Innovative Psychedelic Therapy in Oregon

[Lou Gold]

Excellent nuanced article/podcast from Ezra Klein -- lots of gnarly issues yet to come but this is truly innovative.
(sorry about the paywall -- trying a new browser may give some freebies)

"Can Magic Mushrooms Heal Us?"

I avoided psychedelics when I was younger, fearful of the loss of control, and tried them later, desperately, when there was more darkness in my mind than light. It was not an easy time for me, and these were not easy experiences. They kicked down doors around my anxiety, my marriage, my work, my family, my resentments, my attachments, my self. Those rooms were often unpleasant to enter. There was ecstasy and beauty, yes, but also fear and, often, so often, intense nausea. Things I’d fought to ignore resurfaced. Disparate parts of my life and beliefs and personality connected, and I became more legible to myself. I am not cleansed of anxiety, but I am more aware that my outlook, at any given moment, is just a dance of brain chemistry and experience, and far from the only state possible. That a few micrograms of chemical was all it took to upend my confident grip on reality shook me in ways I’m grateful for. I hold my judgments and worldviews more lightly, and I am friendlier to mystery and strangeness.

What’s striking to me about [Oregon's] Measure 109, though, is that it breaks away from the medicalization-legalization binary that has defined drug reform for the past few decades. It does not allow anyone to sell psilocybin pills in stores. Nor does it restrict treatment to those with a diagnosis of mental illness. The measure does not grudgingly accept psilocybin as the lesser evil compared with, say, the drug war or PTSD. Instead, it is based on the idea that psilocybin has the potential to change our lives for the good, whether we are sick or well, and so it is worth investing in the frameworks and safeguards so that it can be used safely and productively. It would be foolish to posit psilocybin-assisted therapy as an answer to all that ails our society, or even our mental health system. But it would be one more option for those who need it, and both evidence and anecdote suggest it would be life-changing for many. That would be enough. That would be so much.