Freedom of Recreation: A Critique of the Prohibition, Decriminalization, and Legal Regulation of Psychedelics for Recreational Use

The 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances prohibits recreational use of psychedelics like LSD, psilocybin, DMT, and mescaline, based on claims that they pose a serious public health threat due to high addiction and abuse liability and have only limited medical and scientific value. This article argues that these premises are false: psychedelics are not highly addictive or abusive, and their uses extend beyond medicine and science, making prohibition unjustified. Decriminalization and legal regulation also rest on flawed premises. The authors propose communalization, where all adults may freely use psychedelics recreationally, supported by community-based harm reduction and benefit enhancement services.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Established by the 1971 United Nations (UN) Convention on Psychotropic Substances, the prohibition of the recreational use of psychedelics (lysergic acid diethylamide [LSD], psilocybin, N , N -dimethyltryptamine [ N , N -DMT], and mescaline) has two premises. First, recreational use poses a serious threat to public health because psychedelics are highly liable to addiction and abuse. Second, psychedelics have only limited scientific and medical uses. In this article, we raise the following questions: are these premises true such that prohibition is justified? If not, are decriminalization and legal regulation justified alternatives? Drawing on interdisciplinary research, we show that the premises of prohibition are false. Psychedelics are not highly liable to addiction or abuse, and so recreational use is not a serious threat to public health. Moreover, the uses of psychedelics exceed medical and scientific uses. Prohibition, we conclude, is therefore unjustified. We then show that decriminalization is based on the same false premises as prohibition, that legal regulation is based on weaker versions of these premises, and thus that both alternatives entail unjustified restrictions on recreational users. Finally, we present a fourth approach: communalization. This entails that all adults have the freedom to recreationally use psychedelics without restrictions and that communities provide harm reduction and benefit enhancement services to support this freedom.