Psilocybin-assisted Therapy: One Patient vs. the DEA
Episode Notes & Resources
Welcome to the third and final episode in our series on the potential of psilocybin-assisted therapy to relieve existential distress and help us live as well as possible with metastatic breast cancer.
In this episode, we speak with two women taking action to increase legal access to psilocybin-assisted therapy in the United States. The first is a patient living with MBC who, along with her doctor, have brought a lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Agency which is denying her access to psilocybin in the palliative care setting and under existing Right to Try laws for promising investigational medications for the terminally ill. The patient petitioner, Erinn Baldeschwiler, tells us why she joined the lawsuit, what she hopes to gain from psilocybin-assisted therapy, and what it’s been like to deal with all the legal proceedings on top of a progressing MBC diagnosis.
Our second interview in this episode is with the attorney who is leading the legal case to open access to psilocybin under Right to Try legislation, Kathryn Tucker of the Emerge Law Group. Kathryn explains why psilocybin should be immediately available to patients suffering from distress, anxiety, depression under FDA rules and state and federal Right to Try laws. But the DEA is continuing to block access and hold psilocybin on Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substance Act.
It’s confusing, but we explain it all here. Lastly, see the Episode Notes for a current petition to the DEA to step out of the way and grant access to psilocybin for anyone with a terminal illness.
This series has been led by series producer Dr. Paula Jayne, with assistance from co-host Lynda Weatherby and senior producer and host Lisa Laudico.
Thanks for listening!
Episode Notes
Petition to DEA to open access to Psilocybin under Right to Try laws
Emerge Law Group Blogs with Kathryn Tucker including embedded legal documents on the AIMS v. USDEA
Two Cancer Patients Battle to Make Psilocybin Accessible for Palliative Care (Scientific American, June 2022) *please note that this article was written prior to the DEA’s final denial of the petition
For more on the psilocybin-assisted therapy research from Johns Hopkins, please visit: The Johns Hopkins Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research
Audio for cold open kindly provided by Reconsider; full video available here
Short documentary film on May 9th, 2022 protest at the DEA - produced by Red Media/Susan Rockefeller, Producer
"Psychedelics Today" podcast with Kathryn Tucker, April 2022
Reports from the organization Brain Futures:
Landscape Review of Psychedelic Assisted Treatment (PAT) Research Findings, March 2022:
Expediting Psychedelic Assisted Treatment (PAT) Adoption in Clinical Settings, May 2022
Books:
Michael Pollan’s “How to Change Your Mind”
Meet the Guests of this Episode
Erinn Baldeschwiler
Erinn Baldeschwiler is a Washington-based mother of two teenagers, aspiring writer, cancer
patient, entheogen patient advocate, and a woman coming to terms with end-of-life realties.
After a split from her husband and business partner in 2017, Baldeschwiler wholeheartedly
embraced the challenges of becoming an empowered-independent-woman and positive role
model for her children. In March 2020, believing the darkest of days were behind her and a
bright new future lay ahead, Baldeschwiler was diagnosed with Stave IV triple negative
metastatic breast cancer and a prognosis of 24 months to live. Rather than retreating into the
darkness of low-self-worth and self-pity, she embraced this new challenge as an opportunity to
dive deeper into the realm of self-reflection and self-awareness as a sacred rite of passage of
personal and spiritual growth.
Baldeschwiler has been the lead plaintiff in seeking psilocybin therapy under Federal and State
Right-to-try laws (RTT) in AIMS vs. DEA ongoing litigation case. Invited by her palliative care
practitioner, Dr. Sunil Aggarwal of AIMS Institute in Seattle, Baldeschwiler joined the effort with
an intention to help move psychospiritual entheogen healing forward through her own care,
especially when it comes to helping those seeking comfort and palliation and those who would
like to transform the care of dis-eases like cancer.
“It is an honor to be a part of this pioneering effort and incredibly fulfilling to help steer the
direction in which healing modalities are practiced in modern Western medicine,” she shares. “I
view entheogen medicine, including psilocybin, as a vital return to ancient-indigenous-healing
practices of our ancestors. Practices focused on healing physical, mental, emotional and
spiritual suffering - a return to wholeness and connectedness. Such practices fill a very large
gap in modern palliative care. I hold so much admiration and appreciation for those committed
to this effort. Together we are making huge positive strides, it’s humbling to be a part of it.”
Kathryn L. Tucker, J.D.
Kathryn L. Tucker is Special Counsel at Emerge Law Group, where she Co-Chairs the Psychedelic Practice Group. Prior to joining Emerge, Tucker served as Executive Director of the End of Life Liberty Project (ELLP). Tucker founded the ELLP during her tenure as Executive Director of the Disability Rights Legal Center (DRLC), the nation’s oldest disability rights advocacy organization. Tucker served two decades as Director of Advocacy and Legal Affairs for Compassion & Choices, working to improve care and expand choice at the end of life.
Prior to that, Ms. Tucker practiced law with Perkins Coie. She has held faculty appointments as Associate Professor of Law at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles, and as Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Washington, Seattle University and Lewis & Clark Schools of Law, teaching in the areas of law, medicine and ethics, with a focus on the end of life. In April 2014, Professor Tucker was named a Fulbright Specialist by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and the Institute of International Education’s Council for International Exchange of Scholars, to share her scholarship abroad. She served as a Fulbright Specialist with Faculty Appointments at the Universities of Auckland, Canterbury and Otago in 2015; in 2019 Tucker received another Fulbright Specialist Grant to teach at law schools in the United Kingdom. In 2018, the ELLP was a Visiting Sponsored Project of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Law, Science & Health Policy.
Ms. Tucker served as lead counsel representing patients and physicians in two landmark federal cases decided by the United States Supreme Court, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, asserting that mentally competent terminally ill patients have a constitutional right to choose aid in dying. These cases are widely acknowledged to have prompted nationwide attention to improving care of the dying, and to have established a federal constitutional right to aggressive pain management.
Tucker is lead counsel in the nation’s first litigation under the Right to Try Act, representing a palliative care physician and several cancer patients seeking to compel DEA to allow access to psilocybin therapy. AIMS et al v DEA. Also experienced and skillful in legislative advocacy, Ms. Tucker was involved in the development of, and successful campaigns to pass, the Washington Death with Dignity Act (2008), Vermont’s Patient Choice at the End of Life Act (2013), and Oregon’s Psilocybin Services Act (2020).
Ms. Tucker is recognized as a national leader in spearheading creative and effective efforts to promote improved care for seriously ill and dying patients. She served as co-counsel in the first case in the nation to assert that failure to treat pain adequately constitutes elder abuse, which resulted in a finding of liability and a jury verdict award of $1.5 million to the patient’s family. She has been principal author of various state legislative measures to ensure physician education in pain management and provision of information to terminally ill patients about end-of-life care options. She also defends physicians facing adverse consequences for treating pain attentively and aggressively.
Ms. Tucker is listed in the prestigious directory Who’s Who in American
Law and was recognized as Lawyer of the Year, Runner-Up by the National Law Journal. She appears frequently on television and radio discussing end-of-life care, decision-making and physician-assisted dying. Media appearances include Crossfire, the PBS NewsHour,
Larry King and CNN. Her work has been profiled in the National Law
Journal, American Lawyer, Journal of the American Bar Association, Legal Times, and the magazines George, Vogue, Time, People and Health, among others.
Professor Tucker is an invited speaker at educational programs on the subjects of improving care at the end of life, end-of-life decision-making, and aid in dying. She has presented to the American Bar Association, the Association of American Law Schools, the American Society of Law,
Medicine and Ethics, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, the American Pain Society, the American Academy of Pain Management, the Federation of State Medical Boards, and the American College of Legal Medicine.
