“We need to know more about it.”
That’s what Indiana House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) said this week about medical marijuana, which state lawmakers say they will “study” before convening next year.
It’s turning into an annual tease. Some naively hopeful and/or masochistic legislator writes a medicinal weed bill, leadership hints they’re “softening” on the issue, and we all stand by while it rots on the vine.
Maybe one day they’ll actually pass something. But while they’re studying the medical benefits of now-illegal drugs, there’s no reason they should stop at marijuana.
Why not take a look at LSD?
I know, I know. There’s no way turbo-conservative legislators will push for the legalization of acid. They’re more likely to offer a full-throated endorsement of bestiality.
But according to a book by prominent author Michael Pollan that came out this week, they might want to rethink their positions.
In “How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addition, Depression, and Transcendence,” Pollan chronicles his own guided trips on psychedelics from LSD to psilocybin (mushrooms) to 5-MEO-DMT: the smoked venom of a desert toad.
He’s been pinging across every media platform imaginable over the last couple days. He told Stephen Colbert and NPR’s Terry Gross about how psilocybin helped him “dissolve” his ego and reduce anxiety. That there's a person beyond the fabricated identity we’ve created for ourselves.
And he braved a giggly interview with NPR and ABC News’ David Wright, in which Wright interrupted him every few seconds to make cracks about the Grateful Dead and Ken Kesey.
His own swims in psychotropic waters aren’t the main point of the book, though. These drugs, he says, can help everyone from cancer patients to depression sufferers to opioid addicts.
That last part should interest Indiana lawmakers. Vanderburgh County alone saw 40 opioid overdose deaths in 2017. And overdoses on all types of drugs spiked in Indiana last year. From October 2016 to October 2017, the state saw 1,841 deaths.
A study in the Journal of Psychopharmacology found that psychedelics could lower opioid abuse by as much as 40 percent. The only drug with a higher success rate? You guessed it: marijuana.
One Pollan tidbit that’s grabbed attention on his press tour is a revelation about Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. Wilson partially credits his sobriety to the hallucinogen belladonna. And he once begged the AA board to wedge LSD somewhere inside the 12 steps. In the end, the board didn’t think dropping acid jived with sobriety.
That’s a common argument against medical marijuana, too. How can you get people off drugs by giving them more drugs?
But, of course, we do that all the time. Pharmaceuticals are our answer for everything. We hand methadone to addicts and a whole parade of pills to people suffering from mental illness. LSD or mushrooms could just join the procession.
“One way to think about that is, it’s not the drug that’s having the useful effect for the addict,” Pollan told The Ringer about psychedelics. “It’s the experience that the drug is giving them.”
That experience has already helped cancer patients. Studies at New York University and Johns Hopkins found that only one trip can significantly lower depression and anxiety among sufferers for several months afterward, the New York Times reported.
And “micro-dosing” has become a trendy treatment for anxiety and depression – a day-glo end-around from anti-depressants.
Toad venom and its ilk aren’t for everyone, of course. Pollan said drugs such as psilocybin could do more harm than good for some, including schizophrenics or people suffering from bipolar disorder.
And he stressed that trips should be guided, just as some were back in the 1950s and ’60s. That a medical professional should hang around to make sure the user doesn’t wither under the manifestation of whatever subconscious terror awaits. If you hallucinate a door, he says, go through it. If you see a monster, talk to it.
A doctor called into Pollan’s interview with Wright on Wednesday to explain what he learned when he went on a trip of his own. More than anything, he said, it taught him that he should love his patients and exude empathy toward his fellow human beings.
I can’t think of a single thing wrong with that. I’m sure there are plenty of legislators who can, though.
Pollan believes a push from the medical community could make it possible for doctors to start prescribing psychedelics to their patients within five years.
That’s probably wildly optimistic for Indiana. But maybe legislators should start studying just in case.