The Revolution of Canadian Psychiatry: An examination of how ps…

Mental illness is one of the most pervasive issues in Canada, which recently spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulating a national mental health crisis. Health services are flailing under the influx of mental illness throughout the country and Canada is desperate for progressive approaches towards pharmacological advancements. Ongoing research has found that the medicinal properties of psychedelics are effective for treating a vast spectrum of psychiatric disorders associated with mental illness. The contents of this paper will promote the legalized medicalization of psychedelics. I will explore psychedelics from a medical and humanitarian perspective by providing a brief overview of humanity’s interaction with psychedelics throughout history and a scientific analysis of their psychoactive properties. Despite the alarming uproar stimulated by psychedelics during the counterculture movement that left an irrational trail of skepticism, the medicinal qualities of. these drugs are effective in resolving mental disorders, which will improve the well-being of society and help salvage Canada’s slouching economy. I will prove my thesis by presenting reliable information from published research found in books, articles, podcasts, and documentaries. The resources that I use will be cited in an APA format with in-text citations and a reference page that clearly demonstrates where all of my information is coming from. This paper will prove that, despite political turmoil cultivated by artificial constructs that promote war on drugs, medicalizing psychedelics and integrating them into mainstream psychiatry will revolutionize Canadian health care by providing a solution to Canada’s mental health crisis.

Naturally occurring psychedelic substances found in psilocybin have healing abilities that can treat and prevent an array of psychiatric disorders contributing to Canada’s mental health crisis. These hallucinogenic drugs are capable of altering thought patterns that contribute to fatal mental illnesses. The New York Times explains that “psychedelics can be effective in treating everything from depression, autism and opioid addiction to anorexia and the anxieties experienced by the terminally ill” (Jacobs, 2021). With these findings, it is apparent that psychedelic substances could play a crucial role in pharmacology and the treatment of mental illness. Various other medical substances readily available for treatment do not compare to the mind altering abilities of psychedelics. Where other treatment options brush the surface of psychiatric disorders, Professor Robin Carhart-Harris, Neuropsychopharmacologist, believes that “Psychedelic therapy is getting to the core of different psychiatric disorders” (Gibney et al., 2022). Getting to the source of the problem is crucial for resolving a national mental health crisis. Canadian pharmacology is desperate for the solutions that psychedelic substances can provide. Despite the criminalization of psychedelic substances in the 70s, global knowledge of the substance has grown immensely, and, with the modern apprehension of the mind altering abilities of this hallucinogen, medicalizing psychedelic substances would alleviate Canada’s national mental health crisis.

Psychedelics have been used throughout humankind for their medicinal qualities in traditional healing practices and rituals. According to VICE, “Mushrooms containing psilocybin are found across most ecological zones on all continents aside from Antarctica.” (Busby, 2022). Even though psychedelics seem foreign in a society where they have been criminalized for the past few decades, they’ve had a prevalent impact on our ancestry. Psychedelics, with their evolutionary healing abilities and mind altering properties, have been used for thousands of years that date back far beyond the West’s amateur idea of psychedelia culture (Government of Canada, 2023). A widespread hypothesis suggests that “consumption of psychedelic fungi by foraging great apes could explain the mysterious tripling of the size of the human brain over the course of homo sapiens’ evolution during the development of consciousness” (Busby, 2022). This statement elucidates the impact that psychedelia could have had on anthropology and human development. And even if psychedelics didn’t contribute to our evolution, it is no doubt that “Psychedelic plants and fungi have been used in indigenous medicinal traditions for millennia” (Doblin et al., 2019), proving that they have held substantial value to various cultures throughout human history.

Maria Sabina introduced the medicinal values of psychedelics to the West. She was known as the “world famous Mazatec Shaman,” and used psilocybin as ancestral medicine in the remote town of Huautla de Jimenez throughout the 20th century (Busby, 2022). The Mazatec community used psilocybin as a spiritual agent to bring out its medicinal properties and healing qualities. VICE expands on this concept by explaining that the “Mazatec community have long used psychedelic fungi for connection with the divine and to cure spiritual and emotional blockages which manifest as tensions believed to be the root of physical ailments” (Busby, 2022). Maria Sabina shared her knowledge of psilocybin with “an amateur mycologist, Gordon Wasson, [who] became the first modern westerner to document an indigenous did xi tó – psychedelic mushroom in the Mazatec language – ceremony, back in 1955” (Busby, 2022). Wasson was fascinated by the cultural significance of psychedelic mushrooms and went on to publish an article about his experiences in an issue in Life magazine in 1957 (Busby, 2022). Wasson’s publication ultimately led to “the widespread introduction of psychopharmaceuticals” (Dyck, 2019) and the study of “psychedelic-assisted therapy” (Tupper et al., 2015) in the 1950s and 60s. Gordon Wasson encouraged Western popular culture to embrace psychedelics for its medicinal properties.

Introducing psychedelic substances to the West in the 20th century induced a plethora of radical research throughout the 50s and 60s regarding the effects of psychedelic substances. Wasson’s article about psychedelic mushrooms encouraged the research of psychopharmaceuticals. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Anti-depressant, anti-psychotic and anti-anxiety medications poured onto the market during this decade. They made it possible to imagine new ways of managing illness. There was great optimism that psychopharmaceuticals would transform mental health care” (Dyck, 2019). Wasson’s article in Life magazine also greatly influenced the psychedelic movement by inspiring Harvard professor, Timothy Leary, to start the Harvard Psilocybin Project. The Harvard Psilocybin Project documented the effects psychedelics have “on human consciousness by administering it to volunteer subjects and recording their real-time descriptions of the experience.” (Harvard University). As a psychologist, Leary conducted research on how “cognition, perception, and emotion are affected by mind-altering substances” (Harvard University). However, the study was critiqued for its “unorthodox methodology” and “the Harvard Psilocybin Project came to an abrupt end” (Harvard University). Consequently, regulations on experimental research with psychedelic substances became much more restrictive, to the point of seriously hindering modern understandings of hallucinogens.

Even though psychedelics were introduced to the West as psychopharmaceuticals, they quickly transformed into major protagonists of the counterculture movement. Before their popularization in Western culture, psychedelics were preserved for “certain occasions, surrounded by ritual and with a clear intention. There was nothing casual about it” (Pollan, 2019). However, the over casualization of these psychoactive drugs proliferated into an immense drug abuse problem throughout North America. The criminalization of psychedelic substances was stimulated by the “Tune in, Turn On, Drop Out” movement and psychedelics became known as “a drug that caused people to reject authority” (Dyck, 2019). Psychedelic substances were popularized throughout the younger generation and there became a “strong popular association between psychedelics and counterculture” (Dyck, 2019). This association threatened the medical research that was being conducted on psychedelic drugs at the time. According to The Canadian Encyclopedia, “Anti-drug campaigns further cemented an image of LSD as dangerous, with the idea that it permanently changed brain chemistry or triggered psychosis” and “Research units came under pressure to halt their research programs” due to these negative falsehoods (Dyck, 2019). By the 70’s, psychedelics were labeled as “drugs of abuse” that had “no recognized medical value” (Tupper et al., 2015). This classification was a response to the unregulated and irresponsible experimentation with psychedelics in the 70s before their medical potential was fully understood. Coincidentally, psilocybin became a schedule 1 substance and was stigmatized as a danger to society.

Today, researchers have a much more sophisticated understanding of the chemical properties and beneficial functions of psychedelic substances. Despite the upheaval of fear brought by psychedelics in the 60s, it is now known that “there is no known lethal dose (something that can’t be said for many medicines sold without a prescription) and it is non-addictive” (Pollan, 2019). Yet, even with this knowledge, “most psychedelic drugs are classified and legally scheduled as having no or very limited medical purpose” (Tupper et al., 2015). However, it has recently been discovered that psychedelics are capable of inducing “neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to change and reorganize thought patterns, enabling people with psychological disorders to find new ways to process anxiety, depression or deeply embedded trauma” (Jacobs, 2021). Dr. Valerie Masuda, a palliative care physician, expands on this topic by explaining how psychedelics can be used to quiet the area of the brain that develops patterns of behavior, known as the default mode network, so that other areas of the brain can communicate without the disruption of automatic habits taking over that cause common psychological disorders such as anxiety and depression (Masuda, 2022). Today’s modern knowledge of psychedelics could benefit society immensely if put in the hands of medical health care professionals.

Government exemptions are beginning to allow clinical trials and further experimentation with psychedelic substances in order to enhance our understanding of their medicinal qualities. In fact, “after decades of persistent education and advocacy, rigorous research employing psychedelics as tools of discovery and healing are abundant today” (Doblin et al., 2019). It is a tragedy that the criminalization of psychedelics “severely hampered global psychedelic research” (Doblin et al., 2019) and set back the potential for scientific breakthroughs, but some headway is slowly being made as psychedelics become available for clinical trials. In fact, the general manager of the Vancouver-based research group Numinous Inc stated that in Canada, “research on psychedelic compounds is quite extensive” and notes that “if we had more primary research done, where there were more inquiries that were being reviewed by academia, we’d probably be further ahead”(Milano, 2022). With psychedelics being illegal in Canada, “physicians and researchers are permitted to apply to Health Canada for permission to use psychedelics in clinical research or provide special access to patients for therapeutic use” (Herrington, 2022). This can be a long and strenuous process since clinical protocols are extremely safeguarded. This is because “clinical protocols for contemporary psychedelic studies draw on lessons learned from the earlier era of psychedelic research, and incorporate some common elements to minimize risks and maximize potential therapeutic benefit” (Tupper et al., 2015). Even under the pressure of governmental intervention “research towards evaluating the psychotherapeutic, behavioural and biochemical interventions for mental-health problems has increased” over the last 20 years (Goodman, 2006). Clinical research may be restricted, but with proper advocacy there lies a chance of decriminalization. The more knowledge and experimentation we can get with these substances, the safer they will be.

Canada is in the midst of a mental health crisis that is simultaneously deteriorating the economy and the well-being of society. The Canadian Medical Association Journal lays down the fact that “mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety, are substantial and growing sources of illness and health system costs worldwide” (Tupper et al., 2015). Steven Pinker, a renowned economist, also notes that mental disorders make up “more than 7 percent of the global burden of disability (major depression alone making up 2.5 percent)” (Pinker, 2019). It is no secret that “mental illness is the most pervasive health problem in Canada” (Goodman, 2006). Due to the influx of mental illness throughout recent decades, Canada’s mental health care system is “unable to keep up with the mental health-care needs that have grown dramatically in the pandemic” (Miller, 2022). According to an article by CTV News, “Canadians looking for mental health services today are faced with long wait times and a limited number of affordable options,” (Ferreira, 2022). Findings for mental illness are even more discerning on a global scale; “the World Health Organization reported that nearly a billion people worldwide suffer from mental health problems” (Kelly, 2022) with around 300 million clinically depressed and 800,000 who die by suicide each year (Pinker, 2019). Canada is desperate for the pharmacological advancements that only psychedelics can provide.

Medicalizing psychedelics will alleviate Canada’s mental health crisis by directly targeting the psychological perpetrators of mental illness. The unique mind altering abilities of psychedelic substances paired with the guidance of drug assisted therapy can help “mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, PTSD and substance misuse disorders” (Herrington, 2022). Furthermore, The Canadian Medical Association journal stated that drug assisted therapy will benefit those “who do not benefit from currently available treatments” (Tupper et al., 2015), which is an enormous pharmacological advancement. Drug assisted therapy can also help alleviate “existential distress” for those struggling with addictions and terminal illness such as cancer (Pollan, 2019). Michael Pollan, a professor at Harvard University, states that he believes that “psychedelic therapy, especially involving psilocybin, has the potential to revolutionize mental health care.”(Gibney et al., 2022). It may seem ironic that “What used to be classified as illicit drugs, accompanied by serious legal ramifications, is now becoming an accepted part of psychiatric and medical treatments for a range of issues, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder” (Kelly, 2022), but there is factual evidence that supports the revolutionary impacts of psychedelics.

Access to psychedelics should be readily available for medicinal purposes, however, it should not breach the point of complete freedom. While some would prefer the resurgence of psychedelics to lean into recreational use, it is important to keep in mind the risks associated without proper attention to care. According to esteemed author Michael Pollan, “a recent survey of people who reported having a “bad trip” found that nearly 8 percent of them had sought psychiatric help afterward.” (Pollan, 2019). Even though this percentage is fairly small, it is important to keep in mind that there are risks associated with any form of drug use, especially one that is still being researched. To alleviate the risks associated with the powerful properties of this drug, psychedelics should be regulated in a medical environment with proper attention to setting and preparation facilitated by health care professionals. Ultimately, It is far more dangerous to allow these substances to flourish in a dark market than it would be to put them in reach of health care professionals. Harvard University researchers Thomas Abt and Christopher Winship observe that “aggressive drug enforcement yields little anti-drug benefits and generally increases violence,” while “drug courts and treatment have a long history of effectiveness” (Abt, T., & Winship, 2016). Ultimately, medicalizing psychedelics should hinder irresponsible and illegal usage while encouraging medical use for individuals who would benefit from drug assisted therapy. As of now, “psilocybin and psilocin are controlled internationally under the United Nations Drug Control Conventions” (Government of Canada, 2023). In order for society to reap the benefits of these mind altering substances, they must be legalized in medical facilities.

Psychedelics have revolutionary potential for treating psychiatric disorders and alleviating Canada’s mental health crisis. The war against drugs is fuelled by political vendettas against cultural plasticity. However, as history has prevailed, society thrives on progress, which is driven by new ideas that advance humanity. The properties of psychedelics open up the unexplored territory of the mind and allow ideas to flourish. Psychedelics should be available as medical substances with healing properties “not only for individuals with mental health problems, but for people who are interested in exploring consciousness or becoming better people, and for societies and the world as a whole” (Busby, 2022). In the midst of a mental health crisis, there is no better time for Canada to make pharmacological advancements than now. Our knowledge of the chemical properties in this mind altering substance has never been better and will only continue to improve with the many clinical trials taking place across the nation.

References

Abt, T., & Winship, C. (2016, February). What works in Reducing Community Violence – A Meta Review and Field Study for the Northern Triangle. USAID. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/USAID-2016-What-Works-in-Reducing-Community-Violence-Final-Report.pdf

Busby, M. (2022, September 2). ‘flesh of the gods’: The trippy history of magic mushrooms. VICE. Retrieved February 25, 2023, from https://www.vice.com/en/article/epzx4p/magic-mushrooms-history

Doblin, R. E., Christiansen, M., Jerome, L., & Burge, B. (2019). The Past and Future of Psychedelic Science: An Introduction to This Issue. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31132970/

Dyck, E. (2019, July 16). Psychedelic research in 1950s Saskatchewan. The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/psychedelic-research-in-1950s-saskatchewan

Gibney, A., Pollan, M., Walker, L., Offman, S., & Perello, R. (Executive Producers). (2022, July 12). Chapter 2: Psilocybin. (Season 1, Episode 2), How To Change Your Mind [TV series episode]. Netflix. Retrieved February 24, 2023, from https://www.netflix.com/title/80229847?s=i&trkid=13747225

Government of Canada. (2023, February 8). Government of Canada. Canada.ca. Retrieved February 25, 2023, from https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/controlled-illegal-drugs/magic-mushrooms.html

Harvard University. (n.d.). Timothy Leary (1920–1996) The Effects of Psychotropic Drugs. Harvard.edu. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/timothy-leary

Herrington, A. J. (2022, October 13). Alberta to be first Canadian province to regulate psychedelics for therapeutic use. Forbes. Retrieved March 22, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2022/10/06/alberta-to-be-first-canadian-province-to-regulate-psychedelics-for-therapeutic-use/?sh=1dc49b7e85ea

Hsu, H. (2020, May 11). The secret lives of fungi. The New Yorker. Retrieved April 2, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/the-secret-lives-of-fungi

Jacobs, A. (2021, May 9). The Psychedelic Revolution is coming. psychiatry may never be the same. The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/09/health/psychedelics-mdma-psilocybin-molly-mental-health.html

Masuda, V. (2022). What happens to your brain on psilocybin. CBC news. Retrieved April 20, 2023, from https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2007049795510

Milano, B. (2022, August 9). The obstacles to decriminalizing psychedelic drugs are political, not legal, say experts. Harvard Law Today. Retrieved April 4, 2023, from https://hls.harvard.edu/today/the-obstacles-to-decriminalizing-psychedelic-drugs-are-political-not-legal-say-experts/

Pollan, M. (2019, May 10). Michael Pollan: Not so fast on psychedelic mushrooms. The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/opinion/denver-mushrooms-psilocybin.html

Tupper, K. W., Wood, E., Yensen, R., & Johnson, M. W. (2015, October 6). Psychedelic medicine: A re-emerging therapeutic paradigm. CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l’Association medicale canadienne. Retrieved April 17, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4592297/

Kelly, J. (2022, February 22). After its vilification in the 1960s, there is now a renaissance in psychedelic drugs to help treat depression and mental health issues. Forbes. Retrieved April 13, 2023, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/02/19/after-being-vilified-in-the-1960s-we-are-now-seeing-a-renaissance-in-creating-psychedelic-drugs-to-help-treat-depression-and-mental-health-issues/?sh=34572ac516e8

Hey! I’m Denzy. Like this article? Follow for more! Want something like this on your own platform? I do freelance writing! Lets get in touch :) denzybjames@gmail.com