Dr. Bronner’s maintains what is certainly the wildest social media presence of any soap out there: Scroll through their Twitter feed and you’re as likely to see an endorsement of “regenerative, organic, climate-friendly cannabis” as you are a plug for the company’s tingle-inducing peppermint soap. And as we approach election day, you’re certain to see some enthusiasm for Oregon’s Measure 109, a ballot proposition that would make the state the first to legalize mental health therapies using psilocybin—the psychedelic compound in magic mushrooms.
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Behind this push is 47-year-old CEO David Bronner, who has transformed his grandfather’s eccentric soap company into a much bigger and more professional eccentric soap company. Under his leadership, Dr. Bronner’s has fought for less punitive drug policies for years, and this year he has gone all-in to support what would be the nation’s first statewide step towards psychedelic legalization, including company donations of $2 million to Measure 109, and another million to psychedelic causes generally. “Psilocybin has helped me work through my issues,” he told me. “They set me on a path of service to spirit and the world in general.”
It’s more than just one eccentric CEO writing checks—Measure 109 has a very real chance of becoming law. The local ACLU and Oregon Democratic Party have endorsed it, and Oregon is a liberal state with a historically relaxed attitude around drugs. It was the first state to decriminalize marijuana, back in ‘73, and like many Western states, laws can be passed with a simple majority.
Oregon is also uniquely well-suited for a state-wide psilocybin measure on a more elemental level. The Pacific Northwest climate is a good home for mushrooms, psychedelic and otherwise. The largest organism in the world, a 2.4 mile wide honey fungus, lives in Oregon. Back in 1977, Andrew T. Weil—then a supporting character in the saga of the psychedelic 60s, now one of the biggest names in alternative medicine—presented a paper in Oregon called “The Use of Psychoactive Mushrooms in the Pacific Northwest: An Ethnopharmacological Study.” The upshot: the state was a great place to grow psilocybin mushrooms and plenty of people were tripping on them. Not much has changed since then. As one psychedelic activist deadpanned to me: “Oregon is pretty mushroom-y.”
But it’s not just Oregon. America’s attitudes about psychedelics have changed, and it looks like the laws around them will change, too. Four cities (Denver, Oakland, Ann Arbor, and Santa Cruz) have already decriminalized psilocybin, and a 2005 court ruling made it technically legal to grow mushrooms in New Mexico. Meanwhile, promising work from institutions like Johns Hopkins and NYU is at the center of what’s being called a “psychedelic renaissance” in the United States.
After WWII, there was an abundance of research, medical and otherwise, into psychedelics. Sandoz, the pharmaceutical company that created LSD, basically gave the stuff away in the 1950s in an effort to find an application for it. Some therapists found it was such an effective treatment for alcoholism that the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous considered incorporating it into treatment.
But after LSD hit its cultural high water mark in the late 60s, psychedelics of all kinds experienced a severe social and legal backlash. The U.S. government classified LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, and other psychedelics as Schedule 1 drugs in 1971, meaning they’re considered more dangerous than fentanyl. That has made them very difficult to research, much less use in a therapeutic setting. In the past two decades, however, there has been a slow, steady resurgence of psychedelic studies in the academic and medical communities.
New research indicates that psychedelics have tremendous therapeutic potential, especially in treating depression, anxiety, and addiction. In one study, terminally-ill cancer patients were given two psilocybin doses five weeks apart. 80 percent of the test subjects reported reduced depression and anxiety. Another, smaller study found psilocybin treatment helped people stop smoking—two thirds of participants still hadn’t smoked after a year from the test, a much better result than your average program. You can find similar research addressing alcoholism, opioid addiction, PTSD—you name it.
This wave has been slowly building for several years, but it really burst into broader awareness in 2018 thanks to food journalist Michael Pollan, whose book How to Change Your Mind explored the benefits of psychedelics from mushrooms to DMT and topped the New York Times bestseller list. Last year Johns Hopkins expanded their work by officially creating the Center for Psychedelic Research, and last month, UC Berkeley announced its own Center for the Science of Psychedelics, with Pollan as a co-founder.
This burst of scientific enthusiasm has been matched by a popular resurgence of interest in psychedelics, from celebrities at high-end ayahuasca retreats to microdosing Silicon Valley coders. Psilocybin will likely continue to be illegal at the federal level, but, as we've seen with marijuana legalization, states have been given wide leeway to implement their own drug policies, and next week’s vote in Oregon is a crucial test of how this new era will work.
Measure 109 is essentially the brainchild of two psychotherapists, Tom and Sheri Eckert, a husband-wife duo who have been working on it since 2015. If the measure passes, it doesn’t mean Oregonians will be able to pop into a dispensary for a dose, or even walk around with a bag of shrooms. While there’s also a broad drug decriminalization measure being put to voters this year, 109 is narrowly focused: The initiative directs the state to take two years to create rules for how psilocybin can be produced and administered in a therapeutic context. You’ll need to see someone with a license and take it under their supervision, but you wouldn’t need a medical diagnosis to receive treatment.
Funnily enough, this represents a return to the approach of the 1950s, before Timothy Leary exhorted everyone to drop out and turn on, when elites like the novelist Aldous Huxley took mescaline in carefully controlled settings. It’s impossible to say for certain what Oregon’s therapy would look like, since the measure simply creates the committee that will design it, but it does specify that treatment should consist of three different sessions: one for prep, one for administration, and one for reflection.
The middle session is where the magic happens, and it will likely look a lot like what they’ve been up to at Johns Hopkins. In that smoking cessation study, for example, participants took their dose and laid down on a couch while listening to music and wearing eyeshades, then discussed their experience afterwards. Depending on how things shake out, it’s possible that different facilitators may have leeway to lead things in their own style—perhaps verbally guiding people through an experience or even going for a hike. But the bottom line is that the experience will be much more like seeing your shrink than going to Burning Man.
David Bronner put it this way: “The western therapeutic model is kind of the analog to the indigenous ceremonial approach, where the indigenous hold the medicines in a very high vibration. It’s very ceremonial, very prayer-centered, and you don’t take them outside of that,” he said. “Of course you can have a deeply meaningful experience at a Grateful Dead concert. But in the therapeutic space, the therapist, in the position of the traditional shaman, is holding the space and allowing you to fully experience the really deep work without being distracted by whatever’s going on.” If 109 passes, it would still be illegal to possess or sell mushrooms outside of therapy.
Bronner also sees Measure 109 as a way to bring a pre-existing psilocybin community above-board. “There’s a lot of these underground therapists working with these medicines. There’s a lot of amazing ones and a lot of questionable ones. It’s about bringing that community above ground and giving them real professional status—and being able to hold people accountable.”
The ballot measure faces some perfunctory opposition from mainstream health organizations like the American Psychiatric Association, but the most passionate criticism has come not from shrinks or cops, but from those who support even wider access to psychedelics.
Carolyn Fine, co-founder of the Psychedelic Equity Project, a group that works to foster social justice in the psychedelic community, isn’t campaigning against 109 explicitly, but told me she personally does not support it. “The campaign has been dismissive of issues of equity,” she said. “It’s working within a system that's already stacked against certain people.”
Fine explained that there’s a problem with “spiritual bypassing” in the world of psychedelics. As she sees it, the loudest voices in the movement, who are often white men, have a tendency to assume themselves to be already “enlightened.” Imagine a person who has developed a deep commitment to the principles of love and kindness after a psychedelic trip. That person might feel that they’ve transcended human problems like racism and classism, regardless of whether that’s actually the case. Though he or she may have great enthusiasm and good intentions, their passion may ignore or even harm people with less power. To Fine, it seems the marginalized people who would benefit the most from decriminalization stand to gain the least from Measure 109.
Decriminalize Nature, a national organization that spearheaded the decriminalization initiatives in Denver and Oakland (and has worked with Dr. Bronner’s in the past), goes further: Their Oregon chapters issued a formal statement rejecting 109. They argue that the therapeutic model it advances will prevent many people from accessing psilocybin legally—and more generally, that something that grows out of the ground shouldn’t be regulated.
Zave Forster, a member of Portland’s Decriminalize Nature chapter, put it to me this way: “What about undocumented people, the homeless, people who don’t have insurance or people who don’t have ID?” Not only would these people most benefit from therapy, he argued, but they also suffer the most from the war on drugs and will still be at greatest risk from law enforcement.
I also spoke to a grower and distributor of psilocybin mushrooms named Gabe, who asked to be identified by his first name only. “This poses a real challenge to what we’ve worked hard and risked our freedom to create,” he said, referring to himself and other growers. “We’ve worked really hard to build a culture.” If 109 passes, he worries there will be greater government scrutiny that will disrupt the community of psilocybin growers that already exists. He says he’s helped people gradually work off of conventional antidepressants and switch to psilocybin-based regimens for managing depression, meaning he’s theoretically the kind of guy Measure 109 wants to bring above board—but he doesn’t support the measure.
A good sign of how far Measure 109 and the conversation around psychedelics have drifted toward the cultural center comes from one of its most visible advocates: Chad Kuske, a retired Navy SEAL.
In 18 and a half years, Kuske saw 12 tours of duty all over the world. As it does for many veterans, the job took a toll. “I don’t like labels. I don’t think they usually fit anyone very well. But if I had to, I had PTSD, which is why I was medically retired,” he told me. “I was unhappy, frustrated and miserable for a long time, without really knowing why.” He struggled to reacclimate to civilian life when he moved back to Oregon, his home state. But a friend introduced him to VETS, a non-profit that helps veterans get access to psychedelic therapies. The experience transformed him, and now he’s stumping for Measure 109. “It absolutely changed my life. Since that treatment, the progress I’ve made in this year is incredible,” he says. “I have zero interest in drugs or any of the risk-taking behavior I used to do.”
Kuske is hesitant to share too much about the specifics of his experience. He’s also wary of a lot of the language surrounding psilocybin. “Before I tried this, I would have laughed and said, ‘What is this woo-woo…’ Then after the first time, it was all clear. These medicines, they don’t give you what you want. You may achieve some of your goals, but they don’t give you what you want, they give you what you need.”
This is part of why Kuske is in favor of a medical model that requires the presence of a licensed facilitator. “I’ve had experiences that put me through the ringer, which is what people refer to as a bad trip. But I had support there. I knew I was safe and I trusted the people I was with, and they helped me through it. What people sometimes refer to as a bad trip—sometimes those can be the most powerful. Especially people who are suffering and need to heal, people who maybe stand to benefit most from these therapies—they’re the ones who need that safe space and coaches to help with the integration.”
Kuske embodies much of what’s behind the new psychedelic renaissance—his experience is a world away from the acid tests and bad trips that spooked the boomers’ parents half a century ago. Therein lies Measure 109’s appeal: medical psilocybin therapy is a palatable proposition that takes a familiar form. As Bronner told me, while his company is actively supporting a variety of approaches, including a decriminalization measure in Washington D.C., the therapeutic model has some real advantages. “The decriminalization approach is really great for some people, but a huge swath of the population is not going to be comfortable accessing mushrooms in that way,” he said. “Like, my mom would never do that.”
Psychedelic renaissance or not, psilocybin and substances like it still carry serious social stigma for many Americans. If psilocybin therapy is going to pass in Oregon, its advocates will need to teach a wide swath of people, from more experienced psychedelic users to soccer moms, about its medical potential. “It’s really an education problem,” says Bronner, but the fact that people are even open to learning “really shows how far the culture has come.”
When talking about this education issue with Kuske, I asked him what he thought the biggest misconception was around psilocybin. “People think you’re going to have this crazy drug experience,” he said. “Taking psilocybin is not a drug experience where you’re trying to escape reality or numb yourself. These experiences are about seeing the truth.”
He caught himself before talking about the truth. Like he said, he doesn’t like labels, or the cliches that have followed psilocybin and psychedelics around for 50 years. But then he went on: “I learned about love. Loving myself, loving people around me, loving everyone.”
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