Destigmatizing Entheogens: From Indigenous Roots to Modern Medicine

Sacred plant medicines and psychoactive compounds have been used globally throughout indigenous cultures for spiritual and medicinal purposes as early as 3500 BCE. In 1970, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration criminalized entheogens, claiming they had no medical benefit whatsoever and that they were dangerous to the population. Scientific research over the past 60 years has demonstrated the therapeutic potential of entheogens in relation to depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, autoimmune disease, analgesia, and more. With this new research and the demonstration of entheogens' safety in clinical settings, the U.S. DEA needs to reevaluate their 50-year-old classification of entheogens. This reclassification does not necessarily designate entheogens as recreationally legal for all to use, but rather should allow for further medical research and experimentation to improve understanding of these substances' mechanisms of action and therapeutic potential for a multitude of psychiatric and physiological diseases and disorders.