Category Archives: Entheogens

Roundabout Theatre Company and Columbia University School of the Arts have announced the winners of Columbia@Roundabout's 2021 New Play Reading Series. As part of the collaborative partnership between Roundabout Theatre Company and Columbia University, the reading series awards three playwrights from the current MFA program and recent alumni with a cash prize as well as a reading produced by Roundabout. Five finalists have also received cash prizes in recognition of their exceptional work.

No other collaborative partnership in the New York area brings together an esteemed Ivy League MFA program with a Tony Award-winning, not-for-profit theatre. The reading series is made possible by a grant from The Tow Foundation.

The playwrights featured in the sixth annual Columbia@Roundabout New Play Reading Series are: Adam North (Central Air), Kate Pressman (Piano for Four Hands) and Alaudin Ullah (The Halal Brothers).

Finalists include A.A. Brenner (Blanche and Stella), Justin Aaron Halle (Cowgirl), Julin Mesri (Immersion), Alle Mims (Pink), Paola Alexandra Soto (The Sosa Sisters).

The New Play Reading Series will be held July 26-30, 2021. Readings will be open to industry members and other guests by invitation only.

The selection committee consisted of two representatives from Roundabout Theatre Company: Associate Artistic Director Jill Rafson and Literary Manager Anna Morton; and two representatives from Columbia University: Christian Parker, Head of the Dramaturgy concentration and David Henry Hwang, Head of the Playwriting concentration for the Theatre Program at Columbia University School of the Arts.

By Alaudin Ullah

Directed by Carl Cofield

On February 22nd, 1965 events take place in a Halal store in Harlem owned by two Bengali brothers. Malcolm X's right-hand man places an order for Halal meat for the engagement at the Audubon Ballroom. Revelations come out on this fateful day that will change the course of Harlem and America forever.

By Kate Pressman

Directed by Annie Tippe

Nat and Lia are conjoined twins. They're young, sheltered and home-schooled, lonely and bored, and interested in everything and never really alone. They're rising concert pianists and complete audiophiles, but when Lia starts talking to one of her fans, they're forced to face the desire for and fear of separateness in their shared life.

By Adam North

Directed by Zi Alikhan

Ben is in a successful, polyfidelotous throuple with his long-standing, radical faerie boyfriend Porter and a newer addition, a painter named Kacper. But when Kacper returns to LA from a trip home to Poland, he reveals that his immigration status has changed, and he's now at risk of having to leave the US. When marriage emerges as the most sensible solution, the three must decide which two will participate in it. And as they navigate the arduous Adjustment of Status interview process, the tectonics holding their relationship together become unstable, and the performance of marriage blurs fiction and reality.

WINNER BIOS

ADAM NORTH (he/him) is a playwright and screenwriter from Fairfax, Virginia. Plays include Central Air (fka Adjustment of Status, O'Neill Semi-Finalist), The Entheogens, Full Course Menu (Fresh Fruit Festival), Breakfast (Winner: Best Performance, Act One One Act Fest), Spin (Columbia@Roundabout Finalist), Home Delivery (New Harmony Project Finalist, Geffen Theater Annex). He's written opera libretti with composers such as Nico Muhly and David Little, and is currently assisting Bess Wohl with development of a new play and several television and film projects. Adam co-wrote and co-directed Complete Works, a comedy series about a National Shakespeare Competition that aired on Hulu in 2013. Prior to living in New York, Adam worked as a feature film development executive at Columbia Pictures in Los Angeles, California. Adam has an MFA in Playwriting from Columbia University, as well as an MFA in Film Producing from USC's Peter Stark Program and a BA in English Literature, also from University of Southern California. He lives in the East Village.

KATE PRESSMAN (she/her) received her Playwriting MFA from Columbia in 2020. Her play Twenty-Six Seconds received a studio presentation at the Park Avenue Armory as part of the Culture in a Changing America Symposium in February 2019. Her other full-length plays have been read at New Georges, Red Fern Theatre Company, The Kraine Theater, The Access Theater and Play on Words. Her short plays have been performed in New York City, regionally and digitally. In addition to playwriting, Kate has worked as a stage manager, dramaturg, designer, and assistant director.

ALAUDIN ULLAH (he/him) has been trailblazing the past few decades as one of the first South Asian comedians to be featured on Networks such as Comedy Central, MTV. BET, and PBS. He's appeared in several national commercials as well as done voiceovers for radio and TV. As a voiceover artist he's been featured in the award-winning animated film Sita Sings the Blues. Limited by negative stereotypes, with little to no representation of his people, Alaudin turned from acting to writing. As a member of The Public Theater's Inaugural Emerging Writers Group, he worked on his trilogy of plays based on Harlem and Bangladesh. His solo play Dishwasher Dreams, directed by Chay Yew, will have its world premiere next season at Hartford Stage. His plays were workshopped in theaters such as The Public Theater, New York Theater Workshop, The Lark, Labyrinth, The Culture Project, Victory Gardens and Silk Road Theater (Chicago), Shakespeare in Paradise festival (Bahamas), and Classical Theater of Harlem. A book was inspired by his plays called Bengali Harlem and a documentary he co-directed by the same name is premiering next year on PBS. Recipient of Ford Foundation Grant, CAAM (Center of Asian American Media), Paul Robeson Grant, LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council) playwright grant, and currently is a 2022 MFA candidate in Playwriting at Columbia University.

FINALIST BIOS

A.A. Brenner (they / them) is a playwright, dramaturg, and New Yorker. Their writing blends naturalistic dialogue with heightened realism to explore queer, Jewish, and Disability themes, challenging both societal power structures and theatrical form. A.A.'s plays have been produced or commissioned by La Jolla Playhouse, National Disability Theatre, CO/LAB Theatre Group, Shakespeare Theatre Company (Fellows Consortium), Three Muses Theatre Company, Young Playwrights Inc., The Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, Columbia University, and The Hangar Theatre Lab Company; their play for all audiences, Emily Driver's Great Race Through Time and Space (co-written by Gregg Mozgala), was featured on the 2020 Kilroys List. Most recently, A.A. was named a Finalist for the 2020-22 Apothetae & Lark Playwriting Fellowship and is one of the inaugural recipients of the Jody Falco and Jeffrey Steinman Award. Currently, A.A. lives on the Upper West Side, where they are a third-year MFA candidate at Columbia University School of the Arts and a Writer / Producer at Epiq Media (as A. Ari Brenner).

JUSTIN AARON HALLE (he / they) is a New York-based performer, playwright and pansy. A graduate of NYU Tisch's Experimental Theater Wing, Justin has performed at venues including La MaMa ETC, the Bowery Electric, and Joe's Pub. Justin's playwriting has been performed off-Broadway at the Red Bull Theater, and off-West End at London's Jermyn Street Theater. Justin's short play, Delaware, Come Home is featured in the "Best of Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival" collection, published in 2019. Justin is obsessed with all things queer, Jewish, and strange. In their free time, Justin loves throwing extravagant little fits on the internet and deleting them shortly after. Justin is currently pursuing their MFA in playwriting at Columbia University's School of the Arts.

JULIN MESRI (he/him) is a New York-based Argentinean-American writer and composer who makes multilingual plays and musicals in the US and around the world. He is a current member of The Public Theater Emerging Writers Group and received a 2020-2021 EST/Sloan Commission. Recent productions include Immersion (Ingenio Festival at Milagro Theater, BAPF Semi-Finalist), The Gauchos Americanos (Teatro Extranjero, Buenos Aires), and the upcoming musical Telo. Other work includes music directing/arranging Songs About Trains with Radical Evolution, composing music for The Public Theater Mobile Unit presentation of Pablo Neruda's Romeo y Julieta, and a new commissioned musical for young audiences, The Adventures of Snow White, to tour China in 2021. Mesri has been an Emerging Artist of Color Fellow at NYTW, a Van Lier fellow at Repertorio Espaol, and the recipient of an ASCAP Scholarship. His adaptation of Fuenteovejuna received the HOLA Outstanding production award. He has also translated dramatic works for the Lark US/Mexico Exchange and PEN World Voices. He received his MFA from Columbia University.

Alle Mims (they/she) is a playwright interested in exploring race and class, gender and sexuality, and power and abuse, through satire and dark humor. As a queer black woman who lived in Texas for nine years, she knows how to laugh through desperate times. Alle Mims is originally from San Diego but earned her BA in acting/directing at Texas Women's University in 2016. Since graduation, she worked professionally as an actor on stage and screen, with a special love for Shakespeare. In 2018, they served as an editor for the Dallas-Ft. Worth Theatre Standards, modeled after the Chicago Theatre Standards. In 2019, they co-produced the first ever Womxn in Theatre Festival in Dallas (Brickroad Theatre). They also co-founded Altered Shakespeare, a company dedicated to giving opportunities to BIPOC, queer, and untapped talent, as well as bringing classic works to new audiences. Alle Mims's short play, Sally and Thomas, which shows a satirical conversation between Sally Hemmings and her slave-master, Thomas Jefferson, was produced locally three times in 2018/2019 (Pocket Sandwich Theatre, Sundown Collaborative Theatre, The Guinea Pig IV). She also collaborated with seven local Dallas playwrights to create The Tree - An American Rock Musical, with music from Veteran Children, for Imprint Theatreworks' 2020/2021 digital season. You can find her on social media @allemims. linktr.ee/allemims. https://newplayexchange.org/users/58518/alle-mims

PAOLA ALEXANDRA SOTO (she/her) is a playwright, producer, director, and actress who was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in Harlem. Most recently she earned her MFA in Playwriting at Columbia University School of the Arts. Her writing credits include Lucha Libre, a one-act version of the play was translated to Mandarin and performed by students at the Shanghai Theatre Academy. Her other plays include The Sosa Sisters, D'Carnaval, The Commission, On the 1 Train, Bo+Li, and Macbf. Paola holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from CCNY where she won the Jacob Weiser Playwriting Award for her one act On The 1 Train. Her acting credits include: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Antigone, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. She wrote and performed in an original adaptation of Two Noble Brothers produced by Cornerstone Theater Company. She was the lead in Raksha's Child and was a writer/actress in the original play Don't See My Bones and Think I'm Dead. The production was featured in a documentary for PBS where she was featured performing her work. She has also appeared in short films. Before returning to grad school Paola was the Assistant Administrative Director of the Drama Division at The Juilliard School. She has worked for the Hip Hop Theater Festival, Signature Theater, Penguin Group, Harper Collins Publishers, Abrons Arts Center, Bronx Writers Center, and Harlem Children's Zone. Paola was the independent publisher and editor of Lemon Andersen's award-winning book County of Kings and his book of poems Straightrazor.

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Winners of Columbia@Roundabout's 2021 New Play Reading Series Announced - Broadway World

The New York Times

Its been a long, strange trip in the four decades since Rick Doblin, a pioneering psychedelics researcher, dropped his first hit of acid in college and decided to dedicate his life to the healing powers of mind-altering compounds. Even as anti-drug campaigns led to the criminalization of Ecstasy, LSD and magic mushrooms, and drove most researchers from the field, Doblin continued his quixotic crusade with financial help from his parents. Doblins quest to win mainstream acceptance of psychedelics will take a significant leap forward Monday when the journal Nature Medicine is expected to publish the results of his labs study on MDMA, the club drug popularly known as Ecstasy and Molly. The study, the first Phase 3 clinical trial conducted with psychedelic-assisted therapy, found that MDMA paired with counseling brought marked relief to patients with severe post-traumatic stress disorder. The results, coming weeks after a New England Journal of Medicine study that highlighted the benefits of treating depression with psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, have excited scientists, psychotherapists and entrepreneurs in the rapidly expanding field of psychedelic medicine. They say it is only a matter of time before the Food and Drug Administration grants approval for psychoactive compounds to be used therapeutically for MDMA as soon as 2023, followed by psilocybin a year or two later. Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times After decades of demonization and criminalization, psychedelic drugs are on the cusp of entering mainstream psychiatry, with profound implications for a field that in recent decades has seen few pharmacological advancements for the treatment of mental disorders and addiction. The need for new therapeutics has gained greater urgency amid a national epidemic of opioid abuse and suicides. Some days I wake up and cant believe how far weve come, said Doblin, 67, who now oversees the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a multimillion-dollar research and advocacy empire that employs 130 neuroscientists, pharmacologists and regulatory specialists working to lay the groundwork for the coming psychedelics revolution. The nations top universities are racing to set up psychedelic research centers, and investors are pouring millions of dollars into a pack of startups. States and cities across the country are beginning to loosen restrictions on the drugs, the first steps in what some hope will lead to the federal decriminalization of psychedelics for therapeutic and even recreational use. Theres been a sea change in attitudes about what not long ago was considered fringe science, said Michael Pollan, whose bestselling book on psychedelics, How to Change Your Mind, has helped destigmatize the drugs in the three years since it was published. Given the mental health crisis in this country, theres great curiosity and hope about psychedelics and a recognition that we need new therapeutic tools. The question for many is how far and how fast the pendulum should swing, and even researchers who champion psychedelic-assisted therapy say the drive to commercialize the drugs combined with a growing movement to liberalize existing prohibitions could prove risky, especially for those with severe psychiatric disorders, and derail the fields slow, methodical return to mainstream acceptance. Doblins organization, MAPS, is largely focused on winning approval for drug-assisted therapies and promoting them around the globe, but it is also pushing for the legalization of psychedelics at the federal level, though with strict licensing requirements for adult recreational use. Numerous studies have shown that classic psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin are not addictive and cause no organ damage in even high doses. And contrary to popular lore, Ecstasy does not leave holes in users brains, studies say, nor will a bad acid trip lead to chromosome damage. But most scientists agree that more research is needed on other possible side effects like how the drugs might affect those with cardiac problems. And while the steady accumulation of encouraging data has softened the skepticism of prominent scientists, some researchers warn against the headlong embrace of psychedelics without stringent oversight. Although bad trips are rare, a handful of anecdotal reports suggest that psychedelics can induce psychosis in those with underlying mental disorders. Dr. Michael P. Bogenschutz, a professor of psychiatry who runs the 4-month-old Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health, said most of the clinical studies to date had been conducted with relatively small numbers of people who were carefully vetted to screen out those with schizophrenia and other serious mental problems. That makes it hard to know whether there will be potential adverse reactions if the drugs are taken by millions of people without any guidance or supervision. I know it sounds silly but, Kids, dont take these at home, Bogenschutz said. I would just encourage everyone to not get ahead of the data. The Rush to Invest Psychedelics are suddenly awash in money. Doblin can remember when research funding was nearly impossible to come by. But MAPS is flush now, having raised $44 million over the past two years. I spend a lot of my time saying no to investors, said Doblin, whose work has been funded by an unlikely collection of philanthropists, among them Rebekah Mercer, the Republican political donor, and David Bronner, a liberal heir to the liquid soap company Dr. Bronners. Johns Hopkins, Yale, the University of California, Berkeley, and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York are among the institutions that have recently established psychedelic research divisions or are planning to do so, with financing from private donors. And scientists are conducting studies on whether psychedelics can be effective in treating everything from depression, autism and opioid addiction to anorexia and the anxieties experienced by the terminally ill. More than a dozen startups have jumped into the fray, and the handful of companies that have gone public are collectively valued at more than $2 billion. Field Trip Health, a 2-year-old Canadian company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has raised $150 million to finance dozens of high-end ketamine cl inics in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other cities across North America. Compass Pathways, a health care company that has raised $240 million and is listed on the Nasdaq, is conducting 22 clinical trials across 10 countries of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression. Investors have been encouraged by the changing politics, a shift inspired in part by the nations accelerating embrace of recreational marijuana and by public weariness over Americas endless war on drugs. Last year, Oregon became the first state to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin. Denver, Oakland, California, and Washington, D.C. have decriminalized the drug, and several states, including California, are mulling similar legislation. Though the drugs remain illegal under federal law, the Justice Department has so far taken a hands-off approach to enforcement, similar to how it has handled recreational marijuana. Even some Republicans, a group that has traditionally opposed the liberalization of drug laws, are starting to come around. Last month, former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, citing the high rates of suicide among war veterans, called on his states legislators to support a Democratic-sponsored bill that would establish a psilocybin study for patients with PTSD. Weve had 50 years of government propaganda around these substances, and thanks to the research and a grassroots movement, that narrative is changing, said Kevin Matthews, a psilocybin advocate who led Denvers successful ballot measure. Decades in the Wilderness Long before Nancy Reagan warned the nation to just say no to drugs and President Richard Nixon supposedly pronounced Timothy Leary the most dangerous man in America, researchers like William A. Richards were using psychedelics to help alcoholics go dry and cancer patients cope with end-of-life anxiety. The drugs were legal, and Richards, then a psychologist at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, was among scores of scientists studying the therapeutic prowess of entheogens, the class of psychoactive substances that humans have used for millenniums. Even years later, Richards and other researchers say, many early volunteers called the psychedelic sessions the most important and meaningful experiences of their lives. But as the drugs left the lab in the 1960s and were embraced by the counterculture movement, the countrys political establishment reacted with alarm. By the time the Drug Enforcement Administration issued its emergency ban on MDMA in 1985, funding for psychedelic research had largely disappeared. We were learning so much, and then it all came to an end, said Richards, 80, now a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. These days, the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, created two years ago with $17 million in private funding, is studying, among other things, psilocybin for smoking cessation and the treatment of depression associated with Alzheimers as well as more spiritual explorations involving religious clergy. We have to be careful not to overpromise, but these are fantastically interesting compounds with numerous possible uses, said Roland R. Griffiths, the centers founding director and a psychopharmacologist whose 2006 study, on which he is a co-author with Richards, administered psilocybin to healthy volunteers one of the first psychedelic studies to win FDA approval in a generation. Though researchers are still trying to understand the cognitive and therapeutic mechanics of psychedelics, they have concluded that psilocybin, DMT and other psychoactive chemicals can help people feel more tolerance, understanding and empathy. They also induce neuroplasticity, the brains ability to change and reorganize thought patterns, enabling people with psychological disorders to find new ways to process anxiety, depression or deeply embedded trauma. They can help people who have lost the plotline of their lives, Doblin said. The Trip Business The future of psychedelic medicine can already be glimpsed at a suite of plush, soothingly decorated journey rooms that occupy the top floor of an office building in Midtown Manhattan. The clinic, run by Field Trip Health, is a year-old venture where patients wear eyeshades and listen to electronic music and Tibetan chanting, as they are administered six ketamine injections over the course of several weeks. The 90-minute trips are interspersed with therapist-guided integration sessions to help participants process their experiences and work on achieving their mental health goals. A typical course of four sessions starts at $4,100, though some insurance companies reimburse patients for a portion of the cost. Ketamine is not a classic psychedelic; it is an anesthetic perhaps best known as both a club drug and a horse tranquilizer. But at higher doses, it can produce hallucinations, and it has shown promise treating major depression and severe PTSD, though the effects tend to be less enduring than therapies with psilocybin or MDMA. Ketamine, however, has a distinct advantage over those other drugs: It is the only one in the United States that is legally available to patients outside a clinical study. Emily Hackenburg, Field Trips clinical director, said the drug was only one component of a demanding therapeutic process. The drug is not a magic bullet, she said. Joe, a marketing executive in his mid-40s who has battled depression and anxiety for decades, said he decided to visit the companys Atlanta location after seeing one of its ads on Facebook. Antidepressants, he said, left him emotionally brittle, and his years of psychotherapy were of little use. (He asked that his full name be withheld, citing the stigmas surrounding both mental illness and mind-altering drugs.) In an interview one week after his final session, he described a newfound awareness of the factors that could drive him to despair: his alpha male obsession with success, the frustrations stoked by his 9-year-old daughters misbehavior and the poor eating and drinking habits that often leave him feeling unwell. In a follow-up conversation two weeks later, Joe said the therapys effects were beginning to fade. He said that he was eager to try psilocybin-assisted therapy. Im really looking forward to the day when that becomes legal, he said. So, too, is Field Trip. The company, which got its start opening cannabis clinics across Canada, is planning to test psilocybin therapy next month in Amsterdam, where magic mushroom truffles are legal. And its scientists are currently developing a new psychedelic that carries the therapeutic punch of psilocybin but works in about half the time about two to three hours. Creating a proprietary short-lived psychedelic would reduce the staffing costs of supervised sessions, but more important, it would give the company lucrative exclusivity over its new drug. Other biotech companies are also developing new psychedelic compounds. Ronan Levy, Field Trips executive chairman, said the company was hoping to grab a slice of the $240 billion that Americans spend each year on mental health services. We are riding the forefront of what I think is going to be a significant cultural and business wave, he said. To veteran scientists who lived through the nations earlier star-crossed love affair with psychedelics, such corporate boosterism is both thrilling and troubling. They are mindful about potential missteps that could undo the progress of recent years, and they question whether the coming commercialization could limit access to those with limited financial means. Dr. Charles S. Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLAs school of medicine who has spent decades researching hallucinogens, worries that commercialization and a rush toward recreational use could prompt a public backlash, especially if increased availability of the drugs leads to a wave of troubling psychotic reactions. What is needed, he said, are rigorous protocols and a system to train and credential psychedelic medicine professionals. We have to be very attentive to safety parameters, because if conditions are not properly maintained, there is a risk for some people to go off the rails psychologically, he said. And if the primary motivator is extracting profit, I feel the field is more vulnerable to mishaps. Doblin shares some of those concerns, even if his institute stands to profit handsomely. Although MAPS is a nonprofit, it has recently created a corporate entity and hired management consultants to help plot the future of legalized MDMA therapy. Winning FDA approval would give MAPS at least six years of exclusivity to market its MDMA-guided treatments for PTSD, with a potential windfall of $750 million. Most of that money, he said, would help train a generation of psychedelic practitioners, fund lobbying efforts to require insurance coverage for such treatments and promote new therapies around the world. Our goal is mass mental health, he said, explaining the organizations rejection of private investment. Its not to amass a whole bunch of money. Despite his optimism, Doblin is not blind to the possibility that societys fascination with psychedelics could sour. Weve made so much progress so fast but there are so many challenges ahead, he said. I realize, he said, we could screw things up at the last minute so Im not planning to celebrate any time soon. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. 2021 The New York Times Company

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Biden said he'd cut down on unemployment benefits, but he really might reinstate a pre-pandemic job-seeking policy The Madison Leader Gazette - The...

Doblins quest to win mainstream acceptance of psychedelics will take a significant leap forward Monday when the journal Nature Medicine is expected to publish the results of his labs study on MDMA, the club drug popularly known as Ecstasy and Molly. The study, the first Phase 3 clinical trial conducted with psychedelic-assisted therapy, found that MDMA paired with counselling brought marked relief to patients with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.

The results, coming weeks after a New England Journal of Medicine study that highlighted the benefits of treating depression with psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in magic mushrooms, have excited scientists, psychotherapists and entrepreneurs in the rapidly expanding field of psychedelic medicine. They say it is only a matter of time before the Food and Drug Administration grants approval for psychoactive compounds to be used therapeutically for MDMA as soon as 2023, followed by psilocybin a year or two later.

After decades of demonisation and criminalisation, psychedelic drugs are on the cusp of entering mainstream psychiatry, with profound implications for a field that in recent decades has seen few pharmacological advancements for the treatment of mental disorders and addiction. The need for new therapeutics has gained greater urgency amid a national epidemic of opioid abuse and suicides.

Some days I wake up and cant believe how far weve come, said Doblin, 67, who now oversees the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a multimillion-dollar research and advocacy empire that employs 130 neuroscientists, pharmacologists and regulatory specialists working to lay the groundwork for the coming psychedelics revolution.

The nations top universities are racing to set up psychedelic research centres, and investors are pouring millions of dollars into a pack of startups. State and cities across the country are beginning to loosen restrictions on the drugs, the first steps in what some hope will lead to the federal decriminalisation of psychedelics for therapeutic and even recreational use.

Theres been a sea change in attitudes about what not long ago was considered fringe science, said Michael Pollan, whose bestselling book on psychedelics, How to Change Your Mind, has helped destigmatise the drugs in the three years since it was published. Given the mental health crisis in this country, theres great curiosity and hope about psychedelics and a recognition that we need new therapeutic tools.

The question for many is how far and how fast the pendulum should swing, and even researchers who champion psychedelic-assisted therapy say the drive to commercialise the drugs combined with a growing movement to liberalise existing prohibitions could prove risky, especially for those with severe psychiatric disorders, and derail the fields slow, methodical return to mainstream acceptance.

Doblins organisation, MAPS, is largely focused on winning approval for drug-assisted therapies and promoting them around the globe, but it is also pushing for the legalisation of psychedelics at the federal level, though with strict licensing requirements for adult recreational use.

Numerous studies have shown that classic psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin are not addictive and cause no organ damage in even high doses. And contrary to popular lore, Ecstasy does not leave holes in users brains, studies say, nor will a bad acid trip lead to chromosome damage.

But most scientists agree that more research is needed on other possible side effects like how the drugs might affect those with cardiac problems. And while the steady accumulation of encouraging data has softened the scepticism of prominent scientists, some researchers warn against the headlong embrace of psychedelics without stringent oversight. Although bad trips are rare, a handful of anecdotal reports suggest that psychedelics can induce psychosis in those with underlying mental disorders.

Dr Michael P Bogenschutz, a professor of psychiatry who runs the 4-month-old Center for Psychedelic Medicine at NYU Langone Health, said most of the clinical studies to date had been conducted with relatively small numbers of people who were carefully vetted to screen out those with schizophrenia and other serious mental problems.

That makes it hard to know whether there will be potential adverse reactions if the drugs are taken by millions of people without any guidance or supervision. I know it sounds silly but, Kids, dont take these at home, Bogenschutz said. I would just encourage everyone to not get ahead of the data.

The Rush to Invest

Psychedelics are suddenly awash in money.

Doblin can remember when research funding was nearly impossible to come by. But MAPS is flush now, having raised $44 million over the past two years.

I spend a lot of my time saying no to investors, said Doblin, whose work has been funded by an unlikely collection of philanthropists, among them Rebekah Mercer, the Republican political donor, and David Bronner, a liberal heir to the liquid soap company Dr Bronners.

Johns Hopkins, Yale, the University of California, Berkeley, and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York are among the institutions that have recently established psychedelic research divisions or are planning to do so, with financing from private donors.

And scientists are conducting studies on whether psychedelics can be effective in treating everything from depression, autism and opioid addiction to anorexia and the anxieties experienced by the terminally ill.

More than a dozen startups have jumped into the fray, and the handful of companies that have gone public are collectively valued at more than $2 billion. Field Trip Health, a 2-year-old Canadian company that trades on the New York Stock Exchange, has raised $150 million to finance dozens of high-end ketamine clinics in Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and other cities across North America. Compass Pathways, a health care company that has raised $240 million and is listed on the Nasdaq, is conducting 22 clinical trials across 10 countries of psilocybin therapy for treatment-resistant depression.

Investors have been encouraged by the changing politics, a shift inspired in part by the nations accelerating embrace of recreational marijuana and by public weariness over Americas endless war on drugs. Last year, Oregon became the first state to legalise the therapeutic use of psilocybin. Denver, Oakland, California, and Washington, DC have decriminalised the drug, and several states, including California, are mulling similar legislation. Though the drugs remain illegal under federal law, the Justice Department has so far taken a hands-off approach to enforcement, similar to how it has handled recreational marijuana.

Even some Republicans, a group that has traditionally opposed the liberalisation of drug laws, are starting to come around. Last month, former Texas Gov Rick Perry, citing the high rates of suicide among war veterans, called on his states legislators to support a Democratic-sponsored bill that would establish a psilocybin study for patients with PTSD.

Weve had 50 years of government propaganda around these substances, and thanks to the research and a grassroots movement, that narrative is changing, said Kevin Matthews, a psilocybin advocate who led Denvers successful ballot measure.

Decades in the Wilderness

Long before Nancy Reagan warned the nation to just say no to drugs and President Richard Nixon supposedly pronounced Timothy Leary the most dangerous man in America, researchers like William A. Richards were using psychedelics to help alcoholics go dry and cancer patients cope with end-of-life anxiety.

The drugs were legal, and Richards, then a psychologist at the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, was among scores of scientists studying the therapeutic prowess of entheogens, the class of psychoactive substances that humans have used for millenniums. Even years later, Richards and other researchers say, many early volunteers called the psychedelic sessions the most important and meaningful experiences of their lives.

But as the drugs left the lab in the 1960s and were embraced by the counterculture movement, the countrys political establishment reacted with alarm. By the time the Drug Enforcement Administration issued its emergency ban on MDMA in 1985, funding for psychedelic research had largely disappeared.

We were learning so much, and then it all came to an end, said Richards, 80, now a researcher at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

These days, the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, created two years ago with $17 million in private funding, is studying, among other things, psilocybin for smoking cessation and the treatment of depression associated with Alzheimers as well as more spiritual explorations involving religious clergy.

We have to be careful not to overpromise, but these are fantastically interesting compounds with numerous possible uses, said Roland R Griffiths, the centres founding director and a psychopharmacologist whose 2006 study, on which he is a co-author with Richards, administered psilocybin to healthy volunteers the first psychedelics study to win FDA approval in a generation.

Though researchers are still trying to understand the cognitive and therapeutic mechanics of psychedelics, they have concluded that psilocybin, DMT and other psychoactive chemicals can help people feel more tolerance, understanding and empathy. They also induce neuroplasticity, the brains ability to change and reorganise thought patterns, enabling people with psychological disorders to find new ways to process anxiety, depression or deeply embedded trauma.

They can help people who have lost the plotline of their lives, Doblin said.

The Trip Business

The future of psychedelic medicine can already be glimpsed at a suite of plush, soothingly decorated journey rooms that occupy the top floor of an office building in Midtown Manhattan. The clinic, run by Field Trip Health, is a year-old venture where patients wear eyeshades and listen to electronic music and Tibetan chanting, as they are administered six ketamine injections over the course of several weeks.

The 90-minute trips are interspersed with therapist-guided integration sessions to help participants process their experiences and work on achieving their mental health goals. A typical course of four sessions starts at $4,100, though some insurance companies reimburse patients for a portion of the cost.

Ketamine is not a classic psychedelic; it is an anaesthetic perhaps best known as both a club drug and a horse tranquiliser. But at higher doses, it can produce hallucinations, and it has shown promise treating major depression and severe PTSD, though the effects tend to be less enduring than therapies with psilocybin or MDMA. Ketamine, however, has a distinct advantage over those other drugs: It is the only one in the United States that is legally available to patients outside a clinical study.

Emily Hackenburg, Field Trips clinical director, said the drug was only one component of a demanding therapeutic process. The drug is not a magic bullet, she said.

Joe, a marketing executive in his mid-40s who has battled depression and anxiety for decades, said he decided to visit the companys Atlanta location after seeing one of its ads on Facebook. Antidepressants, he said, left him emotionally brittle, and his years of psychotherapy were of little use. (He asked that his full name be withheld, citing the stigmas surrounding both mental illness and mind-altering drugs.)

In an interview one week after his final session, he described a newfound awareness of the factors that could drive him to despair: his alpha male obsession with success, the frustrations stoked by his 9-year-old daughters misbehaviour and the poor eating and drinking habits that often leave him feeling unwell.

In a follow-up conversation two weeks later, Joe said the therapys effects were beginning to fade. He said that he was eager to try psilocybin-assisted therapy. Im really looking forward to the day when that becomes legal, he said.

So, too, is Field Trip. The company, which got its start opening cannabis clinics across Canada, is planning to test psilocybin therapy next month in Amsterdam, where magic mushroom truffles are legal. And its scientists are currently developing a new psychedelic that carries the therapeutic punch of psilocybin but works in about half the time about two to three hours. Creating a proprietary short-lived psychedelic would reduce the staffing costs of supervised sessions, but more important, it would give the company lucrative exclusivity over its new drug. Other biotech companies are also developing new psychedelic compounds.

Ronan Levy, Field Trip's executive chairman, said the company was hoping to grab a slice of the $240 billion that Americans spend each year on mental health services. We are riding the forefront of what I think is going to be a significant cultural and business wave, he said.

To veteran scientists who lived through the nations earlier star-crossed love affair with psychedelics, such corporate boosterism is both thrilling and troubling. They are mindful about potential missteps that could undo the progress of recent years, and they question whether the coming commercialisation could limit access to those with limited financial means.

Dr Charles S Grob, a professor of psychiatry at UCLAs school of medicine who has spent decades researching hallucinogens, worries that commercialisation and a rush toward recreational use could prompt a public backlash, especially if increased availability of the drugs leads to a wave of troubling psychotic reactions.

What is needed, he said, are rigorous protocols and a system to train and credential psychedelic medicine professionals. We have to be very attentive to safety parameters, because if conditions are not properly maintained, there is a risk for some people to go off the rails psychologically, he said. And if the primary motivator is extracting profit, I feel the field is more vulnerable to mishaps.

Doblin shares some of those concerns, even if his institute stands to profit handsomely. Although MAPS is a nonprofit, it has recently created a corporate entity and hired management consultants to help plot the future of legalised MDMA therapy.

Winning FDA approval would give MAPS at least six years of exclusivity to market its MDMA-guided treatments for PTSD, with a potential windfall of $750 million. Most of that money, he said, would help train a generation of psychedelic practitioners, fund lobbying efforts to require insurance coverage for such treatments and promote new therapies around the world. Our goal is mass mental health, he said, explaining the organisations rejection of private investment. Its not to amass a whole bunch of money.

Despite his optimism, Doblin is not blind to the possibility that societys fascination with psychedelics could sour. Weve made so much progress so fast but there are so many challenges ahead, he said. I realise, he said, we could screw things up at the last minute so Im not planning to celebrate any time soon.

2021 The New York Times Company

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The psychedelic revolution is coming. Psychiatry may never be the same - bdnews24.com

April28, 20216 min read

As activists and scientists work toward a post-prohibition paradigm, with entheogenic plants and compounds on the path to becoming decriminalized, FDA-approved, or legal in therapeutic contexts, theres a demographic voice missing from the center of the conversation: that of Native American tribes, who carry a tradition and wisdom around using psychedelics that historically predate any legislative or research-oriented movement.

RELATED:These Are the Female Pioneers of Psychedelics

At thePsychedelic Liberty Summit(PLS), what originally was a San Francisco-based conference that went digital this past April, organizer Bia Labate anthropologist and executive director of Chacruna was careful to include indigineous perspectives at the forefront of the agenda: If psychedelics are to become more mainstream, how can the space remain, or rather become increasingly accessible to, those who have been operating in it from the get-go? Like withcannabis legalization, which has set a foreboding tone for psychedelics many of those who built the cannabis industry were eventually squeezed out of it due to regulations that were difficult to comply with and made it even more difficult to compete in the newly legal market many activists fear a similar trajectory for psilocybin or other plant medicines. Indeed, even with regard to cannabis, government regulations in essenceblockedNative tribes, who had hoped to enter the legally regulated industry.

But with psychedelics, the issues are more nuanced than simply facilitating access to the marketplace. At PLS, many voiced concerns about peyote land conservation amidst decriminalization efforts, some perceive athreatto the sacredness of the sacramental cactus religious legal exemption when it comes to entheogens, ethical sourcing of psychedelic plants, indigenous perspectives in the globalization ofayahuasca, Amazon rainforest defense, and so on.

Its crucial to acknowledge and truly hear that there is no monolithic tribal position, says attorney Ariel Clark, general counsel to Chacruna, a member of the Council for the Protection of Sacred plants, and a partner at Clark Howell LLP, which focuses on business, corporate, and regulatory law around cannabis, hemp, and psychedelics. There are many tribes and indigenous communities in many countries and geographies and correspondingly, a huge diversity of opinions amongst tribes about these initiatives. With regard to any of the above-listed issues, policy is at the core of inscribing equity but before even passing, let alone implementing progressive policies, tribal representatives need a seat at the table in co-crafting the conversation.

RELATED:How Psychedelics Helped Me Find Safety

From the outset, any initiative has to recognize indigenous tribes as vital stakeholders, says Clark. For tribes that are interested in entering the legal frameworks being developed, whether its a commercial, therapeutic, and/or other model, first, initiatives must recognize tribal sovereignty, which includes sovereignty with respect to certain ancestral medicines; and second that, at the outset, there has to be a very clear, articulated path to integrating regulatory systems if that is what the tribe wants.

Moreover, Clark adds, while the psychedelic space should be accessible to the tribes, they dont necessarily want to compete in a market system. In fact, what weve often heard in conversations up to this point is that its less about competition and more about preservation of ancestral lands, cultural knowledge, and the protection of sacred plant medicine for religious and spiritual purposes, she says. We really need to step back from the canned capitalist paradigm and look to an intersectional and more hybrid approach.

TheDecriminalize Naturemodel to decriminalize all entheogenic plants for instance, excludes an explicitly commercial approach, instead focusing on a grow, gather, gift model for distributing plant medicines. The Washington D.C. branch of the group, however, went one step further, removing specific mention of peyote, following requests from the Native American Church. Peyote is at a complex intersection of Native American rights, conservation and ecology issues, and drug policy reform, and we need to continue unpacking and discussing the issues, says Clark. It may be that the best answer [to avoiding issues like that brought up inthisLA Timesarticle], is the simplest one: Dont include peyote in legalization measures. Set it aside. Given the terrible history of colonization, maybe just leave that one alone and, instead, use it as an opportunity to ask indigenous leaders if theres any way your measure can be of service to (or at least hot harm) efforts to preserve land, sacred medicine, and cultural and religious knowledge.

At the very least, those who have a personal stake in a policy should be crafting the conversation, if not at the very least consulted, says Labate. In her home country of Brazil, for example, when ayahuasca was regulated, she says, there was a conversation between the government and the Brazilian ayahuasca religions (which are Christian syncretic churches), not to mention medical researchers, anthropologists, policy makers, and other kinds of experts.

RELATED:What's in the Future for Cannabis and Psychedelics? Industry Leaders Weigh In

Making sure this conversation is fair is the minimum we can do, she says. When were talking about liberty, were talking about dear concepts think about freedom, autonomy, rights, etc. but also about obligations: ethics, sustainability conservation, solidarity, reciprocity.

When philanthropists come to the psychedelic field, Labate suggests, they should ask the people who are in the field already what they need rather than trying to invent something from the top down. On the topic of reciprocity, she says, what are we doing to give back to the traditional people who have brought the sacraments to us in the first place? How are we excluding them not taking into account their perspectives when we regulate their own sacraments? The idea that people immediately affected by a policy should be consulted is obvious, but unfortunately rarely done.

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Native Tribes Should Have More Say in the Psychedelic Movement - Green Entrepreneur

April 23, 2021 (Source) Red Light Holland Corp. (CSE: TRIP) (FSE: 4YK) (OTC Pink: TRUFF) (Red Light Holland or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has partnered withHeadland West Indies LLCin St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) to launch #SVGStrong, a campaign to raise funds, in-kind donations, and expertise to support response, recovery and rebuilding following the eruption of the La Soufrire volcano in the country.

As Red Light Holland continues its productive talks with both the highest levels of the SVG government and members of the Vincentian business community in the emerging plant-based wellness industry, we are immediately doing our part to support them at this critical time by powering this initiative. Having spent a significant amount of time recently in SVG, I grew very fond of the beauty of this nation and its people. In the wake of this devastating volcano, we recognize the magnitude of the task facing the government, now and in the months ahead. #SVGStrong allows us to rise together to help meet this challenge and help the people directly affected, said Todd Shapiro, CEO and Director of Red Light Holland. I implore everyone to step up and join us in SVGs time of need and please go towww.SVGstrong.orgfor more info.

#SVGStrongis powered by Red Light Holland and it is further supported by SVG Pioneer Licensees Mera Life Sciences, Ajori Health and Wellness, and SVG Biomed the psychedelic subsidiary of Headland West Indies.

Donations will be administered by Headland West Indies team in St. Vincent and the Grenadines under the supervision of the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) and with the facilitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade through its consulate in Toronto, Canada.

The companies commitments include:

Thank you to Red Light Holland, Mera Life Sciences, Headland West Indies, and Ajori Health and Wellness. These pioneers of the nascent Competitive Modern Medicinal and Wellness Industries have come together to make this substantive and generous pledge to our countrys emergency response efforts, said Hon. Saboto Caesar, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, Fisheries, Rural Transformation, Industry, and Labour for St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The Help SVG initiative signals their long-term investment, partnership, and commitment to the people and economy of St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Individuals or organizations interested in learning more or supporting through monetary or in-kind donations can visitSVGStrong.org.

About Red Light Holland Corp.

Red Light Holland is an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale of a premium brand of magic truffles to the legal, recreational market within the Netherlands. The Company is an Ontario-based corporation engaged in the production, growth and sale (through existing Smart Shops operators and an advanced e-commerce platform) of a premium brand of magic truffles to the legal market within the Netherlands, in accordance with the highest standards, in compliance with all applicable laws.

For additional information on Red Light Holland:Todd ShapiroChief Executive Officer & DirectorTel: 647-204-7129Email:todd@redlighttruffles.comWebsite:https://redlighttruffles.com/

About Headland West Indies LLC

Based in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Headland West Indies LLC (Headland) is a privately held company that harnesses the power of medicinal plants from cultivation treatment. Headlands wholly-owned subsidiaries include Windican Health Inc, an emerging cultivator, processor and exporter of medicinal cannabis. Psychedelics licenses SVG Biomed Inc is a developer of pharmaceutical-grade entheogens and other nutraceuticals. The Companys clinical division, Headland Health Centres, will provide on-site treatments for patients in need of psychedelic-assisted therapies.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain information set forth in this news release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial known and unknown risks and uncertainties, certain of which are beyond the control of Red Light Holland. Forward-looking statements are frequently characterized by words such as plan, continue, expect, project, intend, believe, anticipate, estimate, may, will, potential, proposed and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions may or will occur. These statements are only predictions. Readers are cautioned that the assumptions used in the preparation of such information, although considered reasonable at the time of preparation, may prove to be imprecise and, as such, undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. Forward looking statements include, but are not limited to: references to the donations of cash and supplies, the establishment of a fundraising page, the partnership between Red Light Holland and Headland West Indies in providing emergency support and administering donations, and the intended outcomes of the SVG strong initiative.

Forward-looking information is based on a number of key expectations and assumptions made by Red Light Holland, including without limitation: the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the Canadian economy and Red Light Hollands business, and the extent and duration of such impact; no change to laws or regulations that negatively affect Red Light Hollands business; no unanticipated expenses or costs arise that would affect Red Light Hollands ability to meet its donation commitments; and Red Light Hollands partnership with and operations in Saint Vincent remain operative and on favorable terms. Although the forward-looking information contained in this news release is based upon what the Company believes to be reasonable assumptions, it cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with such information.

Forward-looking information is provided for the purpose of presenting information about managements current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Forward-looking information involves significant risks and uncertainties and should not be read as a guarantee of future performance or results, as actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking information. Those risks and uncertainties include, among other things, risks related to: renewing federal, provincial, municipal, local or other licenses and any inability to obtain all necessary governmental approvals, licenses, and permits to operate and expand the Companys facilities; regulatory or political change such as changes in applicable laws and regulations, including federal and provincial legalization, due to inconsistent public opinion, perception of the medical-use and adult-use psilocybin industry, bureaucratic delays or inefficiencies or any other reasons; any other factors or developments which may hinder market growth; the Companys limited operating history; reliance on management; the Companys requirements for additional financing; and competition for mental health and wellness investments. These factors should be considered carefully, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. Although the Company has attempted to identify important risk factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other risk factors that cause actions, events or results to differ from those anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements.

The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable law.

Not for distribution to United States newswire services or for dissemination in the United States.

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Red Light Holland and Headland West Indies Lead #SVGStrong, a Relief Effort in St. Vincent and the Grenadines - InvestorIntel

This column is a collaboration with DoubleBlind, a print magazine and media company at the forefront of the psychedelic movement.

A psychedelic trip can be among the most sacred experiences of a persons life. And yet, that impulse to take a psychedelic for a spiritual reason is often overlooked as a reason to lift prohibition for psychedelic substances.

Oftentimes, cannabis legalization is seen as a model for psychedelics. With cannabis, we are seeing the plant being legalized piecemeal, usually for medical and then recreational use. Indeed, weve already begun to see two main routes to ending psychedelic prohibition: medicalization and decriminalization. But what this binary paradigm of medicalization versus decriminalization conceals is a third way of using psychedelics: getting legal sanction for the spiritual or religious use of psychedelic substances, which, among a variety of traditions, are deemed to be sacred tools used in holy rituals.

No, were not talking about newly formed weed or psilocybin churches that are built around using controlled substances under religious protection; but rather, long-established religions that include the use of psychedelics in contemporary practice. In a small but fast growing movement, members of Abrahamic faiths are incorporating entheogens substances that occasion spiritual experiences into their own practices, and referencing Biblical traditions as precedent for doing so.

Take, for instance, the quickly growing meetup group called Faith+Delics, run by Plant Medicine Law Group founding partner Adriana Kertzer, which has grown to dozens of members in less than half a year, drawing rabbis, priests, scholars, and practitioners of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity. Then theres the Jewish Entheogenic Society on Facebook, boasting close to 1,000 members, not to mention the upcoming Jewish Psychedelic Summit, where dozens of speakers are slated to present on ancient psychedelic ritual and religious frameworks, Jewish shamanism, and contemporary practices. (One of these organizers is Madison Margolin, an author of this article.)

For more than half the past decade, Madison, who is Jewish, has observed and participated in prayer circles and Sabbath rituals involving magic mushrooms, ayahuasca, MDMA, cannabis, and other entheogens. As one underground guide from a Hasidic background who serves plant medicine within the Jewish community puts it, these plants are teachers and healers, helping our people heal from traumas that theyve been going through for thousands of years, as a minority people in Europe and other lands, and helping us embrace our true nature what were born from, and our roots. By working with plant medicine like ayahuasca, many in the community, he says, have transformed their relationships with their spouses, employees, God, religion, and themselves. Rituals involving these plants, he adds, can be practiced in a non-pagan way, but integrated into the sacred of all religions.

And its not all New Age spiritual approaches being applied to established religion, either: Archaeological evidence shows the presence of cannabis residue at holy biblical sites in the ancient city of Tel Arad in Israel, while scholarship also points to the use of acacia wood (containing DMT) and a cocktail of other entheogens used in Israelite incense rituals, as well as kaneh-bosm (cannabis) in Christs holy anointing oil.

But the question remains: For those who incorporate psychedelics into their contemporary practice of a well-established religion, is there legal protection to do so? And if not, could pursuing religious protection be yet another route to ending prohibition?

To start, the First Amendment offers protection for religious observation and practice. Religious freedom is regarded as the first freedom, and is the first thing in the First Amendment, explains Gary Smith, general counsel to the Peyote Way Church of God and founding partner of Guidant Law Firm, which handles cannabis and plant medicine cases. Congress cannot establish or qualify any particular religion. From that perspective, no one needs to go to the government to get permission for the religious use of any substance [as] there is no department of religion, he adds. That being said, you need to have the entheogen at the heart of your religious observation. It cant be merely incidental, but rather a bonafide sacrament.

Take, for instance, the Tel Arad archaeological dig, where cannabis and frankincense were found in an altar at the entrance to the Holy of Holies of a Judahite Shrine. Is that enough to make the argument that Judaism in its modern expression should include cannabis? Maybe, Smith says. If you can prove that theres historical precedent, I think you have a historical argument. But absent that, youd need people to come together in some form of Jewish congregation in good faith with a bona fide argument that cannabis is a central sacrament to their iteration of worship and then under RFRA, it would be the federal governments burden to prove it has a compelling interest to regulate on top of that practice. But a connection between practitioners of an old-world religion and an entheogen can be established with or without historicity, Smith adds; most of all, proving that connection would depend upon those persons coming together in a bonafide religious context (and all that that means).

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a persons exercise of religion, even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability. In other words, even if a substance like ayahuasca is federally illegal, groups using it for sincere religious purposes may be able to seek out protection under RFRA. But proving the sincerity of the religious practice is another feat altogether. The catch-22 is that for anyone pursuing this religious freedom, until a court rules that the practice is compliant with RFRA, there will be an omnipresent potential for discrimiation, or even prosecution.

Truth be told, whether a psychedelic substance can legally be used in religious ceremony is unsettled law with the exception of religious exemptions offered to the Native American Church (NAC) to use peyote, and the Uniao do Vegetal (UDV) and Santo Daime churches to use ayahuasca.

If I were speculating about whether or not a currently established religion could use a controlled substance, I would consider the fact that UDV and Santo Daime are syncretic religions, merging elements of other religions together, says Ismail Ali, policy and advocacy counsel at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), who also advises churches in this area of the law.

UDV and Santo Daime have Christian elements, although they are ayahuasca churches, while the NAC similarly is based to some extent on a church, Ali explains. They take elements of a majority religion and apply it to a minority religion, he says. So looking at that, I think it does make it in some ways more plausible that a community using entheogenic substances that is basing off a currently established religion might be more likely to get an exemption.

But its not so simple as basing an entheogenic practice off an already well-established religion. Members of said religion might need rulings from religious leaders and to show some level of established practice and traditions using entheogens, Ali says.

Its like youre creating a different sect [of an established religion], explains Serena Wu, founding partner at Plant Medicine Law Group. Its a difficult situation here: There has to be something unique about this particular religious practice, that is different from traditional Jewish [or Christain, Muslim, etc.] practice. But then the question is, why would one incorporate entheogens into their religious practice if there are folks practicing the same religion who dont feel the need to do so? If its about more than just getting around the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), Wu explains, the individual would need to articulate how the use of the entheogen applies to their religious practice in a central way. A court will look to see whether you are just now coming up with this idea, like some weed churches, and they will start to question if you have a sincerely held belief.'

Short of expanding RFRA protections or changing the scheduling of certain entheogens, a religious group may use RFRA as a defense in the case of a criminal prosecution, for example, as a result of sacraments being seized by the DEA. There are also other offensive litigation mechanisms, like filing for declaratory or injunctive relief to get the court to say what your rights are and possibly issue an order to restrain the federal government from violating your rights, Wu says. These types of complaints were filed in the UDV and Santo Daime cases. Currently, the Church of the Eagle and Condor, in collaboration with Chacruna, are using a novel strategy, she explains, in regard to cases in which ayahuasca was seized by the Customs and Border Patrol at the border. The Church will, among other things, file FOIA requests to figure out what happened to the seized ayahuasca and establish a legal process to return the sacraments to the churches.

Indeed, the DEA is yet another hurdle religious groups may have to navigate in efforts to gain legal protection. The DEAs process of getting exemption from the CSA is fraught, with many attorneys holding that the agency isnt qualified to be involved in this process, at all, of deciding whats a religion and whats not. The core thing to know is that in order to apply [to the DEA for exemption] you have to say that your use of the substance is necessary for your practice, with necessary being the keyword, Ali says. And yet you also have to stop using it while youre waiting for the DEA to respond. The paradox there is quite apparent. If the substance is so necessary, then an observant religious group wouldnt be able to stop to wait for permission because in suspending use, theyd be showing that the entheogen isnt so necessary after all. Some attorneys even argue this process is unconstitutional because it would require a group or individual to self-disclose illegal activity, without guaranteeing an outcome thereby putting people even more at risk than less.

In general, with administrative procedures in law, theres an exhaustion requirement, Ali explains, showing that all available remedies have been tried before judicial solutions are available. So if there is an available remedy such as the DEA process, if its legitimate, then the courts wont necessarily see the case unless the group gets denied through that process first. What frustrates the situation, however, is when the DEA simply does not respond to the request what some have experienced as all too common a strategy of the agency thereby keeping a group from taking further action without an official rejection.

The bottom line, however, is that necessity of religion is stronger than the goals of the CSA, says Ali. But in the case of an old-world religion, members might first have to prove why an entheogen is so central the practice now, when such rituals have been dormant for the past few thousand years.

With evidence mounting for the incorporation of psychedelics into contemporary Abrahamic religious practice, it may become easier to make a case that these substances are indeed central and necessary: Indeed, in Madisons seven-plus years of reporting on the overlap of religion and psychedelics, weve observed that for those who otherwise would not be practicing religion altogether including secular-raised folks lacking religious insipration, as well as those whove fled from more hardcore orthodox backgrounds psychedeilc spirituality, through ayahuasca, LSD, mushrooms, and other entheogens used during holidays and rituals, has been the only means by which theyve been able to meaningfully practice the religion. Many people have resistance to their religion, the underground plant medicine guide says. But I feel that the medicine is incredibly healing, helping us shed our ancestral baggage, get over these humps, and connect to the Creator.

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Jews, Christians, and Muslims Are Reclaiming Ancient Psychedelic Practices, And That Could Help With Legalization - Rolling Stone

Discover a wide variety of safe and peer-reviewed organizations, retreat centers, guides, shamans, and much more!

Through the use of PEx's online (and constantly updated) directory, visitors can search the globe for the perfect resources for their journey.Want to find a Shaman in Central America?No problem. Want to find a psilocybin retreat in the Netherlands, or an Integration Therapist in the U.S. or U.K.?PEx's Directory has it. New to psychedelics and not ready for a full-on experience? No problem!

PEx's website is designed to cater to your needs, with content options for beginners, those with some experience, and those that consider themselves to be more experienced psychonauts. Visitors will also benefit from a diverse catalog of educational, science, and safety resources to ensure they understand their options, no matter where they are on their journey.

Tim Cools, founder of PEx, said "Our mission is to support and facilitate global healing and personal growth through safe and responsible use of plant medicines and psychedelic-assisted treatments. We are a passionate team, driven by the belief that entheogens can change the world for the better."

No matter where you are on your journey, whether it's your first step or you're a seasoned explorer, with PEx, "your trip starts here."

SOURCE PsychedelicExperience.net

https://www.psychedelicexperience.net

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Psychedelic Experience launches new website to help navigate the world of psychedelics - PRNewswire

About Zide Door

Zide Door is a Church in Oakland supporting the safe access and use of Entheogenic Plants. We follow a nondenominational, interfaith religion, The Church of Ambrosia

Our story begins a very long time ago when we were all omnivorous monkeys roaming the plains of Africa. One thing a hunter uses to find pray is their droppings. What grows out of their droppings in Africa happens to be Magic Mushrooms. Now, if you are a hungry monkey and you find these tasty looking mushrooms, what would you do? Probably try one. When you eat a small amount of Magic Mushrooms, you notice a few things, mainly enhanced vision and hearing. You now see every leaf that moves, every plant you might want to eat, and hear every sound an animal could make. This would be a significant advantage to any hunter. When you eat large amounts of these mushrooms, you see some amazing things that can only be described as spiritual visions. As a monkey who has just seen god, you would be compelled to try to explain what you saw to another monkey.

Simply put, the Religious Evolution theory says that Magic Mushrooms were the reason for the evolution of both abstract human communication and the concept of religion itself. Monkeys trying to explain god to each other.

This is the foundation of our Church

The religious use of cannabis has to do with the use of ones inner eye. A complaint from a person who does not like cannabis explains it best, every time I smoke, its as if theres a giant inner eye that turns on me and shows me everything that is wrong with my life. That may be the best way to understand the advanced entheogenic use of cannabis. Once someone learns to focus their inner eye, cannabis allows them to use it to understand life, the world and the teachings from the spirits that communicate through mushrooms and other entheogens.

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Zide Door Oaklands Church of Entheogenic Plants

As a child in northern New Jersey, Luz experienced domestic violence over a number of years. She never got to know her father, who, she says, was a casualty of the war on drugs. As an adult, she was barely aware of how these childhood experiences had shaped her, making it hard to trust people or initiate meaningful relationships. Psilocybin changed that. It really awakened me to the constructs that my body and my mind had created to protect me, the things I had to learn to do to survive that emotionally, she says.

Now, Luz wants to make this kind of awakening accessible to more people. She helps to lead a group called Decriminalize Nature Seattle, which hopes to forge a path to legalizing psychedelic drugs in Washington state. (The group is part of a national network and is unrelated to the police divestment group Decriminalize Seattle.) The groups first step? Passing a resolution through the Seattle City Council to make three plant-derived psychedelics, or entheogens ayahuasca, psilocybin and ibogaine the lowest priority for law enforcement.

Its a strategy thats worked before. In 2003, Seattle voters passed an initiative making adult marijuana possession the lowest law enforcement priority. Less than a decade later, in 2012, Washington became the first state to fully legalize the recreational use of marijuana.

Were now in something of a moment for drug decriminalization. Last year, Oregon voters approved a measure that reclassifies possession of a controlled substance as a minor violation and steers drug users toward health services rather than punishment. Just last month, the Washington Supreme Courts stunning decision in State v.Blake struck down the state law that criminalizes drug possession, with far-reaching and still unclear ramifications. Legislators are now debating whether to reinstate some new version of that law; Senate Bill 5476, sponsored by Sen. Manka Dhingra, D-Redmond, borrows some elements from the Oregon measure. But advocates, including King County Equity Now, the Washington Defender Association and the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, are urging the Legislature to refrain from hastily reinstating any penalties for drug possession, pending a more thorough community process and commitments to redress the failures of the war on drugs.

Which brings us back to the Seattle shroom project. Legalizing plant-based mind benders like psilocybin and ayahuasca may sound like a pet cause for a handful of Seattles aging hippies. These drugs lack the mass market appeal of marijuana. And, unlike cocaine or opioids, theyre not tangled up with grave social problems poverty and homelessness, the drug trade and the pharmaceutical industry, policing and the criminal legal system. But proponents insist theres a lot more at stake than a fun (or not-so-fun) trip.

Were finding these psychedelic substances have incredible efficacy in treating a wide array of disorders, including major depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse, says Kody Zalewski, a medical researcher at the University of Washington working in neuroimaging. Zalewski himself does not research these drugs, but he has a long-standing interest in entheogenic medicine and serves on the executive committee of Decriminalize Nature Seattle.

Psychedelic research has a troubled history, starting soon after the synthetic hallucinogen LSD was brought to the U.S. in the late 1940s. The 1950s saw promising research into the drugs therapeutic potential, but the larger effort was a CIA-funded program investigating the use of LSD and other mind-altering drugs for psychological manipulation and espionage. Subjects included prisoners, overwhelmingly Black men, who consented to participation in return for a reduced sentence or access to highly addictive drugs like heroin. After LSD became a staple of 1960s youth counterculture, the crackdown began and research of all kinds withered after the Controlled Substances Act was enacted in 1970.

But after a 30-year freeze, the ice began to thaw. Were now 20 years into a renaissance in psychedelic research. Ever since a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University obtained approval in 2000 to resume trials using healthy volunteers, studies have been piling up, suggesting the promise of psychedelic drugs to help people kick nicotine, alcohol and opioid addictions; treat depression and post-traumatic stress disorder; ease the existential anxiety of terminal illness; and just plain make people feel good. Last year, new research centers entirely devoted to psychedelics opened at Johns Hopkins and the University of California Berkeley.

How psychedelics work on the mind is still somewhat mysterious, but we know they activate brain receptors normally triggered by serotonin. They appear to break apart habitual patterns of neural activity which may be associated with depression or addiction and help the brain to forge new connections and become more flexible. The psychedelic experience can vary wildly with the details of a persons psychology, the specific drug and dose, the context or setting of a trip and a persons expectations. But users frequently describe something like a dissolving or transcendence of the boundaries of the self, an expanded consciousness or profound sense of connection. Thats why plants with psychedelic properties have long held a central place in some spiritual traditions the theo in entheogen means god.

Zalewski points to a 2006 study out of Johns Hopkins. Participants say that their interactions with psilocybin are some of the most meaningful experiences of their lives, up there with the birth of a firstborn child, he says. Its not the same as going down to the dispensary and picking up a joint.

Research into psychedelic drugs may be flourishing, but in the U.S. that hasnt yet translated into approval for their therapeutic, spiritual or recreational use. Branches of two Brazil-based religious groups, Unio do Vegetal and Santo Daime, won U.S. Supreme Court cases in the 2000s upholding their right to use ayahuasca for limited ceremonial purposes. But beyond that, psychedelics have not been approved for any legal use outside research. Just last month, Seattle doctor Sunil Aggarwal sued the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after the agency denied his application to make use of psilocybin in end-of-life treatment. Dr. Aggarwal argues that psychedelics should fall under right-to-try laws that give terminally ill patients access to investigational medications; Washington state adopted such a law in 2017 and a federal Right to Try Act passed the following year. So far, the DEA disagrees.

Thats where the decriminalization movement comes in. By instructing law enforcement to effectively ignore the law, jurisdictions can indirectly greenlight the therapeutic and personal use of psychedelic drugs. In 2019, Denver became the first U.S. city to decriminalize psilocybin. Since then, at least six more cities Ann Arbor, Michigan; Cambridge, Massachusetts; Oakland, California; Santa Cruz, California; Somerville, Massachusetts; and Washington, D.C. have decriminalized a broader array of entheogens. Last fall, Oregon voters approved not only the sweeping drug decriminalization measure noted above, but also a measure that specifically legalizes the use of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes. In Washington state, a Spokane group is running an initiative to decriminalize psilocybin.

Against this background, passing a nonbinding resolution through our progressive Seattle City Council should be easy you might think. (It would be up to the mayor to transmit the instructions to law enforcement, unless the resolution is followed by an ordinance.) The greatest challenge may be simply getting their attention. Council members are accustomed to deluges of communications from hundreds or thousands of constituents, as well as pressure from powerful interest groups, on hot-button issues: for or against defunding the police, for or against taxing big business, for or against sweeping homeless people. With all the urgent crises our city is facing, will they make time for magic mushrooms?

Original post:

Opinion | Is it time for Seattle to decriminalize shrooms and psychedelics? - Crosscut

Massachusetts State Rep. Michael L. Connolly, a Democrat who represents parts of Cambridge and Somerville, submitted two bills in the Massachusetts House last month aimed at reforming controlled substance laws.

The first bill, H.D. 3439, would decriminalize all controlled substances at the state level while the second, H.D. 3829, would form a task force to examine the legalization of entheogenic plants. This category of substances includes peyote, MDMA, and magic mushrooms, also known as psilocybin mushrooms, and has been the subject of research in treating depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other conditions.

This is the latest development in a statewide movement toward broad decriminalization and legalization of controlled substances spearheaded by the Massachusetts Coalition for Decriminalization, a collective of several smaller regional advocacy groups. City councils in Cambridge and Somerville recently passed orders calling for the decriminalization of entheogens following votes of 8-1 and 10-0, respectively.

Filed by Connolly and fellow representative Elizabeth Liz Miranda, a Democrat who represents parts of Dorchester and Roxbury in Boston, the first bill would replace the current criminal penalties for the use and possession of controlled substances with a civil fine of up to $50 which would be waived if an individual agrees to needs screening to address possible substance abuse issues or other health and wellbeing concerns such as lack of food or housing.

The second bill would create a task force of medical and economic justice experts to study the legalization of entheogenic plants and present findings to the state.

In an interview with The Crimson, Connolly said the successful passage of decriminalization bills in Cambridge and Somerville, as well as legalization efforts in other states such as Oregon, were significant factors in his decision to bring both bills before the House.

Our communities have expressed through our city officials that they want to move forward in a very progressive fashion, Connolly said. Seeing some of the national and international thinking on this issue, combined with this local push to decriminalize these substances has convinced us that this is a conversation that we ought to be having at the State House.

Connolly said Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, a member of the Massachusetts Coalition for Decriminalization, has been in touch with him throughout the process. The group also played a part in organizing support in both Cambridge and Somerville for their respective policy orders, he added.

James Davis, a member of Bay Staters for Natural Medicine, credited the Coalitions wide network of volunteers with the successful movements in those cities.

Our coalition, including Decriminalize Nature Massachusetts, wrote the resolutions and helped our community volunteers persistently and persuasively contact their representatives to share stories of how these plants have saved their lives from addiction, trauma, and depression, Davis wrote in an email.

Were proud to be offering training in how to fight the whole drug war, he added.

Both bills are now awaiting public hearings, pending referral to a House committee.

Connolly said public hearings are the next big milestone, after which the committee would have until early 2022 to either send it forward with a favorable recommendation or decline to advance it.

Our immediate goal would be to have a very strong committee hearing and look to move the bill favorably through the committee process, Connolly said. Then it would be a matter of looking to build the consensus to get the bill to the floor.

Brendan T. OConnor, a member of Decriminalize Nature Massachusetts, said the long timetable for both bills is no reason for pessimism, and that his organization will continue its efforts in the interim.

The key message that weve been adopting is that this doesnt delay any of our other efforts, OConnor said. We have an internal goal of decriminalizing 90 percent of the state before the end of the year, and thats a big, audacious goal, and well do that regardless of what the state wants to do.

Staff writer Brandon L. Kingdollar can be reached at brandon.kingdollar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter at @newskingdollar.

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Following Local Successes, Cambridge State Rep. Puts Forward Bills on Controlled Substance Reform | News - Harvard Crimson