expert with your dosage as you possibly can be. Nowadays I realise that these points are as true to food as they could be to alcohol, heroin, or LSD. It might seem a stretch to compare heroin and food but obesity is experienced by 63% of the Australian population and is the third greatest burden on our health system. Perhaps dosage is a term we may need to reconsider as being only related to pharmaceuticals. There is a strange irony related to
the perceptions versus the realities of harm in a festival context and this is the rejection of drug testing facilities, a globally recognised, tried-and-tested measure for improving safety in our society. A significant contributor to drug related harm is the inability to know the strength or quality of the substance being taken with certainty.
We need more people standing up for their evidence-based beliefs and calling out the problems of conservative thinking when they occur.
Entheogenesis Australis presents Psychedelic
Symposium 8 – 10 December 2017
Planting Psychedelic Seeds
www.entheogenesis.org
There is a certain amount of rhetorical ammunition gained by keeping this service illegal, and that is by the honest admission that not knowing what you’re taking is risky. If those risks were taken away, the prime criticism against psychoactive substance use would be undermined – if people can know how to do something safely, why shouldn’t we let them? How can we empower people with responsibility in most other facets of their lives, but not this one? Suddenly the conversation is about moralising and not about factual health concerns. Once upon a time we had to push to have the ingredients published on the packets of our food. Is it such a stretch to do it for other consumables? While working for England’s Home
Office’s Drug Advisory Council, Professor David Nutt reported, to his peril, that ecstasy use was less dangerous than horse-riding and that it should be decriminalised. For his efforts he lost his job. I for one, am proud of his martyrdom
because I have seen first-hand what can happen when people with good intentions and a fair degree of sense fall victim to a bad batch of something. We need more people standing up for their evidence-based beliefs and calling out the problems of conservative thinking when they occur. I implore you, dear reader, to do your own research on this topic, because
the evidence is easy to find and in great supply. It has become almost commonplace for retired top police brass to recommend harm minimisation as the most effective strategy for drug-related issues in our society. Whether through hindsight or a newly-found freedom to express what they could not while on the job, they arrived at the same realisation that we all should: drug use is not going away; we need drug testing facilities to save lives, and we need to support people who use drugs with their issues rather than stigmatise them.
HOW CAN WE RECONFIGURE THIS PERCEPTION? My feeling is that the prevailing sentiment among our festival makers is not hugely courageous. In defence of our festival scene, we can’t really afford to be. Too much controversy can be very damaging or even disastrous to an event group that exists at the grace of Lady Luck each year. Even the largest and most well respected festivals in this country are incredibly vulnerable simply because of the nature of the production, let alone the shifting winds of political and public opinion. Generally, if a festival organisation’s
event is cancelled this spells their doom and they will be bankrupted. Many have been far too close for comfort. The ill-fated Maitreya Festival 2016 is a complex case study in this regard.
International Presenters: Rick Doblin (MAPS) Kathleen Harrison Erik Davis Tom Roberts
Ben Sessa Fiona Measham James Oroc David Nickles Jennifer Dumpert Neşe Devenot
“EGA is a unique gathering celebrating research and community. Anyone with an interest in discussing the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics and ethnobotany to address the social and cultural issues that face our world today would benefit from attending EGA” – Rick Doblin
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