Credit: CC0 Public Domain Interest in psychedelics like psilocybin, mescaline, and LSD is on the rise for the first time in 50 years, as influencers, scientists, and entrepreneurs promote their therapeutic potential. Some municipalities have stopped enforcing criminal bans on their possession, and at least one state has legalized medicinal use of certain psychoactive substances.
In his review article titled "Observations on 25 Years of Cannabis Law Reforms and Their Implications for the Psychedelic Renaissance in the United States," drug law expert Robert Mikos, LaRoche Family Chair in Law at Vanderbilt Law School, draws lessons from the marijuana reform movement that proponents of psychedelic legalization should heed in their efforts to win public support.
The research is published in the journal Annual Review of Law and Social Science . Federal legalization is not a short-term possibility
Mikos outlines three potential routes to legalizing psychedelics at the federal level, but he warns that each face "daunting obstacles that will be difficult to overcome in the short term." Administrative action
Psychedelics are placed on Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 (CSA), defined as substances with the most potential for abuse and harm, with no recognized medical uses. The manufacture, distribution, and possession of psychedelics is a federal crime, outside of federally approved clinical research studies.
The Attorney General has some authority to reschedule drugs, with significant restrictions. A petitioner would first need to demonstrate that a particular psychedelic has a currently accepted medical use. The CSA offers a double-edged challenge for petitioners: It requires large-scale, well-controlled clinical trials to prove efficacy of Schedule I substances, while simultaneously limiting the supply of such substances and requiring burdensome licensing and handling procedures.
Petitioners for marijuana (also a Schedule I substance) have been unable to meet the CSA’s standards for proof; Mikos cautions that current research on psychedelics would suffer a similar fate. "No studies that would satisfy the CSA’s lofty criteria for demonstrating medical efficacy have yet been completed," he writes.
The challenge of rescheduling doesn’t end there. The Attorney General must comply with international law when making scheduling decisions, a long-time issue for advocates […]
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