Psychedelic and Hallucinogenic Drugs

With ‘How to Change Your Mind,’ Taking a Trip With Michael Pollan

In late 2012, the best-selling author and journalist Michael Pollan (“The Omnivore’s Dilemma”) was at a dinner party in Berkeley, Calif. Among his fellow diners was a prominent developmental psychiatrist, in her 60s, who spoke at some length about a recent LSD trip. This pricked up Pollan’s ears. His first thought, as he shared during […]

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After Six-Decade Hiatus, Experimental Psychedelic Therapy Returns to the V.A.

The Department of Veterans Affairs recently began offering psychedelic substances to patients as a part of clinical trials, a major step in the quest to determine the therapeutic potential of illegal drugs the federal government has long deemed dangerous. At least five trials are underway or being planned by a handful of government clinicians who […]

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A Psychedelic Trip to Timothy Leary’s Catalina Resort in Mexico

Their Mexican neighbors were bemused. The Zihuatanejo historian Rodrigo Campus Aburto, a young teen in the 1960s, recalls that the community thought the mostly American trippers were lunatics. He also remembers older teens sometimes attended fiestas that IFIF hosted on the beach. “Moon, fire and beer,” is how he describes the parties. Some smoked marijuana […]

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Dr. Bronner’s, the Soap Company, Dips Into Psychedelics

VISTA, Calif. — Dr. Bronner’s, the liquid soap company best known for its teeny-font labels preaching brotherly love and world peace, would like you to consider the benefits of mind-altering drugs. The sentiment is promoted on limited-edition soap bottles that sing the praises of psychedelic-assisted therapies, and through the trippy pronouncements of David Bronner, grandson […]

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The Rise of Psychedelic Retreats

Amanda Schendel, 39, opened The Buena Vida Psilocybin Retreats, a collective of roving five- and seven-day psychedelic retreats run from within luxury resorts in Mexico, in January 2019. The retreats include breath work, hypnosis and gourmet food; attendees are screened for cardiovascular and mental health fitness before attending. They shut down in March 2020, but […]

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