Imagining a Psychedelic Rite of Passage for Teens

Rick Doblin is a busy man. Recently, the founder and director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies raised the final $30 million needed to finish Phase III trials of MDMA for PTSD research. But when Plant Parenthood approached him to talk about kids and psychedelics, he eagerly accepted, calling the topic “inflammatory.” (We can’t imagine a better compliment). 

         In our conversation, Rick spoke about the ways he introduced the topic of psychedelics to his three children. After his Bar Mitzvah at age 13, he was left feeling an acute absence of transformation. “I really thought that something would happen, that this ritual, this rite of passage, it would touch me at a deeper level than it actually did. I thought that it was pretty empty for me in a spiritual sense,” he said. When his own children turned 13, he and his wife gave them the option to do either MDMA or cannabis together. These seminal experiences of youthful rebellion all of the sudden became …rather un-rebellious!

         “It turned out to be the best anti-drug strategy we could have figured out,” he said. 

         We know that no matter what, by the time kids get to college, almost half of them will have used drugs. The vast majority of these experiences will take place outside of parental supervision. Let’s examine a few hypothetical pros of introducing your own children to psychedelics:

1)    You know exactly what they’re ingesting, and how much.

As anyone with teens knows, without a fully developed brain, their decision-making does not always (or often!) take consequences into consideration. It is the exceptional teen who would test their substances with a reagent kit. Teens in peer groups often coax each other to ingest substances for the express purpose of inducing excessively altered states, rather than a modulated dose appropriate for their experience and body weight.

2)    You get to control the set and setting.

You know your children best, so you can assess their mindset better than their friends. Plus, you’d have full control over their setting, whether at home or elsewhere. Often when teens experiment with psychedelics, it is in unfamiliar and sometimes unsafe settings.  

3)    The taboo is immediately removed.

As Dr. Julie Holland said in her interview with Plant Parenthood, when you have shame and stigma, it has an adrenalizing effect on the way you use substances. Making yourself open not just to talking about substances but then offering a safe way for them to do them creates a condition of safety. 

4)    You get to introduce the substances with a tone of reverence and moderation.

In contrast to a peer introduction to psychedelics, which may skew towards escapism or rebellion, parents introduce them as therapeutic tools that promote interconnectedness and self-love and/or recreational tool that require careful preparation and integration 

Giving children psychedelics is not without risk, of course. Research is quite limited on how these substances affect the developing brain, though a study of 40 Brazilian adolescents who consumed ayahuasca found no differences between them and a control group that did not consume on neuropsychological and psychiatric tests. And while addiction potential for some psychedelics is low compared to other substances, it does exist (especially for cannabis and ketamine ). 

Depending on the dynamic in the parent-child relationship, there can be risks associated with the experience itself. For example if the child has a difficult trip, they may blame their parents for giving them the substance in the first place. Seeing their parent in an altered state may impact the child’s sense of them as a safe, stable person. Perhaps most risky is the psychedelic-enthusiast parent who inadvertently influences their child to take substances when they don’t really want to. 

         No matter where you stand on this issue, what seems clear is that this important conversation isn’t happening often in Western culture. We’re hoping to change that and open up the discourse in the future, and invite all perspectives and opinions. Be on the lookout for more resources and events on this topic, and let us know what you think!.