Known as ‘The Natural State’ for its magnificent lakes, mountains, and hot springs, Arkansas is one of the few states whose psychedelic legislation we haven’t yet explored. However, this doesn’t mean that Arkansas residents haven’t been eager to establish regulations for psychedelic-assisted therapy in their state.
Quite the contrary, residents have been advocating for the advancement of psychedelic research, and today we’ll be detailing the Arkensawyer efforts at the forefront of this movement. We’ll also be looking into the current legal status of psychedelics in Arkansas to better inform your expectations for the future of psychedelics in the state.
What legal options are available in Arkansas for embarking on a safe and therapeutic psychedelic experience? What are the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy, and how can you maximize the therapeutic potential of these treatments right from your own home?
The Current Legislation of Psychedelics in Arkansas
Often, a state’s current cannabis laws can serve as potential indicators for their prospective support of psychedelic medicine. Cannabis has been legal in Arkansas for medicinal use since voters approved the amendment in 2016. More recently, the Arkansas Supreme Court announced that in November, voters will have the option to approve the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state.
What does this say for psychedelic-assisted therapy? Unfortunately, that’s not yet clear. As of right now, psychedelic substances like LSD, MDMA, and psilocybin, are illegal in the state. These substances fall under the classification of Schedule 1 drugs, meaning the state recognizes no medical use for these drugs and considers them to have a high potential for abuse.
Of course, we know this isn’t the case according to all of the recent and surfacing research on psychedelic compounds. However, these scientific findings haven’t yet influenced the severe consequences if one is caught possessing, using, or distributing psychedelic substances.
In fact, depending on the amount of controlled substances one is found with and depending on one’s past criminal records, possession, cultivation, or selling of psychedelic drugs can result in 3 years of incarceration and up to a lifetime in prison. Possession fines can rack up to $15,000.
As is the case in most states, psilocybin spores are completely legal to possess. The only caveat is that these spores cannot be legally grown into their mature fruiting bodies. Once psilocin, the active metabolite of psilocybin mushrooms, starts to become present in the fungi, charges for possession and cultivation could ensue.
Psilocybin mushrooms are naturally occurring in the wooded forests and ranchlands of Arkansas. The species Psilocybe cubensis and Psilocybe mexicana are commonly present in these areas. Psilocybe mexicana grows from dung and is thus mostly found in grasslands and manure-rich pastures.
The Therapeutic Benefits of a Psychedelic Experience
The therapeutic benefits of a psychedelic experience are plentiful, and are produced through several neuro-modulating mechanisms. Psychedelic drugs like DMT, psilocybin, and LSD reduce activity in the Default Mode Network (DMN). The DMN is responsible for creating our sense of self, it connects our spirit to a sense of identity and containment.
The DMN produces the “I”-ness of life, the personhood of our existence. In people with conditions like PTSD, anxiety, and depression, the DMN is overactive. This overactivity is the cause for the hyper-rumination associated with these disorders.
Serotonergic psychedelics have also been proven to stimulate neurogenesis, which is the production of new neurons for replacing dead or damaged brain cells and improving overall neural communication.
This DMN activity reduction contributes to the sense of ego-dissolution that many people experience on psychedelics. It allows the thinking and typically-ruminating mind to take a backseat while we sit as non-judgemental observers to our lives. This state of being without doing doesn’t only have short term benefits.
In fact, because psychedelics stimulate neurogenesis, you can almost perceive this new way of existing as being ‘locked-in’ to your brain cells. By creating new neural pathways we’re quite literally teaching the brain to perceive life from a less rigid, self-preserving point of view, and from a more purposeful, mindful, and self-aware state of mind.
Picture your current adult mind as a snow-covered field of grass. When we were born, that grass was relatively untouched, unobstructed by layers of conditioning that we ourselves didn’t yet understand.
Little by little the thick layers of social conditioning, of outside expectations, and of trauma, has created a false sense of who the “I” is. It’s made it difficult to touch the unadulterated grass that once lived at the surface of our minds.
That’s to say that our conditioning, our environment and the ways in which we were nurtured or neglected as children and young adults, have buried our authentic ways of existing.
Conditions like depression, PTSD, anxiety, and anorexia/bulimia are often largely a product of this hindered perspective by fault of conditioning. Today, when we look past our feet and take a closer look at the reflective surface of our snow-slated minds, we have a much harder time observing ourselves without the ingrained impositions of outside sources.
Whereas in childhood, our lolli-pop stained lips would’ve made us feel like the fashion pinnacle of our generation, today we cannot observe ourselves with authentic eyes. Rather we observe ourselves from the eyes of our emotionally unavailable fathers or from the eyes of the mother who projected her insecurities by displaying overwhelming concern about our physical appearance.
We may observe the world from the perspective of our mother who suffered from crippling codependency issues, but didn’t have the self-awareness to shield us from the habits that we eventually took on as our own.
It is hard to judge ourselves and our present circumstances with clarity and empathy because our egos are too consumed with the task of self preservation, holding themselves tightly so as to not slip through the cracks into the uncomfortable and unfamiliar. So as to preserve systems of belief that no longer serve us, but have become what we narrate as our identity.
The beauty of a psychedelic experience lies in its potential for revealing the uncomfortable truth in a warm and loving way. Once we shed light on that which has been in the shadows for far too long, we come to realize that ‘unfamiliar’ beneath it all was actually our authentic self all along.
We get to meet ourselves again, to perceive ourselves with the fresh eyes that once stared back at us in the mirror, as kids. We get the opportunity to reunite with truth, and truth is as freeing as freedom can get.
Where To Find Legal Psychedelic Experiences in Arkansas 2022
As of right now, there are two options for embarking on a therapeutic psychedelic experience in Arkansas: Ketamine clinics and guided psychedelic journeys with Psychedelic Passage.
1. Ketamine Clinics
Ketamine has been used in operating rooms since the 1960s as an anesthetic. More recently, it’s been approved for off-label use as a therapy for treatment-resistant depression. However, ketamine is not considered to be a traditional psychedelic. This therapy often requires at least 6 in-clinic sessions.
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic, therefore its effects produce out-of-body sensations in which journeyers get the opportunity to reflect on their traumas and personal complexes from a less judgemental and more objective point of view. It allows us to see ourselves and our conditions from an outside perspective.
However, it’s important to note that not all ketamine clinics function ethically and under therapeutically-optimal protocols. Therefore, it’s imperative that when you’re finding a ketamine clinic near you, you conduct research on the programs offered.
Consider the qualifications of a good psychedelic facilitator and ensure that you receive adequate preparation and integration support. Without these supplementary processes, it’s very difficult to make productive use of a ketamine experience.
2. Guided Psychedelic Journeys With Psychedelic Passage
Here at Psychedelic Passage we offer guided psychedelic journeys. Our mission is to provide safe and authentic access to these life changing treatments by ensuring that your program is tailored to your specific needs. If you’re able to source your own medicine, be that LSD, psilocybin, DMT, or any other psychedelic substance, we will sit you through the experience.
Our program offers thorough preparation and integration procedures, provided by our highly skilled network of pre-vetted psychedelic facilitators. From the comfort of your own home, you can embark on a journey through the mind, exploring the precise contours of your conflicts, with complete trust in your mental and physical safety.
Psychedelic experiences shouldn’t be taken lightly, especially when the intention is to heal from long standing issues. We fully acknowledge this and abide by the belief that mental health treatment cannot be productively approached from a one-size-fits-all perspective.
Find Your Next Psychedelic Journey In Any Major Arkansas City
- Little Rock
- Fayetteville
- Fort Smith
- Springdale
- Jonesboro
- Rogers
- Conway
- North Little Rock
- Bentonville
- Pine Bluff
- Hot Springs
- Benton
- Sherwood
- Bella Vista
- Paragould
Psychedelic Culture in Arkansas
With the memberships of over 250 Arkansas residents, the NW Arkansas Psychedelic Society has gained local acknowledgement for helping spread psychedelic advocacy efforts across the state. This community-based group was founded in 2018 in Fayetteville and works to promote psychedelic-assisted therapy by providing educational materials and resources on psychedelics and entheogenic substances.
The Holos Foundation is a non-profit organization with a vision to provide legal access to psychedelic healing by training psychotherapists on how to provide these therapies once they become legal. Based out of Northwest, Arkansas, the organization offers harm reduction resources and educational information, and has even received fiscal sponsorship from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
Explore How It Feels To Be Connected
If you’re interested in embarking on a therapeutic psychedelic experience for yourself or for a loved one, we encourage you to book a consultation with us, today. You’re only one phone call away from being connected to our carefully curated network of psychedelic facilitators and receiving the therapeutic support you deserve.
If you’d like to learn more about all-things-psychedelic, check out our resources page for a plethora of informative articles just like this one. That’s all for now, our Arkensawyer psychonauts. Safe journeying!
