Ayana Young  Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. Today we are speaking with Ismail Lourido Ali.

Ismail Lourido Ali  How do we fit these modalities that increase our vulnerabilities that increase our tenderness? Like how can we safely bring those into a world that is so brutal? How do we create an environment where when people go deep into themselves or they go deep out of themselves that they can do so safely?

Ayana Young  Ismail Lourido Ali, JD (he/him or they'them) is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). He has been personally utilizing psychedelics and other substances in celebratory and spiritual context for over 15 years. Ismail works with, is formally affiliated with, or has served in leadership or board roles for numerous organizations and the drug policy reform ecosystem, including Alchemy Community Therapy Center (formerly Sage Institute), Psychedelic Bar Association, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Chacruna Institute, and the Ayahuasca Defense Fund.

Ismail, it is so wonderful to have you back on the show. I was so moved and curious and inspired by our last conversation. So I'm really happy that we get to do it again.

Ismail Lourido Ali Yeah, thank you, Ayana. I really love the invitation to be back. And just appreciate the willingness that you've had both to extend this conversation and just to bring in so many complex layers, and also simple core truths into this ongoing conversation that you're having with me and with other guests around just what do we do? What are we doing? How do we adjust? How do we stay creative and light as we move into the future? So just grateful for this platform and for the conversation and really glad to be back?

Ayana Young  Thank you for that. Yeah, it's great, you really offer a lot of stuff we need to hear, and a lot of things that feel taboo. And like, we don't really want to touch it in our culture. But we are touched by it and are touching it all the time. And so we need to actually have non judgmental conversations. And maybe we just dive into the topic of culture, because I think it'd be so interesting to start dreaming with you about building an informed drug culture. And I know this topic comes up a lot in your work with MAPS. And I would just love to hear more about what an informed drug culture could look like? And what it means when we think about drugs through the lens of a culture, rather than just something for individual consumption.

Ismail Lourido Ali  Yeah, no, this is a great starting point, I appreciate the question. Well, maybe let's start by zooming out a bit and kind of situating my response or my perception of the response. We recently crossed over the 50th anniversary of the capital W, capital D War on Drugs. So we've now hit a point where even from a chronological sense, we can say, "We've tried this. We've tried this approach." And I think I touched on this a little bit in our last conversation, but you know, we're really not just dealing with 50 years of momentum for the current drug control strategy, we're really dealing with 150, or maybe even 500 years, depending on how you interpret the timeline. So I start with that to say that the environment that we're in today thinking about, you know, your question, what would this kind of more complete, holistic, thoughtful drug culture look like within our society? We're, in some ways, coming from a place of resistance like reacting to the momentum of history. And that can be pretty intimidating. And I think that's one reason among many, and maybe we can go into this down the line, why you see both a lot of progress and exciting advancement in the field of drug policy and you also see and we also see a kind of a constriction and a reaction. Like when something's moved too fast, people kind of revert to the more constricted or conservative are kind of fear-scarcity-oriented approach. So I think that we're kind of seeing both of those both that expansion and contraction occur simultaneously as we have both the exciting kind of momentum of psychedelic policy reform - the shifts that are happening with cannabis, the kind of general sense of awareness within the culture, drug culture and in the US and beyond about psychedelic substances and plant medicines and ceremony and ritual and these other aspects that are all tied. Add to that and you're seeing a lot of exciting growth in that area. And at the same time, we're seeing a lot of reaction within drug policy, I think in particular to fentanyl and the overdose epidemic and the drug poisoning epidemic and the fact that there's counterfeit pills everywhere, like we're really in, in some ways, it feels like a different paradigm, even if we're still responding to many of the same kind of circumstances that the last 50, 150, 500 years have been navigating. So all that context to say that when I think about what a kind of de-stigmatized or safer or more holistic or more educated drug culture looks like, the first thing I'm thinking about is reconciling the simultaneous glamorization and I guess you could say like grotesque place within society that that drugs fall into.

And there's a whole conversation to be had here, maybe not today about how we often treat sex and sexuality the same way in our culture, where it's like highly glamorized, but also seen as very grotesque, very stigmatized, but also very emphasized. And I think there's a lot of that energy with drugs and I would say altered states in general, I think they received the most of this with alcohol culture, because of that's kind of like the baseline, I guess we sort of have in a lot of Western society, because it's been so incorporated into our day to day social and cultural fabric. But I think that part of what I'm seeing and what I think is necessary is to pull back the association of drugs, drug use, substance use and so away from either the glamorized edge, or the edge where it's treated as grotesque. I think that the taboo nature of these activities, these human activities of altering our states and participating in, whether it's ritual, or ceremonial systems, or interpersonal or celebratory situations, or environments, in any of those cases, there's this sense that we need to attach shame, or hide. And in some ways, there's an aspect of alcohol culture that incorporates that, like, oh, when you're inebriated, you're suddenly less responsible for your behavior. And obviously, that's not accepted to an extreme, but there is kind of this sort of psycho emotional, interpersonal free pass that we give or get sometimes that's part of this is like hiding the behaviors, even from ourselves hiding parts of ourselves from ourselves. And I think that's where right now, for better or worse drugs and altered states kind of fit in into our society. They're like, Oh, they're the place where we can hide these things from ourselves or from each other. The irony, obviously, being that often these substances in altered states reveal to us, you know, what we're actually trying to hide the whole time. And I think that there's a little bit of a backfiring that happens. But yeah, just going back to your original question, I guess I would say like, the reconciling of the marginalized placement of these substances, behaviors, traditions, and so on in our society, would be a starting point to just say, Okay, this is going to be inside our circle, this is something we're going to be tracking, you know. There's a number of practices and tribes that when they have ceremony, they'll have some sort of sacred clown or kind of the [inaudible] or like a character that plays the shadow. But that character isn't exiled. It's not not permitted to participate. And I think that's kind of what I'm seeing on a big picture, like how do we give those sides of ourselves permission to participate in our day to day environment or culture? And how does that allow us to repress less have access to more and thus be more honest with ourselves and each other? 

Ayana Young  Whooo–

Ismail Lourido Ali  That's a start.

Ayana Young  In the beginning, my goodness, you sparked so many thoughts for me and super interested to hear more about a few of these topics, you brought up. The hiding part? What are we hiding from? What's allowed to be shown when we're in altered states, and then the fact that we have to hide... the culture is also about hiding, because of the legality issues and the shame and the stigma that comes? And then what you said about the connection to sexuality where it's so glamorized, but at the same time, people are so judged. And then the whole other part where you're speaking about.. We'll have these expansions and policy but then you get the contraction. And to me, I'm wondering, Okay, does that contraction come from fear? And sure, fear of overdose is real. Fear of pain and suffering and death is real, but there seems to be even more than that. Because, as a culture, we're not afraid of a lot of things that cause a ton of suffering and pain and death. So why this? Why is this something that gets so much more attention than how our culture uplifts very poisonous things every day. So I don't even know which one I want you to start with, what theme, but I really appreciate everything you shared with us. And I'm trying to wrap my mind around these bigger cultural concepts, and how they...  I think in a lot of ways, we see how they are manifested. But getting to the root of these cultural concepts would be really interesting with you. So if wherever you want to take it, I could also of course, ask you something more. Yeah.

Ismail Lourido Ali  But no, let's let's go into the hiding topic. 

Ayana Young  Okay, that's okay. 

Ismail Lourido Ali  Because there's a lot there. There's a lot there. Yeah. And I think like the word that a lot of people use to describe some of this, and I think that you've even had guests on your podcast before talk about the shadow and how we think about the shadow within society. And what that means, you know, when it's interpreted through the lens of an individual versus a society versus a culture. So I guess maybe one thing to continue with is this idea of what we repressed and we will allow it to be witnessed. And one of the reasons I've always appreciated studying and engaging with this topic, which you know, some people you can interpret as drug policy or substance use, or, to me, I think we talked about this a bit in the first conversation we had too like, it's really, so much of it has to do with these channels for our core human experience to come through. And I think that looking at the way, for example, the theory behind psychedelic therapy or psychedelic healing modalities work, it's so often not about just how do you package complex, repressed things into a box that can then be, you know, easily unwrapped and understood. It's instead: how do you temporarily at least remove the edges of that box so you can see, at least to the extent that you're able to in that moment, so you can see what's happening? And what's happening being like, what is the core, what is or what is the core? What are some of the core motivators to your behavior? And I think that, you know, kind of bringing this all together, when when I think about this concept of the shadow, or kind of the repressed self or these aspects that, in many ways, run our behavior, run our day to day actions or mood, but are often unseen, I think of two things, one, that the human mind has this absolutely incredible capacity to forget, and, you know, to dissociate and separate and I think that that is a legitimate survival mechanism. I don't begrudge people for the need that we often have to dissociate or repress, whether it's from like larger kind of environmental or circumstantial traumas or challenges or from, you know, personal things that have happened to us, it's not uncommon for people who've gone through trauma to repress some aspect of that, if, you know, allow their memories to completely wipe it at least temporarily, at least in like the immediate availability. So when when tying these subjects together, it makes me think about how the very modality of psychedelic therapy or healing of unblocking some of those structures on one hand, it's very beautiful, because it allows people to look more clearly and this may be kind of more precisely within themselves, which, you know, depending on their circumstances, and situation can take months or years or a lifetime. But I also think the flip side to that is a mirror of how our society, this is going to your other point, our society has really encouraged and actively supports behavior that tends to be harmful for the individual. And I think that that's really scary, because when you open yourself up to the possibility of unblocking, you know, internal repressed selves, or internal aspects that have, you know, dissociated or been forgotten, or whatever to protect you, suddenly when you have access to those things without necessarily all of your, you know, coping mechanisms or, or the ways that your mind has blocked that locked them out before that puts people into a very vulnerable state. And I think that part of the part of the stigma or fear that I think is associated with altered states, whether it's getting too drunk or doing psychedelics or doing anything else has to do with this fear of what's really in there. I'm sure you've heard, I hear all the time... people are like, oh, you know what I'm afraid of my own mind. Like I'm afraid of what's in there. People aren't don't even have the confidence or feel safe enough to go into the material that they know that they have. And I think that's for good reason, because they know that doing that makes them vulnerable, makes it hard for them to survive in a world that demands ongoing productivity and ongoing participation in a system. So it's a big Catch 20 too, because on one hand, yes, it's exciting to know. And it's, I think very inspiring. I think in some cases, if not intimidating also, for people to know, oh, there's actually a way that we can safely traverse these realms inside ourselves, these hidden parts, the parts that we've been taught to shame to avoid, to repress and so on. But more done so out of necessity. And yet, I think the as exciting as that might be, conceptually, it's just practically very difficult. And I think that's where some of the more crunchy issues that we hear about in the drug policy field, especially on psychedelics start to come up. What about corporatization? What about cost? What about? How do we fit these modalities that increase our vulnerability, that increase our tenderness? Like how can we safely bring those into a world that is so brutal to that tenderness. Like that is a hard, hard thing to square. And I think that that, to me, brings in a responsibility of supporting the creation, you know, doula-ing, I guess you could say the creation of a society that can hold that tenderness. But as I know, you know, this is something that you talk a lot about on the show like, that is challenging work, important work, but a challenging work to do more than just, oh, I'm gonna fix something in my niche area that I have expertise and excitement in, but rather, how do we create an environment broadly, where when people go deep into themselves, or they go deep out of themselves, however, the modalities or whatever the routes are, that they can do so safely? And that, to me, is like the channel from? How do we talk about the shadow, individual repression, psychedelic therapy, all that exciting stuff? And how does that extend to? Okay, so what do we do about everything else that's going on? It's kind of daunting, it's kind of daunting, but it's hard for me to not tie those things together. Like even though, you know, it's nice to have all these channels of hope and inspiration. I think part of the responsibility of tracking that possibility is, okay, well, what are we doing about the largest society that we're, you know, for lack of a more gentle term, like spitting people back out into, like, it's rough out there.

Ayana Young  Yeah. It is. And I think that we're all a lot more tender and fragile than we give ourselves space to be or others. And of course, colonial capitalism wants us to be desensitized and productive, you know, where we're not getting to feel our feelings, and so much I think about the Anthropocene, you know, extinction, that we're dealing with, dominant culture doesn't really want us to be feeling grief all the time. Because if we felt grief, if we really felt what it is to lose so many of our kin, we might change, we might uprise, we might do a lot of things if we felt our feelings. And of course, not all of those things would be, would feel good, either. So yeah, there's just, there's so much there that ties into our psychological states, and what we feel like we have to repress to keep going in this culture. And yeah, the question of what would happen if we allowed ourselves to feel, to unravel, to rest, to pause? Dominant culture doesn't want us to pause. So it's really hard to give ourselves space to be in the realities of where we are.

Ismail Lourido Ali  Yeah. And if I could just jump on to one thing that you just said about, like, what we're expected to do, and what does it mean to feel things? You know, it's really hard. Like, one of the things I think about when you say that, and that I know is just up for a lot of people, is how we navigate this conception of sanity and madness and psychosis and neurosis and how that shows up when it emerges in public. I've just been reflecting a lot on that point you just made and like, not only are we asked to repress grief, and like the full feeling into the full awareness of the feeling that we're experiencing right now. But also, if you were to feel all those things, and then express them, there's also this additional layer of stigma and a fear that kind of gets associated with that. And I think about this a lot with the realm of psychedelics, because there's a certain level where I think people want the kind of healing, clearing, extraction of the shadow, whatever process to be linear and clean and clear. And I think that, you know, going to the point earlier about people being afraid of what's in their minds, I think that people are afraid of feeling that extreme grief that you're describing, I think that people recognize that the enormity of the task of feeling into what's happening what's experiencing around them is, for lack of again, more generous term like literally crazy making like and I mean that both in a colloquial and literal sense, it really turns our conception of the world upside down in a way that makes it hard to function.

So I said that it's also challenging to over-separate or not associate the space that we need to feel our feelings in general with the space that is made with psychedelic substances in the right environment. And what's possible there with what happens when people actually don't have control over their ability to feel their feelings or feel what's going on whether or not they're substances involved. And I think that that is more of a spectrum than people want to acknowledge. And one of the ways that, like I've and you know, the team at MAPS and other people that I work with have tried to respond to this has been by saying, you know, the psychological crisis that people are dealing with on the street is not so different from other kinds of psychological crisis that people experience, whether they're under the influence of substances or otherwise. And so maybe we should consider: how do we navigate this problem with people having crisis, period, like, regardless of the source? You know, that can look like a lot of things on armed crisis response, or better education or better training or whatever, like, there's a lot of ways that we can kind of improve on the margins of that. But I just say that to say that there's a tie between this larger conversation we're having, within the United States in particular, about how do we navigate public crises. How do we navigate the fact that people are getting less and less space to feel that in the comfort of their own homes, if they have a home in the first place? So that's just it's just hard, because I think that even people who are resourced and sheltered are themselves barely holding it together. And then we're holding these wildly high standards of people who don't have those resources. So it's just I just wanted to name that as something that's tying together what I see happening out in public and in the discourse, and in media and d-d-d, and also technically happening at the individual level about, you know, how do we navigate our healing journey, our move toward tenderness, our desire for society to protect us all, while, as you said earlier, kind of navigating the fact that we apparently still have to keep making money to survive, and so on.

Ayana Young  No, it is crazy making. I mean, that's part of what's so just terrible about the dominant culture is that it sets us up to be wounded. And then it also makes us feel shame, that we're wounded. And then we're supposed to be unfazed and productive. Would we know, too, that that productivity is also in many ways, feeding ecocide? And so yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, truly, I mean, it is literally like, it is insane, that we are supposed to feel nothing about killing our home and ourselves. And we should actually just want to keep going bigger and bigger, but don't feel anything. It's like, Wait, what is going on here? And it's used against us. It's like, our feelings are weaponized against us. And, I mean, there's so many other things to talk to you about. But before we move on, I do want to go back to comparing this with sexuality. Because I think that also is weaponized. And again, that has its own form of crazy making within our culture, the repression, but then the exploitation and just how, you know, all of us have experience with the media. And I could go on, but I want you to go on. So. Take us there.

Ismail Lourido Ali  Yeah, no, so the first thing I'll say is, I'm not an expert on sex and sexuality within society and culture. But I will speak a little bit to your question, because, again, like I was saying earlier, like, I feel like it's hard to not see the parallels. And maybe one way to start the conversation or to continue it, I could say, would be to see sex and sexuality both in like an interpersonal relational sense, as well as on like a personal level of exploring sensuality and power, and substances, drugs, medicine, however, they're framed, contextualize utilized, and so on, as technologies. And as modalities that can both enhance and dull our already existing antennae, you could say. So if we have a capacity as humans for a certain level of consciousness, and I don't necessarily mean that here in the woo sense, although sometimes I do but really, in the sense of like, our ability to track and navigate our world to, to notice patterns, to learn to develop wisdom based on knowledge, like all of those things, insofar as there are tools that help us do that and sex and drugs, you know, put bluntly, are maybe two of those tools. I can see how, again, going to that kind of glamorization-grotesque dichotomy, how the way that use of either can enhance society's ability to reduce input to repress thought, to simplify, to allow for coping with the system are encouraged, while more kind of liberatory, expansive approaches tend to be undermined. And that's a pretty simplistic way to put it. Like, I do think that there's more nuance to that. And I don't quite think I'm not necessarily at a place now, where I'm like, all consciousness raising technology is banned, because the government wants us to be dumb. Like, there's for sure a level of that that's going on. But I do feel like even in a more grounded sense, there is definitely a convenience factor to it for society. Okay, well, these types of behaviors are convenient. And they allow us to encourage or enhance the types of quote unquote, pro social behaviors that we want to see more of. But when they undermine those behaviors, or when they get in the way of them, again, to your earlier point, when they reduce productivity, when they increase friction among society, or people who are participating in it, then things start to get sketchy. And if it goes too far in that direction, and we're just gonna just straight up criminalize it, like we're just gonna make it illegal or try to. So I do think that the metaphor works in that sense, because I do see a way where those two, these two powerful modalities, both sexuality and substance use, yeah, are utilized in the convenience of the super or for the convenience of the superstructure of the larger systemic or the larger system. And I think that one thing that I've been landing at more recently that is still kind of an emergent thought is the idea that it's not a binary, it's not that some drug use and some sexual behaviors are safe, okay and it's good for you and some is not. I think that the general stigmatization of you know, quote, unquote, ‘recreational use’ or pleasure or even like the association of the word hedonism has led to certain value judgments. And you know, even me talking about it, here I can, I can hear the value judgment in my own approach, even though I've really thought about it and tried to avoid that, just because of the way that the different behaviors are framed. And I think that, you know, there's a number of authors and writers and others that have been speaking about over the last few years, around bringing back pleasure and recreation and creativity into the light and kind of pulling it back from this kind of stigmatized associated with hedonism associated with selfish behavior kind of approaches. And I like to think that as so many things are, the truth is, you know, a spectrum and somewhere in the middle of where we can actually bring back this seeking of pleasure of interpersonal joy and creativity and recreation, while also staying in touch with the responsibility of our consciousness, of our presence on the earth at this time. And I think that I try to avoid myself, at least, going too far in either direction.

You know, I am a raver. I love going to parties, I throw, I organize them. I love participating in celebratory events. And I think that we need to make sure that those behaviors, whether they're sexual, whether drug-related, or whatever, maintain a certain level of protection and openness, so we can be honest about the way that they show up with respect to power and interpersonal dynamics and all those things. And also, I'm resistant too. So focusing on or emphasizing that like in the name of resistance, that we actually lose our teeth, that we lose our ability to stay in kind ah, the word, the words that are coming up are like adversarial or militant, but neither of those really captured I'm trying to get out, but we are actually holding a value set. And I think this is something you also talk about a lot in this show is there actually is a value set. It's not you know, it's not totally morally relativistic, that we're trying to support the earth here, like if there's actually a direction that's attached to this. So I think that that's the part that can get lost. Again, going back to what you were saying earlier, can get lost in the commodification of recreational behavior, the commodification of interpersonal cultural experiences,. Like I love raves, and I love ceremonies for different reasons. And I can see how both of those environments are moving toward or have already moved toward commodification not just because people are inauthentic because they don't really believe in the things but because people have to survive and every pressure that so many people are receiving from the indigenous people in the Amazon to people In, you know, major cities across the US, across the world and everywhere in between, like, everyone has to figure out, how do they survive under the current paradigm, and that pushes all of our best, you know, best intention behaviors toward a certain paradigm. And going back to your original question, I think that we see that with our attempt to see that with sexuality with substance use, and then when you have an option to experience sex and sexuality, or substance use outside of those paradigms, whether that looks like you know, the large expanding conversation that's happening around consensual non monogamy and polyamory, whether it's about the large expanding conversation that's happening around community psychedelic use, entheogens, personal engagement with the substances, reclaiming interrupted lineages, working with traditional practices, like when all of that stuff comes up, when it's all in the air, in the ethos, I think that we do have both duty and opportunity to engage with the liberatory aspects of that while also tracking and being aware of the tendency of everything we do to be moving back toward, you know, that need to survive that need to produce that need to participate in the kind of ever-expanding consumption of things anyway, though, got a little bit darker than I expected. But that is one of the ways that I think I can see that connection happening.

Ayana Young  As you were speaking, of course, I was thinking about how do we incorporate people who make their livelihoods off of drug production into the more broad frame of drug culture? And how do we institute practices of care for producers as well as consumers? Of course, because the chain of people whose hands touch the substances that especially we in the global North consume, are many and aren't oftentimes treated fairly, get paid fair wages, have access to housing, etc, etc. And so, there was a question that came up for me about that. But also, when we're having the conversation around synthetic substances versus plant substances, it was interesting to hear because my mind was trying to find some time of confirmation of like, well, what is better for the earth or for the producers? Or what's better for our bodies or our minds? And, of course, being who I am, I tend to move towards the plant world. But also, there's just so much tied into all of it. So I'm really trying to decipher how to even think about it.

Ismail Lourido Ali  This is such an important question that, you know, ultimately, this is going to be really dissatisfying. But ultimately, we have to decide for ourselves, but I do but you know, to your question and point like, this comes up a lot in the psychedelic field, I think both because of this idea of exceptionalism where we're like, well, the drugs that I do are better than the drugs that the other people do. But also, like, your question about synthetics versus plants is not just like a preference, like, woo, what is your spiritual framework question? It's a very practical one to your point. And I wish that we spoke about it more through that lens because it's very complicated. It's like on one hand, I'm like, really sympathetic to the people who are like, well, we've been working with plants for, you know, eons, 1000s of 1000s of years historically, and that must be okay. And I'm like, yeah, like there's definitely good arguments to say that the plants are potentially at the very… whether without putting like a better for you worse for you kind of binary on it to say, well, there's something that we're more familiar with as a species. That's probably true. And I think and again, to your point, like you filter that through the lens of our currently kind of scaled globalized capitalism, and suddenly we're like, Well, does that mean that everybody gets to get them? Does that mean, we have to produce enough for every person to have access to a plant? What does that mean for the labor dynamics that are required to do that? It's a very, very good question. And you know, we can apply this to, again, tomatoes, we can apply this to any of these things, but it's a very good question. And I think you know, what really shifted my mind. And just to share my bias, I've always been interested in and curious about synthetics from like the alchemical angle, like it's pretty magical to just create these molecules that can do so much with so little but one thing that's really shifted my mind or kind of been a factor here, in this particular aspect of the conversation is this sustainability carrying capacity aspect. And I think a good example of this is with mescaline. This has come up a lot recently, where you know, there is a small geographic region where the peyote cactus grows. Peyote is not the only source of mescaline, San Pedro, Peruvian torches there's other faster growing cacti that contain mescaline. And there's been a big debate over the last few years, or conversation about you know, what does it mean to be decriminalizing something like peyote? When we know or when there's a concern, particularly from the Native American church in the United States of like overharvesting to get to this thing? It's like, okay, well, now, if we're dealing with a species, it's not extinct, thankfully, is a threatened species, I think is the current kind of category. It's not quite the most dire situation, but close. And this is a situation where, you know, people are like, Oh, is the is the more ethical option here to either use one of these other fast growing growing cacti that contain mescaline, or do we just move towards synthetic and you're seeing the same thing happening with 5-Me-O DMT and the Bufo Toad where people are like, Okay, is it better is the more natural, quote unquote, option that involves agitating this animal and getting its venom and then smoking it. Is that better because it's, quote unquote, closer to nature than synthesizing something that doesn't require us to deal with stressing out an animal? And I don't I don't mean that in a value judgment way. I think that there's ways in to frame both that that can be written that can be problematic. But I think all that to say they just problematize the whole thing. It does complicate our kind of ethical analysis, I guess you could say, of the situation. So where I've landed, at least, you know, for what it's worth and your own exploration, where I've landed is that the intention and awareness of the source to me becomes the most important thing. It's similar to how I treated meat eating where, yes, like, it can be edgy for people to know that there's ritual or particular kinds of animal sacrifice. I'm thinking in particular, and I'm a Muslim, and for Eid for our big celebrations, sometimes we'll sacrifice a goat or a lamb. And that's done in a very intentional way– the animals raised very carefully, that meat is distributed among the community, both for charity as well as for family and friends. And I'm like, I can see how someone would be concerned about that. And also, I'm putting that in the context of like, the frenzied consent consumers ritual of mass scale meat production. And I'm like, it's all relative here, like, at the very least, we can say, like, this approach seems like it better aligns with my values, even if it's complicated. So I don't know, like going back to what I said earlier, this synthetic versus natural question comes up a lot. I do think it's the thing that people have to land at personally. And where I've landed myself is that like, it really is really context specific. There's definitely synthetic drugs that even if they don't have as much of a, like land-based ecological impact do have other kinds of toxic impacts. And one of the intense things about clandestine meth labs is that when they're dumped in places, they usually include a lot of toxic wastes that aren't carefully dumped. And that's partially a function of prohibition, also, that there's nowhere for it to go. And that does cause negative damage on the environment. I can say, you know, it's really important that we maintain the rights and protection and support for people who use the drugs and maybe need support in how they navigate that, you know, I can say that while also holding like, oh, there's a very real negative ecological impact that we should be tracking. It's the same thing with large marijuana growers. This is, I think, less of a problem now than it used to be but you know, large ecologically-damaging grows or other systems like those exist. And I think that, you know, we can't all know every detail about where everything we consume comes from, but to me, part of being a responsible consumer is just attempting to know that or getting as much information as possible, again, obfuscated by the system, but it's a starting point, at least

Ayana Young  So much there. So I want to ask a question about trends around drug use and then understanding the risk and in Columbia University's public health department, they explained quote, "Hallucinogen use has increased since 2015 overall, and particularly among adults 26 and older, while use decrease in adolescents aged 12 through 17 according to a new study by researchers at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center. An estimated 5.5 million people in the US used hallucinogens in the past year in 2019 which represents an increase from 1.7% of the population aged 12 years and over in 2002, to 2.2% in 2019." Now, first of all, I you know, I'm not even sure that these statistics reflect the reality of drug use. But I do want to ask, it seems like there is a growing use of hallucinogens. And the reality is more people are being introduced to psychedelics and coming to understand their effects. So I'm wondering how do we facilitate open and honest conversations about risks and effects of psychedelics, without, you know, either overly romanticizing them or overly inducing fear?

Ismail Lourido Ali  Yeah, this is a great question too. So one thing, I'll add, which tracks actually what the data you just shared, and that is my own anecdotal observation is that not only is psychedelic use increasing in people ages 26 and up, but also, I would say that there is more of an intergenerational use of psychedelics occurring. Which is to say, more people that are not millennials and Gen Z are starting to use more psychedelics partially, because two factors: one being the reduced stigma, the increased awareness, for better or worse, the increased hype, kind of sort of what you were saying. And also, the fact that kind of the same reason we saw a lot of increase in cannabis use in older populations is that as people age, the benefits of some of these substances become clearer. So I think both of those things are happening simultaneously. And I'm sure you know, Michael Pollan's books and other media that is geared more toward older generations, instead of just kind of the hype machine of like the youth psychedelia culture, or whatever is affecting those demographics. So I do think that that's the increase is true, I agree with you, I don't think that those numbers fully reflect what's really going on. I suspect that the numbers are higher, because most of these, most of this research is obviously self reported. And people are incentivized not to report, but the trend is real. And going to your question about, like, you know, what do we do about that? I've been really struggling/engaging with this a lot lately. So maybe as some background, you know, there's been a huge increase in policy reforms or attempted policy reforms across the country to create more safe, responsible access to psychedelics, and that looks like a lot of different things. Sometimes that means reducing or eliminating criminal penalties for personal use to increase. Sometimes it means creating protections for community or group use. So people can guide or offer services in the underground. Sometimes it creates a whole additional profession and regulated industry within a state level program not so different from a medical marijuana or regulated adult use program that we see in some states. So there's no of course, there's also the whole research angle. So there's a lot of different ways that these channels are opening. And I think to your question, different kinds of education are needed for different channels. But I do feel like it is the responsibility of those of us, you know myself included, MAPS included, a lot of other orgs included, too, insofar as all of the hype and research and excitement are increasing interest, whether or not people are able to access these substances in legal regulated settings, whether that's a clinical trial or a state level program or whatever. There is increased use, that increased use is occurring, whether we like it or not, and people can say all they want about wanting it to be in this context or that context, but at the end of the day, most people use psychedelics in illegal settings and we still We need to make sure that those people are getting proper services and getting properly taken care of and getting the right education and so on. So how does that happen? I mean, my dream world is one in which state governments are funding harm reduction and education services. I think it's a total travesty that civil society - that philanthropy and nonprofits have to basically fill that gap to provide education, harm reduction and crisis response services. That to me are obvious public health goods. And again, going back to what I was saying earlier, not only because of psychedelic use, but because people have crises and we should support people in crisis, like we shouldn't be putting lots and lots and lots of money toward systems that support people in crisis that don't involve armed intervention. Like that is just a general point. So that to me is like a guess, like a safety net sort of social baseline that I would like to see as a starting point.

And then, besides that, I would really like to see more of the state governments funding this kind of in addition to crisis response, also this other kind of education, to make sure people get accurate information, you know, to your point that doesn't overly rely on the hype machine, but also isn't in the kind of hysteria land that also doesn't give a full picture. Now, that's one aspect. And we all know that not everyone, this is the government. So that's not like a perfect solution. The other angle that I think is really important has to do with people who have businesses or offering services in the space. And I think this is true of people who are operating in the gray market. Maybe you've seen, I'm sure a lot of people listening have seen that there's quite a sophisticated underground market now for a lot of these substances, you know, whether it's mushroom chocolates, or wafers, or other kinds of things that exist that are out there. And I do think that there is a responsibility, even if you're operating in the gray market. I do think there's responsibility for, you know, good education, for whether it's services or products that are being offered. And I do wish that there was not just better education and better information, but less profit-oriented advertising and more disclaimers about what actually is realistic. But you know, that that's, again, going back to the theme we've had in this whole conversation, there's a tension between what's the right thing to do that's best for people? And what's the thing that sells the product that allows them to go forward? And so going back to the original question, I think that understanding that there's different demographics that are engaging with these substances through these different channels, some in the underground, some in celebratory setting, some in regulated settings, some through the range of through the realm of like treating an indication, like depression, or PTSD, or whatever, and are attempting to treat. And then some through, like a purely kind of celebratory social or interpersonal route. And I think that, you know, a lot of the education is similar. A lot of the information that people need for basic, safe access is similar. But I do think that different contexts require different angles. And I think one actually, maybe last thing I'll mention on this has to do with the double edged sword of associating psychedelics with healing. On one hand, it's really encouraging that compared to when I started using drugs, you know, more than 15 years ago, people are actually talking about utilizing substances for their personal growth and healing not purely for recreational purposes. And, again, not to demonize recreational purposes, I love them. But I do think it's cool that there's now a conversation among teenagers, that there's actually a conver.., which, you know, freaks some people out, because they're like, Oh, my God, they're young. But a lot of people start using drugs when they're teenagers. Hate to break it to you. So I'll just say that, like, I do think it's really cool that there's more of that visibility around kind of healing modality, which is great. And I think the flip side to that is that it puts vulnerable and desperate people into a position that's more easy to manipulate. And that is one thing that I worry about, where I see both with elders as well as with young people, like, you know, the exaggerated sales claims or claims about what psychedelics can do or what they can help with, that does freak me out. And you know, you see that even in like Instagram ads for legitimate ketamine businesses and stuff, where it's just like, oh, how, like, how much protection do we actually have to have for the consumer here, when we're dealing with schools that are being framed as kind of silver bullets, which they're intensely not, but, you know, obviously, it's convenient to frame them that way when you're part of that market. But one other thing I want to say related to what you were mentioning earlier about drug sellers, this is actually a really important point, because I think that we have evolved as an [inaudible] word. But we have kind of gotten to a point within society that there is an increasing consensus, maybe not a full general consensus, but certainly an increasing consensus that personal drug use is not a moral failing. And so criminalizing personal use, whether it's through the lens of dependency or addiction, or just personal use, as an adult is maybe not the direction we should be going. That's exciting because we're seeing a little bit more of an openness toward the criminalization and to these kinds of safety mechanisms: harm reduction, crisis response, all the stuff we were just talking about. And that's exciting.

And I think the flipside to that, to that kind of shift is that not only do we have to worry about people being potentially taken advantage of, but I think we also have to square with the fact that as long as we are being treated like consumers of a product, and this is true of like the larger kind of industry or field, we are incentivized or society and the economy is incentivized, again to keep obfuscating the source of those things. And that's why the source of those substances [inaudible] those behaviors. So I think that that's why I like the idea of moving toward a more localized economy when possible, because it also allows people to be in a more relational state with respect to what it is they're consuming, so much easier said than done. We are leagues away from that being possible. But I think that that is the general direction that we'd like to move in, to avoid being in a situation where we continue to obfuscate, separate, and avoid kind of the origins of what it is that we're, we're engaging with.

Ayana Young  Gosh, you brought up so many amazing points. And a few thoughts came to me, some of them being like, what kinds of healing are we even craving as a culture? And how might intentional and conscientious psychedelic use or you know, how can we tap into some of these needs not just as a solution or a cure, but as one of many pathways because, like you were saying, it's not a silver bullet. It's not a one stop solution to health and healing, whether it's a spiritual experience, or a healing experience, led by a great practitioner, it's a tool and a healing process. This is one of the many constituents that play into creating health or wellness. And if we could really understand what kinds of healing we're craving, and then see these psychedelic experiences as a step in the healing process. Maybe we could also not look at these experiences as an instant gratification. And if that's the case, we might also be able to respect the medicines more and not have so much bio-cultural appropriation that also comes from this way of trying to find healing.

Ismail Lourido Ali  I feel like the two words that come up when you say all that, our balance and humility, and, you know, thinking about one of the approaches that I've just taken, personally, that I've, you know, learned from many wonderful teachers and friends over the years is the desire to work toward and seek balance as a value as opposed to like some thing that I think I understand. And I'm trying to impose, I think that to me, like it brings up this idea of balance, and humility. There are factors outside of our knowledge and control. This is true of our ecological reality. This is true of our social, cultural, interpersonal values. There's factors that we don't understand, and they're outside of our control. And to me, I think that where I've landed with some of what you were just describing is humility to realize that my limited sometimes puny human understanding mind is not able to grasp what an ideal outcome would be. And this is like the constant reminder and experience on the micro level at work on a macro level and social environments in situations where I'm just like, I actually, I don't actually know what the best outcome is most of the time. And what I do know is that an outcome that seeks or encourages balance, among many factors, is one that's more likely to be beneficial or to be sustainable in a way and generative in a way that I'd like to see. So where I've landed with that is the move is less prescriptive and persuasive, which is an edgy thing to feel in a realm, you know, as a lawyer and advocate like an educator it can be, it's been interesting to see within myself how  de-associating not dissociating, but reducing association with the narrative of knowing what is going on or what needs to happen has been quite confronting for my ego and my identity. But it's allowed me to be more in tune with this, again, humility and awareness that I don't actually know that most of the people that think or that are trying to sound like they know also don't actually know. And what that at least does for me is put me in a place of more openness and spaciousness for what can emerge and then seeking that balance and equilibrium becomes its own value instead of trying to make sure that we're getting to the balance because I have this weight over here on one edge. It's a very different approach for me personally just as an advocate, and it's one that I'm still trying to like, understand how to hold in the political climate that we are in that requires so much aggressive advocacy and adversarial positioning. But yeah, I feel like there is an opportunity that we have here to step back from our knowing and to, you know, it's kind of like the language shift from leading something to attending something or from encouraging something to being in service for something it's. So there's subtle differences in in kind of advocacy approaches, but I think are more enlightened, because that the end of that combination allows us to get to your question, which is, what is it that we are trying to heal in the first place, and there's any number of like, things we can mention, whether it's like, capitalism, or patriarchy or racism. There's things that we can identify, we can point to and say, oh, we need to heal from that. And I think that those are also important processes that have to happen. And also, I don't think that the end all be all is to heal from harm. I think that that is a means to an end of peace and balance and justice, as opposed to its own end. And I think that, you know, it's hard to deal with that environment in a social political environment right now that demands so much clarity and demands so much direction demands that we, you know. I don't love framing it this way, but it's a very like, masculine adversarial positionality, that we're expected to put into play as advocates or as people that are, you know, defenders of the water of the Earth or the people. Like there's this sense that if you're not doing that in this adversarial, aggressive way, then you're gonna get eaten alive by the system. And that's a lot to hold. And I don't advocate for people to like, weaponize their tenderness, you know, to be in a place where they have to fight or they have to concede to fight. That they'll have to concede their own humanity or concede their own capacity to stay in the fight. But I don't, I can only see that there's some level of balance and equilibrium needed between these extremes. And to me that's the healing arc. It's like moving away from those extremes, not in the interest of flattening everything, but in the interests of finding balance. And those things like the far ends of all the spectrums kind of going back to the very beginning of this conversation, like there's a certain level of glamorization or grotesqueness that I think we can keep with shamanic practices with these, like shadow, ways of being these things that these forms and modalities that actually have been protected for good reason, for a long time. And I don't think it's like, we don't have to suddenly say, Okay, we're going to uncover it all, everyone gets everything, let's just reproduce the same kind of consumers dynamically, we've got with everything else. We also don't need to kind of stay afraid and stay kind of unaware and separated from that aspect of ourselves. I mean, I guess balance is the short answer to all of that, but so many other pieces, it's hard to track sometimes.

Ayana Young  Yeah, I love the balance and humility. Humility, to me, is just such a guiding force. And every time I come back to that, it's an exhale, and it brings me so much clarity. So Oh, my goodness, this conversation again, you just blow me away. And I could keep going. But I've already kept you over time. Thank you so much for your passion and your thought process and your sharing of so much. I mean, I just really love speaking with you. So thanks for taking the time today.

Ismail Lourido Ali  Thank you.

Evan Tenenbaum  Thanks for listening to For The Wild. The music in today's episode is by Santiago Cordoba, Public Access and Camilia Jade. For The Wild is created by Ayana Young,  Erica Ekrem, Julia Jackson, Jackson Kroopf, and Evan Tenenbaum.