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BOOK
REVIEW

Perception-Altering Plants: Valid Medicine?

Book Review: “How To Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan

By David A. Schulz

Michael Now, Pollan turns his attention to recent personal meaning and spiritual significance”
Pollan is research into the long-banned and Western- by R. R. Griffiths & W. A. Richards & U.
obsessed shunned practices of imbibing fungi as a McCann & R. Jesse. The research contin-
with food. means of enlightenment, with some fasci- ued, with the publication in 2016 by Grif-
Not the nating application to the maladies of PTSd, fiths, et al, “Psilocybin produces substantial
c o o k i n g addiction, even for use in palliative care. and sustained decreases in depression and
and eating, “How to Change Your Mind: What the anxiety in patients with life-threatening can-
a l t h o u g h New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us cer: A randomized double-blind trial” also
his books About Consciousness, dying, Addiction, in Psychopharmacology.
c o n t a i n depression, and Transcendence documents Pollan describes the history of psycho-
mouthwa- the ongoing work by scientists on therapeu- tropic drug use, pointing out that the only
tering de- tic application of two substances: psilocy- society in which they aren’t utilized, now or
scriptions, bin, and lysergic acid. Memory is short, but historically, are the ones in geographic re-
but the so- history records that in the 1950s and early gions they simply don’t grow, the Inuit, for
cial and an- ‘60s, many in the psychiatric establishment example. He goes on to cover the research
thropological plenum regarded both as miracle drugs. Only after currently being accomplished in various
that provides humans sustenance, pleasure, these compounds were linked to the therapies, particularly in palliative care.
confusion, and ill-health. beginning with counter-culture as a rite of passage, and but it wouldn’t be a Pollan book or a clas-
The botany of desire, Pollan examines their uncontrolled use spread, did the sci- sic in the school of New Journalism, with-
how humans and plants adapt and fulfill entific establishment lose interest in the out personal testimony. He takes the reader
each other’s appetites to suit their own sur- possible benefits of drug-induced altered on a travelogue of three trips: lSd, Psilo-
vival, from control (potatoes), beauty states of consciousness. cybin, and dMT. As the author describes:
(tulips), to sweetness (apples), and intoxi- 2006 saw a cracking of the ice and the be- “A molecule had launched me on each of these
cation (cannabis). The question remains, ginning of a renaissance of interest. Albert trips, and I returned from my travels intensely cu-
who is really domesticating whom? Hoffman, discoverer of the ergot lysergic rious to learn what the chemistry could tell me about
The Omnivore's dilemma, Pollan’s most Acid, celebrated his centennial with a mas- consciousness and what that might reveal about the
frequently cited work, examines today’s sive three-day symposium attended by two brain’s relationship to the mind. How do you get
agricorp production, proving that Ameri- thousand people and two hundred journal- from the ingestion of a compound created by a fun-
cans have become “People of the Corn,” ists in basel. Unrelated, a month later here gus or a toad (or a human chemist) to a novel state
more than any civilization, with Zea mays’ in the US, the new chief justice, John of consciousness with the power to change one’s per-
structure forming the foundation for more Roberts, ruled that a small religious sect’s spective on things, not just during the journey, but
supermarket products than we imagine. He import and use of a hallucinogenic tea con- long after the molecule has left the body?”
traces the origin of each part of a Chicken taining dMT was covered under religious With the FdA approving phase 3 trials
McNugget, from the chick’s feed to the freedom. “The Supreme Court seems to of MdMA, and psilocybin not far behind
binder to the coating to the frying oil, to a have opened up a religious path — narrow, – just this August, it approved psilocybin
particular industrially engineered corn plant. perhaps, but based on the bill of Rights — trial for treatment-resistant depression –
Cooked, his penultimate work and a Netflix to the federal recognition of psychedelic these questions may open an entirely new
series, tracks the author mastering a single drugs, at least when they’re being used as a chapter in understanding consciousness,
classic recipe using one of the four ele- sacrament by a group deemed a religion by mysticism, and modern medicine.
ments: Fire, Air, Water, and Time (fermen- the government,” says Pollan. The turning (All quotes from Pollan, Michael. How to
tation). The lessons move beyond the point came that summer with publication by Change Your Mind (p. 291). Penguin Publish-
practical (although four recipes are offered the Journal of Psychopharmacology (Ox- ing Group. Kindle Edition.)
and taught) to examine how cooking in- ford, England), of a Johns Hopkins study,
volves us in a web of social and ecological “Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type ex- David A. Schulz is a member of the BCMS
relationships. periences having substantial and sustained Publications Committee.

42 San Antonio Medicine • April 2019