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Psychedelics Today

PT555 – Protecting Indigenous Wisdom: Rethinking Psychedelic Legalization, with Gabriela Galindo

Psychedelics Today

Psychedelics Today, LLC

Life Sciences, Science, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.6598 Ratings

🗓️ 11 October 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, Kyle interviews Gabriela Galindo: program coordinator of FLOWS (Foundations for Leaders Organizing for Water and Sustainability), an organization working towards social and environmental justice, ecosystem restoration, community building, and the preservation and protection of Indigenous medicines.

She discusses her entry point to psychedelics and how she got involved with Colorado's Natural Medicine Health Act (Prop 122) when she saw a complete absence of Indigenous representation in the legislature. The narrative that we all have a right to healing and that these medicines belong to everyone is pretty common today, but Galindo argues that this is not fair: that each plant has its own history, and that each is protected by its own culture. Shouldn't the communities that have stewarded these medicines for centuries have a say in whether their medicine is going to be shared and legislated at the state level? Shouldn't they have the ability to consent to these new proposals?

She talks about:

  • Why she likes using 'movement' instead of 'renaissance' when discussing our psychedelic culture
  • What we could learn from Indigenous people's harmony with nature as we face an ongoing climate crisis
  • The balancing act of pleasing everyone: Would decriminalization be as supported if Indigenous communities wanted to keep some of these substances criminalized for the protection of their culture and their ecosystems?
  • How psychedelic communities should evolve to include community work into their routines: What do local communities need and how can you help?
  • The importance of knowing when to step aside and truly center a community voice

and more! 

For links, head to the show notes page

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hello and welcome to psychedelics today.

0:12.9

My name is Kyle Buller and I am the host for today's podcast.

0:16.1

And on today's episode, I get the chat with Gabriella Galindo, who is a weaver of various Mexican

0:21.7

indigenous lineages, including Nahua, Lua, the Oedica, Spanish, and also African lineages.

0:28.5

And after receiving a BS in human nutrition, she went on to offer nutrition education

0:34.8

in public health and realizing that the interconnectedness

0:37.5

of all of our personal health to that of our communities

0:40.6

and ecosystems.

0:42.3

And she also advocates for the preservation, protection

0:46.0

of indigenous medicines, cultures, and traditions

0:48.5

as critical solutions for the global climate crisis.

0:51.8

And in this episode, Gabriela and I

0:53.6

chat about her work in environmental and social

0:55.6

justice, as well as her involvement in the Natural Medicine Act in Colorado, so Prop 122.

1:01.8

And we chat about the importance of indigenous representation and consent in legislation related

1:07.8

to sacred plant medicines. So yeah, we get into the complexities around cultural

1:13.0

appropriation, the legalization and decriminalization of sacred plant medicines and psychedelics,

1:19.7

and the role of indigenous communities in the psychedelic Renaissance and the importance of

1:23.9

centering and supporting these communities. And so I think this conversation, the perspectives

1:29.5

that Gabriela brought to this conversation are really important to explore. As psychedelics are

1:34.6

becoming more mainstream, and as we start to see, more states pass legislation, whether it's

1:40.2

for decriminalization or legalization. And yeah, this conversation just brings up lots of thoughts around how indigenous communities

...

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