How to write a psychedelic renaissance news story

It’s 2023. Is there a media outlet on Earth that hasn’t yet published a cursory “psychedelic renaissance” story? Is there anyone out there that hasn’t read or seen this story yet?

The story always follows the same formula, to the point where it has become a kind of inarguable truth. None of these overarching statements are ever questioned in these kinds of articles. They are simply parroted over and over. This is how dominant cultural narratives become imprinted as historical truths.

Now let me be clear. I’m not one to throw stones. I live in a glass house and have written this exact story several times. I’ve contributed to this narrative. I don’t regret any piece I have published in the past although if I were to write a similar story today I can certainly say it would be different. So I think it is fair to ask whether now, in 2023, we should still be mindlessly publishing the same story over and over. Who is the audience for this? Who hasn’t encountered this narrative yet? What are we achieving by repeating this story?

To make everyone’s life easier, I’ve come up with a rundown for the standard “psychedelic renaissance” story so writers and editors don’t need to map it out. Here you go. You’re welcome.

Begin with a statement like - “psychedelics have been used by humans for thousands of years”. Don’t specify exactly how different ancient cultures may have used these drugs, or try to question whether this statement is even true. Have psychedelics really been widely used as medicines for thousands of years? What do we even mean we when use the word ‘psychedelics’ in this context? Shhhh, just move on. Instead, handwave this detail away. The point you are trying to make is that what’s happening in Western clinical culture with MDMA and psilocybin in the 21st century is nothing particularly novel. 

Then, lay out the classic modern psychedelic discovery stories. Hoffman and his bike ride for LSD or Wasson and Maria Sabina for magic mushrooms are the easiest targets. Do not mention LSD research prior to Hoffman was linked to a long history of ergot, or that there is little historical evidence of magic mushroom usage in most parts of the world outside of the Americas. Importantly, remind the reader that these drugs were initially legal in the mid-20th century, and used in medical or therapeutic contexts. Maybe dig up an anecdote about someone in the 1950s being cured of alcoholism by LSD, or my personal favourite, recount the story of someone famous using LSD (Cary Grant would be my choice here). 

This is also a good point to add some military history stories. If you want to keep it light you can go with amusing videos of US soldiers being LSD guinea pigs in the 1950s, or you can get into heavier stories of MK ULTRA and mind control. Both are good.

Enter big bad Nixon and the war on the counterculture. Have fun here with some footage of hippies in a field tripping and if you want to go really deep you can tangent into the tale of Timothy Leary, who started out as a serious academic before turning into a counterculture idol. But most importantly, don’t forget to make clear the modern stigma over psychedelics was a way of suppressing youthful counterculture.

Use the phrase “big freeze” to describe how research stopped for several decades following the 1970s. Do not look closely into this as you may discover some research did continue across the 1980s and 1990s. Plus, unless your story is explicitly about MDMA, avoiding bringing it up as it will mess with your timelines (MDMA was therapeutically used in the 1970s and not “banned” until the mid-1980s).

Cue the “psychedelic renaissance” at the turn of the millennium. 

Find a military veteran who has overcome PTSD through MDMA-assisted psychotherapy. 

Make sure you conflate “psychedelic therapy” with a variety of different drugs and research pathways. Do not distinguish psilocybin from MDMA, ibogaine, or LSD otherwise you risk muddying your message. It’s easier to roll all these things into a singular homogenous whole even though they are deeply different drugs with deeply different mechanisms and deeply different clinical uses. 

At this point you can wrap the story up if you want with a little, “FDA approval for MDMA is coming soon with psilocybin close behind”. But if you want to seem extra comprehensive you can suggest there are some problems on the horizon. Who will regulate these treatments or train the therapists? Can businesses patent this stuff? Are there dangers in rolling out these kinds of drugs in medical contexts? How much will these therapies cost? Should these drugs become medically available while other psychedelic users are still criminalized?

Do not interrogate any of these issues. They are too complicated. Instead, if you must, just ask the questions and move on.

So there you go. Hopefully I have helped save you all some time if this was a thing you were interested in writing about. Of course, now it’s all laid out, you could skip writing that same story and dig into a whole host of topics in the world of psychedelics that are rarely discussed. And remember, journalists aren’t activists or advocates. It’s okay to be critical, sceptical, and look into the darker sides of certain movements.

Hello internet…

Here is a place where you may find some stray thoughts. Notes that sit in between a Twitter thread and a published article.