Dr. Bronner’s $1 Million Pledge and Unity Support of the Psilocybin Therapy and Drug Addiction Treatment & Recovery Acts in Oregon; and Decriminalize Nature Campaigns Around the Country.
This letter is to state our public endorsement of Oregon’s statewide Psilocybin Therapy Service Initiative of 2020 (PSI 2020), Oregon’s statewide Drug Addiction Treatment & Recovery Act of 2020 (DATRA), as well as Decriminalize Nature’s efforts to decriminalize natural psychedelic plant medicines in cities around the country including in Oregon.
My family is no stranger to severe depression and anxiety. We understand the pain and frustration of many Americans for whom current medicines and treatments do not work—for whom pharma drugs provide too little relief and too many undesirable side effects. We firmly believe that the integration of psilocybin-assisted therapy, to which the FDA recently granted a special “breakthrough designation,” is crucial to healing epidemic rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction. Clinical trials at major universities have found incredible results. This therapy enables people to process difficult and traumatic emotions and experiences, break destructive patterns of thought and behavior—and to love, integrate and forgive themselves and each other. People connect to the deeper spiritual ground of their being and to the miraculous living natural world we are one with.
From the PSI 2020 website: “The intent of the 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon is to advance a breakthrough therapeutic model currently being perfected in research settings at top universities around the world. The service model involves a sequence of facilitated sessions, including assessment and preparation, psilocybin administration, and post-therapy integration. We envision a community-based framework, where licensed providers, along with licensed producers of psilocybin mushrooms, blaze trails in Oregon in accordance with evolving practice standards.”
We are also very passionate about changing the way we treat drug addiction and simple possession of drugs, away from the racist policy of mass incarceration to a “treatment not jail” approach. We believe that people who are suffering in the throes of addiction should get the help they need, without further ruining their and their families’ lives, creating massive social problems in the process. The Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act is the answer we’ve been waiting for, that follows the amazing example that Portugal has set for the rest of the world .
We believe this is a perfect and effective combination in Oregon at this time, to introduce psilocybin assisted therapy as a powerful tool to help people struggling with alcohol and other substance abuse disorders, just as the state shifts to focus much more on treatment versus incarceration.
We also support Decriminalize Nature’s efforts to make sure that psychedelic plant medicines are decriminalized at the city level nationally and in Portland, Eugene and elsewhere in Oregon, following the example of Denver and Oakland, so that people can grow their own and have these powerful medicines without the threat of going to jail.
Decriminalize Nature PDX states: “We believe no human being should face criminalization for the possession or home-growing of natural plants, especially when they have been used for thousands of years by diverse cultures around the world. We believe this is an urgent issue in Oregon, which has one of the highest rates of severe mental illness in the country. We believe it is an immoral waste of money to use tax money to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate non-violent people who are pursuing their own better health. Psychedelic medicine has the ability to not only improve quality of life for people all over Oregon, we believe it is also likely to save lives.”
However we very much want to see these Decrim Nature city-level efforts pass via city council prior to November and not be on the November ballot at the same time as the statewide PSI 2020 and DATRA measures, so that voter confusion is minimized. Ideally all grassroots energy and efforts are focused on the statewide efforts come next fall. Thus we are encouraging all three campaigns to coordinate strategies at the city and state level in Oregon, and blaze the path for the rest of the country and world to follow. PSI 2020 and DATRA’s campaigns are already coordinating closely and conserving resources on the statewide signature drive.
For the 2020 cycle, Dr. Bronner’s is supporting all of the above and allied orgs like SPORE and ERIE with over $1 million, plus another million to ending racist cannabis prohibition in 6 conservative-leaning states, setting up full legalization at the federal level in 2021. Our mission is simple: we want to unify the drug policy reform movements so we can realize our collective dream of healing humanity.