Modern Culture

…it is time to normalize drug counterculture in society

When we hear the phrase “dropping acid,” we immediately think of the counterculture essentials: flower print, Volkswagen buses and religiously-doled-out peace signs. In light of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, anti-establishment culture promoted several progressive ideologies, including environmentalism, feminism, gay liberation and even psychoactive drug experimentation.  Considered forms of radicalism at the…

READ MORE
Biography/Memoir

Challenges to a company’s psilocybin patent…

In addition to highlighting ideological differences between licensing a product and providing it at cost or free of charge, the Compass patent has raised questions about efforts by companies to own forms of psychoactive substances, and the role IP claims play in promising returns to investors. Matthew Baggott, the former Director of Data Science and…

READ MORE
Modern Culture

Psychedelics in your neighborhood

How may we legitimize our curiosity and excitement? I believe the power to do so is in the hands of the people. May we remain leery and methodological regarding the process of legalization, then, to the extent that it does not inhibit personal growth, freedom of expression, cognitive liberty, and the propagation of love. While…

READ MORE
Politics

…capitalism and the collective unconscious…

I can totally see somebody in Silicon Valley doing ayahuasca in order to come up with the next algorithm that’s going to make them a billionaire. But there’s something that feels concerning to me about this nonspecific amplifier conversation… about the co-opting of psychedelics by capitalism. So, if psychedelics are non-specific amplifiers, I’m concerned that people…

READ MORE
Spirituality

Understanding… magic mushrooms

To this day, many individuals who use psychedelic [entheogens/ethnobotanicals] feel they grant a certain kind of perspicacity, and the number of people who are using psychedelics appears to be growing. While under the influence… users typically experience changes in mood and perception, a sense of oceanic boundlessness, radically altered reasoning and thinking, and auditory and…

READ MORE
Medicine/Healing

Dear psychedelic researchers, [advocates, citizens, and educators]

…two major contributors to the mental health epidemic are staring us in the face: wealth and health inequality… [which] perpetuate traumas that frequently manifest in treatment-resistant mental illnesses. In this context, the story that psychedelic medicalization will revolutionize mental health in the absence of socioeconomic change is nothing more than a persistent hallucination…we acknowledge that…

READ MORE