Melissa Lavasani’s story in a nutshell: After suffering from a depression that nothing seemed to help, she finally learned about the potential of plant medicine (via a Podcast!) - but what would the other Moms at her children’s school say? Would she have to break the law to save herself? Well she made the choice to prioritise her mental health, and eventually started to thrive, which inspired her to become the force behind Decriminalise Washington - a political initiative helping decriminalise magic mushrooms and plant medicine so they can be used to treat depression.
Boom, there is your Netflix Show, if you wanted. But this is no fiction: America is on the way to engaging with plant medicines, and through legal channels. On September 21, “Ann Arbor became the third city in the United States to decriminalise all-naturally occurring psychedelic plants and fungi. The city follows in the footsteps of Oakland, which became the first city in the United States to pass a resolution like it, in June of last year—and Santa Cruz, which followed in January of this year.” writes Double Blind Magazine.
But back to Melissa Lavasani and her work in Washington: she is now the chairwoman of the initiative and sees herself as “the most normal person ever” despite becoming the face of a psychedelic movement. She was a Mum of two, married, had a great life with friends and family, but still, she was a mother suffering from depression due to pregnancy to the point that her family nearly fell apart. Lavasini tried the usual medication and therapy to fight her depression, but nothing helped, until she heard Paul Stamets talking about the healing power of magic mushrooms on a Joe Rogan podcast. So she experimented with microdosing mushrooms, and in her words, “felt like a human being again”. Her own healing story made her the perfect face of the Decriminalise Washington movement, with the support of Dr, Bronners.
In the podcast, we talk about the so-called Baby Blues, which is the nice and easy word for postpartum depression and we talk about why becoming a mother is a full on identity crisis and can trigger things one never thought about. We talk about how a normal mum can be the best spokesperson for psychedelics and why it's good to convince as many republicans as possible, especially in the upcoming election, that psilocybin will help to save lives.
“The psychedelic space is handicapped by the fact that Americans were fed a lot of really negative propaganda against psychedelics,” Lavasani said. “And that has been passed down generation to generation, and we’re trying to break it to an audience that doesn’t already have it embedded in their culture.”
Here is some DECRIM INFO
D.C. residents will vote this year on Initiative 81, which would not decriminalize psychedelics completely but would make law enforcement “among the lowest law enforcement priorities.”
Advocates of the initiative said D.C. could be at the “forefront” of helping people who are disproportionately struggling with mental health issues by lessening the legal blow of the drug.
See you next week, when we come back with BIG news from Synthesis!
Talk soon, Anne
🍄 The New Health Club #35 - Melissa Lavasani - You can vote for Magic Mushrooms (Yes, that's right, even in Washington!)