Michael Pollan: recommendation

Transcript context

…Assuming the positive scenario works out. Yeah, let’s assume that. I think there is a place in medicine for this, in psychotherapy, and that that is one cultural container that seems like the most likely. I also see it having a role in religion. It does already. The Native American Church uses peyote in their ceremonies in San Pedro. It’s allowed under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They’ve gained the right to do that. There are two ayahuasca churches that have the right. And I could see more of that. I think it does have a sacramental role for people who believe. So that’s another. I would hope that there’s another cultural container for the rest of us who are not part of a religion, who are not by the DSM diagnoses mentally ill, but are struggling with things they don’t like about themselves, with a sense that they’re dealing with death and they want to think about their mortality, who are intellectually curious, who are creatively curious. How do you deal with that? What one of my sources, one of the researchers, called “the betterment of well people.” I love that phrase. These drugs seem to offer something to those people. I also don’t think they should be simply and completely legalized and deregulated, just because of their power and some of the risks, and that people do get into trouble with them. I don’t know what that container is. I think it’s a really interesting cultural project to develop what that would be. Lots of people go to psychotherapists without being mentally ill. People go because they’re unhappy, they’re in the midst of a divorce, they don’t know how to deal with their kids — all the different reasons. These people benefit. It’s not mental illness treatment. It’s something else. You could imagine a situation where institutions would be built, mental health spas, for example, where there is a doctor involved in some way. They’re ascribing to some set of protocols, guided trips with people who’ve been trained, some guarantees of the purity of the drug, all this kind of stuff. Maybe that is it. It’s going to take the work of designers, therapists — a whole lot — architects to create this other container. I don’t have an outline for it, but I’d like to see it. Do you think LSD, in particular, could pass current FDA guidelines that you have to show a drug is both safe and effective? Or are those guidelines too strict?…

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