Back in February of 2023 the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the Federal statutory body regulating medicines and medical products in Australia, approved an application to alter the scheduling of psilocybin and MDMA from prohibited substances to controlled medicines. This change went into effect from July the 1st of that same year.
I heard about this momentous shift not long afterwards as it was reported on the radio, and had to smile: my country was actually doing something progressive — it's been too long.
As it turns out, according to Mind Medicine Australia, the registered charity that made the application, this rescheduling is a world first.
Lead by governments and legislators of the day, the entire Western world turned it's back on psychedelics out of, in my opinion, fear and ignorance, over 55 years ago when substances like LSD, plants like peyote cacti and fungi like psilocybin mushrooms were made illegal in a reactionary blanket-ban that spanned the so-called free world. As well as prohibiting the possession of these items, the outlawing made all scientific research on these materials and their potential uses a crime. In my humble opinion, this has had far greater detrimental effect on our societies then the potential harm of the substances ever could have. Extremely promising research on healing from trauma, addiction and some of our most intractable mental disorders, was snuffed out, for decades. It was literally a dark age. Thankfully, some light is starting to shine.
The terms of the rescheduling are measured: psychiatrists and other professionals must gain approval from both a Human Research Ethics Committee and the TGA before they can prescribe MDMA and psilocybin, and they can only do so for the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder, respectively, and only in cases where all other treatment options have been tried and have failed for the patient.
The Certificate in Psychedelic-Assisted Therapies, pictured above, is a 13-week training program run by Mind Medicine Australia open to a variety of professionals:
- Psychiatrists
- Medical Practitioners
- Psychologists
- Registered Psychotherapists and Counsellors
- Nurses
- Social Workers
- Occupational Therapists
- Registered Allied Health Professionals
- Addiction Specialists
- Pharmacists
- Spiritual Carers
- Some Complementary Medicine Practitioners
The psychedelic renaissance is well and truly underway Down Under!
-Sing