Théo was stuck. At twenty-something, he had everything that should have made sense on paper: a political science degree, a job in the European Parliament, and involvement with advocacy groups. His career trajectory looked right, but something fundamental was missing. “I didn’t really like what I was doing,” he admits. “I couldn’t find meaning in my job.”
Then something shifted. During an exploratory evening with psilocybin shared with friends, Théo encountered something he hadn’t been looking for: profound relief. “This experience benefited my mental health in a way I could have never imagined before.”
For someone without a background in psychiatry or neuroscience, this was disorienting. He began researching widely and quickly encountered a substantial body of evidence: clinical trials showing how psychedelics could help people with treatment-resistant depression, end-of-life anxiety, addiction, and other conditions where conventional medicine often fell short.
The disconnect became unbearable. While research momentum accelerated, access to care remained largely out of reach. The contrast between scientific progress and political inertia became increasingly difficult to ignore.
Through his studies, Théo was familiar with the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), a democratic mechanism that allows EU citizens to formally petition the European Commission by collecting one million signatures within twelve months. He also knew the landscape well: by 2023 lobbying groups like Psychedelic Access Research European Alliance (PAREA) and Psychedelics Europe were beginning to take shape. Yet something was missing. There was no clear signal to political circles that ordinary citizens across Europe needed change to mental health policy.
So Théo made a choice to align his political skills with this emerging field and work to ensure that access to psychedelic-assisted therapy (PAT) would not be left to chance. In 2023, he began contacting associations, drafting requests, and shaping what would become PsychedeliCare EU. By January 2025, the ECI signature campaign had officially launched. What began as a personal shift evolved into a pan-European initiative.
PsychedeliCare emerged as a grassroots initiative, formed not by institutions or established lobbying structures, but by a small group of citizens who felt that waiting for top-down reform was no longer sufficient. In January 2023, the initiative began with just ten people sharing a common vision. Within a year, it had grown into a network of more than 200 volunteers across Europe, each bringing distinct professional backgrounds and personal motivations.
Operating at a European scale presents unique challenges. The EU is a rich tapestry of 27 countries with distinct languages, cultures, histories, and attitudes—particularly around mental health and drug policy. Public perceptions vary widely: what is accepted in one country may remain taboo or heavily regulated in another.
Europe’s governance combines EU-level coordination with national decision-making. While EU institutions can set broad policy direction, health and drug laws largely remain the responsibility of individual member states, adding complexity and often slowing progress. As a result, coordinated action across borders is essential to move in a unified direction. Awareness remains one of the most urgent challenges in the psychedelic field. Across much of Europe, psychedelics are still commonly associated with danger, illegality, or counterculture, rather than with therapy, research, or care. This framing has contributed to widespread misunderstanding and, in practice, has pushed many people toward unregulated underground use, often without adequate support or safety structures.
For this reason, public education became a central focus of the initiative. Over the past year, PsychedeliCare volunteers brought evidence-based information into settings where these conversations had rarely taken place, including cultural festivals, community events, and academic and professional symposia. These spaces frequently evolved into informal moments of harm-reduction education, legal literacy, and shared storytelling among patients, clinicians, and researchers.
Rather than producing immediate, visible outcomes, the impact of this work is unfolding gradually. The effects of awareness are difficult to quantify. They appear less in formal metrics than in subtle changes: increased curiosity, new collaborations, and conversations that previously felt impossible. Over time, these shifts are translating into local engagement, as citizens and organizations seek ways to participate and contribute.
From the outset, the initiative recognized that scientific data alone rarely moves policy. Human stories give evidence its force. PsychedeliCare therefore centered patient voices, not as emotional framing around science, but as evidence in their own right.
Patients carry knowledge clinicians and researchers can describe but never fully convey: chronic exhaustion, isolation, and the erosion of hope when available treatments fail. When patients speak about their experiences with psychedelic-assisted therapy, they describe concrete changes—relief, reconnection, and renewed agency—grounding abstract debate in lived reality. However, stigma persists, exposing patients to judgment and professional risk. In several contexts, patient testimony has helped shift policy discussions toward the human consequences of delayed access.
As the PsychedeliCare ECI approaches the end of its formal campaign period, it is important to assess outcomes with clarity. The ECI is intentionally a high-threshold democratic instrument, requiring not only agreement but public identification with a cause. In the context of psychedelic-assisted therapy, that step remains socially and culturally challenging in many parts of Europe.
The signature count does not reflect a lack of need or effort, but rather how constrained public expression around this topic remains. This reality helps ground a more honest conversation about what comes next. The work ahead is not solely legislative, but cultural, shaped by decades of stigma. Creating conditions in which people feel safe enough to speak openly remains a prerequisite for policy change.
Over the past year, PsychedeliCare has built relationships with partner organizations across Europe, engaged public figures from science and culture, and attracted interest from a range of stakeholders. While the signature campaign concludes in January, the broader engagement continues beyond the formal ECI process.
The next phase, informally referred to as PsychedeliCare 2.0, builds on these foundations with a focus on long-term engagement, education, and collaboration. Its core premise remains unchanged: that psychedelic-assisted therapies require safe, ethical, and evidence-based pathways into European health care systems.
Change at this scale does not emerge from a single initiative or institution. It develops through sustained dialogue among stakeholders and civil society more broadly. PsychedeliCare’s first phase illustrated what coordinated, citizen-led action can initiate. The work ahead lies in continuing that exchange, carefully and responsibly, across contexts and communities.
A Shared Invitation
PsychedeliCare EU is an open invitation to move beyond stigma and silence toward a mental-health future grounded in evidence, care, and shared responsibility.
This movement belongs to everyone who shapes that future: citizens whose lived experience gives it meaning; researchers and clinicians who safeguard its integrity and ethics; educators who foster understanding; and policymakers who turn insight into systems that serve people.
To anyone who cares about mental health in Europe—whether you bring expertise, experience, or curiosity—there is a place for you here. The future of psychedelic care will not be built by a few but shaped collectively.
To join PsychedeliCare’s growing community, please contact info@psychedelicare.eu
