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Making "Medical": How Psychedelics Are Becoming Legal In Canada, Agnieszka Doll

Dalhousie Law Journal

As legal restrictions loosen, psychedelic-assisted therapies are advancing at an unprecedented pace and scope in Canada and the US. Presented as a miracle cure for post-traumatic stress, depression, and other psychological disorders, psychedelics are being touted to treat post-pandemic mental health crises. In this paper, drawing on Science and Technology Studies, I ethnographically trace the ongoing process and practices involved in transforming illegal psychedelics into a regulated medicine in Canada, paying particular attention to regulatory pathways and the development of networks involved in psychedelic advocacy. Using these pathways as a methodological “sampling device,” I map the main actors, their mutual …