Doubleblind Article: Why the “Psychedelic Renaissance” is just Colonialism by Another Name | Cannabis Law Report | Where to order Skittles Moonrock online
Learn how to buy CBD Oil online. TOP QUALITY GRADE A++
Cannabyss Inc. is the best place online to buy top quality weed, cannabis, vape, marijuana and CBD products. Get your borderless orders delivered at the pickup spot with ease. Top Grade products for client satisfaction.
👉 Click here to Visit our shop! 🛒
In the main I have to concur with this argument..
Here is the introduction to the piece
A new psychedelic renaissance that remains grounded in colonial habits risks replicating historic and systemic harms and injustices
There is a growing belief that we have entered a renaissance of sorts in the realm of psychedelic substances. That is, if you are inclined to agree with the narratives of popular culture, from The New York Times to former wrestlers-cum-intellectuals. We do not disagree that there is a surging interest and a co-optation of psychedelic substances into the machinery of the dominant economic operating system. Whether this amounts to a renaissance, or if this is even a useful descriptor, is less clear.
The etymology of renaissance derives from the Latin nascor which means “to spring forth,” which gives us the French naissance, meaning birth or creation. The re is the Latin prefix for an action that occurs again. Hence, renaissance as rebirth. It is a grand word with specific historical connotations, especially attached to 15th-century Europe’s artistic and cultural Christian revivalism and imperialist expansion.
The term renaissance assumes there is something to be reborn from. In the case of psychedelics, the assumption is that the current resurgence of mainstream acceptance, interest, and experimentation, with the requisite increase in financial investment and academic research, is the continuation of the legacy of the 1960s. From the first synthesization of mescaline in 1919 to the discovery of LSD by Albert Hofmann in 1938, the research (and antics) of Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert at Harvard in the 1960s, and the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970 along with the mass incarcerations that ensued, one could argue that the initial psychedelic movement of Western culture was more akin to a stillborn than a finished labor. Can a movement have a rebirth if it never had a proper birth in the first place?
What is often forgotten in this discourse is that the first psychedelic boom in the 1960s was a novelty only for the West. Countless other cultures, especially Indigenous nations, have been well acquainted with a large number of psychedelic or entheogenic plants and medicines for millenia. It merely took the West generations to catch up. In relation to the recent uptick of interest in psychedelics in the West, the current “renaissance” appears to be far from a deep intellectual and spiritual rebirth, grounded in something other than the survival instinct of Western modernity. As is, it is more akin to a reboot of modern society’s failed attempt to re-imagine (and somewhat heal) itself in the 1960s, while continuing to conveniently place the cost of its survival and continuity on other peoples and cultures elsewhere (i.e. continued coloniality and exploitation as a salve for the existential woes of Western culture).
Leave a Reply
Want to join the discussion?Feel free to contribute!