Early studies into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics have been so promising that the Food and Drug Administration has designated two such drugs, psilocybin and MDMA, as “breakthrough therapies,” a coveted label indicating their possible superiority over other treatments. These drugs are on track to being FDA-approved as soon as 2024.But at the same time, voters and state lawmakers have rapidly been expanding access to the drugs for recreational purposes. This is a mistake.
To me, the state-by-state efforts to legalize psychedelics have two major negative impacts. One is the harm to people taking the drugs in unregulated settings. As psychologist and addiction researcher Julian Somers from Simon Fraser University said to me, “Any time we increase the availability of drugs in a population, the rate of problems involving drugs goes up.” Patients are already struggling with accessing mental health care. The last thing we need are substances that create new risks.
My second worry is that legislative fights over recreational legalization will impede legitimate biomedical treatment. This is what happened in the 1960s when promising studies into psychedelics were shelved in part because recreational access became a political battleground.
