It’s Time to Lose the Stigma Over Psychedelic Therapies
The pandemic transformed how we view people speaking out about mental health — now we need to embrace that treatment comes in diverse forms.
When I wake up in the morning — usually on every second day — I carefully pour 5mL of clear, odorless liquid into a tiny plastic cup. It’s 1P-LSD, a (legal in Canada) analog of LSD, often sold as a research chemical.
Studies appear to show that 1P-LSD breaks down into the better-known psychedelic drug about an hour after ingestion. The amount I take is a microdose, which has become a familiar term to most people, especially in the tech industry. It’s small and sub-psychedelic, with no perceptual or visual effects — but the change, for me and many others, is dramatic.
Less fear. More motivation. Better focus. And a kind of creativity that feels easy and natural, like having ready access to a deep well of potentialities waiting to be realized. The first time I tried microdosing, after a long stretch of failed efforts to manage my life-long anxiety, I completely understood why it’s become a ubiquitous brain-hack in some circles, like Silicon Valley.
Why are psychedelic therapies so effective? As a general category, psychedelics appear to boost the functioning of mood and “reward” enhancing neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. When I microdose, I feel more open and social, get a strong sense of enjoyment from completing tasks, and my ever-present brain chatter fades into calmness.
Life, including ordinarily boring tasks like housework, just feels more fun and rewarding. Unlike with conventional pharmacological therapies, I’ve never personally experienced negative side-effects or a “low” if I take a break from dosing — although stimulant effects can delay sleep if taken too late in the day.
Even with very limited risks, in most forms, psychedelics are illegal or highly restricted, despite compounds like psilocybin, LSD and dimethyltryptamine (DMT) having a superior safety profile to alcohol. And each of these drugs — along with ketamine, which is legal but tightly regulated — have a massive and growing canon of peer-reviewed studies demonstrating their safety and efficacy.
The pandemic’s intense emotional experiences of isolation, fear and division amplified the conversation about mental health, and there’s an urgent need for innovative solutions to this kind of uniquely painful, but all-too-common suffering. Here are just a few examples of the promise shown by psychotherapeutics:
Ketamine: a powerful tranquilizer and painkiller with psychedelic effects, ketamine has emerged as a wonder drug for mental health issues including treatment-resistant depression as a nasal spray, and shows promise for a range of addictions.
Psilocybin: Derived from mushrooms, psilocybin is proving to be a powerful tool in fighting major depression, and other issues including anxiety, trauma, substance abuse and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. The most likely drug to be legalized in the short term, it’s legal in Oregon and potentially soon, California.
LSD: From the 1950’s until the 1970’s, LSD was gaining acclaim for its ability to treat alcoholism and other mental health issues, with ground-breaking research conducted at the University of Saskatchewan. After decades of prohibition, LSD is being revisited as a highly successful treatment for substance abuse, depression, and PTSD.
DMT: Considered the most intense psychedelic compound, recent research has verified the long-held belief that DMT is made endogenously in the human body and contributes to things like dream states. Filled with amazing therapeutic potential, DMT functionally “resets” the depressed brain and causes the rapid growth of new neurons. It’s being trialed for psychiatric disorders, stroke damage and cognitive problems like memory loss.
There are many others, including MDMA (Ecstasy), and traditional Indigenous plant medicines like peyote and ayahuasca, the latter of which is a natural source of DMT but also has its own unique properties.
While I currently microdose with 1P-LSD, I’ve also tried this protocol with psilocybin and have experimented with a number of legal “nootropic” — or brain enhancing — substances like phenylpiracetam. The most dramatic benefits from psychedelics are found at larger and more active doses, but for maintaining my wellbeing, microdosing works for me.
To be clear — I’m not recommending that other people do anything illegal in this article or advising any psychedelic use based on my own individual experiences.
However, I do believe that the potential of psychotherapeutics is beyond doubt, and that adults should have the right to determine their own roadmap to healing from traumas and mental health challenges. Psychedelics should be legal and accessible, just like cannabis — and we need to support more research to fully develop their clinical applications.
The tide is slowly starting to turn. In January, Health Canada started permitting physicians to request treatments like LSD and psylocibin on a case-by-case basis for their patients, a landmark movement towards wider access.
This builds on the progress made last year by TheraPsil, an impressively dedicated coalition of medical professionals and health advocates in BC, who finally received approval to treat a small group of patients with psilocybin for anxiety during one of the most acutely challenging times in life — near its end.
While we’re still at the very early stages, Canada has also licensed Vancouver-based Numinus Wellness to conduct trials on MDMA, ketamine, psilocybin and LSD for mental health issues like addiction. Venture capital is flowing into psychedelics, a positive sign of a market on the cusp of a breakthrough.
I’m passionate about this topic because when I take my microdose, I’m acutely aware of how lucky I am to be able to access this difficult-to-find treatment — one that has been so transformative for my experiences of daily life. Not having to manage through episodes of crippling anxiety, or chronic, low-grade worry, is incredibly liberating.
One in three Canadians experience mental illness in their lifetime, with a dramatic rise in cases of depression and anxiety over the pandemic. It’s tragic that misguided stigma is preventing access to treatments that, while they may not work for everyone, have proven benefits for so many.
Through raising awareness of the healing power of psychedelics and sharing experiences, that stigma will gradually fall away, and more people will have the ability and confidence to explore these types of evidence-based alternative therapies on their path to healing.
I think that’s a future we’re more than ready to explore.
