Tracking: Psychedelic Therapies

Photo by Pretty Drugthings on Unsplash

For several years I’ve been tracking the story of how psychedelic drugs are becoming mainstream therapies. So yesterday’s New York Times article, “How MDMA and Psilocybin Became Hot Investments,” caught my attention. Universities, start-ups, and research organizations are attracting serious money to test psychedelic drugs as treatments for such conditions as depression and anxiety. I began following this story after two decades of ministering to people with addictions and mental health challenges. I’ve watched people use drugs to become entrepreneurial Supersoldiers. I have lived among those portrayed in Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, casualties of the opioid epidemic. I also watched the distrust of the medical establishment intensify long before COVID-19 — the sense that activists are masquerading as researchers, whether the issue is ADHD or gender identity. The developing story of psychedelics encompasses all of these issues. You should track it too. It portends new directions in our Brave New World dystopia, where people are increasingly desperate to find the emotional strength to live.