Horizons: Perspectives on Psychedelics is an annual forum that examines the role of psychedelics in science, healing, culture and spirituality. Learn more at horizonsnyc.org.
Jag Davies
Director of Communications Strategy | Drug Policy Alliance
“What Does The End Of Psychedelic Criminalization Look Like?”
Imagine this: It’s 2026 and Horizons is celebrating its 20th year – and psychedelic-assisted therapy has finally been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration!
Even as people begin to engage in legal psychedelic therapy, most people who use psychedelics will certainly continue to do so outside of government-sanctioned, medically-supervised settings. This means that thousands of people would still get handcuffed, arrested, branded as criminals, and even locked up every year simply for using or possessing a psychedelic substance.
Polling currently indicates little support for legalizing over-the-counter sale of psychedelics or any other currently-illegal substances apart from cannabis. Yet the drug policy reform movement is increasingly focused on ending the criminalization of possession and use of such substances, and investigating options for enabling legal access in ways that advance rather than undercut public health and safety.
How can we accelerate the process of ending criminal punishment for possession and use of psychedelics? Apart from psychedelic-assisted therapy, what are the options for allowing safe and legal access to these substances? These questions need to be responsibly addressed.
Biography: Jag is director of communications strategy at the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA), the nation’s leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. DPA has played a pivotal role in most of the major drug policy reforms in the U.S. on issues such as medical marijuana and marijuana legalization, criminal justice and sentencing reform, and health-based approaches to reduce the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug use and drug prohibition.
Jag oversees the organization’s messaging and visual identity, and manages the development and production of publications, donor communications, advocacy materials, reports, multimedia and digital communications, and messaging research. He is regularly quoted in a wide range of media outlets and his writings have appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC.com, CNN.com, and dozens of regional and online publications.
Before joining DPA in 2009, Jag served as director of communications for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and as policy researcher for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Drug Law Reform Project, where he coordinated local, state, federal and international efforts to end punitive drug policies that cause the widespread violation of constitutional and human rights.
Likes: 0
Viewed: 143
source