Feedback on my first legal psilocybin session in Oregon
an open letter to the Psilocybin Advisory Board of the Oregon Health Authority
by Brian Ballard Quass, the Drug War Philosopher
August 29, 2024
I wanted to supply some feedback on how the Oregon psilocybin laws might be improved based on my own experience. I almost hate to criticize your state's laws on this topic because they represent such an enormous improvement over the laws of any other state (and almost any other country) when it comes to holistic healing using time-honored indigenous medicines. Nevertheless, the status quo results in extravagant prices for legal psilocybin use and so sharply limits the number of people who could benefit from psilocybin as a practical matter. (I read somewhere that this was the whole point of your regulations, at least in the minds of some Drug Warriors: to limit drug use by reserving it only for the rich.)
I had a week of psilocybin sessions in Oregon two months ago that cost me $4,000. That is a once-in-a-lifetime expenditure for me. The good news is that the sessions confirmed for me that psilocybin can boost my mood and energy dramatically as a chronic depressive; the bad news is that the microdosing that I would like to do as a follow-up is simply impossible, since it would incur a huge cost in both money and time, since even microdosing, under current law, has to be done with a human monitor on scene.
I am told that Oregon is moving in the direction of legalizing the personal use of psilocybin. Such a change cannot come quickly enough for folks like myself, retirees who want to live their life abundantly and cannot afford to spend tens of thousands of dollars to profit from the medicine in a mushroom that grows at their very feet.
Also, I am sure that the need for a monitor makes sense for political and insurance reasons, but I really felt infantilized by the whole process, especially when I learned that I was not even allowed to leave the room that I was in. I actually began to feel like a prisoner at one point, when the peak of the experience had passed and yet I was not even able to go into the next room where there happened to be an art exhibit which I had been looking forward to seeing with my enhanced sensibilities from the session. So I just sat there on the sofa uncomfortably, with the monitor's eyes always on me, as if I might suddenly transform into a raging lunatic. This actually made me feel a little indignant, because in my sensitized state, I really felt like a kidnap victim. I knew consciously, even then, that this was not the actual case, of course, that the monitor was working within the limits of the law. But the situation did make me feel like I was being held against my will.
So while I praise your state for taking the lead in drug law reform, at least with regards to this one substance, psilocybin, the current laws surrounding psilocybin use serve mainly to keep the drug out of the hands of people who need it, while infantilizing the few who can afford to spend thousands to reap the benefits of a simple mushroom.
Author's Follow-up:
April 20, 2025
Who would have thought back in 1776 that Americans would eventually have to petition their government for the right to even possess a damn mushroom. The Drug War has destroyed America.
The FDA will be accepting comments through September 20th on the subject of ways to fight PTSD.
PTSD@reaganudall.org
Ask them why they support brain-damaging shock therapy but won't approve drugs like MDMA that could make ECT unnecessary.
We've all been taught since grade school that human beings cannot use psychoactive medicines wisely. That is just a big fat lie. It's criminal to keep substances illegal that can awaken the mind and remind us of our full potential in life.
Drug Prohibition is a crime against humanity. It outlaws our right to take care of our own health.
When is the Holocaust Museum going to recognize that the Drug War has Nazified American life? Probably, on the same day that the Jefferson Foundation finally admits to having sold out Jefferson by inviting the DEA onto his estate in 1987 to confiscate his poppy plants.
The worst form of government is not communism, socialism or even unbridled capitalism. The worst form of government is a Christian Science Theocracy, in which the government controls how much you are allowed to think and feel in life.
For most drugs, dependency is a bug. For Big Pharma antidepressants, it is a feature.
What are drug dealers doing, after all? They are merely selling substances that people want and have always had a right to, until racist politicians came along and decided government had the right to ration out pain relief and mystical experience.
We throw people out of jobs for using "drugs," we praise them for using "meds." The categories are imaginary, made up by politicians who want to demonize certain substances, but not cigs or beer.
The Drug War is the most important evil to protest, precisely because almost everybody is afraid to do so. That's a clear sign that it is a cancer on the body politic.
Outlawing opium was the ultimate government power grab. It put the government in charge of pain relief.
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