Hisrrael Hernandez, The Shaman's Deer Spirit Teacher, 2019. Thread on wooden board, 30 x 30 x 1 cm. Courtesy the artist and October Gallery, London, UK.

When taking hallucinogenics, more is better, within limits.

When I heard on CBC Radio that Canadian veterans can be re­imbursed for up to three grams of medical marijuana per day, I was reminded of my many years of using pot. I sympathize with veterans suffering post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I was diagnosed with PTSD in 1998, when I was one of the plaintiffs in a court case against the Government of Canada and the United Church for damages suffered at the Alberni Indian Residential School. So, where is my three grams per day?

Like thousands of First Nations people in Canada I used drugs and alcohol to help me deal with my pain and trauma. Medicinal benefits of marijuana have been known for decades, especially for PTSD, anxiety, depression, concentration and pain management. But it took a long time until legalization for medicinal use became reality.

The popular warning that smoking pot leads to the use of harder drugs was true in my case. Many, many years ago I did try LSD, mescaline, peyote and MDA. Many, many years ago very little thought was given to the potential health benefits of these drugs. However, times have changed.

When I googled LSD the first article that popped up was from 2016 in the Washington Post: “LSD could make you smarter, healthier and happier. Should we all try it?” It gives a nice history of the use of psychedelics in the US. Researchers determined that as many as two million people in the US had dropped acid by 1970. Recently researchers have found positive benefits of psychedelic use for physical and mental health.

I first dropped acid in 1968. The variety was called purple haze and it was a bit mild. I am glad it was the first acid I took because later I tried others that were much more hallucinogenic. For instance, later that year in Port Alberni I was walking home and my aunt and a couple of her sons were driving by and they pulled over and asked me if I wanted to go camping with them at Long Beach, near Tofino, BC. One of my cousins gave me a hit of acid known as purple microdot. It was dark at Long Beach when we were setting up camp. One of my cousins asked me to go for a walk along the beach. I never could see in the dark (on account of a degenerative eye disease) but I attempted to accompany him anyway. It took a while to crawl over the many driftwood logs to get to the beach. All I could go on for navigation was the sound of the waves, which at times seemed to be all around me. When I finally caught up to my cousin he was laughing and asked me, “Did you hear those people yelling back there?” “No,” I responded. He told me there were people covered with tarps or thin plywood sleeping between the logs and I had crawled over some of them without realizing it as I was so focused on getting to the beach. At that moment the hallucinations increased and I became anxious when I felt the waves were going to consume me.

Psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” have always grown on Vancouver Island and their popularity has grown and shrunk over the decades, but it sounds like they are popular again. Like peyote, they weren’t for me, but they were a favourite of a close friend of mine, a midwife. My friend and her helper were assisting a lady experiencing a great amount of pain during labour. They were at a loss as to how to ease the lady’s pain. Then my friend recalled that she had been told to carry dried psilocybin mushrooms in her medicine pouch, to use only for extreme pain when nothing else would work. She took them out and told the soon-to-be-mother to eat a few of the mushrooms. To make the woman feel more comfortable my friend said she would also take some—something she had not done before. Then her assistant said she should take some, too. My friend told me it turned out to be a perfect delivery. In fact, it turned out to be quite a good time as the mother’s pain was relieved and the three enjoyed much laughter.

My favourite psychedelic was mescaline. It gave me a lengthy, mild hallucinogenic experience. The colours I saw were radiant. On my living room wall hung a poster of a First Nations man sitting cross-legged in front of a large cactus. I had a two-hour-long enlightening conversation with him. I cannot recall exactly what was said, but I do recall feeling like I was talking with someone who really understood me.

MDA was called the love drug. That it was! I learned the hard way that this crystalline powder could be absorbed by the skin. I did not wear gloves when I was putting the substance into gelatine capsules. I ended up very stoned. I had a couple bad experiences, which I attribute to substances added to the MDA rather than the MDA itself. The bad feelings disappeared after I lay down and relaxed for a few hours.

When taking hallucinogenic drugs recreationally my friends and I tended to believe that more was better. That is so, but, like with alcohol, there are limits, and consuming too much can lead to blackouts or total loss of control. Periods of my life when I felt depressed and even suicidal were times when I was mainly drinking alcohol. I never felt suicidal during the times I was using psychedelics. But bad trips can lead to bad things. Maybe that’s why people have turned to the latest fad of microdosing, taking tiny doses of a drug several times a week, to help with productivity, concentration and memory. That sounds good to me.

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