A part of PIR ’ s preamble notes the potential risk of taking them too often , and although there ’ s much enthusiasm there for ‘ journeying ’ and ‘ ceremonial use ’, it ' s very unusual that peers start using plant meds the way we drank or shot dope . I don ’ t know about you , but I ' d likely end up in a secure unit if I took them the way I used heroin .

The group sprang out of a US drug policy event years ago , when it turned out there were around 50 psychonauts present with past addiction issues . It seemed beyond coincidence that they should all be in the same space together , so they grabbed the moment , and leapt bravely into growing PIR .

The AIDS Coalition ' s ( ACT UP ) slogan ‘ Ignorance = Fear ’ became imprinted upon my consciousness decades ago .

To contextualise – the US gave birth to the 12 steps in the 1930s , and Bill Wilson , who co-founded AA , took a couple of different psychedelic medicines to help him out of prolonged depressions . So for those of you wondering how a group can call itself 12-step while occasionally taking these meds , the answer , as ever , is written into the implicit search for healing .

PIR friends regularly share how folk originally from AA and NA either don ’ t tell their fellows that they ’ re using plant medicines , or the ‘ mixed ’

responses when they do . Until fairly recently , sharing about taking any drugs in such fora was thought to be unwise , but slowly-slowly our communities are changing .

The AIDS Coalition ' s ( ACT UP ) slogan ‘ Ignorance = Fear ’ became imprinted upon my consciousness decades ago , and it reminds me that the psychedelic renaissance is relatively new . Not everyone knows these medicines can stop depressions or reduce the ongoing impact of trauma , and so I don ’ t get preachy about it .

Ketamine is being used to treat alcoholism but is dependency-forming itself , so some PIRers are unsure about it . Also , people must be free of opiates and SSRIs before they would be considered in most psychedelic research protocols , including for ibogaine . This raises questions for me . Around 2000 , I took an ibogaine trip that had me immobile for six hours . I was on SSRIs at the time but the outcome of that journey was ten of the calmest months of my life – the peace and stability I ’ d craved since childhood . So no adverse affects , though I understand how researchers are currently treading carefully and are reticent to include people on other currently-contraindicated drugs , the potential danger being serotonin syndrome .

If a person ' s primary mental health challenge were only

suicidal ideation , you might be lucky and find yourself on a psychedelic research protocol . But if you ’ ve ever been diagnosed with bipolar or schizophrenia , forget it . When I first worked that out over years of chats with friends at Breaking Convention and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies ( MAPS ), I wasn ’ t delighted .

Anyways , I did my first community detox from opiates and SSRIs , arguably a dumb thing to do given I live in chronic / severe pain . My conclusion so far is that it was definitely a good idea to stop the SSRIs . Not sure about the low-level opiates , as I ’ m always struggling with physical pain , acute or not .

As for the million-dollar question about whether microdosing psilocybin will stall decades of depression , I would answer yes , though you ’ d better have the money to afford them . Just like medical weed , they ’ re not cheap , but if you shop around you may find a reasonable price .

Moreover , I am not yet personally convinced that psilocybin is more successful at treating depression than some SSRIs , but I haven ’ t spent the last decade of my life empirically researching this . What I will say is that it can only be a good thing to have increased medicinal choices on this planet , in this historical period where war-related trauma and the climate emergency are creating high levels of mental health trauma and associated illnesses .

Andria Efthimiou-Mordaunt is an activist , who visited PIR as an observer