What Public-Opinion Data Show About Psychedelic Reform
An overview of public-opinion polling on psychedelic policy, tracking survey trends on support for decriminalisation, medical access, and shifting attitudes.
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Articles
Plain-language reference articles on psilocybin — the science, the law in South Africa and worldwide, the history, and the policy-reform debate.
The Outlook for Psilocybin Reform in South Africa
An analysis of where the psilocybin policy debate currently stands in South Africa, the key actors involved, and the potential paths forward.
Read article →A Glossary of Psychedelic-Policy Terms
Clear definitions of scheduling, decriminalisation, prohibition, rescheduling, prodrug, and related terms to help readers follow the psychedelic policy debate.
Read article →Religious Freedom and Psychedelic Sacraments: A Legal Overview
How freedom-of-religion protections have been used in legal cases for ceremonial psychedelic use, and what this means for drug policy.
Read article →City and Local "Decriminalise Nature" Movements
How US municipal resolutions de-prioritised enforcement for natural psychedelics, the limits of these policies, and their relevance to South African drug policy.
Read article →How media coverage of psychedelics has shifted: From moral panic to medical hype
An analysis of how media framing of psychedelics moved from drug scares to promising medicine, and the public-health risks of overpromising.
Read article →What ‘Integration’ Means in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy
An educational overview of the clinical concept of integration in psychedelic-assisted therapy, explaining how therapists help patients process and consolidate insights from psychedelic experiences into lasting psychological change.
Read article →The commercialisation of psychedelics: patents and startups
An overview of the ethics and economics behind the rise of for-profit psychedelic companies and the debate over patenting therapies.
Read article →Equity and Access in the Psychedelic Therapy Debate
An overview of the cost barriers and policy proposals surrounding regulated psychedelic therapy, with a focus on ensuring equitable access rather than creating a luxury treatment market.
Read article →Who Is Driving Psychedelic-Policy Reform?
An overview of the researchers, veterans, patients, and advocacy organisations shaping the global debate around psychedelic drug policy.
Read article →Why veterans’ groups became prominent in psychedelic advocacy
How PTSD and veteran advocacy pushed psychedelic research into mainstream policy conversations, with a social overview.
Read article →What Harm Reduction Means as a Public-Health Philosophy
An overview of the principles of harm reduction as a public-health philosophy, its historical origins, and its relevance to modern drug policy.
Read article →Drug-Checking Services and Why They Exist
An overview of how drug-checking and reagent services function as public-health measures globally, and the policy debates surrounding their implementation.
Read article →Why Mushroom Misidentification Is a Serious Safety Issue
A public-health look at the real dangers of confusing wild mushrooms with toxic look-alikes — and why folk tests and apps cannot keep you safe.
Read article →Albert Hofmann and the Isolation of Psilocybin
The 1950s scientific journey to isolate and synthesise psilocybin, bridging indigenous knowledge and Western pharmacology.
Read article →Why psychedelic research stopped for decades
The political and regulatory forces that halted psychedelic research after the 1960s, and what changed to reopen it.
Read article →The “psychedelic renaissance”: how research came back
An overview of the institutions, funding bodies and cultural shifts behind the revival of psychedelic research since the 2000s.
Read article →A Short History of Western Psychedelic Research
A historical overview of Western psychedelic research, from the early promise of the 1950s and 1960s, through the era of global prohibition, to the modern scientific renaissance.
Read article →How the West "Rediscovered" Psilocybin Mushrooms
The 1950s account that popularised psilocybin in the West and the ethical questions it raised about indigenous knowledge.
Read article →Indigenous and Traditional Uses of Psilocybin Mushrooms
A respectful historical overview of ceremonial psilocybin use in Mesoamerica, the consequences of Western contact, and the ethical questions surrounding cultural appropriation and benefit-sharing.
Read article →Why researchers describe classic psychedelics as non-addictive
A science explainer on the pharmacological basis for the low dependence potential and rapid tolerance of classic psychedelics, and what this means for drug policy.
Read article →How researchers distinguish therapeutic, ceremonial and recreational use
A conceptual overview of the three framing distinctions used in psychedelic research and drug policy to categorise psilocybin use, their overlaps, and why they matter for regulation.
Read article →Psilocybin Compared With LSD, DMT and Mescaline
A high-level comparative science overview of the classic serotonergic psychedelics, examining their differences in origin, duration, and pharmacology.
Read article →The Placebo and Blinding Problem in Psychedelic Trials
A methodology explainer on why it is difficult to blind psychedelic clinical trials and the strategies researchers use to address this challenge.
Read article →Microdosing: what the current evidence actually shows
A neutral review of what controlled and placebo-controlled studies have found about low-dose psilocybin and LSD claims — emphasising uncertainty.
Read article →Psilocybin Safety: Risks and Contraindications in Clinical Research
An overview of what clinical trials report about the acute risks of psilocybin, who is screened out, and why.
Read article →Set and Setting: Why Context Matters in Psychedelic Research
An educational overview of the research concept of 'set and setting'—how mindset and environment shape psychedelic experiences—and why clinical trials rigorously control for context.
Read article →Psilocybin and depression: what the trials have reported
A careful summary of published psilocybin depression trials, reported effect sizes, and methodological limitations.
Read article →Psilocybin Research in End-of-Life and Cancer-Related Distress
A research summary of clinical trials examining psilocybin-assisted therapy for existential distress in terminally ill patients.
Read article →The Default Mode Network and What Psychedelics Do to It
An educational overview of the default mode network and what neuroimaging suggests psychedelics do to brain connectivity.
Read article →What “breakthrough therapy” designation means for psilocybin
An explanation of the FDA's breakthrough therapy designation, why psilocybin therapies received it, and why it signals scientific promise rather than regulatory approval.
Read article →How psychedelic medicines move through clinical trials
An educational overview of the clinical trial process for psychedelic compounds, covering Phases I–III, the challenge of blinding, and what regulators require before approval.
Read article →Portugal’s Decriminalisation Model, Two Decades On
An overview of Portugal's 2001 drug decriminalisation model, the public health data after two decades, and its relevance to psychedelic policy reform in South Africa.
Read article →What is Psilocybin? The Basic Pharmacology
An educational overview of psilocybin and psilocin, explaining the prodrug mechanism and how these compounds interact with serotonin 5-HT2A receptors in the brain.
Read article →The serotonin 2A receptor and classic psychedelics
A plain-language neuroscience explainer on why the 5-HT2A receptor is central to how classic psychedelics like psilocybin, LSD, DMT, and mescaline act on the brain.
Read article →Cognitive liberty: the idea behind many reform arguments
An educational overview of cognitive liberty and freedom of thought in drug-policy and human-rights debates, and its relevance to psilocybin reform in South Africa.
Read article →Privacy rights and drug law: a recurring constitutional theme
How privacy arguments have shaped drug-law challenges across jurisdictions, including South Africa's cannabis precedent and what it could mean for psilocybin.
Read article →What the evidence says about criminalising personal drug use
A neutral overview of public health research and policy analysis on the effects of criminalising versus decriminalising personal drug use.
Read article →How the cannabis judgment reshaped South African drug policy
Exploring the 2018 Constitutional Court cannabis ruling, its privacy reasoning, and why reform advocates see it as a legal template for other controlled substances like psilocybin.
Read article →The UN drug conventions and how psychedelics are scheduled internationally
An explainer on the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the international scheduling of psilocybin, and the tension between historical prohibitions and emerging clinical research.
Read article →Decriminalisation, legalisation, and medical access: what the terms mean
Plain-language distinctions between the three main drug-policy reform models, with real-world examples, to help readers follow the psilocybin debate accurately.
Read article →Psilocybin’s Legal Status in South Africa: Schedule 7 and the Constitutional Challenge
How psilocybin is classified under South African law, why it sits in Schedule 7 alongside heroin, and the constitutional challenge arguing for reform.
Read article →The Global Psilocybin Decriminalisation Landscape
An overview of global psilocybin policy, comparing personal-use decriminalisation and regulated-access models in the US, Australia, and Europe, and what they mean for South Africa.
Read article →Oregon's Regulated Psilocybin Services Model
How Oregon built a licensed, supervised psilocybin services framework after Measure 109 — licensing, facilitators, safeguards, and lessons for drug policy reform.
Read article →Australia’s rescheduling of psilocybin for medical use
How the TGA moved psilocybin to allow authorised prescribing for treatment-resistant depression, the conditions attached, and the debate around it.
Read article →What the Science Says: Psilocybin and Mental-Health Research
A plain-language overview of the clinical research into psilocybin for conditions like depression and PTSD — what studies have found, and what remains uncertain.
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