“Don’t Kill My Buzz, Man!” – Explaining the Criminalization of Psychedelic Drugs
Oregon Undergraduate Research Journal June 1, 2021 Conrad Sproul 2 citations
Psychedelic drugs were extensively researched in 1950s U.S. psychiatry, found non-addictive, safe, and potentially therapeutic for various conditions. Their possession was criminalized federally in 1968, stifling medical research and leading to harsher penalties than for more dangerous drugs like methamphetamine. Most scholars attribute this to a moral panic in the late 1960s, but this essay argues that explanation overlooks key political processes. Instead, early 20th-century temperance advocates had already instilled an anti-drug moral framework in American culture. In the early 1960s, safety concerns and professional biases led mainstream psychiatrists to reject therapeutic psychedelic use. These factors together caused both moral panic and severe criminalization, but the moral panic itself did not cause the criminalization.