Hola Breakeros!
Saturday 20th April 2024, Conway Hall, London
A reminder that tickets for Breaking Convention’s one-day event, Here & Now, are still available. If you want to be sure of attending, get yours now; half have already sold!
We’d also like to remind you that the fundraiser of our good friends at PsyCare UK has only 6 days to go! There is still the chance for you to grab discounted festival tickets, signed psychedelic books, amazing artwork and more, whilst supporting this worthwhile charity. Head over to their Crowdfunder page for more details.
In traditional year end recap spirit, below you will find links to a handful of the books, media stories, and policy shifts that happened last year. Huge thanks to Rosalind Stone, our press Officer, for collating the items on this list.
April 2023 Breaking Convention held its sixth edition, in the marvellous surroundings of the University of Exeter. The talks, films, art exhibition, stalls, workshops, and social spaces met with high praise all round, thank you so much to everyone who contributed to this event! It truly represented an intelligent and joyous community coming together to share their research findings, stories, and analyses of current thinking. Recordings of the talks are available on our YouTube channel.
July 2023 Policy shifts: Earlier this year Australia legislated for the use of psychedelics as mental health treatments. Opinions on the practicality of this move vary considerably, as one might expect with such a relatively untested—and currently unfunded by government—therapy. BBC News examined several perspectives; see Australia legalises psychedelics for mental health and MDMA: Australia begins world-first psychedelic therapy.
September 2023 Women are integral to the history of psychedelics; however, their contributions have often not figured as prominently in stories of daring experiments or discoveries made by charismatic mind explorers. The forgotten story of women within the history of psychedelics—Erika Dyck’s long-form article—is available to read online in e-book format.
November 2023 Ed Prideaux writes a nuanced account of the condition HPPD for BBC Future. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231101-psychedelic-drugs-flashbacks-hallucinogen-persisting-perception-disorder-hppd
November 2023 How might the classic psychedelics be responsibly regulated in a post-prohibition world? Transform Drug Policy Foundation’s How to Regulate Psychedelics, is available as an e-book or paperback.
November also saw the publication of Expanding Mindscapes, an important collection of essays edited by Erika Dyck and Chris Elcock, featuring multiple global perspectives on the 20th century use and cultural perceptions of psychedelics.
December 2023 Washington passes a bill legalising using psychedelics to treat PTSD: This year’s National Defense Authorization Act included a measure directing the US Defense Department to create grants for studying psychedelic treatments for active duty service members. The Texas Tribune has a neat write up of the implications and context.
And, bringing us right up to date, two of Breaking Convention’s founders, Ben Sessa and David Luke appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme Beyond Belief: Faith in the psychedelic rennaissance last week, discussing spirituality and psychedelics.
This is just a tiny sample of what has happened in the last year. In 2024, we will continue to bring you a carefully curated selection of academic papers, interesting articles, chances to participate in research studies, policy updates, and news of accessible events that we think are of interest to our readers.
Look out for announcements about future Breaking Convention events over the next months, and a chance to take part of them!
On behalf of the BC team,
Nikki Wyrd
nikki@breakingconvention.co.uk