Netflix’s “How to change your mind” brings psychedelics into the mainstream

Disclaimer: This article contains discussions about suicide, PTSD, and other health conditions.

It also contains spoilers.

The public perception of psychedelics is changing rapidly. The state of Oregon approved the medical use of psilocybin – the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms – and is expected to open psychedelic clinics in 2023, the first of their kind. In addition, many US cities have even decriminalized psychedelics, including Denver, Oakland, Santa Cruz, Detroit, AnnArbor and more.

However, the recent boom around psychedelics hasn’t always been like this. Perhaps surprising to many, there was a wealth of clinical research on psychedelics (especially LSD) in America in the 1950s and 60s. Hundreds of studies have shown tremendous potential in treating alcoholism, depression, and end-of-life anxiety with LSD, among others.

But in the late ’60s, the hippie counterculture movement embraced psychedelics and associated them with anti-establishment. The Conservative government fought back and in 1970 banned LSD and many other psychedelics, despite their enormous potential for treating a variety of mental illnesses.

Thus begins the history of psychedelics in Michael Pollan’s new Netflix documentary How to Change Your Mind, which follows on from his hugely popular 2018 book of the same name. The series chronicles the history of four psychedelics, LSD, shrooms, MDMA and mescaline, and uncovers the history of each powerful substance, how it has been criminalized and where current research and legalization is headed.

The series comes at a pivotal time as the psychedelic movement gathers momentum and questions about the use, respect, and regulation of these substances remain unanswered. The series successfully draws on history, evidence, and some of the most fascinating minds in research to answer these questions and help bring the conversation about psychedelics and their benefits into the mainstream.

The specter of prohibition

A constant theme throughout the series revolves around how the War on Drugs (initiated by President Nixon and conservative America) banned psychedelics for political reasons. A war veteran suffering from PTSD tells how he grew up on “good” and “bad” drugs during the DARE era of the ’80s and ’90s.

“Well, ‘good’ drugs created an opioid epidemic and ‘bad’ drugs cure PTSD, so I think our definitions of these drugs need to change,” said Sgt. Jonathan Lubecky, a participant in an MDMA study.

A former police officer continues with the same thought, saying, “We’re at a point in this country where you can’t criminalize a specific people directly… but you can criminalize a substance that that specific group of people uses and have a back door access to their communities,” said Sarko Gergerian, police lieutenant and MAPS therapist trainee for MDMA, referring to the mass incarceration of blacks and browns in that country.

It is easy to draw a comparison between the prohibition of these substances and cannabis. Both weed and psychedelics have been used for millennia and have shown incredible medical potential. And both have been banned in the US for fear of other races and cultures.

In fact, the legalization of first medical marijuana and then recreational cannabis serves as the framework for the legalization of psychedelics.

Within this framework, the conversation about psychedelics today focuses on the medicinal potential of the substances. MDMA and its ability to treat PTSD are at the forefront – the substance has passed three rounds of clinical trials with resounding success and is expected to be approved by the FDA in the next few years.

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The History of Cannabis Prohibition in the United States

The Healing Power of Psychedelics

Some of the most powerful scenes in How to Change Your Mind are interviews with patients whose lives have changed after undergoing psychedelic therapy. According to Professor Robin Carhartt-Harris on the show, 1 in 4 people suffer from a mental illness, and psychedelics have the potential to help. Seeing and hearing the words of these patients is moving and has the ability to alter perceptions.

In the MDMA episode, an Iraq war veteran with PTSD opens up about constant paranoia, nightmares every night and an inability to trust anyone. He said that MDMA saved his life by preventing him from taking his own life due to his wartime experiences.

A woman with PTSD vividly describes past events when she discovered murder, one of the causes of her trauma. After trying multiple antidepressants and therapies, MDMA has helped her manage PTSD and be present in her life, even three years later.

In Switzerland, a man is considering suicide because of cluster headaches he experiences several times a day. He describes the headache as a smoldering ice pick stuck behind his eyes. LSD has given him at least a handful of pain-free days and gives him hope for the future.

A man with OCD describes his condition as someone who follows him with a constant pounding of radio noise in his ear. A psilocybin session appears to have cured his condition and helped him regain his life.

In all of these cases, the pain these people experienced is visceral to the viewer and relieving in their recovery. Simply watching these patients talk about their experiences before and after psychedelic therapy is cathartic for the viewer and paints a much clearer picture of how helpful these substances are.

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How to build a psychedelics industry

One of the most thorny questions facing proponents of psychedelics is how to respect indigenous cultures that have used these substances for spiritual practice and healing, and have done so for thousands of years. Will rich white Americans exploit these substances and make huge profits while disregarding indigenous cultures?

The series gets into the politics of this issue in the final episode on mescaline. The substance comes mostly from the peyote cactus, which only grows in a narrow band around the Rio Grande River between Mexico and Texas. There is a very real concern that legalizing peyote or mescaline will make these peyote gardens disappear for psychedelic tourists or money-hungry capitalists.

In the series, many Native Americans speak about the collective trauma of their people after their ancestors were driven off their lands and onto reservations by the US government. They describe peyote as medicine to heal their collective trauma.

The Native American Church was founded in Oklahoma territory in the 1880s after the use of peyote among Native Americans spread north to the Great Plains, in part as a means for Native American communities to use peyote to heal the trauma of their lives healing experience. Today it is one of the largest indigenous religions among Native Americans in the United States.

Many respondents say peyote must be respected and not whitewashed or appropriated by white America, as so much has already happened in their culture.

Pollan looks to the future and talks about how peyote is a great example of how a drug can benefit society at large and be used in a socially constructive way to solve a community’s problems. “Drugs are highly contextualized and it’s the meaning we give them, the uses we put them to that really counts; They’re not inherently good and they’re not inherently bad, they’re tools,” he said.

But how to create an industry to support psychedelics-assisted therapy has many unanswered questions. Pollan reflects on how the current model of the pharmaceutical industry is to invent and patent a drug that people can take every day or all of the time, whereas in psychedelics-assisted therapy a person only needs to take a drug once or a few times, and in connection with therapy.

How does a company make this drug profitable? How much can you charge for it? Can you patent a plant? There is currently no model for creating an industry to support psychedelic therapy, and much remains to be clarified logistically.

However a new industry may emerge, the public perception of psychedelics and their healing potential is rapidly changing. Sgt. noticed a sea change in current thinking. Speaking about his experience attending a police chiefs conference after attending an MDMA trial, Lubecky said: “If the people who literally waged the drug war turn around now and say, ‘We were wrong, can help’ that’s a big step thing.”

Pat Goggins

Pat Goggins is a senior content editor at Leafly, specializing in cannabis cultivation after working for a commercial grower in Oregon. When you’re not correcting typos, chances are you’ll find him on a boat or in the mountains.

Check out Pat Goggins’ articles

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