A recorded monologue by Darron T. Smith arguing that current psychedelic training programs lack racial diversity and cultural competency. Smith calls on training institutions to recruit and elevate people of color as facilitators, to legitimize and credential experienced underground practitioners through state-sanctioned programs, and to prepare facilitators to address race-based issues in sessions (citing an Oregon complaint as an example). He frames state-level legalization/rollout as the current avenue for reform and says federal support will follow only after legalization.
Chapters
Well, a lot of these training programs that exist, such as Fluence or CIS and some of these other big ones that are out there, they need to do better. I mean, they need to come correct. I mean, you know, they don't have some of these training facilities, don't have people of color anywhere, anywhere in sight. And so they need, that needs to happen, that needs to change. So I would issue a call to all training institutions and training academies out there who are doing work in the space to really redouble their efforts to identify folks of color who can be exceptional facilitators. And so I think this is, this, this, this to me brings in the, begs the question of, you know, what do we do? So there's, there's the legitimate pathway to medication use and then there's the negative subversive pathway, pathway to use, which is the underground movement. We have a lot of wonderful, fine, highly skilled underground practitioners that are already doing work in this space. They need a way to come, you know, to leave the shadows into the light. And I see state sanctioned programs as the mechanism to do that, to allow people who are underground practitioners to be able to get, to get state certification so they can hang a shingle and be able to do their, you know, do their, their craft in a way that's legal and in a way that can help sustain and support their families and their own communities. So we have to, we have to look for people who are already doing this work. And there's a ton of folks out there. I mean, I belong to a couple of loosely associated groups of communities of color who are enormously large and are all across the country and they're doing various works. Some are doing work below ground, some are doing work above ground. We have to, in my, in my estimation, we have to, we have to identify those who are already in the space who are doing work and try to find a way to elevate them so they can continue to continue their work above, above ground. I mean, that's one of the strategies that I think would be the most important one to do. You mentioned the harms that are being done. Let me echo that sentiment. Maybe a couple of months ago I had someone from Oregon just randomly call me. I don't know how they got my number, but they called me up. This was an African American individual who had extolled me her experiences of going through a, a training program where she was actually doing sessions. And she said that during her session a lot of things came up. Race, race based issues in her life came up and the facilitator that was there was completely unprepared to help this individual address some of those concerns. I guess what ended up happening in the end is that this person, in the middle of her session, left her session and was so distraught by this, she wrote a letter to the facility. She wrote a formal complaint to the Oregon Board. By the way, there's numerous complaints that have been generated by the Oregon Board. And so this is the problem that we run into when people aren't adequately trained or are not adequately informed about this medicine and have experience with this medicine. These are the consequences that can occur. And I say that, and I'm saying this most directly to white folks because they seem to be the most prolifically involved in these training programs, and they have the resources and wherewithal to set them up and to be able to train future generations of facilitators. It's there where we need to start doing the serious work. Of course, Monica, her work is important as well in this, when you're looking at ways to be able to bring this to the masses. So I see it as a state phenomenon. So states that are rolling this out in Colorado, Portland, California has a ballot on this. It's been, you know, the California ballot has been approved and then disapproved and, you know, several times now, several iterations. And of course, Seattle and Portland, I think Massachusetts has something on, something they're coming out with as well. So all of these state programs, which we'll see more and more emerge, right, really have really have an opportunity to really make a difference in the lives of people of color, either through a training, either through training folks of color to actually be facilitators, or in delivering services to folks in these communities that need the services. And you say, well, how do we do it? Well, how do we do it now? We're not going to. We cannot expect any help from the federal government at this point in time until these medicines are actually legal. Once they're legal, then the federal government can step in and help.
