🫠 Psychonaut POV

Welcome to Tricycle Day. We’re the psychedelics newsletter that’s begging you—won’t you please think of the children? They need to be able to use psychedelics someday too, ya know. 🙇

Kat Murti believes no one should be able to tell you what you can or can’t do with your mind. (We call that “cognitive liberty,” folks.) As Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, she’s got a whole network of young people behind her, who all agree and won’t back down.

We spoke to Kat about why students are the ideal people to fight the War on Drugs, how SSDP is challenging the DEA right now, and what anyone can do to support sensible psychedelic policy.

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How did your interest in psychedelics develop and influence your career path?

Unlike a lot of other people in the psychedelic space, it came much later for me. I was initially interested in the idea of human liberty and the fact that we own ourselves, we own our bodies, and we should be able to make decisions for ourselves.

That led me to the war on drugs and trying to change those policies. My initial forays were into cannabis policy. I got involved with the fight to legalize cannabis back in 2007 with the DFW NORML chapter. Then I ended up joining SSDP in 2009 at UC Berkeley.

I actually learned about psychedelics while I was at Cal, in this very academic way at first, just because there were a lot of folks who were chemists in my SSDP chapter sharing that knowledge. That's how I started learning about this whole new world of drugs and drug policy, human expansion, and everything they've influenced throughout history and culture.

What have been some of SSDP’s psychedelic policy wins over the years? Why do you think students are especially well-positioned to effect policy change?

Students are especially well-positioned to affect policy change because this is a war being fought in their name. People say they want to keep drugs illegal to 'protect the children,' but young people are actually at the front lines of these wars. They're arrested, pushed into interventions, labeled as 'bad kids,' and denied opportunities. The war on drugs is supposedly meant to help young people, but they're often the most harmed by it.

With SSDP, we're the largest national network of young people working to end the war on drugs. We find young people who are passionate about making the world better and give them the tools, network, training and experiences they need. Some will end up working directly in criminal justice or harm reduction; some might become psychedelic therapists or policy workers. But many will also become business people, lawyers, doctors, engineers. The important thing is they've got this lens to view the world through, as they go out and make an impact.

We've had some significant wins. We've worked on every marijuana legalization campaign since 2009. SSDPers helped craft the Breakthrough Therapies Act. We've had major victories on campuses around harm reduction, getting universities to distribute naloxone and fentanyl test strips. At places like University of Washington and University of Alabama, their health websites now direct students to SSDP chapters for harm reduction supplies.

SSDP is currently challenging the DEA's plan to schedule DOI and DOC. Will you explain the significance of these two compounds and why SSDP is fighting the DEA?

DOI and DOC are substances you probably wouldn't have heard of unless you work in psychedelic research, because they're not used recreationally. However, they've been used safely in labs since the 70s. There have been no arrests in the past five years, and the DEA has seized it outside labs fewer than 20 times. One of these substances, DOC, has become the de facto chemical used in labs to understand serotonin reuptake in our brains.

Between these two compounds, there have been over 900 academic studies showing potential for treating anxiety, depression, opioid overdose, pain management, and more. The research suggests incredible potential to improve people's lives. But in 2022, the DEA suddenly announced they would be moving these substances to Schedule I, claiming they have no accepted medical value and high risk of abuse, which is absolutely wrong.

We pushed back and demanded a hearing from the DEA. They dropped it, but then last year, during Christmas week, they announced again they were moving to Schedule I. We've secured a 10-day hearing in the DEA administrative court, but they're still playing games. Hours before the motion deadline, they tried to block our scientific witnesses from testifying about how DOI and DOC are being used, the lack of harm, and the medical applications. Our lawyers worked overtime to fight this, and fortunately, the DEA’s attempts to silence our witnesses were rejected.

If these substances do get scheduled, researchers would need a Schedule I license to continue, which can be incredibly difficult and expensive. Labs would likely need to stop all research, reapply, and get individual approval for each study. You're basically saying this research isn't going to happen anymore. And think about the decades of research already done. It essentially gets scrapped because if you criminalize these substances, you can't recreate those experiments or use what's been learned to create new treatments. And for what? There's no proof of diversion, no arrests, no recreational use. The DEA knows they have no case. They're just hoping no one notices what they're doing.

As an outspoken libertarian and feminist, where do you see these philosophies intersecting with psychedelic policy reform?

Both of these philosophies—libertarianism and feminism—have at their core the belief that I own me. This corporeal form is my personal private property, and no one has a right to tell me what I should be able to do with it as long as I'm not intruding upon anyone else's right to self-ownership. That includes using psychedelics or other substances.

When there's no victim, there's no crime. If you're not causing harm to any other individual, it should be legal. Even if you think something is immoral or shouldn't be done, that doesn't mean you use the state to stop it. The state power is all-encompassing and lacks nuance.

Consent is also crucial. Libertarianism is consent culture applied to everything. For example, even if MDMA has shown amazing possibilities to improve people's lives, dosing someone when they don't know about it is never okay. This applies to forced drug treatment too. When people are pushed into rehab against their will, it can actually lead to higher risk of death. For all of these things, consent really should be at the core.

How can our readers, especially students, get involved in supporting sensible psychedelic policies?

You can visit the chapters page of our website to see four different ways to become an SSDPer. You can join a campus chapter at a university or high school, join a community chapter if you're not in school, or become an ambassador if your campus doesn't have a chapter yet. We're also launching different committees you can get involved with, like our science policy committee and drug education committee.

We're developing a harm reduction certification course where folks can get trained and then SSDP will provide them with fentanyl test strips and naloxone to distribute in their communities. And since we're a grassroots organization—we just turned 26—we rely entirely on philanthropic donations. If folks have even $5 or $10 a month to give, we can stretch those dollars incredibly far. Legal cases are expensive, lobby days are expensive, but it all goes toward making real change.

Want more from Kat?

Take action, start a chapter, or make a donation to help SSDP end the War on Drugs.

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice. The use, possession, and distribution of psychedelic drugs are illegal in most countries and may result in criminal prosecution.