Will Psychedelics Save Us? Nah

I found this groovy image on a site announcing discussion of the topic, “Psychedelic Utopias: Where did the 60s go wrong?” Good question. One answer is that capitalism turns everything to shit.

February 17, 2024. I’ve met too many acid heads who are assholes or fools or both to buy the idea that psychedelics can save us.

I’m an old acid head myself. I cherish my trips, even the scary ones. Psychedelics have helped me see—really see—the weirdness of the world. But they have also estranged me from other people, and from myself. These drugs can fuck you up.

Enthusiasts nonetheless assure us that psychedelics can boost our well-being, individually and collectively. That is, the drugs can make us mentally and spiritually healthier so we live more harmoniously with each other and with nature.

See for example this 2021 interview with Rick Doblin, founder of MAPS, the Multi-Disciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which sponsors research and conferences on psychedelics and opposes bans on the drugs. Doblin foresees a day when psychedelics help us overcome environmental destruction, economic inequality and war by fostering “mass mental health” and “global thinking.”

Let me push back against this claim.

Will psychedelics make us less greedy and capitalistic? Nah.

Timothy Leary, the pied piper of acid, urged my generation to turn on, tune in and drop out of the capitalist rat race. His advice seems funny today, as for-profit companies race to monetize psychedelics.

According to a recent analysis, pharmaceutical giants like Janssen and Pfizer are investing in psychedelics, as well as startups liked Atai Life Sciences, which is backed by billionaire Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel. Lobbyists are urging lawmakers to relax prohibitions against psychedelics.

“Wall Street’s sudden exuberance for hallucinogens,” The Associated Press reports, “has rankled longtime advocates and philanthropists, who dreamed of making low-cost psychedelics widely available for mental health and personal growth. Instead, many now see a very different future for drugs like psilocybin and LSD: as expensive, specialty medications controlled by a handful of biotech companies.”

The potential market for psychedelic therapies is huge, given the limits of conventional psychiatric medications. The catch is that psychedelic therapies, if approved by the FDA, will probably be expensive, because to minimize risks and maximize profits the drugs will be administered in clinics in supervised sessions.

That is already the case with ketamine. Doctors can prescribe ketamine, which the FDA has approved as an anesthetic, for “off-label” purposes. National Public Radio reports that as many as 750 ketamine clinics offering treatment for depression and other disorders have sprung up across the U.S.; a single ketamine session costs as much as $1,000, which insurers typically do not cover.

Will psychedelics revolutionize mental health care? Nah.

Mad in America, a nonprofit that critiques “the drug-based paradigm” for treating mental illness, has challenged claims that psychedelics will revolutionize mental-health care. In “Psychedelics—The New Psychiatric Craze,” psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, after sifting through the many claims made for psychedelics, concludes that they are powerful placebos. “The drug-induced experience,” she notes, “will lead people to expect that they will improve, and this expectancy may, in turn, cause them to improve, or at least to think they have improved.”

Indeed, there is still little rigorous evidence--beyond personal testimonials and small, poorly controlled trials--that psychedelics produce enduring mental-health benefits. Ketamine, which has been implicated in the death of actor Matthew Perry, has failed to beat a placebo as a treatment for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Then there are adverse effects. Journalist Ed Prideaux notes that he and others suffer from persistent, disturbing hallucinations, or “flashbacks,” triggered by trips. The “toxic positivity” of the pro-psychedelic community, Prideaux contends, discourages frank discussion of harmful effects.

Last year, an oped in JAMA Psychiatry urged that more attention be paid to harmful effects of psychedelic therapy, including abuse of patients during therapy and increased risk of suicide and psychosis afterward. It’s worth recalling that back in the 1950s, many psychiatrists saw LSD as a psychotomimetic, that is, a generator of psychotic states.

Will psychedelics promote progressive values? Nah. Sociologist Ross Ellenhorn and writer Dmitri Mugianis report in The Guardian that lots of un-woke folk favor psychedelics, ranging from Jordan Peterson and Steve Bannon to Republican congressmen Matt Gaetz and Dan Crenshaw. The Mercer Foundation, which funds climate-change skepticism and other conservative causes, has donated to MAPS.

In “Right-Wing Psychedelia,” scholars Brian Pace and Nese Devenot challenge the claim that psychedelics promote “increased environmental concern and liberal politics.” Many users, Pace and Devenot contend, “have remained authoritarian in their views after taking psychedelics or became radicalized after extensive experience with them.”

See also this paper by Devenot, in which she worries that “global tech elites are instrumentalizing both psychedelics and artificial intelligence (AI) as tools in a broader world-building project that justifies increasing material inequality.” My translation: We could be headed toward a hyper-capitalist, libertarian Brave New World overseen by micro-dosing, AI-empowered tech bros like Elon Musk and Google cofounder Sergey Brin.

Will psychedelics help end war? Nah. Hippies once hoped war would end if everyone dropped acid. Now, politicians on the left and right are hailing psychedelics as treatments for soldiers suffering from combat-related injuries. Congress recently provided funds to the Veterans Administration for research on psychedelic therapy for soldiers suffering from PTSD and depression.

MAPS is facilitating treatment of Ukrainian soldiers with the plant-based hallucinogen ibogaine, journalist Ryan Grim reports in the progressive magazine The Intercept; a leader of the Ukraine project suggests that ibogaine can improve soldiers’ “combat readiness.”

So rather than ending war, psychedelics will help warriors fight more effectively and return to battle faster when they’re injured. Firms investing in psychedelics surely salivate at the thought of slurping at the trough of the U.S. defense budget.

Don’t forget that during the Cold War, the U.S. military sought to weaponize psychedelics, exploring their potential for incapacitating enemies (see this funny 1963 film showing British soldiers dosed with LSD) and rendering them more amenable to interrogation.

Finally, remember that infamous cult leader Charles Manson plied his hippy devotees with LSD before they murdered nine people in 1969. My takeaway from the Manson murders--and the whole sordid history of psychedelic research--is that these drugs, instead of enlightening us, can make us susceptible to manipulation by unscrupulous jerks.

Do I think the progressive paradise envisioned by Rick Doblin is a pipe dream? Not at all. Like Doblin, I believe we can create a more just, green, peaceful world. I just don’t think we can trip our way to utopia.

Further Reading:

For accounts of two of my trips, see Tripping in LSD's Birthplace: A Tale for Bicycle Day and What Is It Like to Be God? See also my book Rational Mysticism, which goes deep into the pros and cons of psychedelics.