Bay Staters for Natural Medicine: Community Psychedelic Guides!

Meditation

& Mushroom Foraging

Wellness Events

For You to Breath Easy

Our mission is to provide mentorship and community for people considering a psychedelic experience to promote harm reduction and self-growth. To this end, we host mushroom forages, educational potlucks & wellness workshops to bring people across the region together to learn and make friends.

In nine New England communities — Somerville, Cambridge, Northampton, Easthampton, Amherst, Salem, Provincetown, Medford and Portland Maine — our team has led successful local education campaigns to allow adults to grow and share plant medicines like psilocybin mushrooms. We also aim to educate people about the community harms of corporatizing plant medicine: in Oregon and Colorado, the services legalized around these substances cost thousands, corruption has become endemic in the regulatory agencies, and taxpayers have had to bail out the systems.

What are Psychedelic Plants?

Humans have used psychedelic plants and fungi for more than 10,000 years. Non addictive by their nature, our ancestors used them across North Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean, Eastern Europe, and the Americas. President Nixon banned these plants and fungi through the Federal Controlled Substances Act without scientific basis to purposefully criminalize Black Americans and Vietnam war protesters. We change these policies to keep plant medicine accessible and affordable for all who can benefit

Cacti With Mescaline

Many forms of cacti contain mescaline, which can catalyze spiritual experiences and addiction recovery for many people. San Pedro cacti are the most abundant source of mescaline

Bay Staters discourages non-indigenous people from purchasing and consuming peyote because this species of cacti is at risk of extinction across the Southwest due to poaching by collectors as well as the meat, gas, and mining industries. Prohibition destroys the transparency necessary to hold poachers accountable and inhibits experts sustainably grafting peyote onto San Pedro to replenish it in the wild. We discourage the media from mentioning peyote and ibogaine without detailed explanation of its sustainability challenges in our effort to be part of the solution in sustaining these species.

Psilocybin Mushrooms

There are many species of psilocybin “magic” mushrooms across the world, including species native to the North Eastern United States. These fungi catalyze spiritual experiences that help people work through depression, trauma, addiction, and painful neurological conditions like cluster headaches and traumatic brain injuries.1

Many people who have used psilocybin describe it as one of the five most meaningful experiences of their lives, comparing it in significance to the birth of their first child. Psilocybin mushrooms should be the primary plant used to catalyze experiences because it is the most abundant, affordable, and sustainable. Check out our "Find a Guide" page to meet a friend to mentor you in safe, fulfilling experience

Ayahuasca

This brew is made from the leaves of shrubs and the stalks of vines native to the Americas. Traditionally prepared by a curandero healer, this plant medicine referred to as "mother aya" catalyzes significant spiritual experiences that many describe as life-changing encounters with the divine

Federal religious freedom laws should be expanded to ensure U.S ceremonies are done in a safe, accountable way that protects this plant species and honors the indigenous, ancestral practices. DMT, the active ingredient, can also be made with many of the same spiritual benefits without threatening the sustainability of this incredible, wild plant species or the Sonoran desert toads poached and killed for 5-Meo-DMT

Ibogaine

A shrub native to the jungle region of Gabon, Cameroon, Angola, and the Congo in Africa, Iboga root bark ("ibogaine") can be used to catalyze profound spiritual experiences and relieve symptoms of withdrawal for opioid and alcohol addiction in profound ways. Carefully constructed legalization is necessary to bring transparency to supply chains and prevent unsustainble poaching of this ancestral plant medicine

We advise that ibogaine only be used by people who are well-positioned in their lives to move past addiction because it resets tolerance so well that people returning to opioid use could be at heightened overdose risk. Having strong effects on the heart, it should be used with guidance of a nurse after medical screening

What are the Benefits?

Addictions like Smoking

Smoking kills one in five of our friends, family members, and neighbors, and it costs our state governments hundreds of millions of dollars in Medicaid expenses every year.7 Yet a 2017 study by Johns Hopkins medical faculty found that smokers achieved an 80% abstinence rate over six months with psilocybin mushroom assisted coaching —a 45% higher success rate than the most effective smoking cessation medication.8 More generally, these plants help people set goals and work through many destructive behaviors, including unhealthy eating and other addictions such as alcoholism.9 10

Neurological Diseases

Many people suffer from cluster headaches, an extremely debilitating condition that drives many to suicide. A study by the American Academy of Neurology interviewed patients who tried psilocybin in the absence of any known cure. Five in seven reported psilocybin ended the headaches and one in two reported a complete termination of the ailment.11

Research points to these plants alleviating dementia, traumatic brain injuries (TBI), and even symptoms of Lyme disease. These benefits may result from psilocybin (and lions mane) mushrooms' neurogenerative properties — they can help our brains grow new cells and pathways

Depression and Trauma

Nearly one in five of our neighbors regardless of age suffer from depression, often resulting from rumination patterns plant medicine can distrupt.4

A 2020 meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials going back two decades found that psilocybin use combined with a form of counseling is substantially effective in treating PTSD, depression, anxiety linked to terminal illness, and social anxiety linked to autism.5 Other studies confirm this result, finding that psychedelic plants can reduce distress, suicidal planning, and suicidal ideation.6

Opiate Addiction

Every four hours in Massachusetts, we lose a friend, family member, or neighbor to an opioid overdose, as this tragedy has become the number one cause of death for Americans under age fifty.2

A peer-reviewed study of 44,000 Americans, controlling for variables like income, found that a single psychedelic experience is associated with a 40% reduced risk of opioid addiction.3 Another 2022 study backed up these results, noting a 55% reduced risk of opiate addiction. Ibogaine, another psychedelic plant, can also substantially reduce opioid withdrawal symptoms and achieve sustained reduced use of alcohol and opioids in beneficiaries.14 15

Reducing Crime in Our Communities

As crime rates and severe partisanship rise nationally, a 2018 pilot study suggests that psilocybin use combined with psychological support decreases authoritarian tendencies and improves feelings of connectivity with nature. A 2022 study of 200,000 inmates corroborated these results, finding substantially lower rates of participation in vehicle theft and participation in illegal substance salesafter use of these plant medicines A 2014 study of over 25,000 people found that psychedelic plant interventions reduce the likelihood of people returning to jail for crime.12 13

What is Decriminalization?

When a city or state "decriminalizes" with Bay Staters, it means its city council has asked its police department and municipal employees to make arrests for growing and distributing psychedelic plants the lowest priority of law enforcement (while treating all controlled substance possession as an issue of public health). Arresting people destroys lives, wastes taxpayer dollars, and makes issues associated with substance use in our communities worse

Decriminalization is education. More kids will talk to their parents and teachers about risks. More patients will talk to their doctors and therapists about safe use. And more people will get help with their addictions rather than suffer in silence and stigma. We chose to positively embrace psychedelic plants for having uniquely beneficial properties because a 2010 study in the Lancet found that psychedelics are often used in cultural contexts that have a low-risk of dependency and negative health consequences:‍

Our mission does not stop at these plants and fungi, however, as we believe in the eventual legalization of MDMA, LSD, and 5-Meo-DMT for production by our world-renown universities. Many of the most harmful controlled substances in our society, such as amphetamines and opioids, are already manufactured legally. But we are failing to contain the illegal production of these compounds because we do not have an effective harm reduction and health infrastructure. To end the drug war as much as we can within existing cultural boundaries, ending all possession arrests and allowing adults to grow and non-commerically share plant medicines at the local level is a strategy achieving concrete change‍

References

[1] Griffiths, R.R. et al. (2006). Psilocybin can occasion mystical-type experiences having substantial and sustained personal meaning and spiritual significance. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[2] Data Brief: Opioid-Related Overdose deaths among Massachusetts Residents. June 2020. Web.
[3] Pisano, V. D., Putnam, N. P., Kramer, H. M., Franciotti, K. J., Halpern, J. H., Holden, S. C. (2017). The association of psychedelic use and opioid use disorders among illicit users in the U.S. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[4] Cohan, A. (2019). Massachusetts millennials have highest rate of depression in U.S. Boston Herald. Web.
[5] Luoma, J.B., Chwyl, C., Bathje, G.J., Davis, A.K., Lancelotta, R. (2020). A Meta-Analysis of Placebo-Controlled Trials of Psychedelic-Assisted Therapy. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Web.
[6] Hendricks, P.S., Johnson, M.W., Griffiths, R.R. (2016). Psilocybin, psychological distress, and suicidality. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[7] Richard, P., West, K., Ku, L. (2012). The ROI of a Medicaid Tobacco Cessation Program in Mass. PLOS ONE Journal. Web.
[8] Johnson, M.W., Garcia-Romeu, A., Griffiths, R.R. (2017). Long-term follow-up of psilocybin-facilitated smoking cessation. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Web.
[9] Bogenschutz, M.P., Forcehimes, A.A., Pommy, J.A., Wilcox, C.E., Barbosa, PCR., Strassman, R.J. (2015). Psilocybin-assisted treatment for alcohol dependence: A proof-of-concept study. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[10] Schenber, E.E. et. al. (2014). Treating drug dependence with the aid of ibogaine. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[11] Sewell, R. A., Halpern, J.H., Pope, H.G. (2006). Response of cluster headache to psilocybin and LSD. American Academy of Neurology. Web.
[12] Lyons, T. and Carhart-Harris, R.L. (2018). Increased nature relatedness and decreased authoritarian political views after psilocybin for treatment-resistant depression. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[13] Hendricks, P.S., Clark, C.B., Johnson, M.W. (2014). Hallucinogen use predicts reduced recidivism among substance-involved offenders under community corrections supervision. Journal of Psychopharmacology. Web.
[14] Brown, T.K., & Alper, K. (2018). Treatment of opioid use disorder with ibogaine: detoxification and drug use.American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Web.
[15] Noeller, G.E., Frampton, C.M. & Yazar-Klosinski, B. (2018). Ibogaine treatment outcomes for opioid dependence from a twelve-month follow-up observational study. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse. Web.