RebPsych 2020: November 19, 2020

November 23, 2020

Information

The Promise and Perils of Psychedelic Therapy: Historical and Contemporary Social Justice Perspectives
Jordan Sloshower, Marco Ramos, Sara Reed, Christian Greer, and Estrella Castillo

ID5925

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01:06So welcome everyone to another
01:08session of in the final session in
01:10our series that website 2020
01:12decolonizing mental health.
01:14Thank you all for joining us.
01:16My name is Marco Ramos.
01:18I use he his pronouns and I'm a
01:21psychiatry resident in historian at Yale.
01:23Also an I'm also part of the
01:25website organizing committee
01:26just for my image description.
01:28I'm a light Brown skinned
01:30sis man with Brown hair.
01:32I'm wearing a sweater and maybe Blazer
01:34and I'm in my apartment with some.
01:37With a sofa and some plants behind me.
01:40So first I wanted to say that we have live
01:43closed captioning which is really wonderful.
01:46Thank you Christine Christine,
01:48for your help.
01:49Transcribing instructions will be posted
01:51in the chat on accessing live captioning.
01:54I also wanted to start tonight's
01:56session by acknowledging that
01:57indigenous peoples and nations,
01:59including Mohegan Mashantucket Pequots
02:01Eastern Peak Watt scatter cock,
02:03Golden Hill, PO, Gossett, Niantic,
02:05and the Quinnipiac.
02:06Another Algonquin speaking peoples,
02:07have stewarded through generations
02:09the lands and waterways of what is
02:12called the State of Connecticut.
02:14We honor and respect the enduring
02:16relationship that exists between those
02:18these people and nations and this land.
02:20This acknowledgement is
02:21but one step recognition,
02:23and we look forward to using
02:25this platform to further explore
02:27decolonization in these talks.
02:28Website 2020 aims to broadly
02:30exposed to explore what decolonizing
02:32mental health looks like today.
02:34Last week we had a wonderful
02:36series of talks and also art,
02:38which was incredible that was
02:40shared around the topic of distress.
02:42Karen resurgent voices from Simpi.
02:44In case you didn't get to see it,
02:46we will drop a link with the videos
02:49and transcripts of past sessions in the
02:52chat and actually for the last week session,
02:55you're going to be getting an
02:57email specifically with that link.
02:59As well as the password to that session.
03:01So with that I'm going to turn
03:03it over to my Co organizer.
03:04Needn't R Anderson to introduce
03:06tonight's session,
03:06which I'll also be apart of,
03:08so I'll see you
03:09soon. Good evening everybody. Thank
03:12you so much for being here.
03:14My name is NIA, Tora, Anderson, Ann.
03:16My pronouns are she, her and hers.
03:19I'm a first year Psychiatry resident
03:21here at Yale and I'm also one of the
03:24founding members of the rig site
03:26Executive Committee for my visual
03:28description I'm a Brown skinned sis
03:31woman with shoulder length black hair
03:33wearing a black sweater and spectacles
03:35and I'm sitting in my apartment,
03:38which is a mostly white background.
03:41So I'm very excited to welcome
03:43you to this panel,
03:45which discusses the promises and
03:47perils of psychedelic therapy as a
03:50force for decolonizing mental health.
03:52On the one hand,
03:53psychedelic therapy offers an opportunity
03:55to integrate indigenous healing practices
03:58into western psychiatry and also has
04:01the potential to heal deep seated,
04:03even intergenerational traumas caused
04:05by colonial and post colonial violence.
04:07On the other hand,
04:09the project of expanding psychedelic
04:11therapies risks cultural appropriation
04:13and reinstating capitalist
04:15driven social inequity.
04:16And one could argue risks medicalizing
04:19and fundamentally corrupting the nature of
04:22the very therapies they seek to promote.
04:25In addition,
04:26there are significant economic and
04:29cultural challenges involved in
04:31expanding access to psychedelic
04:32therapy to people of color and
04:35diverse global communities.
04:37So the way this panel work is
04:39I will read a short bio.
04:41For each of our panelists and
04:44before their presentations and
04:46after they've all spoken,
04:47will have a Q&A session.
04:50So our first panelist is
04:52Doctor Jordan slow shower.
04:54He's a psychiatrist and researcher at
04:57the Yale University School of Medicine.
05:00His research and clinical interests
05:02focus on therapeutic applications
05:03of psychedelic substances,
05:05and he is currently an investigator
05:08and therapist.
05:09In two clinical trials of Psilocybe
05:11in assisted therapy in the treatment
05:14of major depressive disorder.
05:17He's also a clinical investigator
05:19in Maps expanded access program for
05:22MD MA assisted therapy of PTSD.
05:24His perspective is informed by prior
05:27training in medical anthropology and
05:29global health and deep interest in
05:32ethnobotany, Buddhist philosophy,
05:33Yoga, meditation,
05:34an integrative approaches to Wellness
05:36so welcome doctor, slow shower.
05:38I'll hand it over to you.
05:42Thank you so much.
05:43It's really a pleasure to be here
05:45as part of the website conference
05:48discussing decolonizing mental health.
05:49I think back to my time in medical
05:52school here going to read blah and
05:55being inspired by the talks there.
05:58So really grateful that you guys
06:00put together such a wonderful series
06:02over the last few years and and
06:05happy to finally be apart of it.
06:07Share my screen here.
06:11Alright, so our panel today is going
06:13to discuss a topic near and dear
06:16to my heart psychedelic therapy and
06:18from social justice perspectives.
06:21An for my brief talk,
06:22what I'm hoping to achieve is to provide
06:25a bit of an overview of some of the
06:28promise and perils in this field right now,
06:31from my perspective as a practitioner
06:34and researcher in this field,
06:36and as someone with a background
06:38in critical medical anthropology.
06:40And my hope is to to highlight
06:42some of the interesting, exciting,
06:44as well as potentially problematic
06:46developments in this rapidly
06:48evolving field and hopefully set
06:50the stage for my Co presenters to
06:52further elucidate some of these.
06:54Issues that I will bring up.
06:57So briefly,
06:57as far as where we are in the field,
07:01you know it's a very diverse field of
07:03what's happening in psychedelics broadly,
07:06of course,
07:06within medicine that's just one area.
07:09And certainly the area will be discussing
07:11those lead this evening to some respect.
07:14But as far as therapeutically what's.
07:17There's been.
07:17Just a rapid explosion in the last 1015
07:21years of academic interest in this area,
07:24increasing clinical trials.
07:26An particular note I would say,
07:28is that last year psilocybin an MD
07:31MA both received FDA breakthrough
07:33status for psilocybin.
07:35For major depressive disorder,
07:37an MD MA for PTSD.
07:40And phase two and phase three
07:43clinical trials are underway which,
07:45if successful,
07:46would pave the way for rescheduling
07:48of these drugs out of schedule one,
07:51and give them approval for medical use.
07:54In that context,
07:55there's been a very especially within
07:58just the last one to two years has
08:02been increasing commercialization with
08:03a rapid influx of investment capital,
08:06numerous startups coming in,
08:08in some cases, patents being filed for.
08:11Ann,
08:11we've recently seen a number of initial
08:14public offerings on the stock markets.
08:17And as well also in the
08:19last one to two years,
08:21we've seen a flurry of activity
08:23on the drug policy front with
08:25municipal initiatives as well as
08:27statewide bills being passed both for
08:29decriminalization and then recently,
08:31just with the election.
08:33A couple of weeks ago,
08:35legalization measure for psilocybin
08:36passed in Oregon so lot,
08:38just so lot happening in the space.
08:41I would like to now talk a little bit
08:44about some of the promises that I see.
08:47At least from a clinical standpoint,
08:49one of the really interesting things
08:51in my opinion about psychedelic
08:53medicine is just how many different
08:56diagnosis are being looked at with the
08:58same compound so you can see here a list of.
09:02The different indications that are
09:04being looked at for both psilocybin
09:07an MDM a certainly a lot of the
09:10data is extremely preliminary,
09:12but but generally promising,
09:14especially for the indications
09:16that are being gone for.
09:18In the FDA trials and there's a
09:21number of other phase two trials
09:23of decent size nearing completion,
09:26especially in substance use
09:28disorders with psilocybin so.
09:30I mean,
09:31that's exciting because it holds
09:33a lot of promise for patients who
09:36for whom treatments currently
09:38existing treatments
09:39haven't worked well, and also because
09:41it points to potentially the fact that
09:44that psychedelics maybe addressing more
09:47fundamental or underlying processes,
09:49whether it be biological or psychosocial,
09:51that drive a lot of mental suffering.
09:55And that's quite intriguing.
09:57Some of this, I believe also that's exciting,
10:00has to do with the development of a new
10:04treatment delivery model that is being
10:06used with these psychedelic medicines.
10:09And that's a model of recalled drug assisted
10:11therapy or psychedelic assisted therapy.
10:14And this is a little different than your
10:17traditional drug treatments or therapy.
10:19Treatments were really putting
10:21these two things together.
10:22We're embedding drug sessions within
10:24a broader course of psychotherapy
10:27and those drug sessions are.
10:28Unlike, you know normal SSR eyes that
10:31are you just given doesn't matter.
10:34The context here.
10:35The context is very important
10:37and the experiences engendered.
10:39I've seen as having meaning and value,
10:42including hallucinatory,
10:43bizarre experiences that in other
10:45contexts might have been pathologized.
10:47Those are welcome.
10:49Those are not seen as unwanted side
10:51effects as has been the case with some
10:54of the Academy in literature where
10:57those more psychoactive effects were
10:59generally considered side effects.
11:01So it's it's just a different
11:04paradigm that's being looked at here,
11:06and I think that's very interesting
11:08as far as really considering
11:10set and setting variables.
11:12These extra pharmacological various
11:13variables including not just
11:15you know the immediate setting
11:17in which treatments take place,
11:19but broader sociocultural factors.
11:20Race, racism, etc.
11:22Social inequality.
11:23All those things impact the experience and
11:26need to be accounted for in this model.
11:29And in so doing,
11:30I think we we have the potential to have
11:34more of a true biopsychosocial model.
11:36An the promise here is that limited
11:39number of dosing sessions can potentially
11:42produce longer lasting effects without
11:44the need for daily medication.
11:47So,
11:47Speaking of biopsychosocial models,
11:49let's be a little bit rebellious and
11:53just flip it on its head for for a change.
11:56One of the things that I keeps me
11:59very much engaged in the field and
12:02I think has drawn so much interest
12:04from different sectors of both the
12:08Academy and the public is just
12:10how many different paradigms and
12:12types of knowledge converge in the
12:15psychedelic science is everything from.
12:17Anthropological perspectives and
12:18indigenous knowledge and their
12:20traditions to more spiritual
12:22perspectives to the social Sciences
12:24and psychological Sciences and,
12:26of course,
12:27the bio Medical Sciences as well
12:29all have something very important
12:31and meaningful to contribute to
12:34our understanding of how these
12:36compounds work and how they could
12:39potentially be used therapeutically.
12:40And So what I see is the real
12:43potential in psychedelic science.
12:46Unlike a lot of.
12:47Other fields is really the potential
12:50to really weave together all
12:52of these different ontologies.
12:54These different knowledge systems
12:56and hopefully.
12:57As we move forward,
12:59really honor each of them in
13:01a spirit of reciprocity,
13:04where we take seriously indigenous
13:06perspectives and their ceremonial traditions.
13:08See how those can inform
13:10therapeutic paradigms more in our
13:12Western psychotherapeutic traditions.
13:14And similarly then how the medicines
13:17that were going to produce in the the
13:20modalities that we will produce can
13:23benefit indigenous communities both
13:25here in this country and elsewhere.
13:28So I think that is a significant
13:32promise of this field.
13:34So I'd like to spend the last couple
13:36of minutes that I have discussing
13:38some of the ethical issues that
13:40I see facing the field right now,
13:43and especially this summer.
13:44These have been the questions that
13:46have really been on my mind in
13:48the wake of the killing of George
13:50Floyd in the wake of Covid.
13:52These things that have really exposed
13:54the cracks in the inequality's that exist
13:56in our society and in the health care system.
14:00So I'd like to consider at least briefly,
14:03how white supremacy functions within
14:05psychedelic science further look at some
14:09of the issues around commercialization
14:11and Lastly how psychedelic science
14:14can be a force for social justice.
14:16So touching on that first question
14:19around white supremacy in this space,
14:22I think I'm definitely not the first
14:25commentator to name the fact that
14:28there is a significant diversity
14:30problem in psychedelic science.
14:32This extends.
14:33This was historical.
14:35Ann is still ongoing,
14:37and it includes both research participants
14:40as well as researchers and therapists.
14:43And by no means what I want to detract
14:45from significant contributions from
14:47women and people of color in this space.
14:51But I think we also have to acknowledge
14:53that there remains a significant
14:55diversity problem with structural roots.
14:58And so just a couple points on this.
15:01There was a recent review paper published.
15:04Looking at the recent psychedelic trials
15:07and the make up of the participants,
15:10unsurprisingly,
15:10it was 82.3% of all participants
15:13internationally and some of the major
15:16trials conducted recently were white and
15:18only two point 5% were African American.
15:21And this these numbers,
15:22I believe,
15:23probably translate pretty similar
15:25to the researchers as well,
15:27although I don't have data on,
15:29that certainly has been my experience.
15:32Up here I do have a photograph of my
15:35very own deal psychedelic science group
15:37that I was one of the founding members of.
15:41Along with these other fine gentlemen here,
15:43but I think you can get the trend of
15:46the demographic who was involved there,
15:49and I could show you similar pictures
15:52from Johns Hopkins and why you other top
15:55universities that are engaged in this work.
15:57And the folks the researchers involved
16:00there would have a similar demographic.
16:04It's beyond the scope of this talk to
16:06actually go into all the reasons behind this,
16:09but just briefly to name the legacy of
16:12racism in the American health care system.
16:15Perhaps a lesser known history of
16:17exploitation of people of color and
16:19vulnerable populations such as prisoners
16:21in the early wave of psychedelic research.
16:24And we have a forthcoming paper on that,
16:26with some folks at University of Ottawa,
16:29and I believe also the legacy of the
16:31war on drugs promoting these drugs,
16:34being seen.
16:35Perhaps as white people drugs and there's a
16:37significant amount of white privilege,
16:39I think required to engage in at
16:43least recreational psychedelic drug
16:44use in order of having the time
16:47and feeling safe to actually do so.
16:50So would love to discuss that further,
16:53but I only have another two minutes here.
16:56Just a minute on my concerns
16:58around commercialization.
16:59I'm concerned about this.
17:01I'm concerned about where the benefits
17:04are going to accrue from these
17:06therapies as they get scaled up.
17:09Two, how widely will they be
17:11disseminated as far as to to patients
17:15to what demographic of patients?
17:17That the race or socioeconomic
17:19status and I'm also concerned about
17:21where the profits are going to go.
17:23There's you know,
17:24are they going to go to communities
17:26and practitioners and are they going to
17:29see more of the ground up kind of approach?
17:32Or we're going to see the
17:34dominance of large companies?
17:35Kind of like a big pharma model.
17:37And that's you know,
17:39we've started to see signs of that.
17:42There's been certain companies,
17:43such as Compass filing patents on
17:46molecules like psilocybin that
17:48have extremely long traditions of
17:51traditional use an claiming that as
17:53their own intellectual properties
17:55so that they can profit and profit
17:58to their shareholders.
17:59And I think that's quite problematic and
18:02could be considered essentially biopiracy,
18:05for which there is a long tradition
18:08of extracting indigenous knowledge
18:10from traditional plants and then.
18:12Corporate Ising it and privatizing it.
18:15I'm also concerned that with
18:18signals that some corporations
18:20are prioritizing profits over the
18:23benefits to patients in society.
18:26And this drive towards cost effectiveness,
18:28like worried that there will be
18:31cutting of corners in terms of
18:33safety as well as efficacy,
18:35and so will need to really continue to
18:37keep our eye on what actually happens.
18:40And while we certainly need to be
18:42innovative and think about different
18:44treatment models that can bring
18:46the cost down and ensure that
18:49these treatments make it out to as
18:51many people as possible,
18:52I think we also need to be weary
18:55of arguments that while these
18:57Psychedelic treatments don't fit
18:59neatly into the current system
19:01that we have for delivering care,
19:03so we need to fit them into the model.
19:06We currently have.
19:07Not exactly.
19:08I think we need to actually try to change the
19:11system to deliver these treatments optimally,
19:14as the data will.
19:15According to the data that
19:17will continue to produce,
19:19hopefully.
19:20And Lastly,
19:20I just think we need to be mindful that
19:24these are treatments that are attempting
19:26to address social ills like depression,
19:29addictions etc that have roots not
19:32just within the brain but within
19:34social inequality that drive them.
19:36And so if the models that are being
19:38used to disseminate these treatments
19:41actually perpetuate inequality,
19:42are we really addressing the
19:45root cause of the problem?
19:47So I'll close just by.
19:50Saying that,
19:51I do think there's promise for
19:53psychedelics to promote social justice.
19:55We just need to be innovative an
19:57consider community based treatment
19:59and service delivery models.
20:01We need to continue to develop
20:03culturally attuned models of delivery,
20:05which can open up as I think Sarah
20:08will discuss a little bit the
20:11possibility of addressing racial trauma.
20:13We need to diversify our study participants,
20:16psychedelic therapists and researchers.
20:17We need to recognize and engage in
20:20reciprocal dialogues with indigenous
20:22communities and traditions.
20:23We need to engage in this field
20:25in a spirit of open science and
20:28we as scientists and researchers
20:30cannot be afraid to interface with
20:33drug policy in order to promote
20:35sensical harm reduction approaches,
20:36an ending the war on drugs.
20:39So thank you very much.
20:41Look forward to more in the Q&A.
20:47Awesome, thank you so much Doctor.
20:48Slow shower and briefly before I
20:50introduce our next speaker Sarah Reed.
20:52I mentioned this in the chat but to
20:54all attendees P please feel free
20:56and only if you would like to to
20:58share a little bit about yourself,
21:00your background and what brings
21:02you to rub psych in the chat.
21:04This is in a small way for us to replicate
21:06the shared experience of getting to
21:08know one another that we might have
21:10enjoyed at the in person conference.
21:12So again, only if you would like to and
21:15thank you for all of you who shared this.
21:18Bar.
21:18So our next speaker is Sarah Reed.
21:22She's a license,
21:23licensed marriage and family therapist
21:26and the chief Executive Officer of Mines.
21:29I held solutions,
21:30a digital health company that
21:32provides evidence based and
21:34culturally responsible mental health
21:36services for underserved groups.
21:38Sarah was the first black therapist
21:41to provide MDMA assisted psychotherapy
21:43in a clinical trial and engages
21:45in ongoing advocacy work around
21:48HealthEquity in psychedelic medicine.
21:50So welcome.
21:54Thank you so much for
21:57that introduction and good
21:59evening everyone.
22:00It's really a pleasure to be here.
22:04Um, so I again I'm Sarah Reed,
22:08and I also want to position myself
22:12in this conversation as a young
22:15black woman from the countryside.
22:18Also the daughter of Gerald and Joyce
22:22read the granddaughter of James and
22:25Sarah Reed Ann Lohman and Sarah Owen.
22:28For one, for the wisdom,
22:30strength and courage of these people,
22:32I would not be here today.
22:35The territory I'm calling from is
22:38primarily Shawnee, Cherokee, Chickasaw,
22:40ANO Saj land or excuse me, Osage land,
22:44or the place we now call Kentucky.
22:48And I live less than a mile
22:51away from the Trail of Tears.
22:53Commemorative Park,
22:54which is a historic park and the
22:57few documented sites of the actual
22:59trail and camp sites used during the
23:02forced removal of the Cherokee people.
23:04This park is the burial site for two
23:07Cherokee Chiefs who died during the removal.
23:10Fly Smith and white path.
23:14This long cruel relocation has became more.
23:17Excuse me,
23:17become known as the Trail of
23:20Tears and by Native Americans
23:22as the trail where they cried.
23:24Indigenous people have always lived on
23:27this land and continued to live here today.
23:31I'm going to silence to honor the
23:34indigenous people in their lineages.
23:43Thank you.
23:48I often start my
23:50presentations with dedications to
23:53help position my work in a human,
23:57an heart centered space.
23:59And this presentation is dedicated to
24:02all the black and Indigenous folks
24:06watching this presentation on this call.
24:09We are survivors of a long history of theft,
24:13genocide and trauma.
24:14So our presence is truly a miracle.
24:18And for this dedication I'd like to
24:21share a poem by Lucille Clifton.
24:24Won't you celebrate with me?
24:27What have I shaped into?
24:30The kind of life I have no model.
24:35Boron and Babble on both non white in woman.
24:39When did I see to be?
24:42Except myself. I made it up.
24:47Here on this bridge between
24:51Starshine and Clay.
24:53My one hand holding type my other hand.
24:58Come celebrate with me.
25:00That said, that every day.
25:03Something has tried to kill me.
25:06And as failed.
25:09So let's get started.
25:12We can talk about cultural sensitivity
25:15or decolonizing practices without
25:17talking about white supremacy.
25:19An what I've listed here are characteristics,
25:23white supremacy, culture,
25:25and these characteristics
25:27harmful for folks of color.
25:30They are also harmful for white people too.
25:34And in the interest of time for
25:38purposes of our conversation today.
25:41I will highlight a couple of
25:44characteristics of white supremacy
25:45culture and show up in psychotherapy
25:47spaces and For more information
25:49about these characteristics you
25:51can check out dismantling racism
25:54or workbook for social change
25:56groups by Kenneth Jones anti Mokum.
25:59Recent links at the end of my talk.
26:01If you all want to check that out.
26:04But let's start with a sense of.
26:09A sense of urgency often manifests
26:12in psychotherapy as a spiritual
26:15bypassing or the tendency to use
26:19spiritual ideas and practices to
26:22avoid facing unresolved emotional
26:24issues and psychological wounds.
26:27And what this can look like in
26:30psychotherapy is denying difficult
26:33emotions or minimizing your experience.
26:37I had.
26:38A patient that I saw in who
26:41use cada mean as an ad.
26:44Do their treatment where there
26:48was there was this tendency that
26:53they had to want to forgive.
26:56The person of the trauma without really
26:59having them go through the process,
27:02so that sense of urgency or that
27:05bypassing is certainly a characteristic
27:08of white supremacy culture.
27:11In the last characteristic I'll
27:13mention here is reductionist,
27:15or this process of oversimplification
27:18or reducing the totality of
27:20an experienced its parts,
27:22and how this manifests in psychedelic
27:25medicine is through the sensationalism
27:28or through sensationalizing these
27:30medicines or sensationalizing
27:33psychedelics because a lot of what's
27:36talked about in the mainstream
27:37media is the drug in and of itself.
27:41And it puts a lot of the power in
27:44the drug as opposed to putting power
27:48in the integration of the experience
27:51or putting power in the process.
27:57Now, what is cultural
27:59sensitivity and psychotherapy?
28:00So there are many definitions
28:03of what cultural sensitivity is.
28:06There's lots of debates around the
28:08differences between cultural sensitivity,
28:11cultural competence, cultural humility.
28:14So for purposes of our conversation today,
28:18I want to define what I mean by
28:22cultural sensitivity. So for me,
28:25cultural sensitivity is an intentional
28:28responsiveness to the way a person's biology,
28:32psychology, and environment impacts their.
28:34Those two treatment and outcomes
28:37in treatment.
28:38So it's an active process.
28:41It's an active process,
28:43it's not something that static or stagnant.
28:47It happens in real time.
28:49It's also an epistemic humility,
28:52which is an acknowledgement.
28:55Of the limitations that providers have and
29:01knowing what's About a person's culture,
29:04and it's also a mess of the ways,
29:09power and privilege influence
29:11relationships and impact.
29:12The therapeutic dynamic and cultural
29:15sensitivity also isn't in practice,
29:18so a lot of times when I hear folks
29:22talk about cultural sensitivity or
29:25decolonizing practices or anti racism work,
29:28it can really be coming from a headspace.
29:33And what I am suggesting is moving
29:35from phase two heart space to really
29:38be in your body as a practitioner
29:41and to really be able to connect
29:44and to be present with the with
29:47the human in front of you.
29:50So it's an active process where providers
29:53are sensitive to the deep connections
29:57between a clients emotional experience
30:00and larger societal discourses.
30:03And to give a quick example of
30:07cultural sensitivity and psychotherapy,
30:10the way that.
30:12Hey excuse me the way that a
30:15black woman presents to therapy.
30:19Can look a little different than the
30:22way a military military vet stories is
30:25experienced an presents to therapy.
30:28So what I'm really trying to say is
30:31cultural sensitivity extends beyond race.
30:34It's really examining how symptoms
30:36present and how someone story
30:39experience through their own lens.
30:41So why is cultural sensitivity
30:44important in psychedelic therapy?
30:47So I wrote an article about this
30:51Maps bulletin.
30:52I think it was last year and I share
30:57that link at the end of this presentation,
31:02but I wanted to highlight a couple of
31:07points that that I mentioned in this.
31:12In this paper. So why is this important?
31:15We have to understand that when
31:18client or when participants are.
31:21Interested in psychedelic medicine research?
31:23They're coming in very vulnerable
31:25States and that's something that
31:27shouldn't be taken for granted.
31:29And what I mean by that is.
31:32Depends.
31:33Usually have our folks interested
31:35in the studies usually have tried a
31:38series of treatments that are quite
31:41unsuccessful or that have been unsuccessful,
31:43so there really hoping for for something new,
31:47and again,
31:47that vulnerability shouldn't be
31:49taken for granted and we also got
31:52to understand that when participants
31:54after they are enrolled in the study
31:57and they complete these dosing sessions,
32:00that participants are in a very
32:02raw and vulnerable state.
32:04In these sessions,
32:06and it's so important for therapist
32:08to to be prepared for what the
32:12cultural landscape of experiences
32:14that might manifest
32:16in these dosing sessions,
32:18and in particular,
32:19if clinicians are not sensitive to
32:22the landscape of the participants.
32:25Culturali, they can easily misinterpret,
32:28dismiss, or ignore critical
32:30information that is necessary for
32:33participants therapeutic process.
32:35Maybe said quite frankly,
32:37without cultural sensitivity
32:38in psychedelic medicine,
32:40there is a good potential for harm.
32:46So.
32:49Cultural sensitivity and embodied
32:51practice. What does that look like?
32:55And I'll share a story of
32:58what that meant for me.
33:01Therapists in the MDM. A Mrs.
33:05Psychotherapy clinical trials.
33:07No, in particular use an example of music.
33:12So music is selected to support emotional
33:15experiences and dosing sessions,
33:18and it's recommended that music
33:20is culturally appropriate for the
33:23participant and in the dough sing
33:26sessions that I had with the participant
33:30that I saw I curated playlist for each
33:33of the dosing sessions that were in
33:37each of the playlists were different.
33:41And for one of the dosing sessions, my.
33:46I had decided based as participants
33:50cultural background and his connection to
33:55religion that I wanted to include more
34:00in the in the in the subsequent dosing
34:05sessions are in the subsequent playlist,
34:08so I included more changes that were
34:13specific to this participants religion.
34:17And that dough sing session and.
34:21It turned out that once the
34:24participant heard the chance,
34:26it connected them to childhood
34:29memories that came up for.
34:31And the song was about 7 minutes
34:34long and at the end of the song,
34:38of course it went to the next song
34:40and the participant made a request
34:43to to want to listen to some
34:46of that chanting on repeat.
34:48And so I was able to go to the playlist an.
34:54Find an album that that had these chance to
34:58really help the participant state invariants.
35:03Yes,
35:04some childhood traumas that were
35:06coming up for him.
35:09So to me this experience represents
35:12cultural sensitivity because it's
35:15it's like it was alive experience.
35:17There was an attunement that happened
35:20so prior to the dough sing session I
35:24was already keyed into this participants
35:28some parts of this participants cultural
35:32landscape and I incorporated that.
35:34Not only from the therapy,
35:37but to the music selections and.
35:40I'm really useful for them.
35:42So as I close,
35:44I'll say that a tuning code 1
35:47isn't alive and breathing thing.
35:50It's not static or something that
35:52you can truly learn in a lecture
35:56or read on line like.
35:57Here are 1010 ways to be
36:00more culturally sensitive.
36:01I personally believe that you have
36:04to do your work in order to really
36:07understand and be in your body to really
36:11engage in a culturally sensitive practice.
36:14And it requires a present that
36:17humility and most important of honor,
36:19ability and as a therapist or as a
36:23researcher you take off that experts
36:25stands and you connect with the human.
36:29For me.
36:31Cultural sensitivity always ask the question.
36:33How can I be of service to
36:37the human before me?
36:38Thank you.
36:39I look forward to answering your
36:42questions or engaging in a dialogue
36:45alittle later in this talk.
36:50Thank you so much, those wonderful, um, our
36:54next presenter is Doctor
36:56J Christian Greer, PhD.
36:59He's a scholar of religious
37:01studies and he currently occupies
37:04a postdoctoral fellowship at
37:06Harvard University's Center for
37:09the Study of World Religions.
37:12His research addresses the social
37:14history of new religious movements,
37:17the formation of religious
37:19countercultures And the popularisation
37:22of psychedelic spirituality
37:23in the Post War era welcome.
37:27Thank you so much for the nice
37:29introduction and thank you to all
37:31the other participants this evening.
37:32So tonight I will be speaking to you
37:35as a historian of Western esotericism,
37:38and I will be making a case for rejected
37:41knowledge and specifically a cluster
37:43of knowledge sets that have been
37:45repudiated as the quote lunatic fringe of
37:48American culture for the last 70 years.
37:51As a researcher, I specialize in the
37:55movement of psychedelic sectarians that
37:57developed in the Post War period of
38:00United States history neglected by scholars.
38:03This vernacular tradition of American
38:05religion developed interstitially,
38:07that is to say,
38:09it was informed by scientific research.
38:12It employed a religious or sacramentally
38:14approach to psychedelic substances,
38:16principally LSD, and it addressed itself
38:19to social justice concerns in short.
38:22Psychedelic sectarians tended
38:23to amalgamate scientific,
38:25religious, and political concerns,
38:27but they were not circumscribed
38:30by any of these.
38:32They were something else to give a
38:35random sampling of my case studies,
38:38psychedelics, sectarians,
38:38that I look at include,
38:40for example,
38:41the Carista Fellowship of the 1950s.
38:44This was an anti racist cult of free
38:46love that employed masculine and
38:49cannabis in its ritualized orgies.
38:51It believed ritualized orgies where
38:53the only method to achieve global and
38:56racial harmony moving on to the 1960s.
38:59There was the Neo American Church
39:02of Art clips.
39:03There was the League of Spiritual
39:06Discovery LSD founded at Harvard
39:08by Doctor Timothy Leary,
39:10as well as members of the Religious
39:14Studies and psychiatry departments at MIT.
39:17There was of course,
39:18the merry pranksters of Ken
39:20Kisean Mountain Girl,
39:21and there was a Parliament
39:23Funkadelic of George Clinton and
39:25his funkateers And we could also
39:28include here the White Panther Party.
39:30They were the psychedelic militants from
39:32Detroit Allied with the Black Panther Party.
39:35So each of these religious groups proposed
39:38an enchanted theory of naturalism.
39:40That accounted for the extraordinary
39:43experiences that were naturalized
39:45in the realm of inner space.
39:48And each of these natural theology's
39:50each of the belief systems put
39:53forward by these sectarians.
39:55Also offered an experimental
39:58framework or container that maximize
40:00the beneficial healing and mystical
40:03properties of the visionary experiences
40:07occasioned by psychedelic substances.
40:09The frameworks proposed by these religions
40:13each insisted on the collective Co
40:16participation in the psychedelic journey.
40:20Each of these religious schools had a
40:23dramatically different and sometimes even
40:25conflicting idea of ritual protocols.
40:28Nonetheless,
40:28they all agreed.
40:30Group tripping was the only way
40:34to unlock the true transcendental
40:38power of psychedelic substances.
40:40Now,
40:41a psychedelic belief system based on
40:44the individual maximal eyes dosage
40:47did not come to the four of acid
40:50culture into the mid 1970s mark,
40:52marking a dramatic divergance
40:54from the focus on unitive love and
40:57togetherness that characterized
40:59previous psychedelic sex.
41:00This shift away from group tripping,
41:03was to be sure of political expediency
41:06motivated by the escalation of
41:09the war on drugs.
41:11In the late 1960s,
41:12for more on this shift,
41:13let me recommend my dear
41:15friend Eric Davis is book
41:17high weirdness.
41:18Now my own research focuses on the 1980s,
41:21an era that has previously received
41:24no attention from scholars,
41:26and this is truly ashamed because
41:28it was in this era that the second
41:32Great Awakening of psychedelic
41:34religious consciousness took place.
41:36In fact, the term psychedelic renaissance
41:39was first coined by commentators
41:41in the 1980s with reference to
41:44underground research into psychedelic
41:46substances and mind expansion.
41:48So here let me come to my first thesis.
41:52The humanities have much to offer.
41:55They have much to contribute to
41:58the current wave of scientific
42:00research into psychedelics.
42:03The fact that scientific researchers
42:05today seem to be unaware that there's
42:08already been a psychedelic Renaissance
42:1040 years ago speaks to the disjunction
42:13between experts in the humanities
42:16and experts in the Biosciences.
42:19This disjunction, though,
42:20opens up an opportunity in which these
42:23two fields can mutually inform each other,
42:25and in fact this is the case
42:28I'm making tonight.
42:29The need for such collaboration
42:31is perhaps most evident in the
42:34fact that psychedelic researchers,
42:36physicians and therapists today
42:37seemed to know more about the
42:40indigenous rituals of ayahuasca.
42:42Shamans in the Peruvian Amazon.
42:45Then they do their own homegrown
42:47and eminently sophisticated ritual
42:49containers created right here in the
42:52United States over the last 70 years.
42:55The frameworks proposed by the Post
42:58War American psychedelic sectarians.
43:00They represent a sort of lost archive,
43:03like the proverbial library of Alexandria.
43:07The reason that this library is
43:08no longer the reason that this
43:10library is lost is no mystery.
43:12The bio political apparatus of the
43:15drug war has marginalized this
43:17rich tradition of Paris scientific
43:20research and exploration.
43:21Yet rejected knowledge is precisely the
43:24metier of scholars of Western esotericism.
43:28So to be absolutely clear,
43:30my job here is twofold.
43:33First,
43:33I analyze and contrast the ritual
43:36containers that differentiate each
43:39psychedelic sect from the other.
43:41Second,
43:41I also disclosed the strategies
43:44by which the entire movement of
43:48psychedelic exploration has been
43:50rejected as an illegitimate.
43:53Illicit and possibly even
43:55dangerous object of study.
43:58As you may know,
43:59the drug war was not simply a
44:02militarized police force busting dope
44:04dealers across the United States.
44:07That's part of the drug war propaganda.
44:11The drug war was a regime of truth that,
44:15alongside disproportionately
44:16imprisoning people of color,
44:18shaped the public perception of
44:21the alteration of consciousness
44:23through psychedelic substances.
44:26The drug war was a military operation.
44:30That was filtered through
44:32domestic school programs,
44:34popular entertainment,
44:36medical associations,
44:37pharmaceutical consortiums.
44:39And of course the juridical system.
44:42So the drug war was a persecution
44:45campaigned and an intellectual inquisition.
44:49With an inquisition against all of those,
44:52against all of those,
44:53that would promote the social heresy
44:56of psychedelic Gnosis.
44:57Imprisoning the greatest
44:58minds of this movement,
45:00the drug war attempted to destroy
45:03the lives and literature of the
45:06American tradition of psychedelic
45:08exploration and experimentation.
45:10Now,
45:11a foundational component of the drug
45:14war was epistemological control.
45:17That is to say,
45:18the drug war shaped what could
45:20be known and discussed publicly,
45:22as well as in the Academy.
45:24The result was a historiographical farce.
45:27The American tradition of psychedelic
45:30research has just been redacted from the
45:33historical record to be even more precise.
45:36According to the epistemology of
45:38the Drug War, the story of American
45:41psychedelic experimentation ended,
45:43apparently with the cartoonish
45:45and purposefully derogatory media
45:47stereotype of the hippie from the 1960s.
45:51To be sure, the exploration of
45:54psychedelic substances continued and
45:56even expanded in the decades hence.
45:59As I've said, this is left behind
46:02a venerable library of Alexandria.
46:04Now I just want to give some
46:06indication as to what the contents
46:08of this last archive include.
46:10For example,
46:11there are dozens and dozens of field
46:14manuals or field guides or manuals for
46:17inducing different types of trips.
46:19Here I'm thinking, for example,
46:21of the psychedelic experience.
46:22This was the guide book put out
46:25by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert,
46:27Ramdas, and Metzner in 1964.
46:29That was supposed to be the guide
46:32for the second commands.
46:34OK, that was 1964.
46:35It includes everything all the way
46:38up to the 2017 book getting higher.
46:41The Manual of psychedelic ceremonial ISM.
46:45Now,
46:45it's not just manuals that can
46:47determine the way the trip unfolds.
46:50There's also cartographies for the
46:52different levels of consciousness
46:53alteration made possible by psychedelics.
46:55Here I'm thinking of the 7th
46:57Circuit model perfected by,
46:59or at least refined by Robert Anton Wilson.
47:02I'm also thinking of John Leary's
47:04theory are also thinking of John
47:07Lilly's theory of meta programming,
47:09the human biocomputer And finally,
47:11perhaps you may even know this one.
47:14Alexander Anan should glands
47:16quantitative potency scale.
47:18Right,
47:19well,
47:19unfortunately it's become customary
47:22for advocates of today's psychedelic
47:25renaissance to diminish the foundational
47:28research of previous generations.
47:31This is all the more true for
47:33Doctor Timothy Leary and his
47:35League for Spiritual Discovery.
47:37Though repudiate Ng,
47:38earlier generations of researchers
47:40may be part of the hard sell of the
47:44psychedelic renaissance of today.
47:45There's no denying that the set
47:48and setting protocol developed by
47:50Liris sect remains the basis for all
47:53contemporary psychedelic therapy programs.
47:55Here I'd like to mention Hartzog
47:57Son's new book, American trip.
48:01Right now I come to my second thesis.
48:04The natural theology proposed by the
48:06movement of psychedelic religions
48:08has much to offer the current
48:10clinical protocols being used.
48:12For example at Johns Hopkins.
48:14To be clear,
48:16I am not arguing for the
48:18medicalization of psychedelics.
48:20Rather,
48:20I'm arguing for something more profoundly
48:23destabilizing and exciting and valuable.
48:25What I'm talking about is the
48:28psychedelics azatian of medicine.
48:29I'm talking about the psychedelic
48:32azatian of clinical therapy.
48:34Now,
48:34casting back through the rich albet
48:37forbidden knowledge of the American
48:39psychedelic religious tradition which
48:41has accrued over the last half century.
48:44A number of valuable customs jump
48:47out immediately as particularly
48:49relevant to the decolonisation
48:51of mental health care today.
48:53First one.
48:55Group psychedelic sessions
48:57amongst loved ones,
48:58guided by an experienced tripper.
48:59You see this almost as a
49:01red thread leading past
49:03the last 70 years of psychedelic
49:05exploration in the underground. 2.
49:08Framing psychedelic sessions under
49:10the auspices of what religions of
49:13old termed Charity. That is to say,
49:16making Sessions extremely low cost,
49:18if not free altogether.
49:20The third one.
49:21How could we forget live music and
49:25possibly even dancing during sessions?
49:27I believe all of these customs
49:29would make a valuable contribution
49:31to the decolonisation of mental
49:34health in the psychedelic era.
49:36Now, these suggestions might
49:37seem far fetched, however,
49:39let let me remind you that they grounded
49:42the 1st and might I add extremely
49:45successful paradigm of psychedelic
49:47assisted psychotherapy centered in the
49:49LA region of California in the 1950s?
49:53Here let me recommend psychedelic
49:55psychiatry by the historian Erica Dike.
49:58Additionally,
49:58the Historical Archive also
50:01offers key insights into the dark
50:04sides of the profound experiences
50:07occasioned by psychedelic substances.
50:09Here I am thinking specifically
50:11of the imbrication of authority
50:14and sexual misconduct.
50:15There is ample material in this
50:18last archive that indicates how
50:20psychedelic gurus have sexually
50:22exploited those they guide.
50:25As those they guide tend to
50:27develop misplace erotic fixations
50:29as a result of their trip.
50:33Now here I come to my final argument.
50:36The term psychedelic renaissance
50:38itself is an artifact of the drug war.
50:42By presupposing that psychedelic
50:44research ended magically in the 1960s,
50:47the term psychedelic renaissance
50:49legitimizes the historical
50:51redaction of psychedelic research.
50:53Over the last 70 years,
50:56I mean, come on.
50:58How could something that
50:59never died be reborn?
51:04So those who use the term psychedelic
51:07renaissance, even inadvertently,
51:08are suffering from an intellectual
51:11hangover from the extremely powerful
51:13policy of intellectual exclusion that
51:16marginalized the homegrown tradition of
51:18psychedelic research that was driven
51:20underground by the drug War inquisition.
51:24Here then I am proposing a new scholarly
51:27paradigm for psychedelic scientific
51:29research in which humanistic scholarship,
51:32informed by a post drug war custom aladji,
51:36works in tandem with
51:38empirical clinical research.
51:40In short, I'm re imagining the so
51:43called psychedelic renaissance as a new
51:45transdisciplinary spaced based on the
51:47inclusion of subaltern knowledge sets.
51:52There is no doubt that psychedelic
51:54research today has the power to
51:56reshape the world we live in.
51:58And once more speaking as a
52:00historian of rejected knowledge,
52:01I'm eager to begin working alongside all
52:04of you as soon as possible. Thank you.
52:10Thank you so much, Christian. So our
52:17next presenter is our very
52:19own Marco Ramos, MD, PhD.
52:20He's a psychiatry resident and
52:22historian at Yale University.
52:24He's also a co-founder of website and a
52:27member of the Peoples Medics of New Haven.
52:30His work focuses on the history of
52:33mental health in Latin America and
52:35he is especially interested in how
52:38the health activism of the past can
52:40be used as a resource for seeking
52:43social justice in medicine today.
52:45His dissertation on the activism
52:47of health professionals.
52:48Fighting state terror in Latin America
52:50is currently being turned into a book.
52:52This presentation is part of a new
52:54project on the history of indigeneity
52:56and psychedelics in the Amazon
52:58Welcome Marco Thank Union Tara.
53:00So I
53:01just wanted to start by positioning
53:03myself as new Tar was saying I'm a
53:05psychiatrist in historian at Yale.
53:07In my family is from Peru so my father
53:10grew up in a small town in the Andes,
53:13an most of my family now lives in Lima and I
53:16first heard about ayahuasca many years ago.
53:19From my aunt who studies plants in the
53:22Amazon and also from my cousins who
53:24would joke about white tourists who they
53:27called mochileros traveling to equitos
53:28to trip on ayahuasca in the jungle.
53:31But recently I was sort of surprised
53:33to begin hearing from my colleagues
53:35at Yale about how this plant would
53:38usher in a psychedelic renaissance is.
53:40We've been hearing in American psychiatry,
53:42and so I got curious about what's going on,
53:45what connects the Amazon in Yale,
53:47why the fuss about Ayahuasca now?
53:49And what is the history of white
53:51scientist interest in indigenous plants?
53:53Especially at places like you.
53:56So ayahuasca is especially relevant
53:58for this conference because it has
54:01a long history of being framed as
54:03a force for decolonizing the mind.
54:05In the 1960s,
54:07White psychiatrist turned to ayahuasca
54:09to claim that we shared a common human
54:12destiny that humans were linked by
54:14a bond to an ancient ancestral past
54:17through the ingestion of indigenous
54:18psychoactive botanicals,
54:19researchers purported to trip so
54:21that meant experientially,
54:22transcending their embodied position as
54:24white Europeans living in the 20th century.
54:27And they felt they were tapping into
54:29a broader and more primitive humanity
54:31that existed before civilization
54:33in history itself.
54:35This shared global conciousness
54:36built around the figure of the
54:38indigenous shaman can save mankind.
54:40The psychiatrist argued from the
54:42horrors and atrocities wrought
54:43by colonialism across the globe.
54:45So this talk is going to take us
54:48in a different direction.
54:50While these psychiatrists claim
54:51that Ayahuasca provides access
54:53to indigenous humanity,
54:54I want to turn this on its head.
54:57Psychedelics,
54:58I think,
54:58tell us as much if not more
55:01about white people,
55:02especially their anxieties and
55:03understanding the history of
55:05white science and psychedelics,
55:06especially the colonial
55:08harm that has resulted,
55:09is crucial now to understand
55:11the promise and peril of the
55:13psychedelic renaissance today.
55:14Or to put it another way,
55:17I don't think we can talk about
55:19white supremacy and psychedelic
55:20science without talking about it's
55:22ongoing and longstanding role in
55:25European settler colonization.
55:26So specifically,
55:27I'm going to trace how white
55:29anxiety has quickly emerged in
55:31transformed across three moments
55:32in the history of ayahuasca.
55:34One word before I start when I say white.
55:37I don't mean just mean a lack
55:39of melanin in the skin,
55:41though most of my scientists here
55:43are melanin deficient whiteness
55:44doesn't just flow through skins,
55:46but also through feelings and emotions
55:48and building on recent work in
55:50white studies understand whiteness
55:51as a shifting set of relations
55:53between bodies in their appearance.
55:55Genetics, money. Close language dance.
55:57Music, and as I'll argue here, drugs.
56:00So let's begin with the first anxious moment.
56:04That's the birth of ethnobotany
56:06at the turn of the 20th century,
56:09often called the discoverer of ayahuasca,
56:11at least for Europeans.
56:12This is the work of English
56:15botanist Richard Spruce.
56:16It's a book entitled Notes of a
56:19botanist on the Amazon and Andes.
56:22Spruces work inspired a string of disciples
56:24in the British and American University,
56:27including some some scholars.
56:29Pictured here,
56:29Oakes Ames and Richard Schulte's.
56:32Often considered the father
56:33of modern ethnobotany,
56:35so I'm going to unpack their anxiety
56:38through a letter that was written
56:40from Ames to Sholtez in 1941.
56:43So Ames wrote Dear Richard I presented
56:46to you the term treasured traditions.
56:49When we pause to think about the
56:51influence of a dominating civilization,
56:53it becomes clear that subjugated
56:55or submerge peoples for go.
56:57Many of the products and customs
56:59treasured through undated time
57:01and gradually adopt new ones.
57:03This process leads to the abandonment
57:05and gradual disappearance of
57:07many products once cherished,
57:08so aims here is anxious about the
57:11fact that you're American colonialism,
57:13the encroaching of what he calls the
57:15dominating civilization is wiping
57:17out indigenous peoples whose products
57:19and customs are rapidly disappearing.
57:21So first we should examine whether
57:23this was actually the case.
57:25Did colonialism cause the disappearance of
57:27indigenous plants, at least for ayahuasca?
57:30The answer is likely no.
57:32In fact, the opposite appears to be true.
57:35The work of colonialism,
57:36specifically Christian missionaries in
57:38the Amazon caused ayahuasca to spread,
57:41not disappear.
57:41Anthropologist Peter Gow has argued
57:43that native guides of evangelizing
57:45Christian missionaries spread the
57:47use of ayahuasca as they traveled
57:50to isolated native groups in
57:52the Amazonian interior,
57:53many of whom had never ingested ayahuasca,
57:56at least as they do now.
57:58By mixing the plant banisteriopsis KPI
58:00with the leaves of psychotria veredus.
58:03So, to return to Ames,
58:05if the dominating civilization is
58:07not wiping out indigenous plants,
58:09what's the point of this myth?
58:11He writes the Sholtez,
58:13unless the Ethnobotanists records
58:14these while there is yet waning,
58:16there comes a time when they are
58:19forgotten and take their place among the
58:21irrecoverable materials of human history.
58:23So the worth of the ethnobotanist then,
58:26is driven by an anxiety that
58:28indigenous products and customs
58:30are vanishing and must be salvaged,
58:32so they're not loss to human history.
58:35In her research on Indigeneity
58:37and Bio medicine,
58:38this is what historian Joanna
58:40Radin calls salvage science and
58:43that Mohawk scholar Audra Simpson
58:45in this incredible book.
58:47Mohawk interruptus places in the
58:49context of settler colonialism.
58:51While in some way appearing to subvert
58:53colonialism by saving what is left
58:55from an encroaching European imperialism.
58:58In fact,
58:58science,
58:59quote,
58:59and Simpsons words can be complicit
59:01with the imperatives of settler
59:03colonialism by giving us a particular
59:06sense of indigenous peoples.
59:08That sense is that indigenous peoples
59:10are vanishing in near extinction,
59:12when in fact they are not.
59:14As I've already mentioned,
59:16ayahuasca spread not disappeared through
59:18its interaction with colonialism.
59:19But in acting like in Indigenous
59:21culture is disappearing,
59:22are already extinct aims in shelties,
59:24in at the death of the thing
59:27they're purporting to save.
59:28They banish indigenous
59:29peoples from the president,
59:30future into some undated past.
59:32And in so doing,
59:33they give scientists the right,
59:35even the urgent and pressing moral
59:37imperative to salvage indigenous plants
59:39and knowledge to keep them alive.
59:41And they do so not for the sake of
59:43the indigenous groups themselves.
59:45After all,
59:45they will not be here in the future
59:48to read their ethnobotanical texts.
59:50But for the dominating civilization,
59:52because this dominating culture might
59:54benefit from plants like ayahuasca and
59:57indigenous knowledge of how they work.
59:59So in what way might the dominating
01:00:01Civilization benefit aims right?
01:00:03Since one of the prime duties of
01:00:05ethnobotany is to safeguard botanical
01:00:07knowledge that is on the way out,
01:00:09especially botanical knowledge that
01:00:10is integrated with human affairs.
01:00:12So it's not just the physical
01:00:14planned that these scientists want,
01:00:15it's also the botanical knowledge.
01:00:18AMC's Indigenous people in his own
01:00:20image as primitive ethnobotanists
01:00:22in a patronizing to names,
01:00:24writes about indigenous peoples as
01:00:25quote natural experimenters who,
01:00:27without knowing it,
01:00:28generates cyantific knowledge about what
01:00:30these plants can do is technologies.
01:00:32And I thought it would be nice,
01:00:35relevant to hear from Schulthise himself.
01:00:37So I hope this works.
01:00:40Personal botany simply means
01:00:43someone who's investigating plants
01:00:45used by primitive societies in
01:00:48various parts of the world.
01:00:52It's as simple as that.
01:00:54And ethnobotany has been around for many
01:00:58many many. Thousands of years.
01:01:02And we are now. Trying to
01:01:07salvage some of the knowledge that.
01:01:10Primitive societies have
01:01:13amassed over. Thousands of
01:01:17years and passed down from father
01:01:20to son orally and with.
01:01:23Every Rd that goes in every airport,
01:01:28every missionary, every commercial
01:01:30person, even tourism. This
01:01:32is fast disappearing. Meant ethnobotany.
01:01:37So there's a lot of
01:01:38wet Schulte says here that sort of
01:01:41picks up on what I've mentioned,
01:01:43but just to pick one strand,
01:01:45he strangely argues that ethnobotany
01:01:47has existed for millenia when it's
01:01:49really as a scientific field,
01:01:50only been around since like the turn
01:01:53of the 20th century at the earliest,
01:01:55and that's because he sees Indigenous
01:01:57people as vanishing proto ethnobotanist
01:01:59and his job is to salvage their ever
01:02:02disappearing knowledge before they pass away.
01:02:04So now let's flash forward
01:02:06to the second moment.
01:02:07In the 1960s,
01:02:08when you had artists and scientists
01:02:10like Timothy Leary and Terence McKenna
01:02:13and their avidly reading the book
01:02:15that Spruce wrote that I that I put up
01:02:18and they follow in his footsteps to
01:02:20the Amazon searching for Ayahuasca,
01:02:22but for a different reason.
01:02:24They wanted the knowledge of the shaman,
01:02:26the generic shaman,
01:02:27for these.
01:02:28Psychonauts represented an
01:02:29alternative source of knowledge
01:02:31than Western philosophy and science.
01:02:32Shamanic knowledge offered an ancient
01:02:34cosmology or worldview that had
01:02:36been passed down through millenia,
01:02:38uncontaminated by Euro American thought.
01:02:41As such,
01:02:41they felt it was an invaluable resource,
01:02:44not as a technology like Spruce argued,
01:02:46but for tapping into a primordial
01:02:49humanity that connects us all because
01:02:51it's unmarked by any particular identity.
01:02:53As McKenna wrote,
01:02:54Ayahuasca is the conduit to a body
01:02:56of profoundly ancient genetic and
01:02:58evolutionary wisdom that has long
01:03:00divided into cosmologies of indigenous
01:03:02peoples of the Amazon who have guarded
01:03:05and protected this knowledge from Alinea.
01:03:07So for McKenna,
01:03:08the shaman was not a proto
01:03:10scientist's shelties in Ames claimed.
01:03:12Instead, the shaman was,
01:03:14if anything anti or a scientific.
01:03:17A flat representation of an anti Western
01:03:20other whose wisdom could save mankind.
01:03:22So white anxiety here shifts
01:03:24rather than schulte's anxiety
01:03:26about in ever disappearing plant.
01:03:28These actors were were consumed by
01:03:31reflexive anxiety about their own whiteness.
01:03:33As McKenna wrote,
01:03:35Western culture had gone sterile in dead,
01:03:37it psychiatry was locking up schizophrenics
01:03:40when it should be celebrating them.
01:03:43And its technologies were destroying
01:03:44the planet for these white wealthy
01:03:47men living in Europe in America,
01:03:49who increasingly felt the anxious guilt
01:03:51of their privilege in a world wrought
01:03:53by the destructive power of mundanity,
01:03:55the discovery of ayahuasca was a godsend.
01:03:58It was a portal that allowed
01:04:00them experientially to trip.
01:04:01It meant they could briefly escaped
01:04:03their embodiment as white domineering
01:04:05post colonial subjects to connect
01:04:07with an ancient indigenous humanity,
01:04:08but this humanity with a capital H was
01:04:11also in an invention of their making.
01:04:14As I model thinker Sylvia Cusi,
01:04:16Conky has taught us it was an
01:04:18invention invention that relegated
01:04:20Indigenous people to a place outside
01:04:22of the modern and consequently,
01:04:24it allowed these psychonauts to ignore
01:04:26the political struggles of actual
01:04:28living indigenous people in the present,
01:04:30except insofar as they could
01:04:32provide them with rituals implants.
01:04:34Ayahuasca was the indigenous salve
01:04:36for their postcolonial dread,
01:04:37and now to the President and I
01:04:39mean president in the sense that
01:04:41it's here now on this panel,
01:04:43what is our current white
01:04:44anxiety were in the new moment.
01:04:46Psychedelics are not simply a way
01:04:48to trip there being framed as by
01:04:50medical treatments for a range of
01:04:52diseases that Western psychiatry.
01:04:53His psychiatry is failed to adequately cure,
01:04:55and there's a lot of optimism
01:04:57promising money in different groups.
01:04:59You know, this is the Yale
01:05:01psychedelic science group and this
01:05:02is Maps that many of you know.
01:05:04And the goal of these groups,
01:05:06as well as recent writing from journalists,
01:05:08is to ignite a psychedelic renaissance
01:05:10where drugs like ayahuasca might
01:05:12treat a variety of psychiatric
01:05:14conditions that we've talked about.
01:05:15And so, in this latest paradigm,
01:05:17we might say that Ayahuasca isn't
01:05:19the savior of Western civilization.
01:05:21As as someone likely reminded said,
01:05:23but it's a bio medical intervention that
01:05:25may save psychiatry and it's patience.
01:05:27So where is the anxiety?
01:05:28In all this optimism,
01:05:30we can hear it on this panel.
01:05:32It's the anxiety that psychedelics
01:05:33are too white.
01:05:34That people of color will
01:05:36not have access to them.
01:05:38That indigenous groups will not benefit
01:05:40from psychiatric research on their
01:05:42plants and that psychedelic researchers
01:05:44today are just the contemporary
01:05:46manifestation of a long line of white
01:05:48euro American scientists who have
01:05:50through shifting means and justifications,
01:05:52dispossessed indigenous
01:05:53groups of their plants,
01:05:54knowledge and land.
01:05:55So I think the path one path forward here is,
01:05:59is to avoid assuaging or
01:06:00mollifying this anxiety.
01:06:02We need to stay with the trouble so
01:06:04that this anxiety becomes productive.
01:06:06So that it pushes us to stop
01:06:08doing business as usual,
01:06:10and so that we rethink what it means
01:06:12to do pharmacological research.
01:06:14We need to question who gets
01:06:16to profit from psychedelics.
01:06:17What reparations are in order for a
01:06:19history of cyantific dispossession?
01:06:21How can we recover black and
01:06:23indigenous psychedelic histories,
01:06:24and how can researchers work in a
01:06:25reparative mode with indigenous communities
01:06:27that acknowledges these histories?
01:06:29And there are definitely groups
01:06:30today that are seriously
01:06:32grappling with these questions,
01:06:33and I look forward to hearing about them from
01:06:36the audience as well as other panelists.
01:06:38Thank you.
01:06:40Thank you so much Marco. Our final
01:06:43panelist is Astrea Castillo who is
01:06:46a first year PhD student in the
01:06:49History of Science and Medicine.
01:06:52Throughout the past decade,
01:06:54she participated in social activism on
01:06:56matters of intersectional feminist concern,
01:06:59from sexual awareness and workers rights
01:07:02to environmental racism in climate change.
01:07:05Her activism led her to critically
01:07:08engage on topics regarding.
01:07:10In human nature relations,
01:07:12an organization and later to completing
01:07:15an honours ethnographic thesis on POD
01:07:17cactus and in anthropology at Columbia
01:07:20University where she received her BA,
01:07:22Yale, Australia,
01:07:23is focusing on questions regarding Peyote, E.
01:07:26Cactus Ontology and Futurity Futurity
01:07:28in the context of rising psychedelic
01:07:30economies and the environmental
01:07:32challenges concerning the wild
01:07:34coyote habitat in Mexico and the US.
01:07:37Thank you for being here, Australia.
01:07:41Thanks so much
01:07:43for that. It's nice to be here.
01:07:46Hello everybody,
01:07:47I believe I'm sharing my screen now.
01:07:51Let's see. Alright, so.
01:07:57My name is Australia as she mentioned.
01:08:02I my pronouns are she her and I'm a
01:08:07light Brown skin colored sis woman
01:08:09with long Brown hair and highlights.
01:08:13I'm wearing a dress and I'm
01:08:16in my office currently.
01:08:18Before I start,
01:08:19I specified that I recognize that
01:08:22decolonization is a buzzword,
01:08:24meaning different things to different people.
01:08:27I hear someone used the term.
01:08:30It signals a frustration with the
01:08:33present paradigm through which they
01:08:35perceive whatever they are referring to.
01:08:38This is typically associated with
01:08:40settler colonialism of some sort,
01:08:42but not always.
01:08:43So when we talk about decolonizing,
01:08:46we must also talk about what it
01:08:49takes to integrate ourselves
01:08:50into that given paradigm,
01:08:53which we imagine as being decolonized.
01:08:55I also cannot stress enough how important
01:08:58it is for the integrity of this
01:09:01process to foster trust amongst ourselves.
01:09:04As a community,
01:09:06I will therefore present on various
01:09:09forces pulling on Peyote E in the spirit
01:09:13of Utah Phillips and Philip Deloria,
01:09:16specifically in an aim to develop that
01:09:20radical idea of a long memory so to Scituate,
01:09:24native peoples,
01:09:25and the priority in relation to
01:09:28their particular historical moment,
01:09:31with the intention of clarifying our vision,
01:09:34not the.
01:09:35Where we're going, but where we wish to go.
01:09:39So first let me situate myself.
01:09:42This is my family's Homeland.
01:09:44In Holly Scoan me truck on so I am a
01:09:48Chicana from Teresa from San Diego,
01:09:52meaning of order child and from food,
01:09:55PHR, Lenny,
01:09:56Edge and Anasco and also have in
01:10:00indigenous ancestors from high school
01:10:03and one European ancestor from the BC S pain.
01:10:07My grandpa taught me that touching
01:10:10the button of the peyote E is
01:10:13enough for receiving its blessings.
01:10:15I the same,
01:10:16I'm of the spiritual orientations
01:10:18that have that highly sought
01:10:20after entheogenic experience,
01:10:22which people tend to associate with
01:10:25the psychedelic one need only to
01:10:28consume a tiny amount of the priority,
01:10:30or just stick by the POD and touched
01:10:33soil while contemplating its ontology.
01:10:36Meaning all of the.
01:10:38Earthly and cosmic layers that
01:10:40make up the Toyota universe.
01:10:42But today there are many other
01:10:44ways of relating to peyote,
01:10:46E it has been fetishized to
01:10:48serve a given narrative,
01:10:50meaning that it's been extrapolated
01:10:52from the original intention or actual
01:10:54usage by the Chichimeca peoples of
01:10:57pre Columbian Mexico who are credited
01:10:59with innovating payodhi ceremony.
01:11:01And this is where the peonies growing.
01:11:04Currently that's a Botanical
01:11:06Garden somewhere,
01:11:07and I'm sure that there are many
01:11:10more places around the world
01:11:12and on the right here.
01:11:14We have the former teaching Mac territory,
01:11:17the Peyote E plant itself is so
01:11:20sought after that today it is listed
01:11:23as vulnerable on the Red List of
01:11:26threatened species by the International
01:11:29Union of the Conservation of Nature.
01:11:31What we have today,
01:11:33then,
01:11:33is a set of diverse theological stories,
01:11:36claims to rights and steaks
01:11:37that are not the same
01:11:39for all Peyote E users.
01:11:41There's a vast amount of research
01:11:43actually explaining why the
01:11:45Mexican peyote E ceremonies were
01:11:47suddenly taken up in the USA.
01:11:49As you can see through these various books.
01:11:52Suffice it to say that though that one
01:11:54must look beyond the countercultural
01:11:56movement that began in the 1960s,
01:11:59so called 2 for the earliest onset of
01:12:01pressures on the peyote E habitat.
01:12:04Or the supply SM? Refer to it.
01:12:07The earliest record of Peyote E
01:12:10is from is from the lower Pekos
01:12:13Chihuahuan Desert about 6500 years ago,
01:12:17and and by 1522 we start seeing Peyote
01:12:20E written into the cap botanical books.
01:12:24That's about a year after the
01:12:27fall of the Aztec Empire,
01:12:29and the teaching Mac derived
01:12:32tribe the wheat roll.
01:12:34Are very popular today for maintaining
01:12:37peyote E ceremonies and also through
01:12:41the survival of the 17th and 18th
01:12:45century Inquisition period and the
01:12:48transition to a secular government, the.
01:12:52The Comanche are actually spirit there,
01:12:54who spearheaded the majority of
01:12:56the trading and rating of Mexican
01:12:59tribes and Misty so settlements.
01:13:01The years prior to the establishment
01:13:04of the US reservation system.
01:13:06And these white dots on the
01:13:09right there you see,
01:13:11are where where distributors
01:13:13were located at the Times 1889.
01:13:16And so this is how they commenti first
01:13:19came into contact with the peyote E.
01:13:23And they went on to share it with other
01:13:26US tribes that were clustered into
01:13:29Oklahoma forcefully by the annexation of
01:13:33Texas in Mexico between 1845 to 1848.
01:13:36the US.
01:13:36US tribes began moving into Texas,
01:13:39so despite the first attempt to
01:13:42ban in Oklahoma by the Office
01:13:44of Indian Affairs in 1883,
01:13:47Payodhi ceremony spread rapidly
01:13:48through the US.
01:13:50However,
01:13:50the majority of Indigenous
01:13:52people in Oklahoma refused the
01:13:54introduction of Peyote E,
01:13:56and notably this includes
01:13:57those from the Cherokee.
01:13:59The Chickasaw,
01:14:00Choctaw Creek,
01:14:01and Seminole to stave off
01:14:03the efforts by Antp Otis,
01:14:05Indian groups such as the Society
01:14:08of American Indians.
01:14:09And the racist Protestant Christians?
01:14:11Progressive Essen prohibitionists,
01:14:13some tribes and their white allies
01:14:16banded together to incorporate the Native
01:14:18American Church of Oklahoma in 1918.
01:14:21Under the freedom of Religion
01:14:23constitutional clause.
01:14:24So by the 1930s,
01:14:25the peyote E spread northwest and,
01:14:28and this is where new chapters of
01:14:31the NACS were then incorporated by
01:14:33members of the Shoshoni, the Winnebago,
01:14:36and eventually the Navajo.
01:14:38This shift in the 20th century is
01:14:41sometimes referred to the Americanization.
01:14:43Of beauty ceremony it's also known as adpi,
01:14:47autism, religion.
01:14:48Some notable departures I would say
01:14:51from traditional ritual intellectual
01:14:53culture include the designation of
01:14:55the Divine Peyote E Cactus Mother,
01:14:58Peyote E from Mother Peyote E
01:15:00to Gran Father Peyote E in the
01:15:03American nice version,
01:15:05and from doctoring doctoring shamen,
01:15:07communicating with the gods to
01:15:10help heal the sick people or sick
01:15:13worlds to a Rd Manor ceremony.
01:15:15Facilitator that was facilitating
01:15:19is facilitating individual.
01:15:22Seeking for prosperity and quest
01:15:24for power also from dancing
01:15:27outdoors as you see the centre
01:15:30or depiction from dancing outdoors,
01:15:32connecting with the land of the peyote E2.
01:15:36Sitting in quiet meditation and TB
01:15:38which you see over to your right.
01:15:41And white, and nonwhite distributors of
01:15:44peyote E buttons became renowned for
01:15:46coveting their Mexican sources of peyote.
01:15:49E This was actually common practice back then
01:15:53by merchants in the Sarah just more broadly.
01:15:57But it has also been said that today
01:16:00distributors still haven't interest,
01:16:03and keeping the patio decriminalised so to
01:16:06maintain the beauty supply pipeline between
01:16:09themselves and at the NACS for profit.
01:16:12But because of this history,
01:16:14either way we should be paying attention
01:16:16to the changing motives of those
01:16:19who are partaking in the debates to
01:16:21criminalize or decriminalised coyote.
01:16:24And in 1994,
01:16:25the American Religious Freedom Act
01:16:27was amended and the right to Peyote
01:16:30E ceremony was indeed secured for
01:16:32the Native American Church members,
01:16:34but it left out tribal members that
01:16:37refused to act like a church and to
01:16:41ban non integer non indigenous peoples
01:16:44still go to use is on the rise with new
01:16:47chapters of the Native American Church
01:16:49sprouting across the continent amongst
01:16:52non traditional peyote E peoples.
01:16:54As well as with an intercultural
01:16:57newage psychedelic, an NGO groups.
01:16:59So the because of the greatest
01:17:02majority of the peyotes peyote,
01:17:05E being grown naturally
01:17:07on regional territory.
01:17:08Mexican interlocutors have expressed
01:17:10suspicion about the Native American churches,
01:17:14appealed to a Pan Indian religiosity,
01:17:17which relies on what some have called
01:17:20historical narrative grabbing while
01:17:22fetishizing. We told culture and.
01:17:24So we have a crisis of trust, actually.
01:17:27So people are saying there are
01:17:29too many people speaking up,
01:17:31not enough for speaking up.
01:17:33There's a lack of resources that
01:17:35has left the we told people also
01:17:37susceptible to exploitation by outside
01:17:39organizations age prior to come to a
01:17:42Democratic consensus on how to manage the
01:17:44conflicting interests on the purity habitat.
01:17:46Some groups who I guess we can
01:17:49call the Protectionists don't want
01:17:51people talking about the POD at
01:17:53all out of fear of supply Las.
01:17:55One such group is the IPC I Indigenous
01:17:58Priority Conservation Initiative,
01:17:59or yeah,
01:18:00I PCI.
01:18:01This group recently bought over 600
01:18:03acres of coyote habitat in Texas
01:18:05and partner with the company Journey
01:18:08Collab which plans to use Peyote E
01:18:11for masculine research in pursuit
01:18:13of a new pharmaceutical drug I PCI.
01:18:15It's Native American church in private
01:18:18allies are looked at with suspicion for
01:18:21wanting to keep not just payo D cactus,
01:18:24but almost.
01:18:25Being capped,
01:18:25I criminalised for people outside
01:18:27of the Native American Church.
01:18:30It should be noted that some board members
01:18:32of the IPC I have also advocated for
01:18:35decriminalization in Mexico while at once,
01:18:38advocating for criminalise
01:18:39criminalization in the USA,
01:18:40it is doubtful that the 1994 law
01:18:43granted rights to monopolization
01:18:44of peyote E derived masculine,
01:18:46yet this is what this partnership implies.
01:18:49If people are concerned about
01:18:51the popularity of Peyote E,
01:18:53why not look to other mescaline
01:18:55containing cacti for pharmaceutical
01:18:56research? Is this not further
01:18:59fetishization of the peyote E?
01:19:01This is that. And the San Pedro
01:19:06Cactus actually grows twice as fast,
01:19:10if not faster than the peyote
01:19:13E and cacti enthusiasts.
01:19:15My mother included.
01:19:17This is our little succulent
01:19:19nursery down here.
01:19:21They say that with proper planning
01:19:24peyote E especially can be
01:19:26propagated very easilly ingrown,
01:19:28systematically, almost anywhere.
01:19:30It is a Cretaceous angiosperm Flowers.
01:19:33It seeds can be pollinated.
01:19:36With its own flower, some other groups,
01:19:39who I guess we can also call in this case,
01:19:44propagation S.
01:19:45The advocate for the socialization
01:19:48of the Peyote E supply chain,
01:19:51cultivation etc.
01:19:52Like growing ones on Peyote E or collecting
01:19:56and giving away seeds ceremonies.
01:19:58Developing new new cultivation technology
01:20:01and material in social infrastructure etc.
01:20:04I do include the decriminalised
01:20:06nature movement here because it
01:20:08seems appropriate to remove legal
01:20:11barriers that block psychedelic
01:20:13therapists or ceremonial centers.
01:20:16Low income and otherwise disenfranchised
01:20:19communities in developing their or and
01:20:22accessing hyper localized autonomous
01:20:25means for acquiring sacred medicines.
01:20:28Santos Renteria,
01:20:29Choreo is a featured appear on
01:20:32the left at this panel and plan
01:20:35to stagger as he's a manicotti or
01:20:38tribal authority of the retro Land.
01:20:40At this panel he acknowledged that
01:20:43this widespread popularity and
01:20:45phenomenon of the adoption of IoT
01:20:47ceremony is actually expected.
01:20:49However,
01:20:49he says that the problem is that new
01:20:53groups do not have accountability to
01:20:56the land where the peyote E grows.
01:20:59Nurture that we told people
01:21:01Santos Furthermore,
01:21:01believes that POD cannot be separated
01:21:04from the ritual territory or where
01:21:06it grows and that by taking it
01:21:09outside it becomes something else
01:21:11when it is separated from that land.
01:21:14So with the statement what it does
01:21:16is it probes us to analyze the
01:21:19shifting ontologies of Peyote,
01:21:21E specifically to ask just what it
01:21:23is that is being used in ceremonies
01:21:26outside of where the given plant grows.
01:21:30So those outside of which will
01:21:32land or wherever the peyotes
01:21:34growing should ask themselves what
01:21:36is truly gained by claiming that
01:21:39their priority is the same peyote
01:21:41E as a one found on that land,
01:21:44or the same peyote E as the
01:21:46as peyote E practices,
01:21:48ceremonial practices deriving from the TMC.
01:21:511 does not need to fetishize the
01:21:53peyote E all plant life and life
01:21:56itself can be ceremonial eisd.
01:21:58We soon will be seen.
01:22:00Masculinization of ceremony and with
01:22:02the further erosion of the Protestant
01:22:05Christians stranglehold over this nation,
01:22:07we will also be seeing ceremonial isation.
01:22:10And yes, as someone earlier said.
01:22:12Also, dancing is not that far off.
01:22:15But the medicalization of other kinds
01:22:18of entheogenic processing as well.
01:22:20The task, then,
01:22:21is not to shame this from happening,
01:22:24but to construct methodology's that
01:22:26do not rely on the fetishization of
01:22:29certain plants or certain people.
01:22:31Nor on the settler,
01:22:33on settler colonial logics of
01:22:35scarcity or racial demarcation,
01:22:37or the governing, by austerity,
01:22:40or the fear of persecution.
01:22:42Finally,
01:22:43it appears to me that the most
01:22:46that peyote
01:22:47E as scholar of the xotica,
01:22:50called it Deanna nicotine,
01:22:52is it's a blunt protagonista,
01:22:54as in the ultimate Pro Taconic plant,
01:22:57by making us accountable
01:22:59to each other and the land.
01:23:02That the POT is is in the lab.
01:23:05The priority is the only
01:23:07original shaman here.
01:23:08If you really think about it as it
01:23:11mediates on our behalf the relationship
01:23:13between the Earth and the cosmos,
01:23:16transforming solar energy in
01:23:18a way that deeply enriches us.
01:23:20But I want us all to remember that
01:23:23all plants, all plants, also do this.
01:23:26Thank you.
01:23:27Yeah, and if you'd like any of
01:23:31references of anything mentioned
01:23:33today, please emailing.
01:23:35Thank you so much as
01:23:37three a thank you to all of our panelists.
01:23:41We really appreciated that was incredible.
01:23:44We have a few minutes for Q&A.
01:23:47Gonna go to one of the questions
01:23:50that was dropped into the Q&A
01:23:52earlier in the night anesthesia.
01:23:54Thank you for taking a shot at it.
01:23:57The question is what organizing
01:23:59is done to mitigate biopiracy?
01:24:00Are there Indigenous groups that have
01:24:03moved to patent the substances they
01:24:05have used in rituals and healing?
01:24:11So you want to say more since you might
01:24:14have some knowledge on this. Yeah,
01:24:17I just so. From my understanding,
01:24:20anything that is designated as cultural
01:24:23knowledge or a cultural element of
01:24:25whatever sort cannot be patented.
01:24:28Of course, different countries have
01:24:30different ways of going about it,
01:24:33but but in particular,
01:24:35was sacred plants that's
01:24:37been that is a struggle.
01:24:40Maybe somebody else here has knows about
01:24:43some case studies regarding how that goes.
01:24:47You know whether there is any way
01:24:49around that, but I don't think that
01:24:52you can patent cultural knowledge,
01:24:54and that's been an obstacle and
01:24:56also an injustice to certain
01:24:58degrees. I think what we're what
01:25:02we're seeing is is that there's ways
01:25:05to modify these sacred traditional plants
01:25:08just enough to seek patents on them,
01:25:12whether it be in the case of the compass
01:25:16patent I given polymorph of psilocybin,
01:25:19which of course was not something that we
01:25:23thought would be patent it easily since
01:25:27it's both cultural knowledge and also just.
01:25:30And in the public scientific domain
01:25:32for fifth more than 50 years,
01:25:35but similarly will save with ayahuasca.
01:25:37There's concerns over pharmahuasca, you know.
01:25:39Well, if you make it into.
01:25:42Distill it down into a cap,
01:25:44some sort of standardized botanical capsule,
01:25:47then cannot be patented,
01:25:48or you know this way is that companies
01:25:51fine to privatize knowledge.
01:25:53Yeah, and I
01:25:55think the the big picture is that it's
01:25:58it's really pharmaceutical companies
01:26:00that have the resources and means to
01:26:04seek patents and an you know adjust
01:26:07substances as Jordan was suggesting in
01:26:09ways that would make them patentable.
01:26:12Well, indigenous groups.
01:26:14I mean thinking about what it takes
01:26:17to actually be have something
01:26:19recognized as a patent.
01:26:21Many groups don't have those resources.
01:26:24And there's also a disaster area
01:26:26was suggesting in translating the
01:26:28value that a group might have with
01:26:31respect to a particular plant or
01:26:33knowledge into the patent system.
01:26:35You lose, you lose something in that
01:26:38translation and sort of translating
01:26:40the value that these plans has into
01:26:42the sort of settlor logic of property.
01:26:45There's something that's important,
01:26:47and maybe the most important,
01:26:49depending on the context, that's
01:26:51lossed. Right and also thinking about
01:26:54who adjudicates what gets patented or
01:26:57not just thinking about the gatekeepers
01:26:59to patenting and who you know we talked
01:27:03about the composition of researchers
01:27:05and health professionals that you know,
01:27:07engage in academic research.
01:27:09And then you could also think about patents
01:27:12in terms of like which gatekeepers you
01:27:15go through with shape the final product.
01:27:19There is another question that just
01:27:21dropped into the chat that says.
01:27:24What are some characteristics of
01:27:27the fetishized use of entheogens?
01:27:33Maybe hypothetically,
01:27:34maybe if you can think of an example
01:27:37like what would what would it be?
01:27:39Fetishized practice involved. It's it's
01:27:41a difficult question because the term
01:27:43Anfield Jenn has a meaning baked into it.
01:27:46So there's really no we're on a moving train,
01:27:49so you can't really get off of
01:27:51it to this pure objective space.
01:27:53I think it's going to be a
01:27:56lot messier of a process to
01:27:57renegotiate social justice when it
01:27:59comes to the administration
01:28:00of these substances.
01:28:04Right, I think to speak to Marco's point
01:28:07about anxiety that maybe some part of
01:28:09that question speaks to this anxiety.
01:28:12To want something pure.
01:28:13You know to want to kind of
01:28:16regress to this primordial state.
01:28:18The desire to have something
01:28:20entirely fetishize entirely.
01:28:21You know, without sin,
01:28:22maybe speak to some of the points that
01:28:26Christian and Marco that that you made.
01:28:29And, um, I have a question that was
01:28:32thinking about in the last few minutes.
01:28:35We spoke a lot about whiteness
01:28:38and colonization in psychedelics,
01:28:39therapeutic and research space and I
01:28:42found myself wondering about gender.
01:28:44Is there gender dimension to indigenous
01:28:48practices of psychedelic use?
01:28:51Or the ways the psychedelics are
01:28:53being researched and used in a
01:28:55Western context so I don't know if
01:28:58that's something to comment on Sarah?
01:29:00Maybe you have some insights there.
01:29:03Sure, so for.
01:29:08With the Maps in DMA therapy call,
01:29:13it was originally.
01:29:15Done with therapist in Dietze,
01:29:18an Amana woman in those therapeutic dyads.
01:29:21But I would say maybe a few years
01:29:25ago now we challenge that challenge
01:29:29that assumption that it needs to be
01:29:32this man woman die at in order to.
01:29:36In order to complete the
01:29:39treatment for participants,
01:29:40so that's something that immediately.
01:29:44Find also as it relates to just psychedelic
01:29:47assisted treatments in research work.
01:29:50I think we also need to really
01:29:53critically examine even the
01:29:55research processes in the research
01:29:57design with these medicines.
01:29:59That and what I mean by that
01:30:02is is individual therapy.
01:30:04You know the
01:30:05gold standard or group
01:30:07based models models
01:30:09more effective,
01:30:09and I think that's something that a
01:30:12lot of researchers are considering now.
01:30:16And I know there's a group
01:30:19journey collab that they're doing.
01:30:21Some group based models with
01:30:24psychedelic psychedelic medicines.
01:30:25And there's also an accompany
01:30:28I want to say in the Bay Area
01:30:32called ceremony Health,
01:30:33where they use also group based
01:30:36models for Academy therapy.
01:30:39So the couple of things that come to mind.
01:30:44I want to
01:30:45and people can feel free to return
01:30:47to that question if they want to,
01:30:50but I wanted to raise up a what I think
01:30:52is an excellent question in the chat
01:30:55that says I'm curious about people's
01:30:57thoughts about the medicalization
01:30:59aspect in this sense and medicalization,
01:31:01I would say and decriminalization.
01:31:03Aspect in the sense that Psilocybe in
01:31:05is gaining legal status in places,
01:31:07but only to treat depression or PTSD,
01:31:10should people only be allowed access
01:31:11to these substances and potentially
01:31:13transformative experiences if they
01:31:15are willing to have a diagnosis.
01:31:17Has implications for health
01:31:19insurance and life insurance.
01:31:20So the question about you know
01:31:22tethering access to these products
01:31:24to a Western psychiatric diagnosis.
01:31:27Would love to hear peoples thoughts on that.
01:31:32It. Take a quick crack at that
01:31:34and actually just clarify that,
01:31:37um, what's the really interesting
01:31:38thing about the Oregon Bill?
01:31:40Actually, that you actually do not
01:31:42need to have a diagnosis to access?
01:31:44That's the way it's there's going
01:31:46to be a two year consultation
01:31:48period where they're working out.
01:31:50All the sort of specific policies,
01:31:52but the basic platform that
01:31:54was passed is actually that,
01:31:55although will be supervised in
01:31:57sort of delivered in a therapeutic
01:31:59kind of facilitated man are you
01:32:01actually will not need to be.
01:32:03Have a mental health diagnosis.
01:32:05To access this an actually the
01:32:08facilitators will not actually need
01:32:10to be licensed therapists or medical
01:32:13providers to actually take the training
01:32:16and get credited to be a provider.
01:32:19So that's actually a very interesting model.
01:32:22And so I think you know question you
01:32:25mentioned your friend Eric Davis who.
01:32:28Talks about having a rich
01:32:30ecology within psychedelia,
01:32:31and so I think that's kind
01:32:34of like his point there,
01:32:36and showing that you know what I've advocated
01:32:39for is different models to be put out there.
01:32:42Whether you know medical models are OK,
01:32:45do they need to be the only model, no?
01:32:48And then you have,
01:32:50uh, alongside that.
01:32:51These kind of safe therapeutic
01:32:53kind of settings.
01:32:54And as I stated before,
01:32:56I also in favor of broader decriminalization.
01:32:59Movements as well.
01:33:02I should also mention though,
01:33:04just to quote the name of the
01:33:06panel potentials and pitfalls,
01:33:08accountability is very important
01:33:09and I worry that as psychedelics
01:33:11leave the clinic and get set up
01:33:13in these fly by night operations,
01:33:15who are they accountable for?
01:33:17Particularly when it comes
01:33:18to sexual indiscretion.
01:33:19So I think this is something we're
01:33:21going to think very hard about.
01:33:23And of course I'm in favor of
01:33:25community policing, not of course.
01:33:27The military industrial complex.
01:33:28So just wanted to enter that
01:33:30into the conversation.
01:33:31Also, as we talk about
01:33:35medicalization, something that
01:33:36comes up for me is that for some
01:33:40folks who are interested in these
01:33:43medicines and interested in healing,
01:33:46they might not want to go to clinics,
01:33:50you know, to have this treatment done.
01:33:53So to me, I think it's also important,
01:33:57as we kind of mainstream psychedelics and
01:34:01go on this process of medicalization that.
01:34:04We also provide community based solutions
01:34:07in parallel and really do it from a harm
01:34:11reduction place because there's gonna
01:34:13be folks who are interested in these
01:34:15medicines who might not have insurance.
01:34:18If insurance never covers it or
01:34:20might not have the funds to be
01:34:23able to access these treatments.
01:34:26But we, I think it's still important
01:34:28to provide information education
01:34:30as well as really thinking about
01:34:33safety for folks who want healing.
01:34:35And want to engage with these
01:34:38medicines. And once again, I
01:34:40know where we're running
01:34:41a little bit overtime,
01:34:43so we want to respect the panelists,
01:34:45time and and our attendees time so you
01:34:47know anyone who needs to sign off.
01:34:49Thank you so much for joining us.
01:34:52A final question, perhaps?
01:34:53And maybe it is 3.
01:34:54Yeah, you might want to take a shot at this.
01:34:57I'm just wondering, you know,
01:34:59in the presentation we learn so much about
01:35:01these therapies and their indigenous
01:35:03roots and the way they've been entangled,
01:35:05or the way they've been colonized
01:35:07and the way they've been,
01:35:08the sort of subject.
01:35:10Of white anxiety white kind of
01:35:12conquest and appropriation.
01:35:13You know, when these therapies
01:35:16are offered are they offer?
01:35:18Are they going to be offered
01:35:20as like pure therapies?
01:35:22Or is there sort of historical
01:35:24context given to participants?
01:35:26Are they given some of this education on
01:35:29save the history of Peyote E or Psilocybe
01:35:32in on the history of colonization?
01:35:35Is there you know?
01:35:36Is there something you know?
01:35:39Is there an awareness and
01:35:41education historical?
01:35:41Contextualization that's part
01:35:43of the therapeutic process?
01:35:44Or is it just being offered up as like,
01:35:47you know, just the therapy so?
01:35:51Yeah,
01:35:51would love to hear your
01:35:53thoughts on that. Yeah I mean.
01:35:55That's a it's a burger hypothetical
01:35:59question to dealing with.
01:36:01As far as what is being done,
01:36:04I think that that you know that there's
01:36:08just a vast array of methods and that
01:36:13people are following all over the world.
01:36:16But you know, I, I think it's it's
01:36:21it's yeah I'm I'm not so sure,
01:36:25but the idea would be to socialize
01:36:28the history the the process,
01:36:31but I think consent is is really key here.
01:36:36As Santos was Speaking of at that panel.
01:36:40Oh, disconnecting the medicine
01:36:43from the people and.
01:36:45It also means that there's isn't an
01:36:49acknowledgement of everything that went
01:36:52into getting that button into the hands
01:36:55of people are getting that medicine.
01:36:58So yeah, I I, we've seen this
01:37:02done with other things, right?
01:37:04Race, gender, etc.
01:37:06We've we've had so so.
01:37:10Yeah,
01:37:10and just on that point really quickly.
01:37:13I think part of the issue with that
01:37:15is that these histories are are
01:37:17still being written now, right?
01:37:18So there's not even.
01:37:20There's there's just now coming to be sort
01:37:23of scholarly interest that you could,
01:37:25in these histories,
01:37:26and unpacking them in figuring out
01:37:28how do we tell these histories?
01:37:30And there's a lot of work that needs
01:37:32to be done on that front before we
01:37:35could even think about packaging
01:37:37it for a patient in a way that
01:37:40would be digestible in the context
01:37:42of like a clinical encounter.
01:37:44And so this is an active area where
01:37:46people are starting to do research on
01:37:48sort of the intersection of colonialism and.
01:37:51In psychedelics.
01:37:55Did anyone else want to add to that? Topic.
01:38:01Just say that I think a future direction,
01:38:06possibly beyond FDA regulation an
01:38:09as decriminalization, moves forward,
01:38:12and potentially like the decrim nature and.
01:38:16You see more accepted ceremonial
01:38:19use of psychedelics proliferating
01:38:21throughout the country that you.
01:38:23My prediction is that at some
01:38:25point down the line you might see a
01:38:27blurring of the lines between the
01:38:29ceremonial and the therapeutic.
01:38:31Such that they are not so clearly demarcated,
01:38:34and in that space I would imagine
01:38:36what what you were asking about.
01:38:39The history is the traditions that
01:38:42historical knowledge maybe become
01:38:44much more present and relevant as
01:38:46those lines kind of start to blur a
01:38:49little bit and we and you see that
01:38:51somewhat within like the centered.
01:38:53I'm a tradition where an in some
01:38:56of the ayahuasca religions that do
01:38:58take people with addictions and.
01:39:01Work in kind of a therapeutic space
01:39:03and blend it with
01:39:04their the ritual.
01:39:08OK, well thank you all.
01:39:09We've gone tenants over so thank
01:39:11you panelists for bearing with us
01:39:13and and sharing even more of your
01:39:14time than you initially committed.
01:39:16Thank you to all of our participants.
01:39:18Thank you for sharing who
01:39:19you are in the chat.
01:39:21Thank you for your questions.
01:39:22Sorry we couldn't get to all
01:39:24of your fantastic questions.
01:39:25We will have a chat transcript that
01:39:27will share with our presenters
01:39:28so you know they can kind of
01:39:30consider those questions and the
01:39:32reporting will be up on the website
01:39:34website and you can get in touch
01:39:35with us through the website,
01:39:37email and some of the panelists offered up.
01:39:39Their Contacts as well so thank
01:39:42you to everybody and goodnight.