Republican Rick Perry served as governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015 and then did a stint as secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019. He describes himself as a small-government conservative. He’s not in favor of legalizing all drugs, but in the last five years he has warmed up to the idea that psychedelics […]
In June, I traveled to Denver with Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD since the late 1980s. We produced a 30-minute documentary about today’s “psychedelic renaissance.” The most surprising speaker […]
Hallucinogenic drugs like psilocybin-containing magic mushrooms are closely linked in the public imagination with hippies and pleasure-seeking. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with pleasure-seeking (we’ll see about hippies), growing evidence suggests that, properly used, these drugs may be just as effective for healing minds as they are at blowing them. A recently published study reports […]
California might soon become the third state to decriminalize natural psychedelics. On Thursday, lawmakers in the state Senate approved S.B. 58, which removes criminal penalties for the personal possession and use of psilocybin-containing mushrooms, dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and mescaline by people 21 years and older. The state Assembly approved the bill on Wednesday. “California’s veterans, first […]
“I never pictured a world where marijuana would be anywhere close to legal, and it’s mind-blowing to me that mushrooms are being decriminalized everywhere,” says Shane Mauss, a comedian who tours the country discussing his psychedelic experiences. Reason caught up with him at the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, held in Denver this June, where he […]
For half a century, reformers have been urging the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reclassify marijuana, which since 1970 has been assigned to Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the law’s most restrictive category. Although the DEA has always rejected that proposal, it could change course in light of a recent recommendation from the […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) this week recommended that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) move marijuana from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive category, to Schedule III, where it would join medications such as Tylenol with codeine, buprenorphine, and anabolic steroids. The DEA has the final say on […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to reschedule marijuana. In an August 29 letter to DEA Administrator Anne Milgram, an HHS official called for marijuana to be reclassified from a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act to a Schedule III drug. The shift […]
In June, I traveled to Denver with Zach Weismueller to cover the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference, organized by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), a group that has been working to gain Food and Drug Administration approval of MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD since the late 1980s. We produced a 30-minute documentary about today’s “psychedelic […]
“Welcome to the psychedelic ’20s!” Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, proclaimed in his keynote speech to open the Psychedelic Science 2023 conference. At the event organized by MAPS in Denver this June, a reported 13,000 people gathered to talk about what seemed like every possible topic related to the […]