By: Jas Johl
On June 18, 1971, President Richard Nixon declared the nation’s so-called “war on drugs”. On this 50th anniversary of this ill-begotten policy, it’s time our society recognizes that psychoactives are not a public health scourge, but rather, important medicines that can treat the traumas so often hidden in plain sight.
While many imagine that distance in time will cause the valence of trauma to abate, the reality is that the body keeps the score.
As a child, I was classified as gifted. But, early experiences — poverty, neglect, abuse — created a cumulative effect on my nervous system and body that slowly made it difficult to think, to read, to function.
I did not know it, but my nervous system was constantly releasing cortisol throughout my body, essentially poisoning me, upon the slightest of provocations. I failed the eighth grade. My teachers, unsure of why a brilliant student suddenly performed so poorly, passed me on to the ninth.
In college at Berkeley, I struggled with constant pain, recurrent nightmares, and a pervading sense of survivors guilt at having left my younger siblings back home.
The physiological response provoked within me every time I thought of the traumas I had experiences prevented me from speaking to anyone. I slept for months on end. I wanted to die.
At the time, I didn’t know any of the neuroscientific details of what was going on inside my brain. Yet, I knew the feeling: it was like lacking skin. The slightest perceived neglect, ostracization, or meanness would wound — triggering my default mode network to activate, my prefrontal cortex to override my brain, and my amygdala to attempt to protect me. An evolutionary mechanism gone awry — my body sought to protect, not understanding the context or nature of current threats.
Many saw only my achievements — degrees from Berkeley and Oxford, prestigious jobs, etc. I felt invisible, to everyone, including myself. Because my trauma occurred so young, everyone, including me, believed it was me — not an illness. They thought it was my character, not my brain. How do you tell anyone you’re in constant fight or flight, if you’ve never known anything else?
As cultures around the world have known for ages, some of the most effective medicines to abate trauma are psychedelic in nature: DMT, psilosybin, peyote.
In early 2020, I sat for two months, twice a week, in guided ketamine psychotherapy sessions. The drug, which numbs the body but leaves consciousness intact, facilitates the stopping of sensory input. It shuts down the physiological triggers which prevent people with trauma from speaking.
Finally being able to observe myself without the constant current of cortisol, without the fried nervous system, allowed me to see what else was there. It allowed me to experience myself, in my body, without terror. This experience was fundamental to begin healing.
MDMA, which has been shown to effectively treats severe childhood trauma in combination with all the comorbidities it brings, worked similarly. MDMA promotes prosocial behavior, allows for memory extinction, and is crucial for survival in a person whose entire physiology tells them the world is inherently unsafe.
I’m not asking for pity, I’m asking for change. Across this country, people suffer from trauma that manifests into an opioid crisis, combat shocked veterans, violence and despair. It hits every walk of life, and is the cause of much disability and despair.
The privileged of our society use these psychedelics recreationally, without worry of any recourse, while those on the other end are denied access to these life-saving medicines, or worse. This hypocrisy must end. There will undoubtedly be more trauma to come — wars, climate disasters, violence.
On this 50th anniversary of the beginning of the drug war, we much commit to sensible policy that does not penalize those seeking safety or healing. There are brave organizations and individuals doing this work, like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies and UC San Francisco, among others. There are also progressive legislators — like California Senator Scott Wiener, introducing legislation to decriminalize. It shouldn’t take having to leave the country, risking safety, or spending a small fortune to seek treatment. Ketamine, which has an 80% rate of curing suicidal ideality — these medicines save lives. This can’t be about money and politics, anymore. Lives are on the line: end the war.
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Jas Johl is a Visiting Policy Fellow at The Oxford Internet institute.
Website: http://www.jasjohl.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JasJohl
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasjohl/
