Make Room for ’Shrooms

As the weather is getting warmer in Cambridge, we can observe many signs of spring approaching: the snow has started to melt, the trees are growing new leaves, and mushrooms are surfacing. Mushrooms? Well, at least one kind that we know of.

In February 2021, the Cambridge City Council decriminalized the use of psychedelic drugs. Since then, there have been conversations surrounding psychedelics in Cambridge and throughout Massachusetts, including research on drug based treatments for mental health and advocacy groups encouraging other towns to follow Cambridge’s lead.

On Harvard and many other universities’ campuses, however, psychedelics remain prohibited. The students on these campuses, however, often express a different attitude. Student groups such as the Harvard Psychedelics Club has been reframing the popular narratives around psychedelic drugs and creating a safe space for student discussions. We applaud their work, especially because we understand that psychedelics are not just at the forefront of some students’ minds — they’ve also been working their magic directly on students’ minds. This may not be the most responsible thing to say, but it’s true: Sometimes, when teens go to parties, they will also do drugs.

Yet, it should not be up to the students to take charge on destigmatizing drug use and keeping our campus safe from drug abuse — it’s time for Harvard and other universities to turn on, tune in, and drop out of their stigmas on drug use. Attempts to limit drug abuse by criminalizing the use of drugs on college campuses are not productive. Instead, they make it more likely that students will do drugs in dangerous ways. Policies that destigmatize psychedelics and educate students on safe drug use would better serve college campuses.

Indeed, policies to destigmatize psychedelics would have far more widespread benefits beyond college campuses. Practically, universities should also be able to research these drugs. Research has shown that psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient in psychedelics, may effectively treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, OCD, and help with drug abuse. The Center for the Neuroscience of Psychedelics at Mercy General Hospital seeks to expand treatments of psychopathology through research on psychedelics, but since psychedelic drugs are Schedule I drugs, securing funding for research like this is not easy. Destigmatizing psychedelics would not only make recreational drug use safer, but it could also lead to breakthroughs in medicine.

With a long history of the weaponization of drug use to target some of the most vulnerable members of our communities in mind, we emphasize that research must be conducted ethically and the resulting benefits should prioritize those who are most in need. Psychedelics were first heavily criminalized in 1966, following growing stigmatization of the drugs, and LSD was banned nationally in 1968. Later, in 1971, Nixon effectively began the War on Drugs, and in the 1980s Reagan exacerbated these policies. We now understand that these policies were driven by racism and perpetuated some extremely harmful cultural and socioeconomic narratives that endure today. The mass incarceration of Black and brown people, for one, became a huge persisting trend, and many people of color are still imprisoned as a result despite the decriminalization of drugs in many U.S. states.

Conversations surrounding drug policies and attempts to decriminalize psychedelics, then, should also address the systemic issues of policing Black and brown communities. This includes removing biases from drug policies and the criminal justice system that will subsequently judge those accused of crimes. And, it necessitates a more empathetic view of incarcerated people that, at the very bare minimum, demands that we still treat inmates with humanity. The lack of empathy given to inmates is precisely what allowed for the psychologist Timothy F. Leary to test psychedelic drugs on inmates just about to go on parole as part of his research in the 1960s. Leary’s research operated on manipulating the incarcerated, but he was ultimately criticized the most for his later research where he administered drugs to undergraduate students. When injustice involves the incarcerated, no one seems to care. That’s trippy, and not the good kind.

We know that it’s tempting to view a college newspaper Editorial Board’s calling for psychedelic decriminalization as self-serving and disingenuous, but keep in mind: This is a deeply serious issue with implications far beyond our community. As we proceed further with decriminalization, let’s all stay on high alert on its larger impacts.

This staff editorial solely represents the majority view of The Crimson Editorial Board. It is the product of discussions at regular Editorial Board meetings. In order to ensure the impartiality of our journalism, Crimson editors who choose to opine and vote at these meetings are not involved in the reporting of articles on similar topics.

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