Nature invented a tool for self exploration so meaningful that some of us burn it’s symbol onto our body, and humanity decided those who touch it need to be sent to jail https://twitter.com/c_angermayer/status/1306979654503464960

I don't think people realize quite how much of a power law humanitarian interventions are. If we had taken psychedelic drug development and psychedelic therapy as a serious science for the last 50 years we may have cured much of the suffering humans go through

even the crudest tools are shockingly effective. MDMA is 60%+ cure rate on the worst PTSD, and I think it'll cure the vast majority of eating disorders. Repurposed horse tranquilizer and cures 60%+ of severe depression, and 5-MeO-DMT under the right settings may be 80%+

I can't overemphasize how stupid these molecules and therapeutic protocols. MDMA is an extremely dumb non-specific and known neurotoxic drug, yet no matter how we setup the therapy it seems to be magic. A better protocol or less terrible drug will prob work 10x better

it might be < 5 researcher-years away, but we criminalized actually doing the research. I think it's likely the humanitarian bad (DALYs, qualitative, anything) of banning it 50 years ago overshadows the good of everything positive they've done in that time combined

good intro by openphil that talks about the power law of philanthropic giving, which I'd expect to be far more uniform than the distribution of impact of the largest technological innovations in general https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/hits-based-giving

The power law means we can screw up *almost everything* if we get the few most important things right. Our world handed us many inconvenient truths, but it also gave us the key to a couple of these important things on a silver platter. All we had to do is not criminalize it

For ~50 years we've known MDMA helps you change low-level emotional memory your brain rudely prevents you from accessing otherwise. After 100ks of sessions, psychotherapists coined it "the penicillin of the soul". I colored the countries that put you in jail if you take it blue