In keeping with my personal brand (Hermione gets into psychedelics), I am spending my weekend at @HorizonsConf. First up: The acute and long-term effects of psilocybin in healthy volunteers (increased compassion, empathy, gratitude, nature-connectedness, and well-being!!) 🧚♂️🍄⚡️ 
The second @HorizonsConf panel is on psilocybin as a treatment for major depressive disorder. SSRIs can be effective, but they often don’t work, and in some cases can do more harm. Depression affects 300 M people worldwide, and 1 in 6 in the U.S. We need new solutions (🧚♂️🍄⚡️).
Just ended the third @HorizonsConf panel on psilocybin treatment through the ACE model (accept, connect, embody). The big idea is that you must accept pain in order to connect with your emotions and discover what pain can teach you. (Creative science is so beautiful! 😭🧚♂️🍄⚡️)
Next up at @HorizonsConf, we’re learning about frog-5MeO DMT — which kicked off my own spiritual transformation — in terms of alleviating depression and anxiety, here with a specific discussion about healing racial trauma for people of color. 🙏💕
Frog-5MeO DMT is a very extreme drug, and, as always when working with psychedelics, set and setting are crucial. It’s important to have an safe and ethical plan for preparation, facilitation, and integration. (Music, a trusted guide, and trusted source are key.🐸⚡️)
Omg Elias Dakwar — an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia doing a talk on ketamine therapy — just put up a slide with fun facts. His favorite psychedelic? Meditation. 😂
(Oh, and favorite celebrity? Ayahuasca. 🤟💕🐍🌈⚡️)
(Oh, and favorite celebrity? Ayahuasca. 🤟💕🐍🌈⚡️)
Dr. Dakwar is now talking about using mindfulness-related equanimity & dispassion for reification of ketamine experience. So many possibilities for longterm impact here. (I’ve had a lot of luck working with a daily integration practice since my first transformative experience).🙏
Now Carl L. Hart is dispelling arbitrary & elitists beliefs about psychedelics. This whole talk has been incredible so far, but especially the suggestion for free anonymous drug-purity testing. (People are going to take substances, help them do it safely.) 🤟💕⚡️
Wow. This line from Dr. Hart deserves to bolded and underlined: “If the vast majority of users of a particular drug do not become addicted, then you cannot blame the drug for causing drug addiction.” 🙏🙏🙏
“Drugs are scapegoated so authorities can avoid dealing with real problem of the poor... and so they can target people we don’t like without explicitly saying so.” — Carl L. Hart, everyone 🔥🔥🔥
HOLY SHIT: Dr. Hart quoted Jefferson, insisting the liberty-asserting Declaration of Independence is basis for fighting for regulatory schemes that permit safe adult drug use. Then, quoting MLK, he argued it is our civic duty to pursue this effort. [Insert Standing Ovation] 🔥🙏
.@HorizonsConf started today with the Buddhist idea of don’t-know mind (basically being open to learn). (I feel like we could all try to be in that state as much as possible.) 🤓🧠✨
Dr. Beatriz Caiuby Labate has been studying ayahuasca for 23 years. She shared a list of ethical concerns for ceremony work that you should consider when you research retreats. 🐍🌈✨If aya has been calling to you, check out Chacruna.net
For example 🙏
Dr. James Rucker just spoke about engaging with the stigma around psychedelics, especially those that persist in the community, in order to focus on the goal of the greater good: to bring these medicines in a safe way to people who are suffering. 🙏💕💕💕
Next up @HorizonsConf: Bennet A. Zelner insists the pharmaceutical model has created increased inequality & mental distress. He says this is NOT the pathway for psychedelic care; it is counter to the mission (of providing safe and accessible care to those who are suffering). 👏⚡️
Dr. Zelner says psychedelic care cannot be a for-profit model. The dedicated intent of the institution is crucial, and it must be care. It’s also important to create local wealth and connection. Economic and social benefits should be the focus. (Hell. Yes.) ⚡️⚡️⚡️
To end, Dr. Zelner offers a democratic reminder in regard to the psychedelic greater good: We can’t expect institutions to build the better world. Change occurs from the bottom-up. It requires local ideas and networks that eventually go on to create systemic change. 🤟💕⚡️
Now at @HorizonsConf, a panel on economic expansion of psychedelics including George Goldsmith of COMPASS Pathways, which has accepted venture capital from Peter Thiel. qz.com/1454785/a-mill…🧐 (My friend just said, “This feels like an intervention.”
On patents and anti-competitive activity, Dr. Zelner predicts that there will be more collaboration than competition in the future. He insists sharing knowledge will be highly incentived, both socially and economically. ⚡️+1 for total human potential
Ayahuasca expert Dr. Beatriz Caiuby Labate insists we look at other models for working with the plant medicines that have been healing us for centuries. “Psychedelics is about getting access to people at large more than the medical model.” (AMEN 🙏✨🌈🐍💕)
Dr. James Rucker says, “If we develop psychedelics competitively, they will fail. That is not what they are about. They are about kindness... kindness to ourselves, nature, and each other.” (I clapped so hard. 🌲💘🧠)
Dr. Labate asks COMPASS George what he is doing to give back to the community, and he says basically “keep watching.” Way to encapsulate the entire problem, dude.
During the @HorizonsConf attendee insisted on a final question, and asked COMPASS’s George Goldsmith about his connections to Peter Thiel and ICE. Watch for the end of that and Goldsmith — seriously this capitalist Smaug’s last name! — giving a shitty non-answer.
All weekend @HorizonsConf, I’ve been frustrated by the stigma around hallucinogens. There’s tons of faux concern about the potential harms of psychedelic care. What about the potential harms of fucking opioids?Always question the bizarre social rules behind arbitrary taboos. ☠️💕
“Close your eyes & think 100 years from now. What is it that you would want to see 100 years from now?” — Steven Benally in a talk on “empowering indigenous communities to conserve, regenerate, and reconnect their sacred Peyote medicine for spiritual use for generations to come”
“All the ones who lived here, where are they now? Are they still around?” — Steven Benally offering @HorizonsConf a question we must constantly ask ourselves 🙏💕
“We have lost what is most important, and that is concern for one another.” — Steven Benally insisting our well-being is connect to the well-being of the collective 🌎💕✌️
“We have a saying: Before you take, you give first. And when you take, you take only what you need.” (My heart is so full listening to Steven Benally on indigenous values. We must always honor the wisdom of native people.🙏💕)
Now @HorizonsConf the artist Swoon is talking about healing trauma, especially when we’ve been taught to see burning out as a necessary cost of a creative life. It shouldn’t be. 🧠✨
Swoon just quoted the Canadian physician Gabor Maté in explaining her (⚡️incredible⚡️) work. “Addiction always originates in pain,” Maté said. “The question is not why the addiction, but why the pain.”
“The muses love us just as much, and maybe even more, when we allow ourselves to unfurl toward wholeness.” — @swoon before a standing ovation @HorizonsConf 🙏😭💕✨
I was so inspired by @drcarlhart's talk dispelling myths about drug use at @HorizonsConf this weekend. If you're unfamiliar with his work, check out this @TEDMED talk:
