Psychedelic Frontier
2020-12-08
Psychedelics, Therapy, and the Law
Today’s guest post is by Lincoln Stoller, PhD, CHt, a hypnotherapist in British Columbia who writes at mindstrengthbalance.com. The legal view of psychedelics is quickly heading for a change. A few organizations, like MAPS and Erowid, had maintained their position as providers of information during the illegal years. MAPS has focused on research, Erowid on information. They and others have held the fort, so to speak, but their effects have been small and, by themselves, they would not have precipitated social change. Law and policy are not driven by science, they’re driven by expediency and advantage. In the US in the 1980s, psychotherapy was replaced by pharmaceuticals as subsidies for therapy were cut as part of a shift toward managed care. This was in spite of the success of therapeutic models and the lack of managed care alternatives. Today’s interest in the potential of psychedelics are not solely due to breakthroughs in their use. That potential has been noted since the “Good Friday Experiment” of 1962, and there have been sixty years of positive reports since then. What’s different now is not the science, but institutional attitudes and social directions. It appears that the promise of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy is a leading force for this kind of change, but I suspect that this is more of a common cause and a rallying cry. Psychotherapy, a new “white knight” on the scene, seems to be leading psychedelics in a drive toward legality but there is more going on. As prospective users, or [‚Ķ]
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