This fascinating article in Microdose.buzz discusses the criticism of the intersection of capitalism and psychedelics, and how it is seen as a moral issue by some. The author, James Hallifax, argues that while there are difficulties that must be managed when combining traditional medicines such as DMT or psilocybin with the profit motive, the only way to ensure that promising treatments such as psilocybin-assisted therapy for depression, or MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD, reach the millions that need help as soon as possible, is through the capitalist system.
The biggest problem? The idea is that we should keep money out of psychedelics. Writes Hallifax:
They have a fundamental problem with people making money off of medicines that, in the case of some psychedelics at least, have existed for millennia. They see these drugs as sacred, and that any combination of these and profit, as is inevitable in a capitalist system that uses them as medicines, is grotesque.
Now, I am not qualified to make a value judgment on whether capitalism is the best possible socio-economic system that humans can come up with. Personally, I am a big fan of the welfare-state capitalism found in countries such as Denmark and Finland — these countries are not “socialist” as some would claim — but I could be wrong. But regardless of whether or not I — or others — like the system under which the developed world exists, the fact remains that we do in fact currently live in this system.
Check out the rest of the article here.
