The PAC belongs to all Canadians who value the role of psychedelic medicines in the betterment of our society and in our individual and collective healing. Valuing inclusion requires that as members of the PAC we always ask ourselves who is not in the room and why. We want to actively dismantle barriers to the full participation of all Canadians who resonate with the purpose and aims of the PAC. We also align with the principles of equity and justice in our aim to be a diverse community that values connection and collaboration at the core of all our efforts. We aspire to both unity around our shared mission, vision, and values and to diversity in member ownership of the PAC.

The aim of the PAC is to give form and movement to the desire we feel for a home to house our various efforts in fostering psychedelic healing, education, research, advocacy, outreach, practitioner support, and networking. We wish also to uphold psychedelic wisdom and values in the face of the rapidly changing commercial landscape around these medicines. The PAC acknowledges that its board of directors does not yet represent the diversity of the psychedelic movement across our country and that this is problematic. The PAC aims to be an anti-oppressive and antiracist organization committed to the true liberation of all people as we collectively realize the full potential of humanity.

The PAC acknowledges that we do not yet live in a post-colonial, post-racial, post-patriarchal society. We recognize the temptation in privileged psychedelic spaces to pretend otherwise and to spiritually bypass* uncomfortable examinations of personal privilege and the daily groundwork necessary to bring about social justice and to truly champion the inherent dignity and value of each person in the shared fabric of humanity.

We feel that psychedelic medicines have an important role to play in this process while remaining wary of viewing them as a panacea for social ills grounded in a long-standing system of intersecting and mutually reinforcing oppression within our society. We wish to also acknowledge that not all Canadians have equal access to psychedelic medicines, equal opportunity to safely experience them, or bear equal risk in engaging with them.

We acknowledge that in our current society, the ability to engage with psychedelic medicines and advocate for them often carries a great deal of privilege and that this is not an equitable, just, or acceptable situation. We acknowledge that the way in which one is able to engage in psychedelic exploration and advocacy varies by personal status along lines of race, wealth, socioeconomic standing, formal education, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, geography, and institutional affiliation.

We acknowledge that there are serious issues of possible harm—exploitation, extraction, theft, ecological damage, cultural disruption—as well as the harms of misappropriation and misrepresentation when indigenous medicines are removed from and used outside of their traditional contexts. The PAC wishes to be a place of engagement around these urgent issues in order to bring to them greater light, awareness, and understanding. We hope that fostering engagement and dialogue around these issues within the psychedelic movement supports a process of social transformation and justice. With humility, we acknowledge that we will frequently fall short of our own aims, and we commit to continuing to learn and grow in this process. The current PAC board of directors sees itself as temporary stewards of a fledgling organization belonging to all Canadians who hold dear the potential of psychedelic medicines in our society.

The PAC is in the process of finding its way, and we gratefully welcome any and all suggestions on how to do more and better at upholding the value of inclusion, from the composition of the PAC board of directors to the growth of its membership to its representation of the psychedelic movement in Canada. What do you want your PAC to be and how do we get there? The conversation starts here.

*To spiritually bypass is to use spirituality to avoid, suppress, or escape from uncomfortable issues in life.