i don't think my views are radical but
like
i guess if you ask a regular person that
is not involved in drug policy or
harm reduction then i would be considered
like a
quote-unquote radical this is our humble
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yarelix estrada works around drugs in
many different ways
in fact i think you could call her a
psychoactive renaissance woman
with a degree in public health from
johns hopkins she studies harm reduction
for the city of new york
with a focus on drug users in crisis
as an activist she founded a chapter of
students for sensible drug policy
as an organizer she currently runs in
new york psychedelic society
and she helped organize the first people
of color and psychedelics conference in
washington dc
she lectures widely on issues like
psychedelic intersectionality
and the nuances of treating trauma with
psychedelics and underrepresented
populations
and in something we didn't even get to
touch on today she's also a crossfit
coach
and a weightlifter so how's that for
renaissance
today she shares on aspects of
psychedelics that don't get hurt as much
by the white middle-class users
poor people can have a very different
drug experience in wealthy people
and it's even worse when you incorporate
racism and white supremacy
yarelix estrada has dedicated her
life to responding to those problems
she's a great speaker with sharp
insights and a lot of experience
i enjoy learning from her very much and
i think you will too
hello everybody i'm very pleased to be
here today with yarelix estrada
and thank you for joining us on the show
thank you for having me
so the first thing i wanted to ask about
your current job title is
field research associate at new york
city department of health mental hygiene
so can you tell us what you do there i
guess
i just want to start out by saying
because this is a government institution
that all the thoughts and opinions and
things i say
are not representative of the
organization they're my own thoughts
feelings etc
um good newly noted yes i work as a
field research associate my city title
because there's different titles as a
city research scientist
um and like it's it's a bunch of jargon
so i'll go through it and then i'll
dissect what exactly i do
so i work in a team called the rapid
assessment and response team
and basically we are housed within the
research and surveillance unit at the
health department
and there are epidemiologists that are
always looking at the data
around overdose around emergency room
data specific to people who use drugs
and people who end up in the emergency
room or have issues because of alcohol
and they're constantly monitoring these
trends and whenever there are trends
that are either
concerningly high or different from what
we would expect
then they send us out to basically
figure out what's going on
so for example if there's a spike in
overdose that's specific
to the bronx or the south bronx then
my team would go out as people who are
used like doing research out in the
field
and we would do different kinds of
research modalities like we would do
observational research so we would go
like
in plain clothes and just like hang out
and see what's going on
um we sometimes do stakeholder
interviews so stakeholders could be
people who use drugs themselves
people who provide services to people
who use drugs like drug treatment
programs
providers uh pharmacists and also do
engagement with
uh different levels of in this like
systemic hierarchy right like
other city agencies elected officials
community-based organizations people
like that groups like that
and then based on the information that
we collect we
try to create some fast response to try
to deal with the issue because
you know historically when we're using
policy or when we're using
um something internal at the health
department or like with
you know government in general it's just
really slow so we're the goal of our
team is to create a response that's
faster than all of that and hopefully
help with whatever's going on which
right now a lot of it is increases in
overdose in the city
and so how would your team respond to
overdoses and what tools would you have
to try to help
the interesting position or the
interesting role that we have that i
really like about my job is
it's we have two roles in in one
so the one that i explained just now was
the
the research component where we're going
out we're using different modalities to
try to figure out what's going on
and then also do some sort of fast
response
um but while we're doing the research
we're not just like going out and asking
questions and like
you know leaving we're also providing
whatever services we can which
because of the system that we're living
within because of the system that we're
working within
isn't enough and it isn't what it should
be um
but in all the interactions that we do
um
we you know provide naloxone training so
naloxone is a medication that's an
opioid reversal medication
that if someone has an overdose then
they if they use this then it can
reverse the overdose and save their life
assuming that they get help
within the time period that the medicine
is working
um we also always carry like wound care
kits we carry
um food if we have that so sometimes
when we're engaging people who use drugs
for example
um if we're engaging a population of
unhoused folks and
we go to encampments for example like
areas where people
don't do outreach or areas where um
some people may do outreach but you know
they they always need food they always
need resources so we go there and bring
them
the things and offer whatever support
that we have
um and a larger scale of what we do
there is we also do kind of like
large-scale community organizing so for
example we'll have
some topic that is specific to
an issue that the city is going on with
is going is dealing with
and we'll ask different stakeholders the
different stakeholders that i mentioned
to come together in a room
so like we'll have elected officials
people from the community people from
community-based organizations
um people from other government agencies
and we'll come together and be like this
is the problem
we are literally all the stakeholders
that hold the power to change what's
going on
what do we do you know and facilitating
um
that space is quite interesting because
you would think
i don't know sometimes we think that
like government agencies or
even senators like have the power to
change things
and it's all you know i often hear this
like
my hands are tied response which is
sad um but yeah so we
there's a facet of our work that is
doing direct service by literally
bringing materials
and resources into communities that
maybe don't have
don't feel comfortable coming out to get
those resources
um and then we'd also do this large
scale organizing where we're trying to
advocate for
the things that people who use drugs
want so
like in a lot of issues there's people
like when people want to help someone
like this the idea of helping
like oftentimes the thing that people
don't do
is ask the people that they're trying to
help what they want
so when we go out to people who use
drugs we like ask them what's going on
and then ask them like what do you want
and then from that information we take
that to the city agencies
the elected officials the like people
with power and we're like this is what
they want
like we're not really trying to appease
the general public which that's well
that's my sense
i really advocate for people who use
drugs first and then
kind of go from there if that makes
sense
it does um it's actually one of the
things that really stands out
on your resume you went to johns hopkins
for undergrad then a master's in public
health there which is
one of the best programs in the world
and you worked on a lot of projects
there and one of the things that you
seem to do a lot of
is interview people who use drugs and
personally i believe that's the
strongest way to find out what's really
going on in the real world
so i wanted to ask how do you approach
these interviews and what did you learn
about how to ask the best questions
it's been interesting because i've been
interviewing different groups of people
for different reasons for
a while that's been kind of my research
with folks who use drugs has been
first so my first introduction into
research was when i was doing work at
the behavioral pharmacology research
unit at johns hopkins
and there i was doing some like
preliminary interview questions but the
primary responsibility that i had
was to just make make people that come
into the
the clinic comfortable um and a lot of
the people that would come into the
clinic
were people that were withdrawing from
opiates in order to get into the study
and you know if if anyone's ever
withdrawed from opiates or know someone
who has like it's an extremely
uncomfortable experience
like it's just it's very not fun
um very physically painful and
emotionally
also you know because when you don't
you're when your body doesn't feel good
physically emotionally you start to get
impacted as well
and so um i had to just like hold space
for all the study participants that were
withdrawing and this was
kind of it became kind of like a norm in
the other positions that i had as well
um that i just had to like be able to
hold a space where people that were
going through this suffering would even
want to acknowledge my presence which
like if you're withdrawing from
opioids like you don't want to talk to
anyone
um and so that was helpful
for the the next jobs that i had i i did
interviews in hospitals
um and now i do interviews out in the
community where people might be using or
might be withdrawing or going through
whatever
um and as far as the questions
we usually use a questionnaire that was
pre-approved
but for me like it was important
to offer a space where people who use
drugs could have someone to talk to
so i tried to use the questionnaire as
little as possible and structure it more
of like a conversation
um and allow it to be just a place where
they can vent to me you know and and
some people needed that some people
didn't need that
but for some people like when they
interact with the systems that we're
living in like the hospital system
the social work system i you know i'm
not even going to mention the criminal
justice system because that's just like
it's not it's not something that's meant
to help people um
they aren't listened to they're often
just told what to do
or they're treated um in this very
like patronizing way and so
whenever i would meet with them i just
wanted to you know
first of all get them to trust me
because i'm just a random person you
know there's no way to know my
intentions and
when you're someone who uses drugs or me
it's especially when you're a person who
uses drugs that's of color
like there's so much distrust in in all
these systems because of the ways that
they've suffered through them
and i just want to make them comfortable
and allow them to
to talk to me about their life and their
drug use
and like you know people as someone who
uses drugs
i like talking about my drug use um
and so you know other people that i
interviewed also
enjoyed doing that so i'd say that
that's the two most important things for
me when i've been doing interviews and
like holding space for folks use drugs
is just like
making sure that they're comfortable um
being patient with them
and making it more of a conversation
rather than like
okay i'm going to read you the next 10
questions and
have it being like cut and dry this is
for an interview i'm not like trying to
get to know you as a person
wow it sounds like your job is a really
fascinating mix of
hands-on harm reduction and high-level
public health research and i was curious
what it's like to work from within the
system
when city and state systems often aren't
as
approving of the harm reduction model
yeah
so that's something that is really
interesting to grapple with
um so i previously
worked like i interned at the drug
policy alliance before
i had this job um and i also worked in
in places that generally like got it you
know like people who are very harm
reduction oriented so
i didn't have to do any explaining
around that and
um could vocalize my views around harm
reduction which
i don't think my views are radical but
like i guess if you ask a regular person
that is not involved in drug policy or
harm reduction then i would be
considered like a
quote unquote radical
when i moved to the department of health
it was interesting because my team
specifically is very radical they are
very
harm reduction oriented and even within
my bureau
the orientation of my research unit is
very harm reduction oriented
um but you know the longer that i've
worked in city government
though the more i've understood
that yeah like as an institution and
inside of
you know the city as a whole it's not
very harm reduction oriented
and also just like
when i engage with people who have
worked with city government
they're just like you know there's
there's this idea of harm
that the government causes to people
which is totally real
you know and um something that i've
struggled with
is i'm used to being this kind of
loud advocate that is
you know i go to rallies and i go to
protests and um
i have arguments with people about harm
reduction on the internet and
in person um and so
when i'm in the you know this the sphere
of the government
and i've realized like i can't freely do
that anymore
and i could to a degree like if i if i
use fancy language or if i back it up
with science
then i can but um
it's been difficult you know to to
balance
who i am as a person and the tendencies
that i have and this like
governmental space um
because ultimately a place like the
health department
is meant to serve all of new york right
and it's meant to serve even
those people who hate people who use
drugs it's meant to serve even those
people who want people who use drugs to
be dead
and i you know my place
inside of the health department is not
to serve those people my place is to
serve people who use drugs and
i'm you know i hit walls because of that
because even if my team and even if my
unit wants what's best for people who
use drugs
when our work tries to leave
our team or our unit it sometimes
doesn't make it out because
it's too political or it's um
it's not something that the city wants
to be represented representative of
um so yeah it's definitely a difficult
line to balance but what i do appreciate
is
at the end of the day like the outreach
that i do no one can control the
outreach that i do
no one can control how i engage the
communities that i engage with
um and part of my job is is you know i
talked a lot about
engaging people who use drugs but i also
engage community members themselves
um part of our work is to do kind of
like anti-sigma work where we're like
hey
do you know people who use drugs do you
talk to people who use drugs and these
are people that live in high impacted
areas around the city
and just like having a conversation with
them about
people who use drugs in their life or in
their community and trying to
to change that narrative because often
times like for example if it's someone
who works at a bodega
um they may think nasty things about
people who use drugs because the only
experience
or the only reference they have is
someone who is always
you know overdosing or like nodding out
in front of their store
but if we talk to them and just change
their orientation
about like this is a community member
this is someone's friend into someone's
family member
and also sometimes dig deeper into some
of the feelings of resentment that they
have
sometimes it turns out that it's because
of personal trauma that they've had
um so being able to have those
conversations you know make it worth it
because
no one's monitoring me in that scenario
and a lot of the times the communities
that i'm engaging
are communities of black and latinos so
it's
it's people that i care about and people
that i
i feel called to you know
to have these conversations with as as
another latina
that's actually a great place to shift
to your work as an activist
around the war on drugs because you
founded
a chapter of sstp in baltimore at johns
hopkins
and for those who don't know ssdp is
students for sensible drug policy and
they're an amazing program
predominantly run by college students to
fight the war on drugs
and it's basically a training ground for
a whole generation of activists
who go on to do great things so i would
say donate to them
so yerelix when did you first start
becoming aware of the war on drugs
and how did that lead to you founding a
chapter of ssdp
i started learning about the war on
drugs
mainly in college although
you know this issue had been present in
my life i just didn't know
how to name it um so i'll say how
i learned about it first and then i will
tie it back to like
my personal experience but um i started
doing volunteer work
as a case manager in baltimore um
and it was kind of crazy that i that i
was given this responsibility
because i was this like 20 year old
student that knew nothing
and they were just like here are all
these people that have
all the problems try to get them
services and i was like
wow okay
so i got to meet people and learn
their stories like again kind of back up
to this like interviewing
perspective but it wasn't for the sake
of research it was literally just me
navigating the system and trying to get
them help um
and i met a lot of people that were
incarcerated i met a lot of people
that used drugs and were incarcerated
because of their drug use
and then after that couldn't get
services couldn't get
housing couldn't get a lot of their
basic needs met
and i saw this pattern and the more that
i started getting interested
in substance use and in people who use
drugs and
learning more about that policy i was
like why is why is all this happening
especially in a place like baltimore
like baltimore has issues
with um job security for a lot of black
people
that have lived there because of like
historic redlining
um and other policies that have you know
oppressed people over time but it wasn't
until i started reading up more on the
history of how these cities were made
and the disparities between
you know the wealthy and the poor in the
area that i learned
that this was like a pattern but also
something that was somewhat intentional
um and on a personal level i grew up
in a low-income community of color in
miami florida in carroll city and you
know i went to a school that
there were it wasn't weird for kids to
have guns
and drugs and for police to come in and
do random searches on us
um but that was just part of my reality
you know like that was just like
how i i just assumed that everywhere was
like this you know
i didn't know a life that was any
different
um and i've had people in my family that
have
gone to jail for issues around drugs and
it was just a part of life you know
because
a lot of my friends a lot of people that
i knew dealt with the same issues
um but it wasn't again until i left to
baltimore that i went to johns hopkins
and i was like wait like
so baltimore is a certain way people go
to jail for using drugs
in baltimore especially if you're black
but then you go to this institution this
very
white rich institution like johns
hopkins
it's not like that at all like i felt so
confused when i went and i was like oh
i'm the only poor person here i'm the
only person that went to a school that
had random searches
and had gangs and had like gun violence
i mean not probably not the only person
but it felt that way
um and people at johns hopkins use drugs
like rich white kids use cocaine and
they don't go to jail
they're like praised for being more
productive or they're like praised for
being popular because they go to frat
parties
um so it was these like interactions
through my volunteer work and also just
realizing like oh i'm also
a part of this like i have been i have
experienced some of this in my own life
um i just didn't have a name for it
which i later found out through reading
like
drug policy alliance articles and
reading literature that it was the drug
war
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it's intriguing that you have this
social justice mindset with the war on
drugs
and then recently you did a talk for the
sabina project
who by the way is an excellent group to
follow for anyone listening about
psychedelic intersectionality
and social justice and so can you tell
us what that talk was about and your
general thoughts there
so intersectionality is a term that was
coined by kimberly crenshaw and
intersectional theory
asserts that people are often
disadvantaged by multiple sources of
oppression
so for example their race their gender
identity
their sexual orientation their religion
their immigration status ableism and
other identity markers
and these different identities may
impact how safe someone feels
in you know simply existing or talking
about certain topics
um being in certain spaces and also
just access to to general survival needs
that they might have
so for example healthcare therapy
education
healthy food supplies
and so the talk that i did was because
you know i have this background in harm
reduction and
drug policy and i also have this world
in
um in psychedelics that i'm a part of i
i don't feel that the two are separate
even though
a lot of mainstream media or a lot or a
lot of people that i've had
conversations with
feel that they don't intersect at all
that psychedelics
and i think that this is because it's
like a western thing right that
psychedelics are this like very
individualistic thing
that's used to optimize the self and to
me that's not what psychedelics are
um to me it's like about communal
healing and
about and for me it's just just like
because of how i've been able to change
my life or how my life has changed
through my use of psychedelics
i have been able to feel activated and
to be able to be emotionally sustained
to do the work that i do
and you know the work that i do is
emotionally draining like
quote unquote fighting the system is
hard
and honestly the only reason i feel like
i've been able to do that is because
i've
had the experiences that i've had with
psychedelics that have
allowed me to overcome some of my issues
with anxiety and depression
and also find meaning within my own life
and meaning within the work that i do
um so basically the talk that i did it
it was with sabina project so if you
haven't heard of sabine project you
should check them out it's an amazing
group
and i went through a lot um i
talked about my own experience um i
talked about psychedelic history
um how psychedelic well you know
psychedelic history quote-unquote like
about how antheans have been used
through all millennia by indigenous
people
and then colonization white supremacy
um drug policy the war on drugs
how psychedelic policy is changing today
um now that we're seeing
decriminalization efforts around the
country
and then tying that into psychedelics
and social justice because
to me social justice means like fighting
for equity
it means trying to dissolve these
systems of oppression
for individual and collective liberation
and that's
that's what psychedelic use to me is you
know like we're liberating ourselves
from these systems that we're within
where we're able to absolve
the the systems of oppression in our
mind
to be able to be released and see that
this world doesn't have to be this way
that we don't have to continue
allowing the system to run as it is that
we can
you know think about things that are
different we can fight for things that
are different
and so i think the main inspiration for
why i talk about these things is because
i was previously someone who was so
not functional like i was so anxious and
i was so depressed that
all i could really do was like make it
through school
i had no friends i didn't know how to
socialize every time i try to socialize
i would have panic attacks
and through my use of psychedelics like
i
i found myself i learned to trust others
for the most part um and i found this
field of work that i absolutely love
and that i feel activated by and
if i was able to go from this person
that had all these issues
to someone who's like an advocate and an
organizer um
i think we can do so much like so much
can be done
with psychedelics for the purpose of of
like activating ourselves and becoming
more empathetic and like trying to
change this system because the system is
is so broken wow thank you for sharing
it is fascinating that you had that much
anxiety and now you're such an
organizer and connector around the
psychedelic world
um year alex is now the is leading the
new york city psychedelic society
uh which is one that a society is very
grounded in inclusivity
and community and you also helped to
organize
the first people of color in the
psychedelics conference
in washington dc and i want to ask why
is it important to have safe spaces that
are reserved for people of color
so i can give a little back story to my
organizing and that that might give some
context
so i co-founded the baltimore
psychedelic society with mike margulies
and it was a great experience
to learn how to organize so i had no
idea
how to do community organizing and i was
still dealing with a lot of my social
anxiety and
panic attacks and things like that at
the time so um
it was my first introduction into first
the psychedelic space which at the time
there wasn't a lot of in-person spaces
aside from conferences like there
weren't a lot of community spaces for
for people to talk about psychedelics
and at the time i was just building up
based on how i was taught so you know
just talking about psychedelics getting
people through the door
and you know for the most part a lot
of the early psychedelic societies and
even now even now a lot of psychedelic
societies that exist
are very white and they're sometimes
very
white male dominated um
and i found that to be true of the
baltimore psychedelic society not
necessarily the male part but it was
very white
very white middle class um and
it just with me being a psychedelic
organizer
serving community for middle class white
people but then
working full-time with people who are
unhoused
being oppressed by the system overdosing
and dying that are
mainly black and brown people i was just
like this isn't
this isn't aligning with what i want to
do like this doesn't feel right
um so i stopped organizing for a while
and i when i moved to new york
i had the opportunity to start
organizing again and because i had the
opportunity to to organize
previously i was like okay this time i'm
going to be much more intentional
about what i'm doing like i want black
and brown people
that haven't had access to psychedelics
or at least information about
psychedelics to have that
and i want them to have a space that
feels safe to talk about these things
and to reflect on themselves um
so i currently organize the new york
city psychedelic society and
two of the main things that we do are
create
educational um events
and we also i organize psychic other
configuration circles for people of
color
and for the integration circle
specifically like
i've been to a lot of integration
circles
and they've been great you know and um
i've learned a lot from the people
who've hosted them and from the spaces
that i've been in
but there's there was always something
missing first of all i was
almost always the only person of color
in the room
and a lot of the experiences that i
would have
are tied to issues around
my family around trauma that we've had
because of migration
i'm for central i'm first generation
central american so we
my family migrated here because of like
united states state violence
and that's kind of shaped the way that
you know we
we live in this country and and the way
that i frame
the united states i don't view it as a
place
that is my home you know that i mean i
live here of course but it's not
somewhere that i'm like
oh i'm proud of being american like you
know that's that's never the stance that
i come from
um and the
i would have experiences that were about
like intergenerational trauma
and my community and
uh immigration and you know just intense
topics like that that when i would bring
it up
in these predominantly white circles it
would either
just kind of like fade into the ether
like no one says anything
or someone would feel really
uncomfortable and feel compelled to
respond
and that that almost made me feel worse
because i'm just like
i just want someone to understand where
i'm coming from
but they don't you know and and um
so i thought to myself like how do i get
people of color in the room
and then i was like i don't even feel
comfortable in this room why would i
want to come to this room as a person of
color
you know and so i started organizing
this
separate space and it was like this is
only people of color
because a lot of folks of color like
don't want to be
in a predominantly white space if they
don't have to be because we do that all
the time we're always in white dominated
spaces and we're tired you know like
we're at work
and we have to be code switching just to
be able to
to fit in with the conversation or we
have to
fit this mold that we hide parts of
ourselves
and when we're having our psychedelic
experiences things that are so powerful
and so profound and so intimate
it's it's really amazing and healing to
be
able to be in a space where i can just
like talk about my experience and have
someone in the room be like yeah
i know what you're talking about or like
yeah i have experienced that too
um because the the and we're seeing this
now right like with the uprisings and
everything
there are so many people that like were
on
claim to be unaware of how the system
interacts
with people that have been historically
oppressed by the system
um and i don't really you know i spend a
lot of my time
helping people who use drugs advocating
for them against like cover
government institutions and that is
tiring i don't have time
to educate someone who can't go on the
internet and google
how racism exists like this is free
information
um and that's sometimes what would
happen in these integration circles or
someone would be like oh
you know i didn't know that happened i'm
just like i don't want to
i don't want to talk to you about this
like i don't wanna explain
this history of myself to you and
it's really wonderful to be able to have
spaces where people of color can just
exist thank you for pulling those
together
they do sound really powerful and so it
actually leads into the last question i
wanted to ask about
you were recently participated in the
panel treating trauma with psychedelics
and underrepresented populations
and so could you share what are the
special factors to consider
in using psychedelics to treat trauma in
underrepresented populations
sure um so i will say that i don't have
a background
in either therapy or treating trauma
but i do have experience in engaging
folks that
have trauma because they're oftentimes
some of the most
oppressed people in our society so again
going back to my work with people who
use drugs
people that are unhoused people that
have
extreme mental illness or mental illness
that doesn't allow them to participate
in
the capitalist society and the way that
would just you know the way that
society expects them to um
and i also have experience organizing
these spaces for people of color to come
together and share their experiences
um and it's it's a lot right
it's a lot of layers i think the biggest
thing to acknowledge is that we're
operating in the system of white
supremacy
and how difficult that makes it for us
to do anything
so specifically the people of color a
lot of us
don't have health care um some of us
are unhoused um a lot of us don't have
a stable job you know like
it's hard to get basic needs met when
you don't have income you know and
especially now
during covid during these times like
everything is even more unstable
and so my other point with uh the
psychedelics social justice topic is
we can't really be advocating for
psychedelic therapy
if we are also not advocating for
people's basic survival needs right
because if i'm someone who
let's say i'm someone who's unhoused has
a substance use disorder
and i don't know and have an abuser
that is out in in this in the community
in the city and
i get selected to do some like
psychedelic therapy and i go and do it
yeah i could probably unpack some stuff
i could probably work things out
and maybe i can have some relief from
the trauma and and learn some things
about myself
but if i go back into the system that is
beating me
up that is abusing me not having housing
not having food not having these basic
things that i need to
to be a functioning human and to prosper
like what is that doing
you know and um so first of all just
like advocating that everyone has
their basic needs met and when we're
looking at institutions like the medical
system
like we know the medical system is
racist we know the criminal justice
system is racist
we know all these institutions are
racist and it's harder for
like black people for example to get
health care than it is
white people and these are disparities
that we
you know we can't solve everything but
we can at least get educated on them
and when we hear about bills hopefully
we do our research
when we hear about bills that are coming
out about supporting
increases to medicaid or increases to
health care or universal health care
we can call our representatives and be
like hey i'm supporting this thing
because xyz
that's that's like a low barrier way of
doing this um
but there's also other layers of
community um so
if someone doesn't have a community to
go back to and this is kind of like
what i found that i've been doing
psychedelics
for many years i've been organizing
around psychedelics for many years
but i feel like my healing process has
not accelerated but just become
much more foundational now that i have a
community of other people of color where
i can
you know have my experience and then
come back to be like
i need help integrating this you know
and this this is
is in part with the psychedelic
integration circles but it's also just
like having people that i love that i
know
will talk me through some of the things
that that i'm processing
um and so
there's just there's so many parts i'll
just go through what comes to mind so
the first is access
if we're talking about accessibility we
could be talking about
you know maybe someday we'll have
psychedelic therapy centers that people
can go to
the likelihood of that is not high
unless you're someone who already
has a decent job and
health healthcare and all these things
which is not is not
the best or not what it should be for
people of color or you can go
to an underground market um and find an
underground therapist and do it that way
which is what a lot of us have done or a
lot of us have just like gotten
psychedelics and use them
and figure that out for ourselves but
that's also dangerous you know and in
this society that criminalizes us
it disproportionately impacts people of
color and their communities because of
hyper policing and things like that
there's also a higher risk for that and
so a lot of people of color that are not
currently plugged into psychedelics are
afraid to get plugged in
because they don't want to get arrested
because of the war on drugs
um but even if we do find someone
to hold space for us whether it be like
through a therapeutic context
or underground context it's important
for them to be
you know i don't know what the word is
like culturally competent
is like the word that comes to mind even
though i hate that that's like
whitewashed phrase um
because they're ha we need to feel safe
in that space
and for people of color like when we're
having our experiences like it is very
spiritual
it's not like i've seen these research
studies about psychedelics that it's
just like spirituality is like one
sliver
of the conversation it's like oh
mystical experience is number one maybe
it's spirituality but that's not really
the priority and it's like no for a lot
of folks of color
spirituality is the center of it and our
ancestry is the center of it and going
back to our roots
and figuring out who we were before
colonization like that's what we
find healing and it gives our lives
meaning and it allows us to reclaim what
we've lost
in all this time um
so yeah there's there's there's a lot
that needs to be done
i'd say like for us to even have the
conversation about
treating psychedelics with trauma we
first have to figure out how to create
education
that is tailored and appropriate for
people of color so that it's not
the sensationalized messaging that we
are seeing right now
and we also have to figure out how to
make society more equitable because if
people of color have access to
psychedelic therapy
sure like we we can do healing practices
but if we're constantly getting
re-traumatized whenever we walk outside
of our front door
you know that's that's not how we
achieve healing like we have to
try to make this system a more equitable
place
and then you know then we can take the
psychedelics and be
have them be a catalyst for healing for
us but
not without all these other things done
first
amen wow uh yerry leeks estrada thank
you so much for
sharing with us today yeah thank you for
having me it's great talking with you
and thank you for your work working with
the city doing public health and harm
reduction
and in bringing people together around
community
awesome thanks lex thanks for tuning in
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