The Women's Visionary Congress

A Statement From the Organizers


This first Women's Visionary Congress takes place at a critical moment in history, in an environmentally-challenged, war-torn world with growing economic inequality and rising fundamentalism of all stripes. Yet this moment is also one in which an increasing number of people are motivated by a vision of humanity's basic unity, deeper than religion, nation, race, or gender. We see that people throughout the world are acting politically based on that sense of commonality and are searching for ways to promote individual and global healing.

Regulatory agencies around the world are now granting permission for privately-funded research into potential therapies involving substances that change our consciousness, what some people refer to as entheogens or psychedelics. Legal systems also recognize the spiritual use of these substances. The United States Supreme Court ruled last year in favor of a church that uses the entheogen ayahausca as part of their religious practice.

While a cultural shift is taking place in the way people think about entheogens, this issue has been impacted by efforts to politicize scientific inquiry. We support the scientific freedom necessary to investigate the potential risks and benefits of these substances. Past efforts to conduct psychedelic research were halted 35 years ago for political reasons. Investigations into entheogens are now being conducted with modern scientific methodologies, yet medical marijuana research is still blocked in the United States. We believe that politics should not hold back the pursuit of knowledge and that these investigations should move forward under rigorous scientific conditions and measures.

The first FDA-approved study evaluating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for people with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will be completed this year in South Carolina. The research is sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) which seeks to make MDMA into a prescription medicine for the treatment of PTSD. With many injured soldiers now returning from Iraq, there is a pressing need to study new treatments for PTSD.

MAPS is also sponsoring two additional studies for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, one in Switzerland, for people with PTSD from any cause, and one in Israel for people with war and terrorism-related PTSD.

A study investigating MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for anxiety in cancer patients is taking place at Harvard Medical School-affiliated McLean Hospital. This is the first psychedelic research to take place at Harvard since 1965.

MAPS is sponsoring a Swiss study of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in subjects with anxiety associated with end-of-life issues. The Swiss LSD study, which is working its way through the approval process, would be the first LSD-assisted psychotherapy study in 35 years.

MAPS is also sponsoring a U.S. study of psilocybin in cancer patients with anxiety. This study is currently in the protocol design and approval stage.

Last year, researchers at Johns Hopkins showed that psilocybin, the active ingredient in certain mushrooms, can induce mystical and spiritual experiences descriptively identical to spontaneous ones people have reported for centuries. Using unusually rigorous scientific standards, this landmark study showed that the resulting insights can prompt lasting, positive changes in behavior and attitude.

Charles Schuster PhD, the former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), noted that the Johns Hopkins psilocybin research offers a systematic approach to studying psychedelic compounds.

"Human consciousness is a function of the ebb and flow of neural impulses in various regions of the brain the very substrate that drugs such as psilocybin act upon," Dr. Schuster wrote. "Understanding what mediates these effects is clearly within the realm of neuroscience and deserves investigation."

Dr. Schuster added that during the 1950s, these substances showed signs of therapeutic potential or value for research into the nature of consciousness and sensory perception. We agree with Dr. Schuster that careful and systematic research should be done to determine potential benefits and gather scientific data about psilocybin.

The Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is now conducting a Heffter Research Institute sponsored study designed to measure the effectiveness of psilocybin on the reduction of anxiety, depression and physical pain in advanced-stage cancer patients.

MAPS-sponsored survey research and case reports into the use of morning glory seeds containing lysergic acid amide (LSA) in the treatment of cluster headaches is also underway. Clinical studies exploring the use of psilocybin and LSD in the treatment of cluster headaches are in the design phase. Cluster headaches are a rare, severely painful form of headache that is related to, but different from, the more common migraine.

We acknowledge that licit and illicit drug use is part of our world and we support efforts to minimize negative health effects through harm reduction efforts. More effective addiction recovery services are also needed and we support research to investigate promising therapies for chemical dependency, such as ibogaine in the treatment of opiate addiction.

Both The Sibyl Society and MAPS also support the right of patients to use medical marijuana based on a recommendation by their physician. We believe that the federal government should act on the recommendations of the 1999 Institute of Medicine report on marijuana that calls for further research into the therapeutic potential of medical cannabis.

Dr. Donald Abrams' recent study on the impact of cannabis on neuropathic pain in AIDS patients is an example of promising research. Cannabis has also been shown to effectively ease neuropathic pain in amputees with phantom limb syndrome. With many injured soldiers now returning from Iraq, there is a pressing need to study new pain treatments.

U.S. law requires federal agencies to use sound science in the information they disseminate. We support the recent lawsuit filed by Americans for Safe Access that seeks to compel the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to acknowledge medical and scientific findings demonstrating the medical efficacy of cannabis.

Efforts to investigate the drug development potential of marijuana have been halted by a monopoly on the supply for research. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has made itself the sole provider of marijuana needed for scientific purposes. This lock on resources required for drug development has halted FDA approved protocols to investigate the use of marijuana to treat migraine and other vital research.

MAPS, together with California NORML, has been working for years to sponsor scientific research into the effect of vaporizers and waterpipes. For the last three years, NIDA has refused to sell 10 grams of marijuana to support further vaporizer study. Without a supply of cannabis for investigative purposes, this research cannot go forward.

Professor Lyle Craker has filed a lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Administration for refusing to permit him to establish a MAPS-sponsored medical marijuana growing facility at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. We support Professor Craker's lawsuit and we thank the ACLU for assisting in the case.

We urge the DEA, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and Congress to support the recommendations of DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner who ruled in February 2007 that it is in the public interest for the DEA to issue Professor Cracker a Schedule 1 License for his proposed MAPS-sponsored marijuana production facility.

We believe that raids by the DEA against California medical cannabis dispensaries are preventing the United States from moving forward on medical cannabis policies. There are now a hundred federal cases pending against medical cannabis patients and caregivers by federal prosecutors.

Patients should have the freedom to pursue all treatments recommended by their physician without the threat of arrest or discrimination. We call on Congress to establish legal protection for medical cannabis patients and their providers that will direct the DEA and other federal agencies.

Since prohibition is counterproductive in many ways, and seriously infringes on personal freedom and cognitive liberty, we support efforts to develop regulatory structures that support the legalization of cannabis and other substances that are now widely available in an unregulated market. We also support the free exchange of information about drug research and policy initiatives without political barriers. We believe that this research can make major contributions to the healing of individuals and the world that we live in.

As knowledge about entheogens and psychedelics evolves, we salute the researchers, healers, policy makers and activists who contribute to this discussion and we welcome further dialog.
Signed,

Annie Harrison, Founder, The Sibyl Society

Rick Doblin, Director, The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies