Regulating Psychedelics Will Require More Studies And Better Public Policy
We’re right smack in the middle of a psychedelic revolution, and there is serious interest in psychedelics most especially for its ability to treat several major conditions that are resistant to conventional medications. The interest is only growing, and so is the list of conditions that psychedelics may be able to treat.
But we can’t deny that we need to have more conversations and studies about psychedelics. We also need to discuss how it’s going to be regulated in a retail market, especially one where cannabis is already legal and the marketplace is thriving.
Which Psychedelics Can You Buy These Days?
Magic mushrooms or psilocybin mushrooms, the most popular and accessible of all psychedelics, are already quite accessible in much of North America. Psilocybin mushrooms can be purchased raw or dried. They are also widely consumed in processed form: made into chocolates, capsules, and tea.
Other common psychedelics include LSD or acid, ketamine, MDMA, and peyote. Some are more challenging to access than others. That said, how do we decide who gets to sell them and where? Several cannabis dispensaries and head shops are also selling psychedelics though we have to keep in mind that the legalization and laws differ for these two classes of drugs. They can also easily be purchased online or in the black market.
The ideal scenario would be to have specialized psychedelic medicine dispensaries where individuals can obtain their hallucinogenic medication of choice. Consumers and patients will also need to have doctors on board who can get them prescriptions in the first place. And before that…
Following In The Footsteps Of Cannabis….
Much like how cannabis legalization spread throughout North America, resulting in the growth of thousands of dispensaries and massive weed businesses and conglomerates alongside it, a few things need to happen first.
Of course, psychedelics must be decriminalized and legalized. There have already been some cities/counties and states that have paved the way for decriminalizing psychedelics. Denver became the very first city in the United States to do so back in 2019, followed by Colorado. Meanwhile, Oregon made strides as the first state to ever legalize psilocybin in 2020. Given the popularity of these substances today, we’ll likely see an even greater demand to legalize these drugs in the near future – which will be critical for spreading public acceptance and thus, dispensary establishment.
While we already do have several solid studies from investigators in the United States as well as in other parts of the globe, we still need much more ongoing research especially on the impact of psychedelics on depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental health conditions. Additionally, we need a better understanding of psychedelics and what it can do for our physical health too. And just like cannabis, the subject of dosage will require a more thorough understanding and significantly more research.
The Role Of Government And Public Policy
As of late, most policy reforms have been too focused on expanding legal access as well as research. However, we also need to work on very specific policy changes so that we can mitigate negative events such as backlash in case the market is exposed to several major negative occurrences related to psychedelics.
That’s why we must also have guidance and support from the business community so that the economy will benefit from the legalization of psychedelics as well as the growth of dispensaries.
According to RAND, a major think tank that has been influential in the field of government policy, it will be critical to have the support of the federal government. RAND published a report last year entitled, How To Regulate Psychedelics, and it’s one of the first and biggest research papers ever written to delve deeper into how a retail psychedelic market would look like.
“The federal government currently has multiple options when it comes to the supply of psychedelics, but it does not have unlimited time,” says the report. “Now is the time for US federal policymakers to decide whether they want psilocybin and other psychedelic substances to follow in the footsteps of the for-profit cannabis model,” the report reads.
The report also points out that people consume psychedelics and cannabis in different ways. For this reason, we shouldn’t be comparing the decriminalization of cannabis to that of psychedelics. One of the ways the two differ in consumption is that people don’t consume psychedelics nearly as often as cannabis; whereas many people can smoke weed daily, consumers are infrequent at best when it comes to psychedelics.
“A major takeaway from our analyses is the extent to which infrequent users drive the market for psychedelics,” wrote the authors. “For cannabis, it is negligible: Those who reported using five or fewer days in the past month account for about 5 percent of the total use days in the past month. For psychedelics, that figure is closer to 60 percent.”
Conclusion
We can only hope that government officials aren’t going to put out the fires of psychedelics. It’s an extremely exciting field medically and scientifically because the world needs new options for treating different diseases which psychedelics have been shown to be successful in treating.
We should also remember that psychedelics is not a one-size-fits-all solution; while they do work very well for some people, some have had little benefit. This is why it’s important to reinstate the importance of clinical trials that require several rounds of treatment. That, along with new laws that will help regulate psychedelics while improving access and decreasing costs, are all sorely needed by the general public right now.
At the very least, even if psychedelics and cannabis are extremely different, we can at least start by regulating psychedelics the way we do cannabis. Baby steps – but we’re getting there.
END ALCOHOLISM WITH SHROOMS, MAYBE, READ ON...
