Healthcare > Psychiatry

Are Psychedelics The Next Breakthrough, Or The Next Illusion?

After years of institutional failure, Americans are right to question the promises.

Renée Kohanski | April 21, 2026

America is being sold another miracle. After years of institutional failure, collapsing trust, and a mental health crisis that shows no sign of slowing, the public is once again being told that salvation may come in the form of a pill. This time the promise is not SSRIs or ketamine. It is psychedelics. The enthusiasm is loud, and the claims are getting ahead of the evidence.

This class of drugs is now gaining clinical attention, rather than just recreational fascination, even though the substances themselves are hardly new. Many readers followed Carlos Castaneda all the way to Ixtlan under the guidance of Don Juan Matus, a Yaqui “sorcerer.” Others remember the LSD era shaped by Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary. Even the name of this class suggests an exotic mechanism of action.

They fall under Schedule I, which the federal government defines as having a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use in the United States, and a lack of established safety even under medical supervision. Why even consider it? One answer is that federal law does allow research on Schedule I substances. Another is that the morbidity and mortality associated with psychiatric illness are staggering. PTSD, addiction, and severe depression can be incapacitating and, in many cases, fatal.

The alternative is not always noble. Our northern neighbors have embraced MAID, offering medical assistance in dying to people who have not exhausted treatment.  That is not a path we should be eager to follow.........

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