Are psychedelics addictive? In the current revival of the study of psychedelics as potential mental health treatments, a growing body of pharmacological literature describes them as non-addictive. However, as they proceed through ever-larger clinical trials that test their safety and efficacy as medications for treating a host of mental health indications, an earlier phase of hype surrounding psychedelic therapy is being increasingly challenged, and research into adverse experiences is growing. While seemingly non-addictive, I argue in this chapter that psychedelics raise questions about the locus (and pathology) of habit itself, moving from the physiological to the psychological, the social, and the spiritual. Some pro-medicalisation psychedelic advocates have pointed to the extant distinction between addiction and dependency, to open up the possibility that one can be dependent upon, but not ‘addicted’ to, psychedelics. This logic reveals how dependency can be viewed along epistemic-economic axes as a bulwark against accusations of addiction, in part to smoothen and repair the processes of medicalising potentially-addictive substances. Through an analysis of the medicalisation of psychedelics currently underway globally, I suggest that psychedelic therapy offers a post-critical gesture, at once revealing and challenging what I call the ‘drug foundationalism’ of both addiction and dependency discourses—in the former case, as a ground problem in need of solving; in the latter case, as a basic regimen demanded by the good life. By contrast—and as the lines separating health, recovery, and wellness continue to blur—psychedelic therapy may help us to see all drugs as techné: overlapping and nested building blocks in the ongoing construction of our lived experiences.

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From Medicalisation to Cultural Embrace: Drug Foundationalism Versus Techné in the Psychedelic Revival

  • Tehseen Noorani

摘要

Are psychedelics addictive? In the current revival of the study of psychedelics as potential mental health treatments, a growing body of pharmacological literature describes them as non-addictive. However, as they proceed through ever-larger clinical trials that test their safety and efficacy as medications for treating a host of mental health indications, an earlier phase of hype surrounding psychedelic therapy is being increasingly challenged, and research into adverse experiences is growing. While seemingly non-addictive, I argue in this chapter that psychedelics raise questions about the locus (and pathology) of habit itself, moving from the physiological to the psychological, the social, and the spiritual. Some pro-medicalisation psychedelic advocates have pointed to the extant distinction between addiction and dependency, to open up the possibility that one can be dependent upon, but not ‘addicted’ to, psychedelics. This logic reveals how dependency can be viewed along epistemic-economic axes as a bulwark against accusations of addiction, in part to smoothen and repair the processes of medicalising potentially-addictive substances. Through an analysis of the medicalisation of psychedelics currently underway globally, I suggest that psychedelic therapy offers a post-critical gesture, at once revealing and challenging what I call the ‘drug foundationalism’ of both addiction and dependency discourses—in the former case, as a ground problem in need of solving; in the latter case, as a basic regimen demanded by the good life. By contrast—and as the lines separating health, recovery, and wellness continue to blur—psychedelic therapy may help us to see all drugs as techné: overlapping and nested building blocks in the ongoing construction of our lived experiences.