Cape Town-based science writer and author Leonie Joubert has spent the better part of 17 years writing about climate change, energy policy, invasive species, and the hunger/obesity poverty-paradox in African cities. She's now turning her pen towards two new home-made journalistic "beats": the likely decline in mental health as communities face the existential threat of societal breakdown and climate-capitalism collapse; and "solutions" journalism, because she's tired of spending her days doing a doomsday audit as the climate emergency unfolds over the course of her lifetime.
The Psychonauts is a self-funded, self-published piece of unabashed activism, aimed at helping work towards the decriminalisation of psilocybin, so that this form of therapy can be mainstreamed in traumatised, post-apartheid South Africa.
Formatted as a serialised audio-book, released on a podcast platform, The Psychonauts hopes to get a conversation going in South Africa around the huge potential of psychedelic as medicine. It's a self-funded, self-published project by Leonie. The podcast brings together three things:
- the evidence based science from clinical trials from abroad, where psychedelics and MDMA assisted therapy for treating mood disorders and addictions
- using long-form storytelling, the podcast travels into the small but vibrant underground community here, where people are using the substances for healing, spiritual awakening etc
- the central point of the podcast is a High Court bid, due to start in 2019, which will aim to have psilocybin decriminalised (ibogaine is already legal and used by one or two clinics for rehab purposes)
http://leoniejoubert.co.za/
Podcast: The Psychonauts
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