It’s time to debunk prohibitionist narratives and calls for monopolies within psychedelic science
…exposes a blind spot in the logic of [psychedelic] medicalization. While numerous sanctioned psychedelic researchers tout their belief that psychedelics can “effect true healing,” rather than mere symptomatic treatment, their fixation on the individual as a wholly-bound entity, divorced from their environment, misses the bigger picture.
While psychedelics may “effect true healing” of the individual, the mere treatment of the individual—without engaging the material conditions (e.g. housing, healthcare, policing, etc.) that contribute to the causes of their illness—offers little more than systemic symptom management, rather than a “cultural cure.” The notion that we can expect psychedelics to “cure” people who are systematically brutalized by the coercive, destructive, and traumatizing systems of dominant culture, without simultaneously working to change those systems is every bit as symptomatically-oriented as current psychiatric regimens.
Original Article (Psymposia):
It’s time to debunk prohibitionist narratives and calls for monopolies within psychedelic science
Artwork Fair Use: Sir Manny of Chester
