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Regulations

Can Legalization Serve the Greater Good? The Ethical Challenges of Psychedelic Law

January 7, 2025
Featuring: Ariel Clark, JD

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.

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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!

Links

Thepsychedelicbar.org

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, by Gabor Maté MD

Psychedeliceducationcenter.com: Psychedelics and Religious Liberty in the United States

*Amazon links are affiliate links, meaning that Psychedelics Today will receive a percentage of the sale

Ariel Clark_ JD

In this Episode

Ariel Clark, JD

Ariel Clark is an Anishinaabe attorney providing non-profit organizational support and advising clients in highly-regulated and emerging ecosystems. For over 15 years, Ariel has provided business, corporate, and regulatory support to organizations, non-profits, government agencies, tribes, healthcare providers, and practitioners with an emphasis on cannabis, plant medicines, and psychedelics. She collaborates with Life Comes From It to support Indigenous peacemaking and land-based projects that center human beings’ (re)union with land and our more-than-human relatives. She’s a co-founder of the Psychedelic Bar Association, a national association of lawyers involved in psychedelics, she is on the board of Benefit Honoring, an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building a global community rooted in Indigenous traditional lifeways and biocultural preservation, and is a member of Roots To Sky Sanctuary, a BIPOC-stewarded, land-based healing and community project. Ariel is an enrolled Tribal citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians and is Of Counsel with Calyx Law.

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