Erica Lagalisse

MIND ALTERING CAPITALISM: OPIUM, MARIJUANA AND PSYCHEDELICS

The legalization of psychedelics and marijuana is increasingly positioned as social justice. By releasing the healing powers of nature, and ending prohibition laws that disproportionately target people of colour, the medicalization of mind-altering plants is a positive alternative to the “war on drugs”.

But is it really that simple? What does it mean to legalize psycho-active substances in the context of capitalism? Are new legal markets truly spaces of social equality and healing? Are psychoactive substances developed by profit-driven corporations necessarily “safe” because they are regulated by state governments? What do the histories of opium and marijuana medicalization suggest?

In this talk, anthropologist Erica Lagalisse presents a cautionary tale by taking us on a historical tour of modern colonialism and mind-altering plants from the European adoption of tobacco and the Opium Wars to today. Psychedelics can surely be a force for healing, but if “medicinal” is to mean “healing”, we must face the sordid history of modern medicine in relation to capitalism.

THE WAR ON DRUGS AND SOCIAL JUSTICE: BEYOND PSYCHEDELICS EXCEPTIONALISM

Panel by Daan Keiman, Erica Lagalisse and Camille Barton

As psychedelic-assisted therapies enter the mainstream, psychedelic exceptionalism is the dominant narrative - the idea that psychedelics are the ""good drugs"" and other substances are ""bad"" drugs.

In order to make ethical decisions that expand access to psychedelics, it is essential to consider the impact of the war on drugs, which has disproportionately impacted Black people, as well as other global majority communities, in the UK, USA, Canada, Brazil and other European contexts.

In this discussion panel, Daan Keiman will weave a reflection with artist and educator Camille Barton and anthropologist Erica Lagalisse on how to move beyond psychedelic exceptionalism and acknowledge the ways that drug policy has been used as a tool of social and racial control.

This panel will consider how learning from the past will allow us to weave different futures, rooted in care for all beings as well as bodily autonomy.