There’s a brief moment that stands out in “Quiet the Sirens”, a 2025 documentary by Canadian filmmaker Mike Bernard. Over a soundtrack of dreamy meditation music, a man with short gray hair is shown lying on a sleeping pad. He’s joined by a handful of others in a low-lit room, bathed in calming hues of gray and lavender. Resting his head on a fluffy pillow, he wears an eye mask and headphones, which are ringed with glowing LED lights. If you look closely, you can just barely make out a beatific Mona Lisa smile on his face. 

“Quiet the Sirens” centers on the mental health struggles of firefighters in British Columbia and the efforts of a Canadian healthcare nonprofit, Roots to Thrive, to help them heal through ketamine-assisted therapy. Founded in 2018 and based in the city of Nanaimo, Roots to Thrive offers counseling programs that include sessions involving intramuscular ketamine injections. And in this scene, in the calming room where the ketamine session is supposedly taking place, the man stretches his arms out wide. Captured in slow motion, he opens his hands, fanning his fingers one by one.

When I first saw the film, I hit pause and took a screenshot of this blissed-out-looking fellow. Along with the threat of respiratory problems, acute injuries, heart attack, stroke, and cancer, fighting fires (along with being a first responder, more generally) carries a high risk for mental health illnesses like PTSD and depression. But according to the film, veteran firefighters can spend years toughing it out in a fraternal firehouse culture where you’re not supposed to talk about the traumas you experience in high-stress emergency situations. A stigma has long been attached to the idea of seeking help, forcing first responders to suffer in silence. A poll from 2015 conducted by the Journal of Emergency Medical Services found that the risk of suicide among EMS providers was 10 times greater than that of the general population. 

And yet here in the medicine session, we find a hardened nozzle jockey letting down his guard on camera, healing before our very eyes as he flies through the skies of a ketamine trip. 

The documentary features interviews with real firefighters who share revealing stories about their recovery from trauma. But it turns out that this particular trip isn’t actually real. According to Bernard, who wrote and directed “Quiet the Sirens,” the scene is a dramatization featuring friends and extras acting out a ketamine session. “I’m glad that our ketamine recreation was believable,” Bernard tells DoubleBlind. Although plenty of other documentaries about psychedelics capture trips on camera, Bernard wanted to respect the sanctity of the firefighters’ healing process. “We knew this would be a big ask for the participants, but in the end, it was my own experiences that made me steer clear,” he explains. “I kept think[ing] about that highly vulnerable and malleable state you are in when you come back from a big trip, and I just thought I wouldn’t want to come back into the room and find a documentary crew with a camera on me.” 

This creative decision says a lot about “Quiet the Sirens,” a flawed but fascinating documentary that offers unique insights into one corner of the psychedelic healing space. Although it wasn’t originally intended that way, the film plays out like a public service announcement, using talking-heads interviews, b-roll, and stock footage to drive home a pro-psychedelic message. 

But this dramatization also says something about the creative and journalistic decisions that go into documentary filmmaking on psychedelics as a whole. For over a decade, popular movies and series like 2013’s “Neurons to Nirvana” made an earnest scientific case for psychedelics as medicine. 2020’s “Have A Good Trip: Adventures in Psychedelics” took an irreverent approach, recruiting celebrities like Carrie Fisher, Sting, and Anthony Bourdain to share their funniest and most mind-bending trip tales. “How to Change Your Mind” (the Netflix version of author Michael Pollan’s landmark book of the same title) that released in 2022, brought a journalist’s skepticism and rigor to the subject, following the author as he tried psychedelics himself as an investigation of their efficacy. What unites these films, despite their differences in tone and form, is a kind of creative and editorial freedom allowing them to be funny, skeptical, unresolved, and even uncomfortable.

“Quiet the Sirens” differs in that it skews more towards advocacy filmmaking: You’re more likely to see a screening of this film at an outreach event or fundraiser than at a film festival. It was made with funding from TELUS Communications Inc., a telecommunications giant that is required by Canada’s broadcasting authority to set aside a portion of its TV subscriber revenue to fund and produce independent films and other content for the public good. The film thus operates within constraints that shape what it can show, what questions it can ask, and how far it can push its subjects. Budget limitations likely compound this issue, minimizing access and risk-taking that the aforementioned films accomplish. Following the playbook of psychedelic docs in a perhaps more rote way, it traffics in imagery that is fast becoming familiar to fans of the genre: think “trippy” visuals, metaphorical stock imagery, and that ever-present image of a patient tripping in an eye mask and headphones. Nevertheless, “Quiet the Sirens” tackles the subject of psychedelics with nuance and complexity, raising (if not always answering) compelling questions about the next steps for the psychedelic movement.   

There’s a long history of anti-drug propaganda produced in the United States and Canada. “Reefer Madness”, the famously over-the-top PSA that warns about the dangers of cannabis, was originally released in 1936 and has since become such a cult classic that it’s spawned a trippy color version and a musical production. In the 1960s, a number of educational films targeting young audiences were produced to combat the popularity of hippie counter-culture. The 1968 half-hour flick “LSD: Insight or Insanity?” brings in actor Sal Mineo (famed for his role as John “Plato” Crawford in “Rebel without a Cause”) to provide narration emphasizing how extremely uncool it is to drop acid. “Why be lame, baby? Give yourself a real kick,” he says in his hip Bronx accent. “Yes, a kick in the head!” 

After 50 years of strict War on Drugs prohibition, Donald Trump is now shifting U.S. drug policy to speed up clinical research and approval of psychedelic-assisted therapy. In 2022, Canada passed legislation allowing some patients limited access to psilocybin, LSD, MDMA, and DMT. The times have changed, and “Quiet the Sirens” serves as a fine example of how the message around drugs has changed, too.

The opening moments of the 114-minute film feature Captain Steve Farina, a mental health advocate for the British Columbia Professional Firefighters Association, who discusses the high stakes that he and other first responders face. He began working as a firefighter in 1992, but it wasn’t until 2019 that he finally sought out help. Some clinicians use the term cumulative trauma to describe what someone like Farina goes through, with the psychological stress gradually mounting over years of routine exposure to destroyed homes, charred bodies, gruesome injuries, and other unspeakable horrors. “What does that trauma feel like? Heaviness. It comes out as anger. You feel lost,” he says. 

Another firefighter interviewed for the film talks about how he was so overwhelmed by the mental images seared into his mind that going for a run was the only way he could get relief. “I was just barely functioning,” he says. When he reached out for help from WorkSafeBC, a state agency for handling occupational injuries, his claim was denied on the grounds that experiencing trauma was an expected part of his job. “I just basically had to suck it up.” 

The film shows how clinicians, educators, and Indigenous elders at Roots to Thrive pair group ketamine sessions with multiple weeks of counseling. Ketamine was originally synthesized in 1962 by a chemistry professor at Wayne State University, and its longtime use as an anesthetic doesn’t carry the Indigenous lineage of other psychedelics like ayahuasca or iboga. Still, Roots to Thrive makes an effort to integrate Indigenous knowledge into its therapeutic programming as part of a “commitment to anti-racism, anti-oppression, and cultural humility,” according to the organization’s website.  

Dr. Shannon Dames, Roots to Thrive’s founder, grew up around trauma herself and talks about how she was drawn to psychedelic therapy after participating in an ayahuasca ceremony in Peru. She draws on a psychological framework to describe the nonprofit’s approach, in which participants are encouraged to overcome their inner wounds by looking inwards and examining their true selves. “They can clear what they need to clear, and they can feel what they need to feel — including their true nature, their calling, their values, why the heck they’re here,” Dames explains. “As they develop that sense of meaning — clear enough that they create space for inspiration — the fear that they’ve been living with doesn’t go away, but the inspiration overshadows it. And in that way, courage emerges.” 

Naturally, the film also touches on the history of psychedelic research and pharmaceutical treatments for trauma throughout the 20th century. While the film focuses on Roots to Thrive’s approach to psychedelic healing, other medical experts and authors sit down with the filmmakers to provide context and weigh in on the medical establishment’s previous efforts to treat mental health issues. Bessel van der Kolk — author of  “The Body Keeps the Score”, an acclaimed study of trauma published in 2014 — offers some of the most valuable insights, describing how the field of psychiatry grew over the decades into a “drug addicted profession” because it partnered too closely with pharmaceutical companies in promoting SSRI antidepressants and other prescription drugs. 

“Quiet the Sirens” also dives into the nitty-gritty of psychedelic history, touching on divisive topics like the War on Drugs and the legacy of Timothy Leary. In the film, multiple health experts express frustration at how the rising popularity of psychedelics during the hippie era and the resulting War on Drugs ruined the opportunity for the medical community to build on early advancements into psychedelic research. In light of these setbacks, one Roots to Thrive staffer argues for the importance of keeping psychedelics in a clinical environment. “Psychedelics, right now, should be boring. It should be another tool in the toolbox of healthcare providers,” says Dr. Pamela Kryskow, medical lead of Roots to Thrive.

Of course, a lot of psychonauts would disagree with that argument. And while covering this topic is interesting, it means that the story of the actual firefighters fades into the background. Out of respect for their profession and their struggles, the film gives these traumatized subjects plenty of professional distance — perhaps a bit too much distance for a film about treating their traumas. That’s partly understandable: Bernard tells DoubleBlind that liability concerns and legal requirements made it difficult for him and his crew to capture footage of fires or other emergency situations, and some of the traumatic things that the firefighters talk about are probably too graphic to address in detail. 

As a result, the film relies too heavily on stock imagery, including clichéd symbols of crashing waves and natural disasters, to convey the firefighters’ internal struggles. Meanwhile, their recovery is illustrated through increasingly tiresome shots of them gardening, fishing, and doing other wholesome stuff in nature. Still, there are moments of real insight. At one point, one of the therapists at Roots to Thrive says he often has a “pretty significant sob” after driving home from his sessions because of the heaviness of the topics that come up. As North America increasingly embraces frameworks for psychedelic-assisted therapy, it makes you wonder what psychedelic safeguards should be in place for session facilitators and other healers to make sure they don’t end up suffering from PTSD or depression as well. 

Towards the end of the film, a former firefighter who is particularly shaken by his experiences reveals that he ended up losing his job after a suicide attempt. The setback leaves him in a state of shock. “No one told me I would have to grieve the loss of myself, and transform myself into someone new,” he says. It’s another moment in the documentary that made me wonder about the future potential of psychedelic healing: If ketamine, psilocybin, and other psychedelics have been shown to effectively treat mental health issues, could they also be used in preventative forms of treatment? Does a firefighter have to be at the absolute breaking point, or would it benefit them to get psychedelic-assisted counseling on a more regular basis? 

Speaking with DoubleBlind, Bernard, “Quiet the Sirens’” director, says the culture of silence is shifting as more firefighters see the benefits that this type of treatment can provide. And while “Quiet the Sirens” isn’t exactly Oscar-worthy stuff, he feels that it does serve a unique purpose in this new world, where psychedelics are treated as medicine rather than poison. “I’m really hoping that we can use [the film] as a tool,” Bernard says. “In the end, I just want this to be effective for Roots and for people understanding these things — getting the word out there, making [psychedelic therapy] more accessible and understandable for people.” 

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