Tech vs Humanity: Are Psychedelics Our Best Hope?

Are We Innovating our Way into Isolation, Fragmentation, and Obsolescence?

The first greeting of dawn comes at 5:15 a.m. from the jarring electronic sound on my cell phone. Technology, not physiology or nature’s cues, forces me awake. It’s the weekend, but I am at the SCVA Las Vegas Classic volleyball tournament with my daughter. I am up early to beat the lines at the Park-MGM Starbucks, which opens at 5:30 am. I drearily pull myself together enough to walk downstairs and wait in line to order our drinks and breakfast. 

By the time I arrive, the line is already circling around the entrance into the Casino. There is a horde of impatient parents and teens gathering expectantly, waiting for their mobile orders while one helpless woman armored up with a green apron conducts the orchestra of chaos to deliver orders, answer questions, and weather unjust criticisms and snipes. Apparently, these people had the same idea I had, however, they turned to their devices and apps for an immediate and convenient solution. Coming in as fast as 7 orders per minute, this Starbucks with all-hands-on-deck was helpless to stymie the onslaught of demanding and reproachable customers. There was no “please” or “thank you” offered for this lone woman’s attention or service. She was treated with apathetic indifference, much like the electronic kiosks that are now replacing human interaction, chatbots for customer service, and digital interfaces for hospitality. If anything, she was treated like a nuisance; the obstacle that now stood in the way of the fomenting mob from getting what they wanted…now!

“These very human pleasantries are the micro-moments that reminded us that we are all human together.”

I opted for a different path. I patiently waited as one by one, the customers in front of me attempt a human experience: placing our orders with a human while seeking small bids for connection.

“Hi! How are you? May I please have…? Thank you so much. Have a wonderful day.”

These may feel cursory in today’s day and age, but these very human pleasantries are the micro-moments that reminded us that we are all human together. They were the times when we could look each other in the eye and sigh deeply together. When a smile could heal more than a pill. When a simple act of kindness would echo into the evening when we lamented with family or friends about the remarkable things that happened in our day.

Too fast and too quickly, it feels like we are riding a tidal wave of change, spurred on by a progressively digitally-connected culture built on convenience and demand. The results? A society more self-involved, entitled, and disconnected than ever. We are being driven by a motor of compulsivity, impulsivity, and un-intentionality. We are becoming more fragmented than ever, and as a result, we see the divisiveness play out in any manner of contexts: geographical, racial, political, gender, societal, economical, culturally… on and on; it’s unrelenting.

How do we start to build a culture of connection? One where we can prioritize mindFULLNESS instead of mindLESSNESS. Our minds are now full with a cacophony of noise that is distracting us from our love and light, or worse, numbing any feeling at all because it’s too much to bear the reality that society is so sick that it doesn’t care for us.

“Lost in this tsunami of change are the opportunities for stillness, tradition, ritual, ceremony, and the sacred.”

And, things are only getting worse with the rapid assimilation and integration of AI. Artificial Intelligence or machine intelligence or smart machines, whatever you want to call it, could potentially mark the critical atrophy of our brains as we willingly outsource our intelligence, discernment, and critical thinking to a piece of tech with an algorithm. I feel fortunate to have grown up in an era without cell phones and AI. It gave me the perspective to appreciate the ways in which personal devices and AI could assist my knowledge acquisition, critical thinking, ingenuity, and creativity. But, for the cohorts that are growing up connected to technology, depending on their phones to endlessly distract and entertain or relying heavily on AI to write term papers, create art, or obviate any difficulties in learning new content, we are trading curiosity for ennui, motivation for laziness, discipline for comfort, struggle for ease, and empathy for apathy. We are seeing more kids quick to give up at the first sign of hardship. Grit is becoming harder to find outside of the sandpaper section of a home improvement or hardware store. Struggle is something that won’t be bothered with.

This is not intended to be, but very much feels like a David vs Goliath story. Goliath is the capitalist consumer economy prioritizing technology and innovation over David, our humanity. Lost in this tsunami of change are the opportunities for stillness, tradition, ritual, ceremony, and the sacred. Nothing captures this more than a quote by Ian Malcolm in Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Innovation for innovation’s sake supplies an endless sense of novelty, but novelty is not what keeps us connected, it is what keeps us distracted.

I am reminded from my time at the Hoffman Institute, all change starts with awareness. In quantum physics, The Observer Effect explains that the mere observation of a phenomena is enough to change the phenomena. To become aware is an act of healing and change. It all makes me wonder… are psychedelics our last line of defense in this blue-lit world?

“Psychedelics are not always only about healing, but sometimes affords us a moment to upgrade our software and optimize our operating system – in a human way.”

Psychedelics are not an immediate solution to the above problems. However, psychedelics offer us an opportunity to expand our consciousness, enhance our awareness and mindfulness, dissolve our self-involved ego, and remind us of our interconnected nature. They are an opportunity to connect back to the sacred, to mysticism, to the ineffable. The mere act of prioritizing and scheduling a psychedelic journey, which could run anywhere from 4-6 min to up to 36 hours, is an act of declaring sacred space. One away from the task-oriented, digitally-connected, hurried pace of life. Most journeys are between 2-8 hours and are a welcomed reprieve from society’s expectations to do more. Psychedelic journeys offer us an opportunity to feel completely and be more.

Another welcomed benefit of psychedelic journeys is the expanding capacity to think bigger, contemplate deeply, and explore the world from a lens of curiosity. Psychedelics do not - only - offer healing, but also sometimes afford us a moment to upgrade our software and optimize our operating system – in a human way. Human optimization is not something we have research to authenticate yet, but there are countless anecdotal reports and personal experiences that inform our capacity to hold space for enhancing creativity, tapping into joy and play, deepening our sense of intimacy and love, and optimizing our life spent in the light, rather than just pulling us out of the darkness. These journeys of optimization sometimes do venture back into our wounding to release the tethers of those old patterns and stories. But, it is no more burdensome than removing a splinter from our hands or tending to a blister after we reach the peak experience of our life’s adventures.

It’s all part of the journey.

Not only was Oregon the first state to trail blaze the legalization of psilocybin (and marijuana), but in November 2020, they approved Measure 110, the "Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act" which made way for funding drug treatment programs and the “gradual process of putting cannabis tax dollars toward drug treatment organizations.” It seemingly set quite the precedent for the rest of the country, showcasing how to effectively financially restructure and ideologically reframe antiquated beliefs about drugs, addiction and legalization.

The senate has now passed a bill to end Measure 110, re-criminalizing hard drugs and halting the effort of addiction recovery programs and services across the state. Drug Policy Alliance says it’s due to, “an intense disinformation campaign by drug war defenders and by Oregon leaders who scapegoated Measure 110 for every issue in the state.” 

Kevin Sabet, President and CEO of Drug Policy Solutions, says "There's widespread dissatisfaction with the way that (Measure 110) dollars have been rolled out, the amount of treatment that's available, and really with the lack of accountability…this is part of a very well thought out multi-decade plan by those who want to legalize drugs and the billionaires who are behind it.” Back in 2023, a poll run by Drug Policy Solutions showed the following: 

• 64% supported the return of criminal consequences for possession of small amounts of hard drugs.

• 54% said they thought Measure 110 increased homelessness in their communities.

• 33% said they thought Measure 110 makes the community much less safe.

So what really happened to cause this stark shift in voter’s mindsets?  What personal gains are involved in the results of this polling? It’s important to realize that the psychedelic community has our own goals around legislation, though a good deal of us are in alignment with bringing about more addiction and reform services. State and federal decriminalization means more academic and research funding made possible. It means bringing psychedelic healing services to those in need without healers, facilitators and educators risking incarceration themselves. Measure 110 meant big strides towards this goal. But we’re not the only people lobbying here my friends. We know all too well that psychedelics has become a corporate and profiteering gold rush. People who have no experience, no background, and no real investment in psychedelic healing are racing to cash in on the hard labor of the psychedelic community and commodify, saran wrap and sell “magic mushrooms” to the masses…without the healing, without the introspection work, without the integration and frankly, without morality.  And then we have the politicians, wielding legalization and promises of change for votes and power. So was Measure 110 scapegoated? it certainly appears so. Conrad Wilson and Tony Schick of OPB say, “Oregon’s political leaders themselves played central roles in failing to deliver on the potential for law enforcement to connect people with lifesaving services under the new measure, documents and interviews with a wide array of people involved in the system indicate.” This is unfortunately just another example of bureaucracy failing to deliver on promises made.

If Oregon’s law enforcement wasn’t ready (*cough* prepared) for Measure 110, it might seem as if the state was lacking the infrastructure to bring about long lasting change and reform, but it simply isn’t true. Since Measure 110 passed, addiction services were expanded by $300 million, health needs screenings increased by 298%, comprehensive behavioral health needs assessments increased 114%, substance use disorder treatment increased 143%, peer support services increased 205%, harm reduction increased 148%, housing services increased 296%. These are facts. The 2023 Drug Policy Solution’s poll (above) gathered opinions, and it bears repeating that opinions aren’t facts.

By all these vast improvements, most people would consider Measure 110 a success. But even I know (as much as I wish it could be) drug and psychedelic legalization is not the answer to all of our problems in America. We can’t simply legalize drugs and psychedelics and hope to see fast acting polar shifts in our communities. And like we’ve seen before time and time again, legislatures, politicians and lobbyists will blame drug use as if it is the root cause and not simply stemming from a much larger, more complex societal dilemma.

1) Homelessness is not just an economic crisis, but a mental health crisis.  At the very least, this would require a two-pronged approach. Not sticking our fellow humans - suffering with homelessness and addiction - in jail is really just the start. 2) Those selling drugs because of economic disparity is not the fault of the drug, but due to the lack of resources and wealth hoarding we see in corporations being continuously given tax breaks and bailouts by the American government. Handing out $100 tickets for possession ain’t helping the cause either. 3) Crime, drug use, homelessness, this all leads back to a lack of government funded healthcare, which includes mental health care. Yes, in some instances drugs can cause all of the above, but more often, drugs are used as a coping tool, a vice to dilute and numb the pain and trauma one harbors.

It seems obvious that Measure 110 was one step in the process, not the final solution. Regardless of this setback, Oregon’s original decriminalization is undeniably still pivotal in the pace at which we are seeing other states follow suit. Massachusetts, you’re up next. I wait eagerly to see the outcome.