A Brief American History

As we dove into this issue’s theme of Mirage it was hard not to find ourselves coming back to the illusory effects of psychedelics. Noah Dow gives us an American perspective on Psilocybin, a naturally-occurring psychedelic found in certain fungus species, charting changing attitudes over the decades. With much of our culture and politics influenced by the US, we can only wonder if policy will take a similar path here downunder.   

Words By Noah Dow

This past week, Oregon became the first state in the United States to legalise psilocybin. While a handful of cities in the U.S. decriminalised the drug, Oregon is the first entire state to do so, as well as the first place to introduce it therapeutically.

​According to the new law, each psilocybin session will have to be led by a registered guide. The guided therapy will have three parts: an interview before taking the drug, the session with the psilocybin and an integration meeting to begin to sort out what happened. Part of the state’s two-year developmental phase will be determining who guides can be and how the mushrooms will be grown. The bill does not allow production, purchase or consumption of psilocybin outside of approved settings.

​With the passage of this law, Oregon places itself at the vanguard of change to drug policy in the United States. Oregon also voted this year to decriminalise possession of up to one gram of heroin, forty hits of LSD, two grams of cocaine, one gram of MDMA, two grams of methamphetamine and up to twelve grams of psilocybin. People caught with these drugs will be given a fine comparable to a parking ticket.

Oregon’s newly progressive drug policy is entirely at odds with the federal government’s drug policy. In the past decade, many American states have moved forward with decriminalising drugs, mostly marijuana.

In fact, currently all but two states have either a fully legal recreational marijuana program or some form of medical marijuana program. Yet marijuana remains classified as a Schedule I drug, which means it’s considered to be highly addictive and without medical use. ​

 ​The current American president-elect, Joe Biden, has spoken about decriminalising drugs. But with part of the government controlled by the opposition party, how this will be done remains to be seen. And this schism in the government further points to how the history of drug policy in the U.S. has been defined as much by cultural opinion as by science or measured policy.

​Over the course of the 20th century, federal drug policy in the United States has been wildly inconsistent. At different points in the century, cocaine, marijuana, LSD, and psilocybin have all been legal. It was only in 1970 that conservative U.S. President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act making marijuana, LSD and psilocybin so-called “Schedule I” drugs. Decades later, a key Nixon adviser admitted that the administration’s drug policy had been meant to marginalise certain voter blocs, namely the left and African-Americans.

​In Los Angeles, in the 1950s, a group of psychiatrists were using psychedelics in their therapy. They referred to the drugs as “psycholytics,” a term which meant mind-loosening. These researchers believed that “psycholytics” allowed patients to access their subconscious. This research found that LSD, specifically, was greatly helpful for treating alcoholism, depression and anxiety. However, the drug began to slip from the labs to parties, much to the discomfort of these researchers and the more fearful general public.

​One figure who championed the introduction of psychedelics to the public was Timothy Leary. Leary and Richard Alpert, who later would be known as Ram Dass, were both psychology professors at Harvard University. While at Harvard, the pair began the Harvard Psilocybin Project, studying the effects of psychedelics upon the human mind. But when complaints came to the university about students being given psilocybin, Leary and Alpert were fired. Leary, who was frequently arrested for drug possession, became a both pop-culture icon and counterculture hero. His oft-quoted message of “turn on, tune in, drop out” frightened the American establishment. American president Richard Nixon proclaimed Leary to be “the most dangerous man in America.”

Despite the fear and misrepresentation since Richard Nixon’s administration, the past two decades have seen a renaissance in the medical and scientific study of psychedelics in the United States. Researchers, most notably at Johns Hopkins Medical School, have been diligently studying the therapeutic uses of these compounds. A 2006 paper from Johns Hopkins specifically reignited the field of study. Then, in 2019, the Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research opened. It is one of the first research centres in the world solely dedicated to the study of psychedelics.

​With the work ongoing at Johns Hopkins and with the recent vote in Oregon, a new understanding of the role of psychedelics in American culture appears to be underway. From the sober research of the 1950s to the vivid expression of the 1960s and to the bitter regulation of the 1970s and back, psychedelics have been given a variety of identities. Perhaps with these recent developments the cultural discourse around psychedelics may yet shift from prejudice to possibility.