Imagine a Canada where 40 million people have the right to safely explore their own minds with psilocybin-protected by the Charter of Rights
Imagine a Canada where 40 million people have the right to safely explore their own minds with psilocybin—and where that right is protected under the Charter, not granted as a rare medical favour. To make that future possible, we urgently need to raise $3,500 by March 2 to pay for court transcripts and keep this appeal alive, and $140,000 in total to fight this case at the Ontario Court of Appeal. Support this Appeal and Donate Here!
If we win, the Canadian federal government will be forced to legalize psilocybin for healthy adults, subject to reasonable limits, as a protected “freedom of thought” tool—much like a passport is protected as a mobility tool and information‑gathering is protected as a press tool. This case argues that psilocybin is to thought what the printing press was to expression: it doesn’t dictate what you think, it lets you think more deeply, creatively, and freely.
We already built a powerful evidentiary record showing psilocybin reliably supports cognitive flexibility, spirituality, life meaning, connection to self, others, and nature—evidence backed by leading researchers like David Nutt and many peer‑reviewed studies. Even the government’s own expert acknowledged that psilocybin can produce mystical and spiritual experiences, creativity, and profound shifts in perspective. Yet the trial judge created a brand‑new, unworkable test, insisting that a freedom‑of‑thought tool must produce a predictable, specific thought—something no genuine thought tool (not a philosophy book, not psychotherapy, not psilocybin) could ever guarantee. He then brushed aside hundreds of pages of testimony and exhibits and called psilocybin’s relationship to thought “remote,” despite finding that it increases neuroplasticity and enables new thought patterns with therapeutic support.
There is very good news buried in that bad decision: the judge found psilocybin can be used safely from a licensed source in a supervised setting, and that there is no practical exemption pathway for people seeking access for thought-related purposes. In constitutional terms, that means if we establish that psilocybin is a freedom-of-thought tool, the government will struggle to justify its prohibition—and we win. The client who started this case is now out of the country and out of money; without your support, the appeal dies and this mountain of carefully gathered evidence is wasted. With your help, we can carry this Freedom-of-Thought Challenge to the top court in Ontario and set a precedent that could ripple across other psychedelics and even other countries where freedom of thought is constitutionally protected. Please donate what you can and share widely—this is our chance to change the law, not just for a handful of patients, but for everyone.
Join the Psychedelic Association of Canada and Lawyer Paul Lewin to take this case all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada if necessary! 90% of all funds raised will go to the case, 10% will go to amplifying this out far and wide!
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