on screen? And then, what was the message you were trying to convey with having this white woman kill a black mother in front of her child and then have her assume to be the mother figure for this little black girl?

Amirpour responded that another white character has her neck snapped and her ribs consumed, which is to say nothing of the brutality that the characters who survive face (it seemed fairly clear to me that one of the movies questions is whether its better to live or die in the violent world depicted). Amirpour abruptly shut Xunise down, ultimately ending with, I dont make a film to tell you a message.

Now, this filmmaking philosophy is not something the Iranian-American Amirpour invented on the spot. In 2014, when I interviewed her about her previous film, the acclaimed vampire tale A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, she wouldnt tell me whether she agreed with those who labeled that film feminist: I am afraid of categorization in general. I dont really see a usefulness to it. For me, what it does is it stops thinking. Amirpours films are provocative but in a way that shirk literal questions of intent. Nonetheless, Xunise tweeted the next day about how she felt humiliated by Amirpours response, and later shared many more thoughts on Amirpours perceived insensitivity (including casting Jason Momoa as a Cuban character despite his lack of Latin descent in his mixed-race heritage) in an interview with Affinity.

Amirpour was in New York promoting The Bad Batch yesterday, so I talked to her about her movie, some of its themes like cannibalism and psychedelic drug use, as well as her response to Xunise. An edited and condensed transcription of our discussion is below.

JEZEBEL: What do you think about the proliferation of movies and TV about cannibalism thats currently underway in pop culture?

ANA LILY AMIRPOUR: Its so weird. We did all make them simultaneously. That means three years ago, [Nicolas Winding Refn] would have been doing [his]. I remember hearing about it when I was editing. The assistant editor I got for my film was like, Im doing a cannibal movie for Refn. Its called The Neon Demon. I was like, Oh shit, awesome. I knew it would be bonkers different. So its just this interesting weird thing. I havent seen [Julia Ducournaus Raw] either.

Its so good.

Yeah, Im gonna see it. When I go back to L.A., Im gonna take Xanax for a week and just watch shit. Just sit on my couch and Netflix shit. I dont know what her film is about, but when I saw Refns and thought about my own, its like you catch onto this whiff or vibe that people are just tearing each other to pieces on this fucking planet. So you just kind of catch onto that. It becomes a shared, cumulative mindhow we feel right now.

And as the earth heats up, it seems like something that might be necessary in our not-so-distant future.

Fuck man, would you do it?

I think I would. Im enough of a pragmatist that I would if I had to.

Yeah, right? People value being alive and staying on earth. One of the things [I was thinking about] when I was making the filmand I think its movies Im attracted to in general, like Westerns or any survival movie, I love like 127 Hours or Touching the Voidis when you reduce a human to barebones survival, what are you able to do? Its like minute by minute. I always wonder what things would come out.

When I interviewed you about A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, you told me that you hate death. Its interesting, then, that you made a movie more brutal than the one we previously discussed.

I think its way more brutal. I think vampires let you off the hook. Everybody knows a vampire is a vampire and theres always rules and they get to get off the hook for killing. But its a vampire! She has to kill Theyre romantic. This is more its rough on earth. This is how I see America. Its my love letter to America.

Is this love letter a critique too?

I mean, were tearing each other to pieces, man! For reasons much harder to understand than hunger, actually. We are pretty fucking heinous to each other. Theres hermits out there. And theres also the potential for one day doing a different type of behavior, heading out of the whole wall that is around you, mentally or literally and seeing in a different way. This is just me getting way heady about it.

Do you personally feel torn apart, or is this something youre observing?

Theres times that I do. Yeah, all the time, actually, I think. Yes. All the time, now that you mention it. I look for comfort, you know, like we all do. Its a survival skill, you cant just sit here and constantly be ravaged by and overwhelmed by how crazy the chaos is. I try to find comfort but its fleeting and its constantly changing and the things that give you comfort might not a moment later.

Regarding the Q&A in Chicago, on Twitter, you said, My only mistake was not talking to [Xunise]. I dismissed her. How would you answer that question if you could go back in time?

Its hard to get basically called a racist when youre not. Thats an unpleasant thing. In the moment, I was thinking, Im not a politician. Its almost like you expect me to have no feelings when Im in this moment, like a politician has no feelings. They just say, This is what Im saying to you. Im a human being and I have feelings and what youre saying is personal and horrifying to hear. It jarred me. And she kind of kept repeating, and I was like, I dont know what to say. I thought about it. She was like, Whats your message? Whats your message? I guess I thought about that.

What I would say if I had a time machine and I could go back, first of all, is I would have made an announcement to the crowd that Im 30 percent hard of hearing, cause people dont know that and I have to get things repeated. I know she said I was being rude, but Im hard of hearing. And then I would have said, I dont have a message but I am asking questions. The question is does one violent act justify another? I dont have the answers but thats the question I want to ask. You have to go through it.

Did you read the Affinity interview?

I couldnt bear to fully read it. When I see that stuff, its horrible. I get the gist of it just from what I see. You must have read the whole thing.

I did.

The other thing I thought of is, like, Maria, Miami Mans baby mama [the black character whose child is then adopted by the films protagonist Arlen], is a deeply sympathetic character. At their [cannibal] dinner scene, shes the one person out loud calling out the world and their reality. Shes deeply sympathetic. Shes a devoted mother. Shes gonna do whatever she has to to keep getting along. She also calls out exactly their situation to Arlen. She puts it right on the table. We are the same. Are you gonna fuckin do this? The thing is everybody is the main star of the movie of their own life. So thats how we are. Im the star of the movie of my life and youre the star of the movie of yours. Everyone believes in their own movie, and they intersect and theres this conflict. [Arlen] does do this heinous, horrible thing and it is the fuckin most gruesome thing to go through.

Theres a picture of you in what appears to be blackface...

I was dressed like Weezy. Im brown!

But was it blackface?

No! Im brown. Im a fuckin Iranian girl. I did the tattoos and I put fronts in and I have a dreadlock wig and I was Lil Wayne, cause I love Lil Wayne.

I wonder if you feel that you have a disproportionate burden resulting from the expectation that what you will do will be especially politicized and meaningful because you are a woman of color whos a director, and thats so rare.

I wonder.

Is that your experience?

I dont know, Scott Derricksons a good friend of mine and he directed Doctor Strange and he got a lot of I feel like these conversations are important. People should have conversations about what theyre upset about. I guess theres this need to do that and especially now it feels like everyones upset all the time in America. And the internet definitely is the internet. Im, like, in the middle of this. Im putting my movie out. Its a crazy, fucked-up movie, its in-your-face, a visceral experience, and I know that. I wrote it three years ago, and there was no Trump. Its so fuckin trippy to me, I dont even fully know what to say. But I will say if empathy is something people are at all interested in, I do think that listening is the key, crucial thing. And what Ive noticed in the last few weeks is, like, no one listening. Theres very little listening. Thats my big observation from this moment of time on a press tour.

I think you pay for being subtle or ambiguous sometimes, as much as those sensibilities can benefit your art as well. People ask you, What is the message? A filmmaker like you isnt interested in dictating like that, but those questions are inevitable as is you being confronted by them given the state of human connectedness.

I think it was two things: Whatever happened in that room between me and her was two people in a room. And then this whole other thing that happened on the internet, I feel like if all these people have then come to a conclusion about a film or something they havent seen, what is that? Is that listening? What is that herd mentality? I dont know, I dont understand it.

This movie has a very extended trip sequence. When we last talked, you also mentioned finding psychedelic experiences valuable. How often do you have a psychedelic experience?

I need to be in a very specific environment. I dont take it lightly. I like to go to Burning Man if I get the opportunity, if Im not shooting or editing a movie. I havent been able to go since 2013, but Im going at the end of this summer, a much-needed break. But a movie can be a psychedelic experience. Love and sex can be a psychedelic experience. I go running, I ran a marathon last month, and it gives you perspective and, I guess, a feeing of freedom. Freedom, man. However you can feel free.

Here is the original post:

Director Ana Lily Amirpour on Cannibalism, Psychedelics, and 'Horrifying' Racism Allegations - Jezebel

Deep in the Mexican jungle, in a village so remote it's only accessible by boat, 74-year-old venture capitalist George Sarlo waited to meet his father.

It was the fall of 2012, and Sarlo knew his quest seemed absurd. After all, his father had been dead for decades, and he had no connection to this region of rainforests and beaches and its indigenous peoples. As the financier watched a shaman prepare a ceremonial cup of bitter brown ayahuasca, he couldn't believe that he'd agreed to swallow this nauseating psychedelic brew for a second time.

But he had traveled for 12 hoursvia plane, boat, and finally on footto this primeval place, a newly-built gazebo-like wood platform without walls. He had expressed his intentions in a group therapy session in preparation; he had eaten a special, bland diet and even halted other medications.

He also trusted his friend, Dr. Gabor Mat, a fellow Hungarian Holocaust survivor, who led the therapy and had arranged the trip. Mat is perhaps best known for his book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, which explores his work with extremely traumatized injection drug users in Vancouver. He's been offering psychedelic therapy to trauma survivors since learning about the potential of ayahuasca in 2008.

A shaman had also assured Sarlo that the veil between worlds would be thinner at this time, during Mexico's Day of the Dead, which runs from Halloween through November 2. Since he had survived the past night's ordealwith all of its vomiting and visions of sepia-colored soldiershe figured he had little to lose by trying again and hoping that this time, his father would appear to him and the experience would start to make sense.

Though consuming ayahuasca in a Mexican jungle might complicate the picture, in many ways George Sarlo personifies the American Dream. In fact, his rags-to-riches refugee story is included as one of less than three-dozen examples in a new online exhibit on becoming an American at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in Washington. As co-founder of Walden Venture Capital, which he helped start in 1974 and which currently manages some $107 million in funds, he has overseen the investment of billions of dollars.

"There are opportunities where relatively small amounts of money and energy can have a tremendous impact. So that's what I'm looking for."George Sarlo

His philanthropy has supported a humanitarian award in his name at the International Rescue Committee, two endowed chairs at the University of California, San Francisco, and funded Immigrant Point Lookout, a gorgeous spot in a beautiful public park: San Francisco's Presidio, near the Golden Gate Bridge.

Not far away, his own 1920s mansion also overlooks the bridge, taking in the entire 180-degree sweep of the bay. Salesforce billionaire Marc Benioff lives next door; across the street is Robin Williams's former home.

When he sees me slack-jawed at the beauty of the place, Sarlo, who is slim with intense blue eyes, smiles impishly and says, "Not bad for a refugee, eh?"

He leads me out onto a wide terrace from which I can see cliffs, beach, surfers, and, in the misty distance, the Marin headlands and Mount Tamalpais. This is a long way from the dirt-floored home of his grandparents in jfehrt, Hungary, and from the modest apartment of his parentsa textile factory clerk and a seamstressin Budapest.

Until recently, however, Sarlo wasn't able to fully enjoy the material pleasures of his wealth, like racing sailing yachts and a country house with its own vineyard in Marin County. Nor could he appreciate the deeper comforts of friends, romance or family. "I don't have many memories of looking at him and feeling like he was in joy," says his daughter Gabrielle, now 50.

For much of his life, Sarlo suffered from one of depression's cruelest tortures: anhedonia, or the inability to feel pleasure. Anhedonia insidiously drains joy from formerly enjoyable social interactions and experiencesand worse, replaces it with dullness, dread, or apprehension.

In fact, Sarlo first realized that he might be depressed when both of his daughters complained about his constant dissatisfaction when they were teenagers. "They would ask, 'Dad, how come you're not having fun ever? You never laugh,'" he recalls. It wasn't until he began to find himself weeping for no discernible reason that he finally sought helpand began a journey that would ultimately take him to places he did not think it possible to reach.

These days, evidence of a psychedelic renaissance is everywhere in America. MDMAbest known as ecstasy, or, more recently, Mollyis set to begin Phase 3 clinical trials for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which means it could be FDA-approved and on the market as early as 2021. Psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, is at a similar stage, with research suggesting it can help with the anxiety and depression associated with cancer, and with quitting smoking.

Ketaminethe club drug, a.k.a. Special Kis already widely used for intractable depression, following a series of trials that showed it could act rapidly, unlike existing antidepressants, which often take weeks to have an effect.

Meanwhile, a YouGov poll this month found that nearly two thirds of American adults would personally be willing to try MDMA, Ketamine, or Psilocybin if it was proven safe to treat a condition they have. And in April, a scientific conference on research about drugs that produce visions, out-of-body and transcendent experiences like ayahuasca, psilocybin and LSD was attended by over 3,000 peopleincluding Tom Insel, the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Two widely-discussed recent booksAyelet Waldman's A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life and Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal's Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Worktout the benefits of these substances for everything from depression and PTSD to improved creativity and productivity.

"Microdosing," or taking such small amounts of these drugs that they don't noticeably alter consciousness, is fashionable in Silicon Valley and beyond. The psychedelic revival has such cultural currency that even the New Yorker got in on the action, running a snarky piece about ayahuasca use by Brooklyn hipsters.

Sarlo is one of the key forces behind the scenes in this revolution, funding research and connecting various experts with each other and the resources they need to advance their work. "He's a nexus," says Dr. Mat. "He's important both in the sense that he's a donor and he makes things happen, but also, his house is a bit like a clearinghouse."

According to Vicky Dulai, who runs Compassion for Addiction, one of Sarlo's charities, he has donated nearly two million dollars to psychedelic research so fara substantial sum given that neither the government nor Big Pharma is willing to fund the studies needed to get these drugs to market.

"He brings to the table a particular acumen," explains Bob Jesse, a former Oracle executive who is now a board member of the Usona Institute, a nonprofit organization that does what pharmaceutical companies usually do: in this case, funding, sponsoring, and managing trials of psilocybin, with the goal of supplying the market if a version of the drug does win approval.

Jesse explains, "There's a certain sensibility to a successful venture capitalist. You have to find good sectors and projects that are going to work, while a lot of people are pitching you ideas that probably aren't going to work. Another thing George offers is his inclination toward funding partnerships." Sarlo has given $100,000 to Usona.

Overall, Sarlo's main goal is to support research and find ways to de-stigmatize these medicines so that they can eventually be used legally, effectively, and safely, in appropriate contexts.

"For me, the most important thing is to find some of the tipping points," Sarlo says. "There are opportunities where relatively small amounts of money and energy can have a tremendous impact. So that's what I'm looking for. I hope I can spend all of my money, but I don't have enough opportunity."

The clash between science and spirituality that inevitably arises in the psychedelic worldand the politics that caused a backlash against the drugs in the 1960s and 70smakes this a difficult undertaking, even for someone with such fabulous wealth. In the age of Donald Trump and attorney general Jefferson Sessions, fear about a return to the dark ages of drug war demonization of all currently illicit psychoactive substances is palpable.

During his second ayahuasca experience, Sarlo's visions took him far away from the humid rainforest. This time, he says, he was transported to what appeared to be a snowy field at the edge of a wintry forest. Skeletal men stood like statues, frozen in marching formation. Some still wore remnants of the striped uniform of prisoners, signifying that they were Jewish men who had been conscripted to support the fascists in World War II.

"They are all covered with snow, except one skeleton is sticking out and for some reason I know it's my father," he tells me.

Inside Sarlo's brain, a drug called DMT had presumably reached the receptors it targets, which are normally occupied by the neurotransmitter serotonin, involved in regulation of mood and sensation. Like the classic psychedelics LSD and psilocybin, DMT is active at one particular serotonin receptor, known as 5HT2A, which is believed to be responsible for the drug's mind-expanding effects.

Ayahuasca is a potent mixture that includes segments of the Banisteriopsis caapi vine boiled together with either Psychotria viridis (chacruna) leaves or those from the Diplopterys cabrerana (chagropanga) plant. By itself, each ingredient isn't strongly psychoactive. But when boiled together, an enzyme inhibitor in the "vine of the soul" allows the DMT from the leaves to profoundly alter consciousness.

The brew has been used for millennia by South American peoples, and was brought to the attention of Western science by ethnobotanist Richard Schultes. American beatniks and psychedelic explorers first learned of it under its other nameYagein William Burroughs's and Allen Ginsberg's 1963 Yage Letters.

"He felt lighter to me and in many ways, what transpired over the next few years in terms of our relationship was miraculous."Gabrielle Sarlo

Sarlo last saw his father when he was just four years old, in 1942. He remembers the last day he spent with him: He had watched his dad go pale as he read the telegram that told him he would be conscripted. But the next morning, when the elder Sarlo headed out the door, he didn't even wake his son for a farewell kiss. "I thought that he didn't come back because I was a bad boy," his son recalls. "That's what I carried with me."

Tripping in Mexico, and sensing a presence next to him on that frozen field in Europe, which he knew intuitively to be his father's spirit, Sarlo asked the questions he'd been wrestling with for years. First, "Why didn't you say goodbye?" He says that he heard a familiar voice respond: "I didn't want to wake you. I thought I would be back the same day. I was known as a pretty clever guy. I thought: I can get out of this stuff."

Then, Sarlo says, "I ask the big question: 'Did you love me?'" His father indicated the skeleton that was most clearly sticking out; its mouth was open, as if to speak. And he said, "'Look at me. That's my last breath and with my last breath I blessed you and promised to guard you all of your life.'"

Suddenly, after that "interaction," years of pain began to dissolve and ebb away. The burden of feeling fatherless, unworthy, and unlovable; the fear that had dominated his childhood as a Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Hungary, when every day brought new restrictions, starvation, crowding. The bomb that dropped into the courtyard but didn't explode; the incident in which he'd hidden under a man's coat on a train and watched a soldier's bayonet miraculously slide past him, without injuring him or causing him to cry out.

Decades of accumulated trauma and depression started to lift. "I felt weak. I felt lighter. I felt relief. I can't say that I was happy, but I felt good," Sarlo says.

More remarkably, the transformation has persisted over the years since that initial experience. "He changed in so many ways," his daughter Gabby says. "He became kinder, more compassionate, more understanding of others, more open. He felt lighter to me and in many ways, what transpired over the next few years in terms of our relationship was miraculous He's turned into the person that I had kind of always hoped to have as my dad."

Psychedelic research is fraught with paradox: for one thing, ingesting a chemical that clearly alters specific receptors in one's very physical and material brain can produce an experience that feels as though you have transcended time, space, your bodyeven the universe. A chemical transforms not just your brain, but your mind.

Modern science can study these age-old substances with great precision. But even if you're lying in an fMRI brain imaging machine surrounded by state-of-the-art technology while tripping, the only language that begins to describe what you feel is that of mysticismand all the fuzzy spiritual stuff that hard scientists often dismiss as "woo."

That leaves people who want to blend the scientific and the shamanic facing difficult questions. For example: Did George Sarlo really meet his father? And how much does the literal truth of these experiences even matter?

For his part, Sarlo says that at first, part of him reasoned, "'OK, so this has been on your mind for many years. It accumulated all this yearning in your subconscious and when you took that medicine, something opened up and you saw and heard what you wanted to see and hear.'"

"The other part of me thought, There is some kind of a world beyond what we know."

This led him to research the history of the Hungarian slave laborers and the way they were likely to have died during the warand he found nothing that falsified the scenario he experienced. His father could have died just the way he saw in his vision; it wasn't historically incorrect. On the other hand, freezing to death in a Northern European forest when you aren't given adequate food or clothing is not especially unlikely.

"It's a great question," says Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris, who heads psychedelic research at Imperial College in London and has studied psilocybin for depression. "It's poignant. It's come up in our trial and it seems to come up for everyone. These apparent recollections feel so real."

"What really happens when we die? We don't know. Don't act like you do."Roland Griffiths

But while medicine can easily incorporate new psychiatric drugs that show efficacy on validated scales, it will have a far more difficult time accommodating treatments that leave some patients believing they have communed with the dead, discovered the afterworldor even met God. Medicine and religion are already the site of many fraught interactions: to bring a treatment into the mainstream, clinical trials and clear measures of progress are needed; otherwise, insurers and politicians will dismiss psychedelic therapy as sheer quackery.

Mat, who uses ayahuasca in clinical work where it is legal, says, "People have all kinds of visions. I'm not ever concerned or engaged with their literal content, but with their emotional-spiritual message. They convey powerful truths, and my work is to help people identify and integrate those truths For the purposes of the work, it doesn't matter what I believe."

Carhart-Harris agrees that therapeutically, the reality of the content of the vision doesn't matter all that much. "Even though I don't believe that he transcended time and space, I do believe that the experience is of George's mind, and I also believe it's meaningful."

If someone forms a sincere belief about life after death in the context of healing from depression or trauma, Carhart-Harris adds, what counts most is that recovery and its robustness and longevity. He explains, "I think it has an emotional meaning and value that I wouldn't want to depreciate. But equally, I wouldn't want to lose my scientific integrity by sort of playing into the experience and saying that it's real."

Mark Kleiman, professor of public service at New York University's Marron Institute and an expert on drug policy, doesn't view psychedelic experiences as "truth," even though he says the drugs have significant potential. "I'm still stuck in the Enlightenment," he says. "It matters." In other words, if many Americans are determined to reject "fake news" and "alternative facts," we need to separate religious ideas from empirical reality.

But Roland Griffiths, professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, is less certain. "You're asking the unanswerable," he tells me. In 2000, Griffiths actually won US government approval to conduct the landmark study of psilocybin experience in healthy participants, which began the research renaissance in this field.

"Encountering one's deceased relative is a variation of the mystery of what happens upon death," he says, noting how the same types of reports are common in near-death experiences. He acknowledges that reductionists interpret such an experience as a psychological response generated by the brain, but in fact, he says, the mystery of consciousness remains.

"What are we doing here, anyway? How did we come to be conscious? What really happens when we die? We don't know. Don't act like you do. So, I'm very comfortable even as a scientist to say there are things we simply don't know. I'm willing to rest in the mystery."

Another important and more practical question is raised by the visions and emotions people report while under the influence of these drugs. That is, does the psychological experience of feeling as though you have, say, healed your relationship with your father actually cause brain changes that lead to psychological recoveryor is that just a side effect of pharmacological alterations in brain receptors, which make the real difference?

The pharmaceutical industry and government agencies like the National Institute on Mental Health are betting these are mere side effects. In other words, they are trying to develop new medications that have the lasting healing effects of psychedelics without the ordeal or mystical experience recreational users have tended to seek.

For example, there is ongoing research aimed at developing a drug that would have the same depression-lifting effect of ketamine, but without the out-of-body trip. (Success here would also have the financially convenient effect of creating products thatunlike existing psychedelics could be patented.) Johnson & Johnson, Naurex, and AstraZeneca have all been testing such drugs.

Lisa Monteggia, professor of neuroscience at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, has studied how ketamine works to fight depression. Based on her own research, she thinks the trippy effects can be dissociated from the therapeutic ones. The right dose of the right compound, correctly timed, could "enable the design of treatment strategies against neuropsychiatric disorders without the unwanted side effects of these drugs," she tells me.

But many of the psychedelic researchers think this quest is unlikely to bear fruit: indeed, so far, ketamine-like compounds without trippy effects haven't reliably beaten placebo.

This suggests that the emotional experience, its psychological content, and the way you make meaning out of the trip may really matter. Several studies now show that people who have the most intense elements of a "mystical" experience during psychedelic sessions are more likely to experience positive change.

These features include feeling a sense of "oneness" with others and the universe, a dissolution of the self ("nonduality"), a feeling of awe or sacredness, the sense that time and space have been transcended, an experience of great peace, bliss, and calmnessand an overwhelming sense that what has occurred is meaningful and represents a deep truth.

For example, in a study that used psilocybin to help smokers quit, success was strongly linked with having a complete mystical experience. In this research, 80 percent successfully quit smokinga rate that is far higher than seen with other methods.

Similarly, research on psilocybin use for anxiety and depression associated with terminal cancer also found a strong link between feeling these mystical emotions and long-term reduction in distress. And a study of ketamine found that greater "out of body" feelings were linked with better odds of depression relief.

"It's theoretically possible, but it strikes me as being improbable," Griffiths says of the idea of taking the "trip" out of psychedelic medicine. "Part of the nature of the experience that people have and the way people explain why they change has to do with their interpretation and the meaning of the experience so this is very much about meaning-making."

"I think it's wishful thinking," agrees Carhart-Harris. However, he notes that reports about mood lifting effects of "micro-dosing" do suggest that at least some change may be possible without a full-blown trip.

"I think the core factor here is, 'Is the mind being loosened?'" he adds. "Even with micro-dosing and with the higher doses, it's all about a loosening of mental constraintsand with that loosening an enhanced possibility for insight."

In fact, one possible explanation of how these drugs work could bridge the psychology of the experience and the neuroscience of receptor change. The idea is that the receptor changes temporarily allow conscious access to part of what you might call the brain's "operating system," (OS) which is normally inaccessible.

This part of the OS includes ideas and beliefs we adopted as children to make sense of the world, which structure how we experience everything that follows. If these beliefs are harmfulperhaps shaped by trauma or otherwise distortedaccessing them during a vision might help integrate and update them in a way that leads to lasting change.

By the mid-1960s, over 1,000 papers had been published on LSD alone before increasing levels of recreational use by hippies sparked a worldwide panic and an international ban. Even though much of this data did not meet the standards used today, it did show promise, suggesting that psychedelic therapy could potentially have lasting positive results on those suffering from alcoholism and other addictions, as well as anxiety related to cancer.

Crucially, today's studies suggest fears about long-term damage from the classic hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin are overblown, and relate to use of inappropriate doses in uncontrolled settings without careful preparation and support during and afterwards.

"There certainly are risks and it's important not to minimize those risks," says Griffiths. "But they are not as devastating or prevalent as would have been imagined based on the media coverage and the cultural impressions that emerged from the 1960s."

A common fear, for many, is that they will experience hell rather than heavencoming away not with a sense that the universe is benign and kind, but instead overwhelmed by an encounter with a howling existential void in which life is pointless and fate is cruel. Griffiths himself had concerns about inducing such experiences, particularly when treating dying people. "I had a lot of trepidation," he says, despite the positive reports in the earlier literature.

Being depressed and anxious about impending death would seem to be a set-up for such a bad tripor what researchers prefer to call a "challenging experience."

"You would think that people with life-threatening cancer would be deeply primed for that, but in fact, what frequently occurred among patients in our study were experiences of deep meaning, connection and integration," Griffiths says, adding, "That's another mystery." Although many study participants have transient fear and even terror, less than 1 percent reported any lasting issues, according to Griffithsand those problems that were reported were not severe.

Nonetheless, researchers and supporters like Sarlo recognize that it is important not to let hype and hope overrun data. After all, a massive cultural backlash like the one that ended nearly all research on these substances for decades is always a possibility, as the history of American drug policy and psychiatry makes clear.

"Every new treatment in the history of psychiatry, going back thousands of years, does very well at the beginning, then doesn't do so well," explains Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus at Duke who chaired the DSM-IV task force that categorized diagnoses in psychiatry in the 1990s.

"Original hype will always exaggerate the potential benefits and minimize very realistic risks," he says. "It's certainly promising enough to have careful study" of the emerging data on psychedelic medicine, he adds, before cautioning that what works well in small, selected samples can also do serious harm if misused by a larger, unscreened group. He has particular concerns about how ketamine is already being widely used for depression, without larger, longer, and higher quality trials on repeated use.

For his part, Sarlo wants to help other people find the relief he's experienced. He's realistic about the advantages he enjoys and the importance of the therapeutic context and ability to integrate insight into normal life to the effectiveness of these drugs. Still, his story raises the question: If a skeptical venture capitalist with a degree in electrical engineering can overcome decades of Holocaust-related trauma by careful use of these medicines, what else might they be able to do?

To prevent harm or backlash, careful science and caution is essential. But these days, the need for remedies that can decrease selfishness and maximize empathy and kindness is more urgent than ever.

"I think psychedelics should be seen as a kind of 'transformative medicine,'" Sarlo says. "They really do have the potential to change the world."

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The Refugee Funding America's Psychedelic Renaissance - VICE

Higher education linked to increased support of trip treatments

Several controversial psychedelic drugs now show promise as powerful therapeutic treatments for depression, anxiety, and PTSD.New data from YouGov suggests that public support for these therapies may have something to do with education level.

A studyby researchers from New York University and Johns Hopkins University showedthat a single treatment with psilocybin (the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms) reduced anxiety and depression in 80% of cancer patients. Another controlled trialshowed that on average,after threedoses of MDMA, patients experienced a 56% decrease inseverity of PTSD symptoms. More importantly, 66% no longer met the criteria for PTSD by the end of the trial. Studies at Yale, Mount Sinai and the National Institute of Mental Health suggest that ketamine relieves depressionwithin sixhours, especially in patients who were resistant to conventional antidepressant medicine.

Despite the stigma surrounding these controlled substances, new data from YouGov shows that many Americans are ready to embrace psychedelic therapies.Whats more, a relationshipappears to exist between higher levels of education and increased support for psychedelic research and treatments.At each increasing level of education, there's a corresponding increase in support for medical research into the potential benefits of psychedelic substances, such aspsilocybin mushrooms, MDMA, and ketamine. 53% of all respondents support medical research into psychedelic drugs, and this number increases to 69% for respondents with graduate degrees.

While more than half of all Americans may support research into psychedelics for therapeutic use, a 63% majority also said they would personally be open to medical treatment with psilocybin, ketamine, or MDMA if faced with a pertinent medical condition assuming the substance is proven safe. The curve of support for all three substances increased with each respondents education level. On average, respondents with a post graduate degree were 21 points more likely to try treatment with psilocybin, ketamine, or MDMA than those with a high school diploma or less.

Full survey results available here

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Majority of Americans ready to embrace psychedelic therapy - YouGov US

The pace of marijuana reform continues to accelerate, with more states approving medical programs and adult-use initiatives with every election cycle. Even at the federal level, momentum towards progressive drug policy has increased, and the War on Drugs is more unpopular than ever. What does this evolution mean for other criminalized substances? Could cannabis pave the way for the end of drug prohibition, or will the new administration stymy efforts to broaden the scope of legalization?

The cannabis movement sparked the hope that we can take a more sensible and compassionate approach to regulating substances, rather than relying on an entrenched drug war mentality that stigmatizes drug users. Were now engaging in conversations surrounding drug policy in our communities and in the halls of Congress previously unimaginable to cannabis advocates; questioning the efficacy of our current drug laws, calling out the institutional racism that drove the drug war, and pushing public support away from a system of mass incarceration and toward one that prioritizes public health.

Marijuana reform has also provided drug decriminalization advocates with a blueprint for action. The earliest cannabis activists were successful because they reframed the dialogue, focusing on the medicinal, rather than recreational, aspects of the plant. At that time, many were unconvinced of cannabis healing powers; now, the numerous potential medical benefits are more readily accepted. The progress weve seen in the past 20 years began with a commitment to bringing safe medicine to people who needed it most, and, unsurprisingly, that passion translated into the path towards legalization.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) takes a similar approach in its work with psychedelics such as ayahuasca, LSD and psilocybin. MAPS, a research and educational organization dedicated to ensuring the right to benefit from careful use of psychedelics and marijuana, conducts research and advocacy, including clinical trials on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety-related to life-threatening illnesses, and ibogaine-assisted treatment for drug addiction. According to Natalie Ginsberg, Policy and Advocacy Manager at MAPS, Were pursuing a medical route to legalize psychedelic substances. We believe medical research can lead to greater consciousness and understanding around these substances.

Though Ginsberg acknowledges that cannabis reform has allowed us to wake up to the reality that our drug laws arent based in science, she doesnt believe that cannabis offers a direct path to legalizing all drugs: Its been a very long process, and we still have far to go with cannabis. This is such a safe substance, and its use is incredibly widespread. Its a bit different when we start talking about hard drugs.

Furthermore, legalizing psychedelics may be the next logical step, but many advocates agree theyre not the highest drug priority. There are very few people being arrested and imprisoned for psychedelics, Ginsberg says. When it comes to changing policy, we want to change the policies that do the most harm first. People who seek out the most dangerous substances, such as heroin and crack cocaine, are frequently those who have already been marginalized. Criminalizing these substances and throwing individuals into the criminal justice system only perpetuates a cycle of negative impacts. People using these substances need help, not to be sent to prison and traumatized even more, Ginsberg asserts.

This is where marijuana reform can hamper progress on other decriminalization fronts: by attempting to prove the merits and safety of cannabis use, we create a dichotomy wherein cannabis becomes labelled as a good drug, while others are bad. The cannabis industry has worked hard to cast off outdated stereotypes surrounding marijuana consumption, yet these efforts can have the unintended consequence of further stigmatizing other drug communities.

An even greater obstacle has arisen for legalization, in the form of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions has hinted at reigniting and expanding the drug war, perhaps with the intention to return to the severe policies popular at its peak, including harsher prosecution for drug offenses and enforcement of mandatory minimum sentencing.

While cannabis regulation has brought drug policy reform to the forefront and illuminated a path towards change, it hasnt necessarily set the stage for wider drug legalization. But advocates will continue to nudge the door open, even as Sessions DOJ may try to slam it shut.

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DISMANTLING THE DRUG WAR: Is Cannabis a Gateway to Legalizing Drugs? - Dope Magazine