Since the archaic ancestry, medicinal application as treatment has proved constant for emerging humans and the principles of evolution. The necessity for medicine is unquestionably vital, considering the surplus of plagues and diseases that accompany our existence. The use of heritable intelligence to master malady has gifted scientists, physicians, and researchers alike to advance diagnostic procedures and prescriptions. Although modern medicine has evolved to comprehend pathology and its associated physiology, its methods of execution narrowly concentrate on synthetic treatments. Conversely, the history of medicine presents knowledge of human and environmental interaction based on sensation, observation, experimentation, and application. As such, the roots of medicine inextricably link with the organics of the earth- entheogens.

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Regarded as sacred and extraordinary sources of medicinal substances by many spiritual cultures, these natural chemicals of plant or fungal origin constitute significant functionality, potency, and potential as medicine in a contemporary culture that is too ignorant. Today the admission of the use of entheogens, even rarely in clinical application, has the unfortunate side effect of drawing immediate and often unfair judgments to the fore, accompanied by distorted narratives that dismiss its beneficial and objective intention. The stigma complementing psychoactive substances, those enriched in entheogens and those synthesized from active ingredients observed in entheogens, has tarnished its image and deferred the general population to misinterpret its exercise. The current governing narrative of entheogens as inappropriate recreational drugs has scathed its scientific credibility when exposed to the public. Consequently, intellectuals in the general populace misconceive the prospective advantages and condemn them entirely because our modern and pliable society accepted them as such. With such a polarized and partial perspective, there is a dire need for explicit clarification to educate and evoke a comprehensive understanding.

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In combating the misinterpreted predisposed notions, the populace requires expertise education to attenuate and deconstruct the fallacies of entheogens and psychedelic drugs. Psychiatrist, psychedelic psychopharmacology researcher and writer Dr. Ben Sessa informs that people must recognize the very low physiological toxicity of such compounds. "Drugs such as psilocybin and LSD are physiologically inert than say a pint of alcohol." Additionally, Dr. Sessa advises that "public education must also tackle the erroneous ideas of addiction associated with psychedelic mushrooms and MDMA." The intake of such psychoactive compounds does not promote any drug-seeking behavior that may build an addictive quality. Clinical research conducted by Dr. Sessa's team and others worldwide over the last 15 years has consistently demonstrated very positive for all psychedelic research. He states that "the results have been staggering as they have substantially exceeded placebo, and traditional treatments in every psychiatric condition examined whether its addiction, anxiety, depression or PTSD." With such empirical data, the case for entheogenic and psychedelic compounds amounts credence more than ever. Then why is its understanding still so misconstrued?

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Primary diagnostics assess that even with accessible data, the populace's lack of interest impedes their engagement with such notions. According to Dr. Sessa, overcoming the lack of knowledge is not through the data alone. "It is through creative, sociopolitical, and cultural dissemination of the research." Through contemporary mediums such as virtual news publications and television shows. The significance lies in normalizing the use of these substances without sensationalizing them to advocate for their positive or negative. Building from this basis, education for medical students and present professionals is also essential in disseminating scientifically relevant information on entheogens and psychedelics. Although substantial research is existent today, data alone is insufficient to advance the objective feasibility of entheogens and psychedelics in modern medicine. New mechanisms that include the utilization of contemporary mediums of distribution stated above are necessary to propagate a renaissance in medicine. 

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Courtesy of UNLV News Center

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