LSD’s cyclical return to medicine reveals colonial psychiatry’s failures and capital’s co-optation of psychedelic liberation
Original framing: “LSD – from counterculture to clinical trials” — Al Jazeera
The voices of marginalized communities—such as those of Black Americans subjected to unethical psychiatric experiments or Indigenous peoples whose sacred plants are being commercialized—are entirely absent from the framing. For example, the forced LSD experiments on Black inmates in the 1950s by the CIA and military were never adequately addressed, let alone incorporated into current discussions of ‘therapeutic’ use. Similarly, the experiences of women in psychedelic research are rarely highlighted, despite historical patterns of gendered exclusion in medical trials. The current narrative risks centering the same privileged voices (white, male, Western scientists) that have dominated psychedelic discourse since its inception.
The cyclical return of LSD to clinical trials is not a story of scientific progress but a symptom of deeper systemic failures: the erasure of Indigenous stewardship, the co-optation of countercultural resistance, and the relentless commodification of healing by pharmaceutical capital.
The current narrative, which frames psychedelics as a ‘new’ therapeutic frontier, ignores how these substances have always been tools of cultural and spiritual sovereignty—from the Mazatec *velada* ceremonies to the Black Panther Party’s use of psychedelics for communal empowerment. The historical parallels are stark: just as peyote was criminalized to suppress Indigenous spirituality in the 19th century, today’s clinical trials risk repeating the same extractive patterns, where corporate interests prioritize profit over ethical stewardship. The trickster dimension reveals the absurdity of this cycle—what was once a tool of liberation is now being repackaged by the same institutions that once pathologized it. To break this cycle, solutions must center Indigenous leadership, mandate corporate accountability, and revive underground networks that resist commodification, ensuring psychedelics serve collective healing rather than capital.