A milestone in the burgeoning psychedelic renaissance happened on Tuesday night in Oakland, California: the city council passed a resolution decriminalizing all naturally-occurring psychedelic drugs. This doesn’t merely include the much-celebrated psilocybin found in ‘magic mushrooms’. It also includes peyote (mescaline), ayahuasca (DMT), iboga, among others. They’re what are known as “entheogenic” plants, of which you can find a surprisingly comprehensive list on Wikipedia.
This is astounding, and far bigger news than Denver’s recent decriminalization of magic mushrooms. Oakland’s is an admission of the insanity of enforcing the prohibition of plants, particularly plants that have the power to heal psychological wounds that have thus far proven resistant to treatment. That power is in the evidence: psilocybin has an 80% percent success rate in smoking cessation among life-time smokers. No other substance known to man comes anywhere close. MDMA, while not on the list of approved psychedelics in Oakland yet, successfully treats post-traumatic stress disorder without bringing the baggage that other anti-depressants such as Zoloft are known to have.
While decriminalization is a far cry from out-and-out legalization, it’s a colossal first step. Even ‘colossal’ is an understatement. We are on the verge of a pharmacological awakening. The very word “drugs”, ironically used pejoratively during the Golden Age of insanity-inducing anti-depressants and anti-psychotics, will take on a new meaning.
The near future: ‘You used drugs? From which plant source?’
Big Pharma’s poison pill racket will die a swift death, and it will be exhilarating to watch. No longer will those who walk around with depression, PTSD, or any other Pharma-categorized label become a victim of a prescription medication that will either drive them insane or numb them into perpetual somnambulism. They will liberate themselves “from the Bastille of their psychosis” with an evolutionary gift from the natural world.
This future is inevitable. The only bet now is which community will be next.
