According to Charlotte Walsh of the anti-prohibitionist Ayahuasca Defense Fund, that kind of blanket drug prohibition is a violation of international human-rights law. Walsh sees parallels between the drug war and the legal battles for racial equality, as well as gay and reproductive rights. She and her colleagues across Europe and North America hope to use the U.S. Bill of Rights and the European Charter on Human Rights to build a cognitive-liberty-based case against drug prohibition.

I spoke with Walsh recently about her current efforts and the prospects for success at home and abroad.

Morin: What would a human-rights-based drug defense look like?

Walsh: Generally, when people are prosecuted for psychedelic use, the defense focuses on technicalities rather than challenging the prohibitive framework itself. On the rare occasions when they do challenge prohibition, they tend to employ a rights-based framework—namely, arguing that their client’s human rights have been infringed by psychedelic drug prohibition. Rights-based defenses have historically been either pleas for therapeutic or religious exemptions from prohibition.

Morin: What is the legal basis for drug prohibition?

Walsh: Within the parameters of the U.K. Misuse of Drugs Act [equivalent to the U.S. Controlled Substances Act] the issue is ostensibly based around the idea of harm. We have an Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which is a group of scientists in different realms that the government consults when a drug is going to be scheduled or reclassified. The council then carries out a wholesale review of the substance and makes a recommendation for or against prohibition or reclassification. There has been a trend though where the government will ask the Advisory Council to carry out such a review and then just completely ignore their results and do what they want to do. As a stark example, when MDMA was being reevaluated for reclassification, before the results were even in, they issued a public statement saying, effectively, “Don't worry, whatever they find, we’re not going to change anything.”

Morin: What results have they been ignoring?

Walsh: There was an extensive U.K. government study carried out in 2010 by a team under David Nutt that measured various substances in terms of harms to society and the individual. That study showed that alcohol is the overall forerunner in terms of harm, and tobacco comes close after that. A lot of the Class A drugs [equivalent to Schedule I in the US] and psychedelic drugs in particular were at the opposite end of that scale showing very low risk of harm.

Morin: Did the government refute the study or did they ignore it?

Walsh: They basically ignored it. In relation to the alcohol and tobacco findings, obviously nobody has called for their prohibition. An alcohol user can alter their consciousness freely despite the proven risks while a psychedelic user faces heavy punishment. It’s arbitrary discrimination. The government’s response to the Nutt study has been that drug policy isn’t based solely on science, it's also based on cultural and historical precedent.