Scientific American MIND

OPINION Yes, Make Psychedelics Legally Available, but Don’t Forget the Risks Psychedelics have psychological and spiritual benefits, as a new best seller claims, but they’re far from a panacea By John Horgan GETTY IMAGES PERY BURGE 41 ast spring, I descended into the base- my investigation of psychedelics, medita- Pollan serves as an ideal guide, especial- ment of a suburban home with two tion and other mystical technologies (and ly for those who are curious about magic Ldozen people and swilled fluid from I’ll tell you my answer below). That same mushrooms and LSD but haven’t dared try a plastic cup. It was ayahuasca, a tea brewed year, 2003, I proposed in Slate that psyche- them. Far from being a thrill-seeker, Pollan from two South American plants, which delics be dispensed by “licensed therapists, is nervous about psychedelics’ ill effects— contains the psychedelic compound di- who can screen clients for mental instability with good reason, because he’s had heart methyltryptamine, DMT. and advise them on how to make their expe- trouble. He’s an atheist skeptical of all su- Ayahuasca has the viscosity of spit, it riences as rewarding as possible.” pernatural claims, but he’s also curious and tastes like beer dregs into which someone This scenario seemed far-fetched at the open-minded. And he’s an exceptionally has dropped a cigar, and it is nauseating, time, but it is looking a lot more likely late- clear writer, even when describing experi- literally. Our guides gave each of us a plas- ly. One reason is that researchers have con- ences that defy description. He reminds me tic pail in case we vomited (which I did). tinued producing evidence of psychedelics’ of another hyper-rational explorer of spiri- The brew induces visions that can be bliss- psychological and spiritual benefits. Per- tuality, Robert Wright, author of last year’s ful, excruciating, terrifying, sometimes all haps more important, journalist Michael best seller Why Buddhism Is True. at once. As our guides played music and Pollan—author of the best sellers The Bota- Pollan recounts the discovery of LSD’s sang, we groaned, retched, cried, laughed, ny of Desire and The Omnivore’s Dilemma— effects by chemist Albert Hofmann in stared open-mouthed into space, retched has become an advocate of the drugs. 1943, the subsequent surge of scientific again. A young man beside me oscillated Pollan wrote a surprisingly enthusiastic interest in psychedelics and the backlash between giggles and sobs. We each paid article about psychedelics for The New York- against them in the 1960s, often blamed $200 for this experience, which lasted about er in 2015. That was a preview of his new on aggressive proselytizing by psycholo- five hours. best seller How to Change Your Mind: What gist-turned-guru Timothy Leary. This his- Why, you might ask, would anyone in his the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us tory provides the backdrop for Pollan’s in- right mind want to do this? I raised this about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, De- vestigation of sanctioned studies at uni- question 15 years ago in Rational Mysticism, pression, and Transcendence. I’m a fan of versities in the U.S. and Europe and of the psychedelic literature, including the writ- underworld of psychedelic psychotherapy. ings of Aldous Huxley, Terence McKenna To supplement this third-person re- John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at the and Alexander and Ann Shulgin, but I hav- porting, Pollan ingests psilocybin, LSD Stevens Institute of Technology. His books include The End of en’t read a more eloquent defense of psy- and ayahuasca and smokes toad venom Science and The End of War. chedelics than How to Change Your Mind. (which like ayahuasca contains DMT). 42 Drug tales are often tedious, but Pollan’s ports on a psychedelic-research meeting *Far from making you wiser and nicer, accounts of his trips are my favorite parts attended by Thomas Insel, former head of psychedelics can make you an arrogant, of his book. He doesn’t see the God he the National Institute of Mental Health. In- narcissistic jerk. It can be hard distinguish- doesn’t believe in, but he is fascinated by sel was impressed by evidence of psyche- ing an ego that has vanished from one that what happens to his self. “Of all the phe- delics’ mental-health benefits but warned has expanded to infinity. As Pollan notes of nomenological effects that people on psy- researchers, “Don’t screw it up!” Timothy Leary, “It is one of the many para- chedelics report,” he writes, “the dissolu- Pollan seems to have taken this message doxes of psychedelics that these drugs can tion of the ego seems to me by far the most to heart. He could have derailed the psy- sponsor an ego-dissolving experience that important and therapeutic.” chedelic movement by being too critical or in some people leads to massive ego infla- We see ourselves and the world more evangelical, so he finds a sensible middle tion.” This problem plagues Buddhism and clearly, Pollan suggests, as our fears, de- ground between these extremes. He rec- other spiritual paths, too. sires and self-absorption diminish. (Wright, ommends not total legalization but a re- I spent a lot of time hanging out with in Why Buddhism Is True, makes the same gime in which people take psychedelics psychedelicists while researching Rational claim about meditation.) Pollan felt more with a trained guide. This is essentially the Mysticism and for a while thereafter. I start- compassionate and attuned to nature’s same scheme I advocated in 2003. ed pulling back from this community be- wonders after his trips, and less anxious Like Pollan, I hope to see the day when cause some members struck me as self-righ- about death. “After a month or so, it was people can take psychedelics safely and le- teous zealots. And as Pollan points out, pretty much back to baseline,” he adds with gally, especially given the limits of current psychedelics boost suggestibility—or, to typical candor. “But not quite, not com- treatments for mental illness. I nonethe- put it less kindly, gullibility, which means pletely.” He can recapture feelings of less have misgivings about the populariza- that trippers are susceptible to bizarre self-transcendence in meditation, and he tion of psychedelics, misgivings that I sus- claims, such as apocalyptic predictions. realizes that “the mind is vaster, and the pect Pollan shares. Here they are: *As William James notes in The Varieties world ever so much more alive, than I knew *Just as most meditation researchers be- of Religious Experiences, mystical experi- when I began.” lieve in meditation, so most psychedelic ences can be hellish as well as heavenly. Af- His trips, plus the growing peer-re- researchers believe in psychedelics. In oth- ter a wild trip in 1981, I suffered from de- viewed literature, have convinced Pollan er words, psychedelic science, like most pression and frightening flashbacks for that psychedelics can help the mentally fields, is rife with bias (although probably months. Supervision can’t eliminate the troubled and enhance the lives of the less than, say, psychiatric-drug research risk of hellish trips. As I note in Rational healthy. Toward the end of his book, he re- funded by the pharmaceutical industry). Mysticism, in the early 1990s psychiatrist 43 Rick Strassman injected DMT into 60 vol- just to find a little happiness! We live in par- 1994). Just as important, Richards seeks to unteers, and almost half experienced “ad- adise, but we can’t see it, because we’re so render their adverse effects innocuous. verse effects,” including terrifying halluci- trapped in our petty schemes and troubles. Contrary to the universal practice of ex- nations of “aliens” that took the shape of But these feelings lacked force. They cluding prepsychotic or formerly psychotic robots, insects or reptiles. [See Addendum.] seemed familiar, even trite, like postcards individuals from psychedelic drug admin- Why, given these misgivings, did I take from old trips. Within a few days, I was as istration studies, he casually suggests that ayahuasca recently? Well, I just finished a self-absorbed as ever. I think I’ve gotten psychedelics may actually help such peo- book on the mind-body problem (which I what I can from psychedelics, so I’m going ple. Psychedelics may hasten their entry plan to self-publish online soon), and I’ve to try something more dramatic, a silent into treatment (through precipitating a been feeling restless. I wanted a jolt, meditation retreat. No talking for eight psychotic break?) or prevent psychosis something to knock me out of my cogni- days, no phone, laptop, email, Twitter, Face- through uncovering relevant psychic con- tive rut. My best trips have helped me book, Kindle, New York Times. I’m much flicts (p. 185).” M see—really see—life’s jaw-dropping im- more nervous than I was before my aya- probability, which I like to call “the weird- huasca session. My digital self feels more ness.” I wanted to glimpse the weirdness real to me lately than my flesh-and-blood again. When I heard about a local ayahuas- self. When I’m disconnected from the Inter- ca session, I signed up. net, will I still exist? We were a diverse bunch, black and white, Addendum: Strassman has accused oth- young and old, male and female. At the beer researchers of inappropriately down- ginning of the session, we expressed our playing psychedelics’ risks. See for exam- hopes for the evening. We wanted to heal ple his stinging review of a 2016 book by old wounds, to feel less fear and anger and psychologist William Richards, who is as- self-loathing and more happiness and love.

Load more