Do Psychedelic Drug Laws Violate Human Rights?
ROC MORIN MAR 4, 2016
The prohibition of MDMA and hallucinogenic mushrooms restricts "cognitive liberty," according to some activists.
By the time drug-policy lawyer Charlotte Walsh took to the stage on the final day of the recent Horizons Psychedelic Conference, we had already heard several persuasive talks on the benefits of psychedelic substances. Rick Doblin had spoken about the successful treatment of PTSD with MDMA, Draulio Barros de Araujo described his work combatting depression with ayahuasca, and Stephen Ross discussed his study administering psilocybin to cancer patients.
I had met Ross two years prior, while covering his psychedelic research. The psychiatrist had spent years and a small fortune obtaining the government’s permission to run an extremely limited study. The stakes were high. Without exemptions from the DEA and other agencies, Ross and his NYU team could have faced punishments as severe as life imprisonment. But the risk was worth it: The researchers were able to critically reduce end-of-life anxiety in the vast majority of their patients with targeted therapy aided by a single dose of psilocybin.
These clinical gains run counter to increasingly prohibitive trends exemplified by Holland’s 2008 ban on hallucinogenic mushrooms and the U.K.’s Psychoactive Substances Act of 2016. This recent law automatically renders illegal all substances capable of altering emotions or mental functioning unless specifically exempted.
According to Charlotte Walsh of the anti-prohibitionist Ayahuasca Defense Fund, that kind of blanket drug prohibition is a violation of international human-rights law. Walsh sees parallels between the drug war and the legal battles for racial equality, as well as gay and reproductive rights. She and her colleagues across Europe and North America hope to use the U.S. Bill of Rights and the European Charter on Human Rights to build a cognitive-liberty-based case against drug prohibition.
I spoke with Walsh recently about her current efforts and the prospects for success at home and abroad.
Morin: What would a human-rights-based drug defense look like?
Walsh: Generally, when people are prosecuted for psychedelic use, the defense focuses on technicalities rather than challenging the prohibitive framework itself. On the rare occasions when they do challenge prohibition, they tend to employ a rights-based framework—namely, arguing that their client’s human rights have been infringed by psychedelic drug prohibition. Rights-based defenses have historically been either pleas for therapeutic or religious exemptions from prohibition.
Morin: What is the legal basis for drug prohibition?
Walsh: Within the parameters of the U.K. Misuse of Drugs Act [equivalent to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act] the issue is ostensibly based around the idea of harm. We have an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is a group of scientists in different realms that the government consults when a drug is going to be scheduled or reclassified. The council then carries out a wholesale review of the substance and makes a recommendation for or against prohibition or reclassification. There has been a trend though where the government will ask the Advisory Council to carry out such a review and then just completely ignore their results and do what they want to do. As a stark example, when MDMA was being reevaluated for reclassification, before the results were even in, they issued a public statement saying, effectively, “Don't worry, whatever they find, we’re not going to change anything.”
An alcohol user can alter their consciousness freely despite the proven risks while a psychedelic user faces heavy punishment.
Morin: What results have they been ignoring?
Walsh: There was an extensive U.K. government study carried out in 2010 by a team under David Nutt that measured various substances in terms of harms to society and the individual. That study showed that alcohol is the overall forerunner in terms of harm, and tobacco comes close after that. A lot of the Class A drugs [equivalent to Schedule I in the US] and psychedelic drugs in particular were at the opposite end of that scale showing very low risk of harm.
Morin: Did the government refute the study or did they ignore it?
Walsh: They basically ignored it. In relation to the alcohol and tobacco findings, obviously nobody has called for their prohibition. An alcohol user can alter their consciousness freely despite the proven risks while a psychedelic user faces heavy punishment. It’s arbitrary discrimination. The government’s response to the Nutt study has been that drug policy isn’t based solely on science, it's also based on cultural and historical precedent.
Morin: Is that an admission that the harm-based justification for prohibition no longer applies?
Walsh: It’s certainly evidence that it’s applied inconsistently and arbitrarily. From a human-rights-based perspective, everybody’s rights should be protected equally unless there’s a good reason why you're treating a group differently. I don’t think that saying “culturally and historically this is what we’ve always done” is legitimate. You can’t say that about racial discrimination, for instance.
Morin: So, the current argument is that illegal drugs are bad because they’re illegal?
Walsh: Basically, and it goes beyond that. We have a recently elected Conservative government in the U.K., and they’ve produced something called the Psychoactive Substances Act. It’s a piece of legislation that renders it unlawful to trade in any substance capable of producing a psychoactive effect of any kind regardless of harm or benefit. If you read the text of the Act, it’s extraordinary, most notably its lack of any reference to the concept of harm.
Morin: How do they define “psychoactive” exactly?
Walsh: Any substance that alters your emotional state or mental functioning. It openly states that we [the government] think we have the right to stop you from altering your psychological state. It’s strange that’s something they believe they should have the power to do.
Morin: I assume there are exemptions for alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine.
Walsh: Yes, for culturally accepted substances. This legislation is potentially so broad that prior to its enactment the government felt compelled to write to bishops to reassure them that the incense used in church services would not become illegal, despite its being mildly psychoactive.
Morin: What does that kind of blanket ban indicate to you in terms of legislative intent?
Walsh: The tradition in English law was always to intervene as little as possible. That concept has been dying in more recent years. This reverses that presumption, replacing it with an assumption that you can’t do something unless the government explicitly says you can. This violates classic liberalism, where you have the concept of limitations of power, as most famously espoused by legal theorist John Stuart Mill. How much power can the state legitimately hold over the individual? Mill laid down the principle as prevention of harm to others. So, from that perspective, the kind of paternalism we’re seeing, both in the operation of the Misuse of Drugs Act and the fundamental aims of this new piece of legislation is illegitimate.
Cont with links http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/psychedelic-drugs/471603/
ROC MORIN MAR 4, 2016
The prohibition of MDMA and hallucinogenic mushrooms restricts "cognitive liberty," according to some activists.
By the time drug-policy lawyer Charlotte Walsh took to the stage on the final day of the recent Horizons Psychedelic Conference, we had already heard several persuasive talks on the benefits of psychedelic substances. Rick Doblin had spoken about the successful treatment of PTSD with MDMA, Draulio Barros de Araujo described his work combatting depression with ayahuasca, and Stephen Ross discussed his study administering psilocybin to cancer patients.
I had met Ross two years prior, while covering his psychedelic research. The psychiatrist had spent years and a small fortune obtaining the government’s permission to run an extremely limited study. The stakes were high. Without exemptions from the DEA and other agencies, Ross and his NYU team could have faced punishments as severe as life imprisonment. But the risk was worth it: The researchers were able to critically reduce end-of-life anxiety in the vast majority of their patients with targeted therapy aided by a single dose of psilocybin.
These clinical gains run counter to increasingly prohibitive trends exemplified by Holland’s 2008 ban on hallucinogenic mushrooms and the U.K.’s Psychoactive Substances Act of 2016. This recent law automatically renders illegal all substances capable of altering emotions or mental functioning unless specifically exempted.
According to Charlotte Walsh of the anti-prohibitionist Ayahuasca Defense Fund, that kind of blanket drug prohibition is a violation of international human-rights law. Walsh sees parallels between the drug war and the legal battles for racial equality, as well as gay and reproductive rights. She and her colleagues across Europe and North America hope to use the U.S. Bill of Rights and the European Charter on Human Rights to build a cognitive-liberty-based case against drug prohibition.
I spoke with Walsh recently about her current efforts and the prospects for success at home and abroad.
Morin: What would a human-rights-based drug defense look like?
Walsh: Generally, when people are prosecuted for psychedelic use, the defense focuses on technicalities rather than challenging the prohibitive framework itself. On the rare occasions when they do challenge prohibition, they tend to employ a rights-based framework—namely, arguing that their client’s human rights have been infringed by psychedelic drug prohibition. Rights-based defenses have historically been either pleas for therapeutic or religious exemptions from prohibition.
Morin: What is the legal basis for drug prohibition?
Walsh: Within the parameters of the U.K. Misuse of Drugs Act [equivalent to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act] the issue is ostensibly based around the idea of harm. We have an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is a group of scientists in different realms that the government consults when a drug is going to be scheduled or reclassified. The council then carries out a wholesale review of the substance and makes a recommendation for or against prohibition or reclassification. There has been a trend though where the government will ask the Advisory Council to carry out such a review and then just completely ignore their results and do what they want to do. As a stark example, when MDMA was being reevaluated for reclassification, before the results were even in, they issued a public statement saying, effectively, “Don't worry, whatever they find, we’re not going to change anything.”
An alcohol user can alter their consciousness freely despite the proven risks while a psychedelic user faces heavy punishment.
Morin: What results have they been ignoring?
Walsh: There was an extensive U.K. government study carried out in 2010 by a team under David Nutt that measured various substances in terms of harms to society and the individual. That study showed that alcohol is the overall forerunner in terms of harm, and tobacco comes close after that. A lot of the Class A drugs [equivalent to Schedule I in the US] and psychedelic drugs in particular were at the opposite end of that scale showing very low risk of harm.
Morin: Did the government refute the study or did they ignore it?
Walsh: They basically ignored it. In relation to the alcohol and tobacco findings, obviously nobody has called for their prohibition. An alcohol user can alter their consciousness freely despite the proven risks while a psychedelic user faces heavy punishment. It’s arbitrary discrimination. The government’s response to the Nutt study has been that drug policy isn’t based solely on science, it's also based on cultural and historical precedent.
Morin: Is that an admission that the harm-based justification for prohibition no longer applies?
Walsh: It’s certainly evidence that it’s applied inconsistently and arbitrarily. From a human-rights-based perspective, everybody’s rights should be protected equally unless there’s a good reason why you're treating a group differently. I don’t think that saying “culturally and historically this is what we’ve always done” is legitimate. You can’t say that about racial discrimination, for instance.
Morin: So, the current argument is that illegal drugs are bad because they’re illegal?
Walsh: Basically, and it goes beyond that. We have a recently elected Conservative government in the U.K., and they’ve produced something called the Psychoactive Substances Act. It’s a piece of legislation that renders it unlawful to trade in any substance capable of producing a psychoactive effect of any kind regardless of harm or benefit. If you read the text of the Act, it’s extraordinary, most notably its lack of any reference to the concept of harm.
Morin: How do they define “psychoactive” exactly?
Walsh: Any substance that alters your emotional state or mental functioning. It openly states that we [the government] think we have the right to stop you from altering your psychological state. It’s strange that’s something they believe they should have the power to do.
Morin: I assume there are exemptions for alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine.
Walsh: Yes, for culturally accepted substances. This legislation is potentially so broad that prior to its enactment the government felt compelled to write to bishops to reassure them that the incense used in church services would not become illegal, despite its being mildly psychoactive.
Morin: What does that kind of blanket ban indicate to you in terms of legislative intent?
Walsh: The tradition in English law was always to intervene as little as possible. That concept has been dying in more recent years. This reverses that presumption, replacing it with an assumption that you can’t do something unless the government explicitly says you can. This violates classic liberalism, where you have the concept of limitations of power, as most famously espoused by legal theorist John Stuart Mill. How much power can the state legitimately hold over the individual? Mill laid down the principle as prevention of harm to others. So, from that perspective, the kind of paternalism we’re seeing, both in the operation of the Misuse of Drugs Act and the fundamental aims of this new piece of legislation is illegitimate.
Cont with links http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/psychedelic-drugs/471603/
