Capitalism Goes Rogue with Patent Claims on Psychedelics

Marcelo Leite

After President Richard Nixon declared the War on Drugs in 1971, clinical research on psychedelics remained stifled for three decades, amounting to a sure career-stopper in biomedical science for researchers. This state of affairs started to change with the advent of the twenty-first century and the renewed attention attracted by the so-called “psychedelic renaissance.” The promise of revolutionary therapies for mental disorders has grown to the point of generating an excess of interest from the part of investors. As a result, their rush to secure patent rights over age-old substances and healing practices now risks jeopardizing that very flurry of research... continue reading.