A workshop on psychedelic ethics, the first Hopkins-Oxford Psychedelic Ethics (HOPE) meeting, was held in August 2023 at the University of Oxford to address ethical issues surrounding psychedelics. The organizers (BDE, DBY, EJ) aimed to foster interdisciplinary discussion on topics such as informed consent, therapeutic use, and societal implications. The report outlines the workshop's structure, key themes, and proposed guidelines for ethical research and practice in the field.
The concepts of set and setting in psychedelic research are vague and over-inclusive. A mechanism-first approach is proposed, which begins with specific components such as openness to the experience or calming lighting and music, then investigates the mechanisms by which these components influence outcomes. Understanding paradigmatic cases allows researchers to test whether other mental and environmental factors play similar mechanistic roles, gradually expanding the scope of set and setting. This approach avoids standard definitions and encourages focused, mutually informative research projects. The argument outlines problems with current definitions, details the mechanism-first method, illustrates it with active research, and addresses objections.