Six Questions: Rick Doblin, Ph.D. Talks to the Alliance

Rick Doblin is the founder (in 1986) and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). Doblin's dissertation (Public Policy, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government) was on "The Regulation of the Medical Use of Psychedelics and Marijuana." His master's thesis (Harvard) focused on the attitudes and experiences of oncologists concerning the medical use of marijuana. His undergraduate thesis (New College of Florida) was a twenty-five year follow-up to the classic Good Friday Experiment which evaluated the potential of psychedelic drugs to catalyze religious experiences. Doblin has also studied with Dr. Stan Grof and was in the first group to become certified as holotropic breathwork practitioners. His professional goal is to help develop legal contexts for the beneficial uses of psychedelics and marijuana, primarily as prescription medicines but also for personal growth for otherwise "healthy" people, and to also become a legally licensed psychedelic therapist. He currently resides in Boston with his wife and three young children. He recently acted as a consultant to and appeared in Peter Jennings's Ecstasy Rising documentary.

1. How did you get involved in drug-policy reform?

In 1972, at age 18, I took LSD, which I previously had been led to believe would cause permanent and profound brain damage. Instead, I realized that LSD was an incredibly powerful (and therefore also risky) tool for personal growth, the scientific study of mind, as an adjunct to psychotherapy, for spiritual exploration, etc. I also realized that psychedelics, when used respectfully, could help people to have "mystical" experiences of unity that had positive political implications in terms of a greater sense of connectedness with, appreciation for and tolerance of "the other", minorities, our repressed shadow selves, and the environment. Looking around, I saw psychedelics being criminalized and psychedelic research being shut down, replaying Galileo and the Catholic Church. I figured that working toward fundamental social evolution through the renewal of psychedelic research and the creation of legal contexts for their responsible use was my greatest point of social leverage, which required major efforts toward drug policy reform. Since I was also a draft resister expecting to go to jail and never be able to be a licensed professional, the idea of a career as an underground psychedelic therapist/drug policy reformer seemed ideal.

2. What is your current role in the field?

I founded and direct the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), in essence a membership-based non-profit psychedelic and medical marijuana pharmaceutical company seeking to develop these drugs into FDA-approved prescription medicines.  I use what I learned in obtaining my Ph.D. in Public Policy to help recruit researchers, design protocols and overall Clinical Plans, negotiate approval with FDA, DEA, NIDA and ONDCP, raise funds and monitor research. MAPS also serves an educational role, in part by challenging government anti-drug propaganda, and helps build the psychedelic community.

3. What is your most memorable drug war moment?

Interviewing for a job at the CIA, which I thought would be the best position from which to study the national security implications of legalizing drugs, and being told that the CIA wasn't supposed to look at that question.

4. What challenge would you most like to see the drug-policy reform movement overcome this year?

We've ceded the cause of "protecting the kids" to the anti-drug parents movement. The drug-policy reform movement needs to work vigorously to promote the idea that the drug war endangers kids more than drugs. In our proposals for legalization, we should argue strongly for family values, for letting parents rather than the government decide how best to educate their own kids by permitting adults to give drugs under supervision to their minors (23 states explicitly permit this for alcohol). We should also develop a drug education curriculum to counter DARE's failed fear-based and abstinence-only message.

5. One sentence, please, that sums up your views on drug-policy reform.

Drug policy reform is necessary, inevitable, and remarkably rewarding work with substantial benefits even for those who most vigorously argue for more aggressive and punitive prohibition.

6. What is your advice to fellow reformers who want to be more active in the field?

Think long-term.  The key to long-term effectiveness, enjoyment and lack of burnout is to refocus your definition of success from achieving social change, which is out of any one person's control, to working smarter and more effectively and simply trying hard, which is in each person's control.  MAPS very recently received a donation of $250,000 for MDMA psychotherapy research and also a donation of 10 postage stamps from a Drug War prisoner. We each just need to do what we can where we are at, and that will be enough. Dreams and visions which are also well grounded can attract support, eventually, so don't give up. Finally, it's helped me tremendously to realize that it's scarier to do nothing than to fight back.