In How to Change Your Mind author, Michael Pollan explores the history and uses of psychedelics, including LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and mescaline. Most audiences have been conditioned to avoid drugs for fear of becoming drug addicts. However, psychedelics have proven to be effective in treating mental illness, trauma, and kickstarting creative and spiritual breakthroughs.
Comic readers can spot the psychedelic influence from the works of Jack Kirby all the way to Grant Morrison. Psychedelic art and philosophy have given us some of the greatest works of art in all of comics. The positive use psychedelics could provide some much needed healing during a time of isolation and mental anguish.
While only touched upon in the Netflix docuseries, it’s also important to look at the ugly racial history of the War on Drugs. How the criminalization of mild intoxicants like marijuana led to the persecution of African Americans has been more fully documented in Grass is Greener and The War on Drugs: Crash Course Black American History. There are many steps to make in correcting the regulation and medical use of drugs but it can only begin if we collectively “change our minds.”
How to Change Your Mind is now streaming on Netflix.
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