How Psychedelics Challenge Core Assumptions about Medicine, Ethics, and Humanity

Abstract: FDA is expected to make a decision about approval of the first psychedelic medicine in the US by August 2024. Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness. As such, they have the potential to disrupt long-held notions of what it means to be human and challenge us to think critically about transformation, the nature of healing, and mental healthcare.

This panel brings together diverse perspectives from philosophy, sociology, bioethics, and law. The first panelist will discuss the current state of psychedelic use (both regulated and unregulated) in the US, examine the appropriate role of healthcare gatekeeping, and explore implications for core ethical concepts like respect for persons. The second panelist will explore the principle of agency and its importance to psychedelic facilitated self-change through interviews with psychedelic retreat-goers and will argue that ethically administering psychedelics requires a commitment to maximizing participants’ capacities to enact transformative agency. The third panelist will describe how the transdiagnostic effects of psychedelics may challenge our current system of psychiatric nosology—pushing us to reconsider alternatives to the current categorical framework of the DSM. Such a shift would have downstream effects on diagnosis, access, personal identity, and stigma related to psychiatric illness. The fourth panelist will examine understated concerns about psychedelics, argue that funders have a responsibility to care for those who suffer substantial harms, and discuss mechanisms for addressing harm, including the benefits and drawbacks of an injury compensation program.