I’m a Psychiatrist. The Crimson’s Got Its Psychedelics Coverage Wrong.

I was dismayed by the superficial coverage of Massachusetts Ballot Question 4 in The Crimson Tuesday, which would decriminalize growth, possession, and use of small amounts of certain natural psychedelic drugs and create a process for establishing psychedelic therapy centers.

First, despite the fact that psychedelics are drugs used for psychotherapeutic benefits and carry risks that are primarily psychological in nature, the article demonstrated a glaring absence of mental health-related expertise. In fact, it quoted only a single psychiatric clinician, Nassir Ghaemi, who, despite heading the Massachusetts Psychiatric Society, publicly impugned psychedelic research as a “dead end” in an October article and has demonstrated a concerning lack of knowledge about current psychedelic science.

For example, during a recent debate aired on WGBH, he suggested that only “very low dose psilocybin [...] for PTSD alone” might be helpful, despite the fact that it is microdosing, not high-dose psychedelic-assisted therapy, which has no evidence base to support it. The only other clinician quoted in the article, Anahita Dua, is a surgeon who does not have expertise in mental health.

The Harvard Medical School ecosystem includes hundreds of psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts who could offer informed perspectives on both sides of this important debate, rather than relying on outdated anti-drug stigma or oversimplified rhetoric. Moreover, three centers across Harvard — Massachusetts General Hospital, Dana Farber, and McLean Hospital — are conducting clinical psychedelic research and could have offered a wide range of well-informed perspectives grounded in extensive experience with both psychiatric patients and psychedelics in clinical settings. The fact that The Crimson overlooked these voices is perplexing and disappointing.

Franklin King IV is an instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.