Daniel Carlino is a council member in Missoula, Montana. He is dedicated to decriminalizing plant medicines and he’s the youngest council member in Missoula history.
Daniel Carlino is a council member in Missoula, Montana. He is dedicated to decriminalizing plant medicines and he is the youngest council member in Missoula history. We were fortunate that he joined us for an interview just outside of the capital building.
“If every politician had a psychedelic experience, I think we would be getting way better outcomes in this world” -Daniel Carlino
Daniel Carlino’s history with psychedelics
Daniel: I’ve had a lot of life-changing experiences through psychedelic experiences with psilocybin or DMT, and others. Psychedelics helped me just think about the way the world works and realign my worldview with just trying to be the best person I can be.
It’s helped me with times where I’ve been depressed or sad for a long period of time and it helped me break that by knowing that there’s a lot of new things I can learn in the world and a lot of stuff that’s worth being happy for.
I am somebody who I would never expect to be in a politician. I started studying environmental studies here in Missoula, and at that time I realized how bad it is with the climate crisis and the way that human relationship is with nature and just the harm that we’ve done.
I’ve been on beautiful hikes around Montana where I’ve been having a mushroom experience and just thinking about what I can do to try and change this.
“And part of the reason that I got into politics is just believing in myself through psychedelic experiences and thinking ‘Hey, I can change the world and step up to the plate to be in politics and be an activist.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFhjfbSaeyg
What is a city council?
Daniel: So in the city council we were supposed to represent everybody in town and best we can and we work to pass local laws and local policies. So, for example, if the city Council agreed that we want to decriminalize nature, the police department and health department and everyone else who works for the city would have to go along with that and adapt to it.
In Missoula, there’s 12 of us on the city council, and we work to make local laws. We work on our zoning, which decides what can be built where and we also work on the city budget. So we decide how much money goes to the police or to the fire department or to our parks and trails and things like that.
What can the city council do about decriminalizing psychedelics?
Daniel: So part of what we were asking for was for police to not use any more time or funds on trying to arrest people for psychedelic use, possession, or growing. We were asking our county attorney here to throw out any cases that they’ve gotten around this too, but the city council, he said, wasn’t ready for this. So we ended up tabling the Decriminalize Nature resolution.
We didn’t have all the votes together, so we ended up tabling it for the meantime to give council members more months to learn more from our constituents and people about why we want to decriminalize nature and give them some more time to just soak in the facts and data around why this is a good idea.
There were more people that spoke out in favor of decriminalize nature than anything else this year- over 100 or so Missoula people came out to speak out! We had multiple addiction counselors and veterans and other people who had suffered from PTSD. That helped. We had a pretty wide coalition of people in town that were speaking in favor of this.
Why is it important that we decriminalize before we legalize?
Daniel: I think it’s really important that we decriminalize nature first because we want to make sure that there can be an abundance of naturally grown psychedelics around. We want to make sure that there’s not too much regulation that gets to decide who can grow what and who can have what.
We want to make sure that everybody has access to growing these medicines and is able to provide for themselves and not have too many governmental laws in place that would restrict that in the first place.
On civil disobedience and psychedelics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVJQGkkCrH0
Daniel: Civil disobedience has definitely changed the United States and changed politics. Some civil disobedience that I’ve been involved in is just like standing in front of a train full of oil and coal. But I think civil disobedience to help decriminalize nature is a good method.
The rule of social movements is that every time 3.5% or more of the population has gotten involved in sustained social movements, every single social movement has been successful. With civil rights movement or women’s suffrage movement and other movements across the entire world, this has always been true.
The social movement to decriminalize nature is inevitably going to be successful. But I think it’s a great idea to lean on our neighbors and friends in the meantime to find access to these naturally growing psychedelics.
So essentially, getting more people involved can mean educating somebody about it or helping your friend to find psychedelics or going out to your city council and being like ‘Hey, I’m somebody who wants to see this be decriminalized.’
If the police come to arrest the people that are running illegal distribution of psychedelics, that the civil disobedience would be gathering a big crowd of people and physically blocking the police them from arresting them.
Civil disobedience would be to try and stop the government from enforcing these unethical laws with the mass numbers.
Watch the full interview with Daniel Carlino
https://vimeo.com/877379856
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Tell us about your personal story with plant medicine?
I’ve had multiple experiences with the psychedelics that have really motivated me to get more involved. I went through multiple years of opiate addiction and was really in a deep struggle where I didn’t feel I had really any self-worth. And I’d gotten to the point where I was telling my family that I didn’t know if there was more for me, if that was my story.
And I remember just a very powerful psychedelic experience where not only I felt this extreme love and worth and that there was more for me, but also I had this moment of just, just kind of feeling like I was wasting my life away. And you know that every day I was just stuck in the same routine and it was just happening over and over and over again.
And that (psychedelic) experience really launched me towards sobriety.
And I think psychedelics could have really helped me speed that process up. But unfortunately, getting involved with a lot of treatment facilities and stuff like that, now they really push away from any use of anything and that includes entheogenic plants.
So, you know, I really kind of buried the use of those and didn’t didn’t use them to help, which I think made that more of a struggle getting to that point of sobriety.
But once I finally was able to get there, I have been probably clean for about four years and unfortunately had a family member that passed away due to opiate addiction. And so at that point I really felt this calling towards psychedelics again and psilocybin specifically. So I went on a mushroom journey in nature because nature always seemed to be very special to her.
And during that experience, I felt this really heavy fog rolling around me and I sat down and felt like it was her presence. And it just gave me time to really cry and communicate with her and it was extremely powerful. And even though the passing of my sister still hurt, it really helped with that healing process.
Even though the passing of my sister still hurt, it really helped with that healing process.
And so since then, it’s really launched me to get more involved with psychedelic societies and organizations that are helping veterans with PTSD and other things.
Can decriminalization help heal a community?
Yes, I think in many different ways. So many people have struggled many times. I’ve heard now that my whole adult life I’ve been on a mix of antidepressants and, you know, multiple at the same time. And this is the first time in my life that I haven’t been taking them.
And I feel better than I have ever. I mean, that’s extremely healing for our community.
Just the happiness that psychedelics can spread, the love the psychedelics can spread. We should all be more loving to one another. And so I think all of that is really critical in healing our communities.
Just the happiness that psychedelics can spread, the love the psychedelics can spread. We should all be more loving to one another.
Has plant medicine really helped you in your relationship?
I feel like plant medicines helped me in all my relationships. I mean, whether that be from microdosing. You know, when I microdose, I feel like I can be much more understanding and less likely to get irritated or agitated by something. You know, I can take a step back and take a breath and kind of reevaluate things.
You know, the heavy trips can be very resetting and helping you kind of really get back to a grounded space. And then also just kind of light trips that are in between. You know, there’s times that me and my wife where I’ve been the one on a light dose, but we’re laughing and crying together because that energy spreads and is infectious and, you know, playing on the ground with my my child can be very special, you know, on those in those light experiences.
And so I think it can be powerful for all relationships.
For someone who’s in a really deep, dark space and there’s just no light at the end of the tunnel from where they stand, what do you have to say to those people?
It’s sometimes hard to see, but there’s people out there that can love you. And sometimes it’s just trying to find that space where you can feel that love, you know, because you are worth being love so just try and find that community.
Raquel is an organizer and volunteer for Decriminalize Nature in Bend, Oregon. Raquel is a mother, a wisdom keeper of indigenous ways of knowing, and a volunteer who’s trying to create space legally in her community for sacred medicine.
Meet Raquel O’Leary
Raquel is an organizer and volunteer for Decriminalize Nature in Bend, Oregon. Raquel is a mother, a wisdom keeper of indigenous ways of knowing, and a volunteer who’s trying to create space legally in her community for sacred medicine.
Watch “Psychedelic Therapy’s Impact on Physical Health”
What are some physical changes you have experienced since your first ceremony in 2019?
So I have taken my health back. I’ve released like 60 to 70 pounds of extra weight in my body.
I’ve healed my gut.
I have gone through definitely a physical transformation, like an intense physical transformation and a really beautiful way of being more present in the world. You know, my presence has definitely changed within my own family and my community.
And it’s been a real honor because as I was releasing all of this, you know, extra baggage, I had a ton of pain in my body.
I live with chronic pain all over my body and my jaw, my shoulder, my neck, my hips. You know, it was like I was an old woman. And so through this process of healing and doing a lot of somatic work as well, like to learn how to journey and be in my body, to navigate spaces where there’s stuck energy or trauma stuck in my body, it helps me show up to help with this beautiful community.
Do you think the the inner work has helped with self-love, which helped with the weight loss and things like that?
Yeah, it’s all completely related.
I saw addictive behaviors, like I was using the wrong medicine, you know, food, alcohol.
There were just so many things. And I was also giving my all my energy towards a job that wasn’t I wasn’t in reciprocity with.
So there wasn’t an exchange. So using my energy more wisely and making sure that I’m creating space to recharge and do my own work and like my connection to the Earth is just, like blossomed in such a beautiful way.
So in 2019, was that your first experience with plant medicine?
Yes, I started with ceremonial use of cannabis. Psychedelic use, of which I was kind of like, what?
I had a really good friend of mine who was being trained to use psychedelic cannabis in a ceremony in a psychedelic way. And I was curious. Like many of us, you know, I’d use cannabis recreationally, not ceremonially. I didn’t even think it could be of a ceremonial. Like, I was just sort of amazed at the power of the medicine and that it could be used in a psychedelic situation.
Why do you think the ceremonial setting is so much more powerful than the recreational setting?
Yeah. And there’s no judgment on the recreational setting. A lot of us have come to these medicines, you know, and I think there can be a lot of shame around, like, I use this plant this way or this or I’ve done this.
I think that with intention and having like a safe container to do your work is just so powerful and e if you have someone sitting for you and holding the space for you.
I mean, I had a full blown ego death with cannabis. No kidding.
So it’s really powerful like the ceremonial setting, you know. And there’s like some ways of being where you don’t even need very much medicine. The medicine becomes a sort of present maybe in the facilitator or the guide. And you don’t you don’t need much medicine to do the work.
It’s the intention of communing and calling in the guides.
Can you talk about the importance of weaving yourself into the community in healing ways?
Yeah I think the key is the community building aspect of using medicine.
Doing medicine work has been the most profound for me, and I’ve seen the impact on many others, a lot of people, and this is not a judgment on people that like to do solo journey work.
I know a lot of people that do journey work on their own, but once you do ceremonial work in large spaces with groups of people, your energy’s connected and we’re holding space for each other in a way, and we are potentially learning and healing from other people’s stored traumas and things that they’re working through.
So the potential for healing on a collective level is just beautiful.
How did you come to be part of this movement?
My path with sacred plants and fungi medicine started in 2019. Building a community here and working with the medicines and being in ceremony. I’ve been on a long path of being a product of generational trauma and colonization.
Once I found the sacred plants. It’s sort of like set me on a path. There was no stopping at that point. Yes. So I started there in 2019 doing my own personal work with a small community here, and then I was keeping my eye on the decriminalize nature movement in 2019 in Oakland and wanting to bring it here to Bend.
And honestly, at that time, my professional world was complicated.
I was an executive and had a responsibility, as part of my role in an organization, to have a certain outward portrayal of what an executive is in a capitalist environment.
So I was sort of hesitant. It didn’t feel safe to be out about my medicine use and also fighting for the sacred.
Watch the full interview with Raquel
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George has been able to heal himself from Multiple Sclerosis and he credits psychedelics as being a big part of his recovery. We met with George in Port Angeles, Washington to capture this on video to share!
Summary: George, from Port Angeles, Washington, shares his experience with using plant medicines and psychedelics to combat primary progressive multiple sclerosis (MS) since his diagnosis in October 2013. He discusses the benefits of Lion’s Mane mushroom and microdosing psychedelics in reducing inflammation and healing emotional trauma. Regular use of these treatments has stopped the growth of lesions in his brain, leading to remission and significant improvement in his quality of life. George highlights the role of emotional healing and homeostasis in managing chronic illness and encourages individuals with MS to consider these alternative treatments.
I had a lesion burden of ten cubic centimeters and it was arrested almost instantaneously with hypnosis and psychedelic journeys and then incorporating things like Lion’s Mane into my diet
-George Duncan
Watch: Overcoming Multiple Sclerosis: A Psychedelic Healing Success Story
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH-IDQkj_1g
How has plant medicine helped you with treating Multiple Sclerosis (MS)?
I’m George. I’m from Port Angeles. Washington. Just moved back here to my hometown. I’m diagnosed with primary progressive multiple sclerosis. I had my diagnosis in October of 2013, and it’s helped me massively with it. Lion’s mane, for one. From studies I saw how it was able to heal the central nervous system. And psychedelics have a huge part of that too.
Even with Microdosing, my visual acuity will dramatically increase most of the day. And as far as I’m lowering my baseline inflammation and healing from emotional trauma, which has been the largest part of my healing. Microdosing is definitely part of that equation.
What have doctors seen on your latest brain scans?
So when it comes to emotional healing, bringing our body into a state of homeostasis, it arrests chronic illness. And with me, I had a lesion burden of ten cubic centimeters and it was arrested almost instantaneously with hypnosis and psychedelic journeys and things, and then incorporating things like Lion’s Mane into my diet and having that as a regular part of it.
I have growth in my left lobe of the amygdala, significant growth in my hippocampus and the lesions have completely stopped. I’m in complete remission from M.S. and I’m improving. I was walking with a cane only two years ago. Now I’m free of it.
What are the differences in microdosing and macrodosing psilocybin mushrooms
So the microdosing is huge for, you know, healing over a long period of time. You’re going to need to do something consistently. But as far as accessing the healing trauma, that puts you into a state where you can do that is very helpful in my experience. Microdosing seems to be kind of the slow burn of the daily health thing. And the big things have been the hypnosis journeys and the psychedelic experiences, you know, the hero’s journey.
What can you say to people with MS considering psychedelics
If you look at the medications they used to change the course of the disease or flare ups and everything, one of them is using steroids. And that has to do with stress hormones getting in the patient and getting into a state of homeostasis as quickly as humanly possible is huge. And repressing the other systems in the body I don’t think is terribly helpful. What does your gut tell you about it?
How have psychedelics changed your quality of life?
Oh, it’s massively improved my quality of life. I was with my diagnosis. I was told what the course of my disease would be and the early, early stages were very much in line with that. And I wasn’t willing to accept that and went a different route with it. And I’m really glad I did. If I feel that if I hadn’t, I probably would have gone with whatever diagnosis was given to me with the prognosis and headed down that path.
Can you summarize your overall health plan?
Get into a state of emotional health. That’s huge and macro dosing, you know, doing something where you can have that catharsis or spiritual experience, that really transformative healing. And then have things in your daily life with diet and being open minded to new things and trying them.
What is your relationship to unhealed trauma?
That was the trigger for a lot of things in my life. It triggered my chronic illness of MS and also my substance use disorder was based in unhealed trauma. And so anything I could do to pull that up by the roots, deal with it and put it in the past. Now, those memories of the past don’t have that same emotional attachment with them. And so I’m not in a constant inflamed state anymore. So a lot more chill these days.
On psychedelics helping with addiction
Bill Wilson, the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. He basically turned it over to the people of AA, But he was basically drummed out because he was experimenting with LSD, with Aldous Huxley. There was something to it. There is always that thing in the pit of his gut that he was trying to get to and he was getting there with it.
His experience from Townes Hospital was kind of waning and he wanted to bring that back. Because, you know, you have that profound spiritual experience but also that emotional experience. And then you have a catharsis and then that part is healed in you. And that’s something that was part of our regular that heals those things from our youth, you know, that catharsis that we need once in a while, you know.
Danielle Daniel was the lead activist of Decriminalize Nature Humboldt when they first passed the bill to DECRIM in Arcata, California in 2021. We were lucky enough to sit down with her in a forest just outside of the city to ask her for HOW she able to do this so quickly.
About Danielle Daniel
Danielle was born and raised in Humboldt County and is dedicated to educating the community about the healing powers of psychoactive plants and fungi, along with providing support to community members during their path of healing.
For the last 10 years she has been studying psychedelics, along with personally benefiting through therapeutic exploration. She has experienced profound personal healing and fulfilment by working with psychoactive plants and fungi.
In May of 2021 Danielle received a Master of Arts in Sociology, with a focus on psilocybin mushrooms. Her thesis focused on those who took psilocybin mushrooms long-term, and explored the experience and motivation behind working with this medicine. You can read her thesis here.
After completing her degree she spearheaded the decriminalization movement in Arcata, CA in May 2021. Danielle became the Lead Organizer of Decriminalize Nature Humboldt. On October 6th 2021 psychoactive plants and fungi were decriminalized in Arcata. Danielle stepped down from her Lead position in February 2022, in order to focus her energy on her offering as a microdosing coach. With the decriminalization of entheogens in Arcata, she is able to share her knowledge and experience about microdosing with those in the community that need guidance and support.
Watch the FULL interview
https://player.vimeo.com/video/816734522
Decriminalization brought a lot more freedom in the community and a lot more peace- from just being able to ask questions about these medicines to also feeling safe to work with these medicines.
Danielle Daniel Former Lead, Decriminalize Nature Humboldt
I learned about the national movement Decriminalize Nature while I was in the master’s program at Humboldt State University. I did some papers on them and I got to know Larry. And after graduating I did my thesis on mushrooms as well. So after graduating, Larry suggested that I start the movement here in Arcata. And I’m an introvert. I was like, I don’t have any friends that would help me.
There were a couple of business owners that were already interested in Arcata, so we linked up. And after a couple of meetings, I knew right away that they were really busy and I had a ton of time because I just got out of the Master’s program and I was still in study mode. So I took the lead and I got started on Instagram and just put a lot of information out on what entheogens are.
I started writing emails to the Arcata City Council and I started tabling. And the first time tabling, I got another community member who was interested in helping me. His name is David and he is the owner of Humboldt Mycology. We were tabling every Saturday at the Arcata Farmers Market. Being in the community, educating the community, getting that community support is so important.
We were getting community members to sign letters and every week we dropped those letters off at the city council. So we started this right after I graduated in May of 2021. And so by June we already got a council member, Sarah Schaefer, that was behind us, and she got our resolution on the agenda.
During this time, there were more community members that stepped up and that were helping me. And really, this cannot be done without the community and really certain community members stepping up to take responsibilities because it definitely can’t be done alone.
So in July the resolution got seen before the Arcata City Council, and it unfortunately didn’t pass yet. It was just so soon. They wanted us to be doing more things in the community. So we met with the safety committee and we were passed through that. Then I met with the chief of police. Although he did not agree with Decriminalization, that conversation is important to have. It’s really important to include everybody.
And then in August, we did a big event showing Fantastic Fungi at the ballpark – Arcata ballpark. And a ton of people came. We got so much support, we got some speakers to come, Larry being one of them. And then in September we did a showing of Ayahuasca: Drink The Jungle.
And then on October 6 is when we were seen in front of the city council again. And it passed! We did everything they asked. And during all that time, we were in communication, having meetings with the city council members. And a lot of it was just educating. There’s just so much misinformation about entheogens. And once there was an understanding, everyone agreed, yeah, this should be decriminalized. It’s actually helping people heal.
So that’s how it was done in such a short period of time. We were lucky because we got a council member right away who supported us. And also just, that was my job. That’s what I was doing every day is just writing emails on Instagram, just educating as much as possible. So it’s a lot of work and that’s why the next step is we were going to decriminalize in the county of Humboldt, but I was burnt out.
What is tabling?
What we did at the farmer’s market is a really good idea because there’s so many people that go to the farmer’s market. So you get permission, for one, to be able to table and then you want all the information on entheogens.
So like, what is ayahuasca? What are Psilocybin Mushrooms? So just having information, what is decriminalization? What benefits do these medicines have? So just a lot of information.
Also I wrote up a letter for people to sign, and that’s the easiest. So people can just sign a letter instead of writing their own letters. But I also did ask community members, like, hey, please email the city council. And I provided all the emails. Some people called the city council and the more community members that are involved in contacting the council members, really, the better, because they’re going to make their decision based on community support.
Why did the city council first vote no?
They wanted us to be more involved since it was only a couple of months and it was really quick. So they just wanted to make sure that all the important people were contacted, like the safety committee and for us to just be more known in the community. That’s why we did those two big events in August and September.
Was it hard to organize big community events?
Thankfully we had someone, one of the business owners, Jake, who had done events before. So he helped us with setting up the sounds and really kind of organizing the event. So we were lucky to have that assistance and guidance. But it’s not too difficult if you have someone who knows what they’re doing.
What kind of team do you need?
Yeah, so for me, everything was happening so quickly. So whenever people said they wanted to be members, I was like, yes, please help me, I need help. But if I had more time, I would have done interviews. How much responsibility can you take on? Just more of like, getting to know who a person is, what are your intentions, and really being able to make that decision out of a place of confidence and peace instead of a place of desperation.
How has Arcata changed after Decriminalization?
I would say it’s brought a lot more freedom in the community and a lot more peace from just being able to ask questions about these medicines, having confidence and feeling safe to work with these medicines like I was able to, and other people have been able to start a business.
I have a microdosing business where I coach people through their experience with microdosing Psilocybin mushrooms. And people come to me who have never thought about working with these medicines before because they’re sick and tired of the pharmaceuticals and they want to feel better and they feel safe to do that because they know they’re protected. And October 6 just happened this year, so it was our first anniversary. So I was able to collaborate with the Do Nothing Society, and it was called Microdose and Do Nothing. And I handed out microdoses and people just sat in hammocks and colored in psychedelic coloring books and enjoyed microdosing and doing nothing. And I was able to do a lot of education. Quite a few people came that have never microdosed before. So I got to explain microdosing and what the benefits are. There’s a lot of misinformation that with microdosing, you feel the psychoactive effects, which you do not. So it was awesome to have the freedom to do that and no one’s going to get arrested.
Who was your biggest opposition?
I would say it was probably the chief of police. I mean, I had an hour long conversation with him, and the beginning of the conversation was very domineering and uncomfortable. But after he was given the space to talk about what he needed to talk about, and then I was given the space to talk about my personal experience with healing from these medicines. And he really softened up. He still didn’t agree, of course, but he really softened up in realizing that these really can be received as medicines and aren’t always used as a drug.
What was the chief of police worried about?
His fears were that everything would just go crazy, people would end up getting hurt. That was his main concern. It’s very obvious he wanted to protect his community and it was just a lot of misunderstanding. And he’s an older gentleman, so he lived through the brainwashing of the 70s.
What advice do you have for others decriminalizing in their communities?
Just be out in the community as much as possible, educating and really having a strong foundation. So just have that foundation of inclusion and respect and confidence.
When did you decide that you would take the lead on decrim?
I didn’t want to do this. I did not want to do this. But Larry was like, come on, you should do this. And I was like, all right, I’ll give it a try. And after the first tabling, I made a decision. I was like, if no community member is going to help me, I’m not doing this. And then, thankfully, David showed up, and I was able to continue. But, I mean, throughout, you know, more people over time showed up and wanted to take on responsibility. But, yeah, in the beginning, you know, it was pretty much just me and then one other person.
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In this interview Danielle discusses the benefits, protocols, and integration of microdosing psilocybin mushrooms, addressing topics like managing depression, anxiety, PTSD, and helping individuals get off SSRIs. Danielle also highlights the significance of intention, support, and journaling in a microdosing program, while warning about potential risks for people with certain conditions. To learn more about Danielle’s work visit her website Microdosing Humboldt
About Danielle Daniel
Danielle was born and raised in Humboldt County and is dedicated to educating the community about the healing powers of psychoactive plants and fungi, along with providing support to community members during their path of healing.
For the last 10 years she has been studying psychedelics, along with personally benefiting through therapeutic exploration. She has experienced profound personal healing and fulfilment by working with psychoactive plants and fungi.
In May of 2021 Danielle received a Master of Arts in Sociology, with a focus on psilocybin mushrooms. Her thesis focused on those who took psilocybin mushrooms long-term, and explored the experience and motivation behind working with this medicine. You can read her thesis here.
After completing her degree she spearheaded the decriminalization movement in Arcata, CA in May 2021. Danielle became the Lead Organizer of Decriminalize Nature Humboldt. On October 6th 2021 psychoactive plants and fungi were decriminalized in Arcata. Danielle stepped down from her Lead position in February 2022, in order to focus her energy on her offering as a microdosing coach. With the decriminalization of entheogens in Arcata, she is able to share her knowledge and experience about microdosing with those in the community that need guidance and support.
Watch the Full interview with Danielle
What is microdosing psilocybin mushrooms?
Danielle: Microdosing is subperceptual, so you’re nowhere near a psychedelic experience, and it’s really a personal journey, so you got to feel into it – it’s about experimentation and really taking your time to find the perfect dose for you.
For most people it’s about 0.1 to 0.3 of a gram – so that’s 100 to 300 milligrams. And its best to get a very precise scale to measure this and ground up the medicine so the caps and stems are combined together.
For your first day it’s best to do it on a day when you have nothing important to do: you don’t have to drive, you don’t have to go to work, etc. Just because if you do feel a little something, you know what that feeling is. And next time you know to go down just a little bit, because a little bit goes a really long way. So, like, if you start at 0.13 and you drop down to 0.1, that’s quite a lot.
If you feel anything, it would be like a little floaty in your body. But it’s generally a very grounding medicine, so it really helps for being present. It really helps if you’re disassociated a lot to really bring you into your body and to really feel safe in your body.
What are the benefits of microdosing psilocybin mushrooms?
Danielle: Microdosing has so many benefits for being present and in the moment. But it also helps decrease depression, decrease anxiety. It helps manage PTSD and it helps manage OCD.
It really gives us the ability to see the patterns that we’re in and make that choice to get out of those patterns. It gives us a bit of spaciousness. So, you might be triggered by something, but you have the space to see, all right, I could react in that way, or I could respond in this new way.
Microdosing makes our brains malleable. So the brain has the ability to create new pathways, which is really such a blessing, because most adults don’t usually have that opportunity. It connects neurons and creates new neurons, which are actually better than our old neurons! Those of us who have depression and anxiety, we don’t have as many neurons connecting, and microdosing psilocybin helps with treating both of these conditions!
How often should you microdose psilocybin mushrooms?
Danielle: Oftentimes people think you need to microdose every day, but if you do that you’re going to get a high tolerance really quickly. After about a week or two, you’re not going to feel the benefits anymore.
So there’s a few different protocols that I recommend. And again, this is a very personal journey, so really feeling out what feels right for you is the most important thing.
I usually start people on the Stamitz protocol, which is four days in a row of microdosing with a three day break. But for some people, that third day off is a really hard day where you can be feeling extra depressed or extra anxious. And if that happens to you, try switching to every other day, and that can be more balancing. And this also prevents tolerance.
For other people playing around with two days on and one day off can be more beneficial. I’ve seen that be very helpful for those wanting to get off of SSRIs.
How can I use microdosing to get off SSRIs?
Danielle: When you’re wanting to get off of SSRIs with microdosing, the first couple of weeks, just micro dose and feel into it.
After that, hopefully, you can work with your doctor – I always recommend communicating with your doctor. The more people that know what’s going on, the more support you will have. But I suggest tapering down a little bit each week and really feeling where you’re at. Don’t go too fast. Healing takes time and that’s what microdosing psilocybin is all about. It’s all about being patient and taking the time to really give yourself what you need.
What is Seratonin Syndrome?
Danielle: Seratonin Syndrome is too much going through your serotonin receptors. So in the worst case scenario, that could cause death, but that’s more with Ayahuasca. So you got to be really careful with Ayahuasca. But if you’re having symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome, it usually happens about 24 hours later. You might be shaky, have a fast heart rate, diarrhea, and you might be feeling very confused.
If you do get Seratonin Syndrome, it’s usually pretty mild and you can just stop microdosing and it will go away. But again, I think with psilocybin mushrooms, you will be fine. With a microdose, it’s more with substances like ayahuasca that you need to be worried. So, probably don’t microdose with Ayahuasca.
What can you stack while microdosing Psilocybin mushrooms?
Danielle: I add lion’s main because Lion’s Mane is very good for cognition and helpful to decrease depression and anxiety – I recommend people just take more Lion’s Mane because it’s such a great medicine.
I personally don’t add Niacin because it causes flushing for some people and I don’t want that to make people not want to do it. Flushing means that your skin can get red and blotchy.
And sometimes you need more than one micro dose in a day. So if it’s an extra stressful day, you might need a micro dose in the morning and then you might need another one in the afternoon. With the Niacin, that can create flushing. But the reason many people add Niacin is because microdosing psilocybin mushrooms can cause vasoconstriction so that can create a headache and Niacin will prevent that from happening. But there are other things you can do to help with vasoconstriction such as taking magnesium, which can be helpful. L thianine is also helpful – So there are other alternatives besides niacin that I prefer.
How do you integrate after microdosing psilocybin mushrooms?
Danielle: Integration is SO important when it comes to microdosing Psilocybin – and that’s what I offer. Having someone to really hold space for you, someone who really understands and someone who doesn’t have judgment, to be there to hear about your experience an be incredibly powerful!
Oftentimes with my clients, they have realizations just by talking about their experience. I also recommend trying to journal as much as possible because microdosing is definitely going to bring up joy, just childlike fascination, noticing the previously unnoticeable, but it’s also going to bring up really big things – it’s going to bring up things that are uncomfortable, perhaps uncomfortable memories and uncomfortable strong emotions.
During those uncomfortable times it can be very helpful to journal about it. Oftentimes we push these feelings away because we don’t have the tools or we don’t want to deal with it. And that doesn’t work. So when you’re microdosing, you have that support to be able to navigate through these experiences.
For example, let’s just talk about anger.
So when you’re journaling about it. How is this anger feeling in my body? All right, I’m feeling this burning in my chest. Do I remember when it happened today? It happened around noon. Did someone say something to trigger it? Yes, I felt like I had to be on the defense or no, it just happened. hrough journaling as well, things might come up like, HM, when I was twelve, I remember this thing my mom said where I had to be on the defense and it made me really angry.
So you could get realizations through the journaling, but the most important thing is just going into it exploring and just giving these emotions and these memories the space to really be felt, to really be heard, and to get to know them. What purpose are these emotions and memories serving? Why did they come into our lives?
How can microdosing psilocybin mushrooms help with fear and anxiety?
Danielle: I’ve been working with macro doses of psychedelic medicines for a long time. But a big thing that I was never able to overcome was fear and anxiety.
When I started microdosing, I didn’t have fear and anxiety anymore. And I didn’t even realize I didn’t have the anxiety anymore until I stopped microdosing a month later. When I stopped microdosing, I had an anxiety attack, and I was like, Whoa, this really works.
The anxiety was so severe for me that sometimes I couldn’t even leave my house. So microdosing has significantly and positively affected my life in being able to not have crippling fear. And it’s still there. I mean, that’s the thing with microdosing is that it helps us be more aware of these cycles, especially from childhood traumas. These cycles are still going to be there, but for the most part, it’s manageable. It’s not going to be negatively influencing your life anymore.
What does a microdosing program look like?
Danielle: So, our first session is really about intention – Intention is so important with microdosing. Why are you doing this? Why are you showing up? What is the big thing that you’re working on? So, sometimes it takes a while to really pinpoint what is my intention. And that is the important thing of the first session to really get that foundation of what the focus is. And the first session also is about explaining what microdosing is – so it’s very clear and just understood.
After our first session, we meet every other week to talk about the experience. And I’m absolutely always available before that, because having that support is so important in order to go deep.
I start everyone on the golden teacher (mushroom) because the Golden Teacher is such a friendly, mellow, deep mushroom. And in a lot of people, it’s a perfect match. But for some people, it makes them really sleepy, and they need a mushroom that’s a little bit more energizing. So it takes time to really find what is the perfect mushroom.
So far, I’ve really found that the melmacs are really good for energizing and also the albinos have been really good for people who have insomnia. So it really is just about experimenting and seeing what mushroom is best for you.
Every other session, we’re talking about your experience, and so much comes up. And my program is an eight week program. Tthe reason it’s eight weeks is because this is a really good amount of time to know if this is the medicine for you. It’s not for everyone. Also it’s a good amount of time to know all the tools of the importance of journaling, the importance of being in nature and just understanding what this medicine is all about, how it isn’t always joyous, how it does bring things to the surface, how it does amplify your environment, and your inner world and outer world.
There’s five sessions all together, and our last session is really about what do you want to do moving forward? Do you want to continue? Did you get your intention, or are we still working on it? And then there’s the choice of more independence, where I’m still there and I’m still of support, but not the every other week.
Can microdosing psilocybin mushrooms lead to ‘bad trips’?
Danielle: It’s all about perspective – I mean, it does amplify what’s going on. So if you’re going through a really difficult time, it can really make it a little too much. And it’s absolutely okay to stop for a while and really check in with yourself of what feels good and what doesn’t feel good.
If it’s not feeling good, listen to that. And you can always go back to microdosing when things settle down.
Has decriminalization changed your city?
Danielle: Absolutely, just by decriminalizing, it allows people the safety to be able to ask questions about, what are these medicines, how could I safely access these medicines?
It is tricky because you can’t actually sell. But being able to be in situations with someone who is selling their time (like with what I do) and gifting the medicine is a solution there.
I never thought I was going to be doing this at all. I had been microdosing for a couple of years before decriminalization. I was helping friends and family and I was just in such awe of how it was helping people get off of SSRIs and how it was really increasing well being.
After decriminalization, whenever I get a new batch of mushrooms, I test a gram, because every batch can have a little bit difference in potency. And on that journey, I saw so clearly how the community really needed my support and really that it was time for me to open up just on a bigger level and to offer this to the community.
Who are people that should NOT be microdosing psilocybin?
Danielle: If you have a personal history of schizophrenia, it’s not the best idea to microdose. There has been a study out that it could potentially help, but if you’re anything over a microdose, it could really make things worse. And I would say, just it could do more harm than healing.
With Bipolar disorder, it helps with when you’re in a depressed state. It doesn’t do anything for the manic state. It really helps with when they’re in a depressive state just to level them out. But its NOT safe to mix with lithium – here has been cases of people getting seizures while on lithium.
Also, sidenote, if you’re a colorblind male, it could cause tracers. But if you’re a colorblind female, it makes no difference 🙂
Lauren “Lolo” Feringa is a Veteran how has been able to heal from PTSD with the use of stellate ganglion blockers (SGBs) and micro dosing with magic mushrooms. Lolo is now educating the use of these medicines to treat veterans all over the nation through her nonprofit Hippie and a Veteran Foundation.
Once you know and remember what ‘right’ feels like, you can work with other modalities – like psychedelics. When you work that in, you can literally start healing yourself, healing your brain, healing your body.
-Lolo
Watch: Combatting PTSD: A Veteran’s Journey with Psilocybin Therapy
Watch The Full Interview
What are Stellate Ganglion Blocks (SGBs)?
My name is Lauren Lolo Faringa. I am the director of Hippie and a veteran foundation, a 501 C3 that guides veterans towards alternative PTSD therapies. Some of the alternative therapies that we push people towards, or at least introduce them to, are psychedelics like psilocybin and stellate ganglion blocks.
So a stellate ganglion block is a little injection that goes into a gland on the side of your neck and they just shoot rapivocaine, which is just like another lidocaine. So it’s nontoxic. Iit blocks your nervous system off, basically shuts your fight or flight response off for 24 hours. And it gives your body the ability, or it helps your body to take a break so that you can kind of start catching up, making sense of what’s going on in your body. It separates the body issues and the autonomic nervous system problems that’s firing on, and it just shuts it off. And the next day you wake up, it comes back on, but it’s not on high. And once you know and remember what right feels like, you can work with other modalities like psychedelics. And you work that in and you’re able to start literally healing your body, healing your brain, healing your body. I had injuries, pain, chronic pain, all over my body. I’ve gotten most of it tempered down now.
How do you combine stellate ganglion blocks and psychedelics?
I have a protocol that I recommend. So there’s providers that do these specifically for PTSD and they do them with the proper technique. You get a right and a left side. Some people respond to one side better, and I don’t think it’s worth not trying both sides when we’re talking about people that are suicidal, which are the people I work with. Let’s hit everything, knock the whole nervous system out. You can’t do them within 24 hours of each other or else you’ll close off your throat.
But then you can incorporate microdosing like I do like three months of psilocybin daily micro dosing schedule between 10 and 60 milligrams based on the person’s medications and body and nervous system. We incorporate other things like skull cap teas that really help bring down the nervous system, and cannabis for night terrors.
Are there contraindications with Stellate Ganglion Blocks?
So SGBs are a chronic pain shot, so they help with blood flow throughout the body, optical nerves, all your nerves, all over your body. They can help with circulation, which is why they help with conditions like Raynaud’s. So if you have possible blood clots or something, I think that would be something that you’d want to talk with your doctor about. But other than that, it’s just an anesthetic, a local anesthetic.
How can the medical model and the psychedelic model come together?
I love the juxtaposition of our foundation’s name. It’s like hippie and a veteran. It’s the juxtaposition of these different things coexisting in the same space. I love intersectionality, and that is what we can do with these medicines.
We can pair SGBs with patients with PTSD,, a first world medicine through a regular physician, providing these along with psychedelics as a therapy with community practitioners, and personal at home microdosing. They do pair very, very well and it really sets a patient up and opens them up for therapy, whereas so many of us become just unresponsive to therapy because these walls are up.
There’s a physical problem happening within our bodies and these medications and these therapies can put it down. But with that, we have to understand that. We also have to respect where these medicines are coming from and respect what they’re doing and respect the connection to everything around us that they’re doing for us. And that’s a part of the healing.
Nature is healing and we need to marry those with first world medicine. The separation is what’s causing a problem within our medical system right now.
How is Hippie And a Veteran Foundation helping Veterans heal?
So a major part of what we do is just putting information out there andletting veterans know that they can actually do these things, like giving people permission, letting them see that the stuff actually works. We have a template that we give out to veterans so that they can request through a community care provider, through the VA. So we’re able right now to get that part partially covered in some circumstances, but even that is a struggle. But we’re going to make it work. It’s going to happen one of these days.
But the same way that we can do that, we can do the exact same thing with community practitioners that are already here, already saving lives and already providing therapy to our community within the psychedelic world. And I just think maybe the VA doesn’t understand the power within the people that we have to help heal each other.
How are you using politics to bring awareness to Veteran care?
So I’m putting in a congressional to make a case here in the state of Washington of the treatment, first of all, that veterans are receiving. And with that, I’m also hoping to get the ear of Patty Murray to speak with her about the pairing of psychedelics and SGBs. Washington state has mushrooms. They’re all about to grow right now. They’re all about to grow everywhere because it just had the first rain. We’re about to have medicine all over the state and it happens every single year. Nature provides and we need to let people know.
I know that there’s this demystification that we must do, and I’m hoping that this case that I’m putting in, or request that I’m putting in for a review of the VA here can help open up that conversation about the necessity and urgency. But we are also hoping to apply for direct grants through the VA. There is a Fox grant that I really hope and pray they’ll accept our application for. They are giving out money to organizations that are helping veterans in different holistic areas. I don’t see why they wouldn’t give one of their largest nonprofits with a giant following some money to help heal some of our little hippie veterans out there.
So that’s my big goal for the year. I’m also writing a bill with a bunch of other amazing people. And we are going to decriminalize plant medicine in the state of Washington.
If plant medicine was decriminalized in Washington State, how would this help Veterans?
Oh, well, this is the thing. There’s legalization bills. I actually tried to work on some of them. I was thrown out for requesting respect for veterans and people of color in legalization psychedelic bills in the state.
It’s not cool on that side. It’s not kosher. And they’re thinking their model is. Legalization bills are profit bills. They’re profit structures which we need for the VA. I absolutely get that 100%. But if a patient can’t take micro dosing home, what’s the point? If the patient is criminalized for holding the same medicine that they’re being prescribed by a VA physician, that’s control. That’s not healing. That’s not how this works.
I work with people in distress. I’ve worked with organizations, and I work with suicide prevention and support suicide prevention in the state of Washington.
Why is decriminalization important?
Decriminalization is for the patient and legalization is for the practitioners, the clinical practitioners that are working within the medical system we currently have. You’re asking us to take our medicine and give our medicine that our ancestors have been using. All of us.
We all have entheogens from different continents that we were all on. This is our medicine. And you’re asking us to. You’ve been criminalizing us. You’ve been throwing us in jail, my grandfather included, way back when, before the war on drugs even began. We’re doing all this stuff and then you’re going to take our medicine and colonize it within only a legalization system. And that’s just not right. Nature grows out of the ground. You don’t have criminalized tomatoes out here. That’s silly. And most tomatoes don’t just grow naturally everywhere. Mushrooms actually do.
The Earth is popping up medicine to help us in the time that we need it so bad. That is why decriminalization is important, because also, legalization bills will not happen for years and years and years after implementation. We have people right now that are dying again. I’m going to bring sad things in here, but I had two friends from high school that died this last summer, and I know that they both suffered from addiction and chronic pain. And I know my last friend that just died and was laid to rest this week, died from an overdose. He had been reaching out to me, talking to me about plant medicine, and I couldn’t do anything about it because I would have been criminalized. But now I have dead friends and that’s everywhere. That’s happening to all of us. It’s not just in the veteran community.
That’s why decriminalization is so important. We have to be able to just help our people. We’re grown ups. We know how to do this.
How is Hippie and a Veteran building bridges with the medical community?
I mean, I talk with therapists that are working within the VA doing research as well. They are doing research up and down in other places. There are people trying to do this. There are good people within the medical community that also have so much respect for where these medicines are coming from. And for the practitioners that have kept these alive in our cultures for generations and thousands of years, and they have extraordinary respect for the indigenous people here. And I think that’s a very big, important place to start, just because plant medicine isn’t about gimme, gimme, gimme. It’s a community thing. It’s not an ownership thing.
How important is integration with psychedelics and SGBs?
The first time I ever did mushrooms, like I said, then I went to basic training. That wasn’t really the best integration space to have done something like that. Or taking mushrooms and going out recreationally. Yes, you will get the physical great, amazing effects that you get. You’re going to get a boost in your serotonin. You’re going to have your nervous system calm down for a while and you’re going to have some better sleep. But if you’re not taking that time to deal with the introspection, you’re not doing the right work. When you’re taking the medicine, you’re wanting to straighten out the synapses in your brain. And the integrating, working with therapy, writing. We have people that do photography as their therapy afterwards. And those are all we’re not telling therapy and therapists that we don’t want that stuff around. We need them. That’s extraordinarily important. So the integration portion is just as important as just taking the medicine as well.
How did you first come across Stellate Ganglion Blocks?
So I was scared to go in after I had my son. I didn’t want to go in there. I was afraid that they would take my kid away from me in therapy. They had previously told me that they were going to report my mom for spanking me. So I had stopped going to therapy. I don’t know, telling me, I’m a BIPOC woman, telling me that you’re going to report my mother just seemed like just an absolute act of violence. So I didn’t want to go. I was terrified. I already have trauma with being ripped away from parents. And hen my husband was like, stop, let’s just microdose. So he brought me ground mushrooms and I started microdosing on Sundays just because I was scared to even put anything in my body at that point.
The paranoia. I couldn’t even I couldn’t even leave the house. I was having horrible agoraphobia. It was just so bad. I was so suicidal. But I couldn’t do it because I had this beautiful kid. And I’m like, I don’t want anyone else to mother my kid. Like, screw that. Everything my family’s gone through, heck no. I’m going to be here for this kid. So I started the micro dosing. It was really helpful and I was only doing it once a week. I think that if I had started doing it every day, I would have felt safer. But I was breastfeeding and I was really scared at that time. Then I saw a 60 Minutes interview about SGBs and right away I was like, they can turn your fight or flight response off. What? Why haven’t they done this? That’s the problem. That’s what PTSD is. It is your fight or flight response triggering your brain and causing flashbacks in your brain and in your body. So why aren’t they doing this for us? Luckily, I was in Long Beach at the time because I wanted to give birth to my son, where my family is from. So because I happened to be there, I happened to be in that VA, just randomly in this one year in my life, they happened to be doing SGB research out of the Long Beach VA. Then I walked in, I begged for it, and they told me no.
So I called every number I could find. But after two weeks, I finally found the research department and I asked them if they could help me, and they said, Absolutely. Then they got me in to talk and they were like, yeah, we’re going to get this for you. We’re going to call you with the next available date. And they gave me July 16, which was a decade anniversary of the first loss that I had in Iraq.
So, ten years out, I finally got relief and it felt like I could see better. My pain went away. The doctors had to hold me down on the table because I was like, what just happened? The lights got lighter. It felt like everything just fell off. All the weight. It felt like I had been carrying so much and it was just gone in an instant. And then after that, I continued microdosing and I continued getting SGBs and had to pay out of pocket. And the VA wasn’t going to help because I had to move. I moved back home to be with my mom. I needed to heal. My body had been so wrecked by them allowing my body to get like that. And I say that the VA allowed my body to get like that because we know that women experience extraordinary levels of PTSD symptoms if you have PTSD, post, postpartum, and they just let that happen to me. S I went home and I healed, started our foundation. And that’s where I am today.
What would you say to a veteran who is in a dark place right now?
20 milligrams of ground psilocybin mushrooms can help you sleep tonight. Just do it. Don’t wait, don’t wait, don’t wait. Do it today. And if you have friends, tell them. And if you don’t know how and you’re scared, go to my website. We have all the information out there. We have other people’s books, we have articles that helped me get back on track, that helped me feel safe about taking psilocybin as a breastfeeding mother. Honestly, I would never take anything else, ever. The other options aren’t safe enough for my child.
The military and the VA has known what psychedelics could do for us since the 60s and they’ve been letting us suffer all this time. And now that we have all this research that MAPS has done, all the anecdotal evidence, we have all of these healed people, why aren’t we getting it? And since we’re not getting it, I’m going back to work for the government to show them what healing with SGBs and psychedelics can do.
Where can people find out more about Hippie and a Veteran?
Our website is www.hippieandaveteran.com, and then we’re on Facebook, Instagram, and I’m also over on TikTok. And then I think on Twitter, I’m hippie and a vet, but I don’t do Twitter. I’m too old for that. You guys can send messages through social media and you can send me messages through my website
