09/06/2026
I want to say something that I believe our entire community needs to talk about more openly: safety, transparency, and informed consent.
Whether you are attending a ceremony, retreat, music festival, spiritual gathering, private event, or any other space where plant medicines, psychedelics, or other substances may be present, please ask questions before deciding to participate.
Who is facilitating?
What is their actual experience and training?
What medicines or substances may be offered?
Will more than one substance be used or available?
Are there known interactions or contraindications?
What safety measures are in place if someone experiences a medical or psychological emergency?
What preparation is expected beforehand?
What support or integration is available afterward?
And perhaps most importantly:
Do you know what you are consenting to BEFORE you participate?
Informed consent should happen before someone enters an altered or vulnerable state—not after an experience has already begun.
People should not have to discover in the middle of a ceremony, retreat, festival, or gathering that additional substances are being offered, combined, or introduced that they were not expecting.
Transparency matters.
There are many different traditions, practices, and approaches to medicine and psychedelic work. Something being different from the way another person practices does not automatically make it irresponsible or unsafe.
But spiritual language does not automatically make something safe either.
Calling something a “ceremony” does not remove the responsibility that comes with facilitating an altered state of consciousness.
Ceremony should carry responsibility.
It should involve intention, preparation, knowledge, ethics, transparency, informed consent, appropriate boundaries, and an understanding of the substances being worked with—including potential interactions and contraindications.
Facilitators should also understand their own limitations and know when something is outside their experience or ability to safely hold.
There is an important distinction between intentionally facilitated medicine work and recreational substance use. There is nothing wrong with adults making informed choices about recreational experiences, but those experiences should be represented honestly.
If something is recreational, call it recreational.
If multiple substances may be offered, disclose that beforehand.
If something is being presented as ceremonial, therapeutic, healing, or spiritually facilitated, understand the responsibility that comes with asking another human being to become vulnerable in that environment.
This also applies beyond traditional ceremonial settings. Music festivals, retreats, transformational events, private gatherings, and spiritual communities can sometimes blur the lines between recreation, ceremony, healing, and experimentation. Wherever that happens, informed consent and harm reduction become even more important.
And please remember that membership in a psychedelic organization, church, spiritual community, society, retreat center, or other group does not automatically establish someone's qualifications.
An affiliation is not training.
A title is not experience.
Spiritual language is not a safety protocol.
Confidence is not competence.
Research the people and organizations you are trusting.
Ask uncomfortable questions.
Ask what may be offered before you participate.
Ask about interactions.
Ask about emergency planning.
Ask about preparation and aftercare.
And pay attention to how people respond when you ask.
Responsible facilitators should welcome reasonable questions about safety and consent.
Plant medicines and psychedelics can place people in profoundly vulnerable states. Whether the setting is a traditional ceremony, modern retreat, festival, spiritual gathering, or something entirely different, anyone choosing to facilitate or provide substances carries a serious responsibility toward the people trusting them.
As this community continues to grow, we have to protect more than the medicines and traditions.
We have to protect people.
Safety matters. Transparency matters. Consent matters. Integrity matters.
And those principles should apply everywhere.
