This month, Dr. Bronner’s — family-owned maker of
the top-selling natural brand of soap in North America — launched its
“Heal Soul” campaign to support public education efforts, advocacy
organizations and political campaigns around the country working to mainstream
psychedelic-assisted therapy and medicines to treat depression, PTSD, addiction,
and end-of-life anxiety. The company has donated over $3 million this
year to support these efforts, and the organizations and ballot initiatives that are advancing this work.
Image credit: Dr. Bronner's/Facebook
Available from September through December of 2020, the limited-edition “Heal
Soul!” label on Dr. Bronner’s 32-oz. Castile Liquid Soaps aims to educate the
public about the power of psychedelic-assisted therapy and medicines (read the
“Heal Soul!” label in its entirety here). Dr.
Bronner’s has also produced a series of blog posts and short
videos to support the
campaign.
“Used in the right settings — in combination with good diet, fitness and other
healthy lifestyle choices — psychedelic-assisted therapies and medicines offer
dramatic healing for many people suffering from depression, end-of-life anxiety,
PTSD and other mental health conditions,” said Michael Bronner, President of
Dr. Bronner’s. “Our ‘Heal Soul’ message and campaign is about mainstreaming this
conversation in a rational and compassionate way, to help enable access to these
life-saving therapies as soon as possible with the goal of evaporating the
misguided stigma that these medicines face.”
In recent years, Western medicine has been re-evaluating its stance on various
psychedelic therapies, many of which were vilified or banned by the US
government back in 1970 — when President Nixon launched his “war on
drugs.”
We’ve seen a massive, ongoing shift away from pharmaceutical solutions in favor
of newly legal medicines such as
cannabis
for a vast array of mental, physical and emotional issues; and in-depth research
continues into the potential of psychedelic-assisted therapies including
MDMA, DMT and psilocybin to facilitate the emotional processing of
trauma, rather than conventional medication’s emphasis on suppressing symptoms.
They’re also the subject of Michael Pollan’s best-selling 2018 book, How to
Change Your Mind.
Psychedelic-assisted therapies have shown great promise in clinical trials at
John Hopkins, NYU, UCLA and elsewhere for treating severe
psychological disorders. In 2017 and 2018, the FDA granted “breakthrough
status” for MDMA-assisted therapy for treatment-resistant PTSD; and
psilocybin-assisted therapy for treatment-resistant depression, respectively.
And Canada recently approved psilocybin-therapy for people who are
terminally ill and grappling with severe end-of-life anxiety.
Dr. Bronner’s Heal Soul campaign builds upon the company’s track record of more
than two decades of advocacy and financial support of drug policy reform; and
honors the longstanding history and culture of Indigenous Peoples who have, for
millennia, practiced sacred healing and traditional rites with use of
psychedelic plant medicines.
Dr. Bronner’s has donated over $3 million this year to psychedelic healing
efforts, but the Heal Soul campaign is focused on a few key representative
efforts and organizations, including:
Read more about Dr. Bronner’s “Heal Soul” campaign here.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published Sep 11, 2020 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST