💧 Everyone loves shrooms

Good morning! Welcome back to the Drop In, DoubleBlind’s newsletter pouring you freshly squeezed news, culture, and happenings from the amorphous world of psychoactive intoxicants. We hope you’re stepping into this new week feeling refreshed and hydrated after a long, hot weekend.

This week's featured story is a Q&A with Susan Beaulieu of the Red Lake Nation. It’s the second installment of our Decolonize Psychedelics series, and it hits on many truths the modern psychedelic movement should reflect on. One is that the push to legalize psychedelic medicine is feeding the Big Pharma machine. Another is that the Western medical model for psychedelics is built on the foundation of Indigenous traditions. There’s an inherent process of erasure and sterilization that occurs when sacraments, like ayahuasca or peyote, are removed from their contexts, synthesized, and mass-produced to fit the capitalistic healthcare model.

This series has already been intellectually and philosophically stimulating, and there’s still so much brilliance to come. For all of the juicy, perspective-shifting, discussion read the latest Decolonize Psychedelics piece below (and the first one that went live last month here). If you keep scrolling you’ll also find stories about how mushrooms are everyone’s favorite psychedelic, why older adults experience less intense trips, and why artist Pablo Amaringo’s paintings are the essence of the plant world. 

See you on the other side, friends 🖖

Mary Carreón
Senior Editor

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Our Latest

Magic mushrooms are overwhelmingly the most-used psychedelic drug in the US, according to a new report issued by the RAND Corporation. MDMA was the second most popular psychedelic in terms of usage over 2023, with LSD ranking a close third. DMT and mescaline, the psychedelic derived from peyote and San Pedro, followed.

A recent study published in The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry found that older adults experience milder psychedelic effects compared to younger adults, likely due to age-related reductions in serotonin receptor density. Interestingly, their improved well-being was more closely linked to the social connections made during psychedelic retreats than to the immediate effects of the drugs.

Oregon's regulated psilocybin therapy market faces financial difficulties, with some service centers closing due to a lack of customers and high costs. Advocates highlight the need for better marketing and public awareness about the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin to attract more participants and sustain the industry.

& More Must-Reads

• Which psychedelic mushroom is the strongest? It seems like a simple question, but it’s surprisingly thorny.

• Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo’s colorful life highlights the interwoven relationship between art, ayahuasca, and the rainforest.

• Humans have surmised that there’s an intimate relationship between mind, body, and spirit for millennia. Now, cutting-edge psychedelic research begins to prove it.

Trip Tales

Have you had a profound experience with psychedelics before? Share your story with us for a chance to be featured in The Drop In. Submit your entry here.

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Learn with Us

🔊 If you’re looking for music that helps you transcend space and time, here are 10 great psytrance artists to check out.

💭 Calea zacatechichi (Mexican Dream Herb) can inspire vivid lucid dreams. But, some worry a changing environment and overharvesting may threaten plant traditions.

🌿 The ayahuasca dieta prepares you for your journey with restrictions on what you eat, drink, and do. Here’s why.

💜 Psychedelics can help you recognize the infinite nature of love, but will they provide the tools to carry ethical non-monogamy?

DoubleBlind Supports

WATCH: Samia Biruany, leader of Mawa Isa, empowers Huni Kuin women and represents the feminine force of the forest. Her latest release, “Yube Nawá Aibu,” honors ancestral roots and the Boa Woman, Siriani. Watch the full music video on YouTube.

DONATE: Join us in protecting the Amazon Rainforest and Indigenous Peoples. The Amazon Sacred Headwaters, home to 600,000 diverse indigenous people, are under threat. These territories, rich in biodiversity and sacred to indigenous communities, need your support to be preserved. Learn more and support here.

At DoubleBlind, we believe in reciprocity—the idea that everything in the world is interconnected and that we have a responsibility to uplift a psychedelic ecosystem that centers equity, inclusivity, and healing for all. Through our work, we hope to help our community participate in this effort with us.

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From the Magazine

Nature takes 10,000 years to make a fossil. For photographer Sarah Wilson and her paleontologist grandfather, it took nearly 50 years to unearth a similar impression. A year before he died, John A. "Jack" Wilson, a renowned geologist, gave Sarah his collection of 35 mm slides. They discovered they had been photographing the same locations in Big Bend National Park, 50 years apart.

Dive into this captivating tale of connection and discovery—click to order and read the full story in Issue 10.