PT580 – Can Legalization Serve the Greater Good? The Ethical Challenges of Psychedelic Law, with Ariel Clark, JD
Psychedelics Today
Psychedelics Today, LLC
4.6 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2025
⏱️ 67 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, Joe interviews Ariel Clark: Anishinaabe attorney and co-founder of the Psychedelic Bar Association, a national association of lawyers involved in the highly-regulated ecosystem of psychedelic law.
She talks about ethics: How do the different societal norms of each lineage we carry interact with each other? What is the cultural framing that informs those ways of knowing, and do we align with it? Is there a code of ethics we can all agree on? As the rush to legalize psychedelics increases, Clark finds herself at a crossroads of wondering if our actions are really of service to the greater good: Can the overculture legalize psychedelics effectively, while doing less harm to Indigenous culture and the medicines themselves?
She discusses:
- The challenges of working in psychedelic law with all of the other factors at play: How do you ethically support a client?
- The idea that these medicines can have agency – even the synthetic ones
- Shifting from a Western mind state of "what are my rights?" to an Indigenous frame of: "What are my responsibilities?"
- Her story of healing from debilitating back pain with psychedelics and spiritual alignment
- The need for public education to be at the center of future legislation attempts
and more!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, welcome back to psychedelics today. |
| 0:15.8 | This is Joe Moore. |
| 0:16.6 | Today on the show we have Ariel Clark, who's an attorney with lots of experience in psychedelics and cannabis and also has a Native American lineage. |
| 0:25.0 | So very important perspectives and experience. |
| 0:29.0 | And on the show today, we get into kind of ethics, morality, like how do we want to be a good relative? |
| 0:35.6 | What are some of the thoughts that come up around |
| 0:38.2 | lawyering in psychedelics? |
| 0:40.0 | And we also talk about some chronic pain stuff too. |
| 0:41.8 | So overall, a amazing, well-rounded episode. |
| 0:45.2 | I hope you all enjoy it. |
| 0:46.4 | If you like it, please leave us a review |
| 0:48.9 | on Apple Podcast or Spotify. |
| 0:51.4 | We would love that. |
| 0:52.5 | And if you want to come check us out, Psychedelicsday.com, |
| 0:56.6 | got all sorts of fun stuff happening. |
| 0:58.3 | So please, please, please do. |
| 1:00.1 | And tell a front. |
| 1:01.0 | All right, we'll see you on the other side. |
| 1:05.7 | Hi, everybody. |
| 1:06.6 | Welcome back to psychedelics today. |
| 1:08.9 | Today I'm joined by attorney and longtime member of the psychedelic |
| 1:14.8 | community. Ariel Clark, how are you today? I am doing very well. How are you? Lovely. I'm excited to |
... |
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