You Were Warned: What Co-Opting Means in Mental Health Care
The air is thick with psilocybin fog and corporate incense. Veterans are crying into microphones. Researchers are crying into cameras. Everyone is healing—except the ones who actually needed to.
Welcome to the psychedelic gold rush, where pain is currency, trauma is product, and the soul of every war-torn veteran is up for licensing. You think I’m exaggerating? I wish I was. But you were warned.
I know, because I was one of the first. I stood up in front of the country, next to Rick Doblin and Dr. Mechoulam, and told the world I used cannabis to claw my way out of the darkness. I told the truth when it was still dangerous. Back when the VA told you to sit down, shut up, and take your pills. Back when standing up for plant medicine got you blacklisted, not retweeted.
I joined hands with doctors, researchers, nonprofits. I gave them my story, my trauma, my credibility. I believed in something bigger than myself. And in return? They took my pain, polished it, and sold it back to Congress as progress.
Let me say it plainly: I was used. And I wasn’t the only one.
Veterans were trotted out like mascots—photo ops for white coats and nonprofit execs who needed a “face” for their movement. But the second we stepped out of the narrative they wrote for us? The door slammed shut. No more speaking gigs. No more funding. Just silence. Or worse—gaslighting. Smear campaigns. Quiet erasures.
You want proof? I’ve got emails. I’ve got receipts. I’ve got an entire decade’s worth of institutional betrayal.
But this isn’t about revenge. This is about a warning.
Because right now, the same people who used to call us criminals are running “compassionate care clinics.” The same agencies that denied cannabis as medicine are fast-tracking patents. And the same researchers who once said we were too unstable for therapy are now building empires on our backs.
This is what co-opting looks like. It’s not just theft—it’s a hostile takeover of the healing space. It’s when veterans are told they need “protocols” instead of gardens, pills instead of peers, clinical trials instead of community.
And let me be crystal clear: We are not lab rats. We are not variables. We are not here to validate your grants or help you feel woke. We are human beings who found ways to survive hell and make something beautiful out of it. You don’t get to take that from us and call it innovation.
Real healing is messy. It’s not photogenic. It doesn’t fit into PowerPoint decks or get approved by IRBs. It happens on stoops, in soil, around campfires and under the stars. It happens when we cry with our brothers and laugh through the pain. It happens when we reclaim our own narratives.
So, to the researchers, funders, and “mental health pioneers” out there profiting from pain while ignoring the people who carried the torch through prohibition: You were warned.
You were warned that stealing from the wounded doesn’t make you a savior—it makes you another link in the long chain of betrayal. You were warned that healing is not a brand. And you were warned that some of us kept the receipts.
And we’re not going away.
🗂️ Source Integrity Statement
Every summary, breakdown, and historical analysis published in this series is rooted in authenticated primary documents archived within the Project 50 directory. These materials include—but are not limited to—official correspondence, press clippings, federal filings, FOIA records, and scanned mono series from the original medical cannabis pioneers.
If you have questions about the origin of any document, you are encouraged to:
Visit the Project 50 directory, where the source material is maintained and curated.
Verify descriptions and timelines against the original scans, filenames, and archival order.
Engage respectfully if you spot a gap—this is a living library, and contributions or corrections are welcomed with good intent.
This archive is built not for gatekeeping, but for guardianship. We share because the truth was buried—and now it’s time to unearth it together.
