There are a variety of takeaways from these studies, but one is clear and consistent: Many of those “bad” drugs aren’t always bad.

I grew up on the fringes of psychedelia. My dad and I never drove a Winnebago to Burning Man (though we were invited to do so). And he’s not a hippie. He wears a tie, not tie-dye, to work, and is impressively risk-averse, advocating safety and harm reduction above all. But despite his conservatism and determination to disprove the cultural stereotype that “drug research” must be shorthand for personal recreational use, it’s only recently that his work, though completely legal, has been met with interest rather than skepticism by the mainstream. As a child I watched him flourish in a community of his peers, but worried what other kids in my school—and my D.A.R.E. officer—might think if they learned what my father did for a living.

I had my own supplemental drug education experience, my other D.A.R.E.

My family made the regular pilgrimage to a bohemian oasis called Asilomar for the Association for Transpersonal Psychology’s annual conference. There, adults watched slideshow presentations that explored the inner dimensions of the human brain while us kids explored nature—hiking, stargazing, and building stone dams in a nearby creek. As a teenager, I accompanied my dad to book signings, conventions organized by the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) and Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and The Psychedelic Salon, a Friday night speaker series in a homey Venice Beach bungalow, where people promoted a more expansive conversation around drugs. Everyone everywhere told me that my dad was “so cool.”

I agreed with them. My dad was cool because he respected me. He and my mom started talking to me about drugs when I was very young, and supplied me with all the facts they knew.

I memorized the chemical name for MDMA at age eight—3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine—and I’ll never forget it. I knew about the problem of rampant drug substitution, and that kids who thought they were buying one thing could very well end up with something else. I understood that when my dad and other researchers emphasized the value of “set and setting,” what they were really saying was “doing drugs at a party, with other drug novices, where risk of dangerous drug combinations is high, is pretty damn stupid.” No scare tactics were needed; the plain facts my dad gave me scared me enough.

My parents taught me that certain otherwise illicit substances had value as medicines in beta-testing, and I decided for myself that recreational use could damage the long-term goals of the therapy-assisted movement. I trusted that my parents told me the truth, and in turn, my parents trusted me to make smart decisions.

Yes, I was a kid with zero medical background. And yes, I was repeating back what my parents preached. But this was the school of thought they raised me on, just as my classmates learned lessons from their parents. We were just taught to believe different things.