Media and industry advocates claim psychedelics promote environmental concern and liberal politics, but historical and contemporary evidence shows many users remain authoritarian or become radicalized after use. The authors argue that psychedelics do not inherently shift political beliefs in any particular direction; rather, contextual factors of set and setting determine the outcome. Any worldview-challenging experience, including psychedelics, can precipitate political shifts in any direction. The historical record supports psychedelics as "politically pluripotent," non-specific amplifiers of political set and setting. Conservative, hierarchy-based ideologies can assimilate psychedelic experiences of interconnection, as seen in figures like Jordan Peterson and neo-Nazi groups.
Psychedelic medicine is promoted as a novel solution to the mental health crisis, but the psychedelics industry adopts profit-driven approaches similar to those that undermined earlier antidepressants like SSRIs. The liberatory rhetoric of psychedelic medicalization actually promotes individualized treatments for distress, distracting from systemic changes needed to address root causes like inequality, precarity, exploitation, and ecological collapse. Through mechanisms of depoliticization, productivization, pathologization, commodification, and de-collectivization, the industry aligns with neoliberal ideology rather than disrupting the psychopharmaceutical status quo. The authors conclude that psychedelics must decouple from neoliberal incentives to achieve durable improvements in well-being.