PsySoc:Czech Republic

Czech Psychedelic Society (in Czech: Česká psychedelická společnost, abbr. CZEPS) is a non-profit association (Czech: "zapsaný spolek") officially registered in October 2015 but firstly announced under such name in April 2015 during public lectures of Robin Carhart-Harris that were held in Prague and Brno. In contrast to most other psychedelic organizations, the focus of CZEPS is more scientific and less psychonautic. The aim is to be recognized as a serious and legitimate platform by conventional psychiatrists, GPs, politicians, journalists etc. CZEPS should be mostly a group of psychiatrists, psychologists, psychotherapists, neuroscientists, chemists and similar professionals.

Objectives

• Destigmatize psychedelics
  • provide information about psychedelic substances
  • create a platform for an open discussion (with proponents as well as opponents of psychedelics)
  • produce results that can facilitate changes to current legislation
• Establish a platform (to connect professionals who focus on psychedelics)
  • mediate interdisciplinary discussions on psychedelics in research and therapy
  • support psychedelic research
• Reduce risks and adverse consequences of the recreational use of psychedelic substances, their illegality and the character of the black market
• Prepare documents for a change in legislation regarding controlled research and therapeutic use of psychedelics in the Czech Republic

The Czech Psychedelic Society Manifesto

The Czech Psychedelic Society was founded in order to establish a platform for an open discussion on the risks and benefits of the use of psychedelic substances. Our goals are to mediate access to the most recent information and to support research. Through our activities, we would like to continue the legacy of the Czech Republic as one of the centres of psychedelic research in the 1960s.

We are aware that the potential benefits of the use of psychedelic substances have been consistently neglected by policy makers as well as the general public. This is despite the growing number of studies that evidence the advantages and relative safety of such use.

We believe that this should change and we want to actively participate in bringing about this change. On the basis of empirical research, we want to provide professionals and the public with access to information on the potential benefits as well as the limits of the use of psychedelic compounds in medicine and psychotherapy. The results to date have shown that psychedelics are very promising in the treatment of addiction, post-traumatic stress disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and depression. For some of these indications, psychedelics may well offer superior efficacy and fewer side effects than currently used therapeutics. Psychedelics also offer a ray of hope to patients whose condition is resistant to conventional treatment. Other findings indicate that psychedelics have broad potential applications in psychotherapy as well as in the study of psychotic diseases like schizophrenia and of human consciousness in general. These compounds, when properly used, could also play an essential role in the education of mental health professionals, improving their first-hand understanding of the symptoms of certain mental illnesses.

The risks attendant on the controlled use of psychedelics appears to be minimal. However, their use in clinical and academic settings is very rare these days due to excessively restrictive legislation. We have strong objections to such a restrictive approach.

Our field of interest is inherently multidisciplinary since we believe that all findings should be shared on an interdisciplinary basis and comprehensively integrated into many fields of study.

By facilitating the exchange of knowledge and expertise among professionals and the general public, we would like to work to destigmatize psychedelic substances and to change the negative mainstream prejudice against the use of these substances. We do not endorse the recreational use of psychedelic drugs but we also believe reliable and complete information on psychedelic substances will reduce the harm that can result from their misuse.

—The Czech Psychedelic Society, http://www.czeps.cz/files/czeps_manifesto_en.pdf

Links and contacts

• The official site, mostly in Czech language: https://czeps.org.
• Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/czeps.org
• Twitter page: https://twitter.com/czechps
• Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtd66urvSdL6-DFB3JAXAcg - Contains some videos from the public lectures etc.
• Contact via E-Mail: info AT czeps DOT org.
• The CZEPS coordinator since June 2016 is Martin (martin.malec AT czeps DOT org). For private communication you can use GPG (public key 0x1ADD5499, Fingerprint: B115 1BEF 0199 5CA4 F458 7CD8 0BB1 5B34 1ADD 5499) or ProtonMail (marmal AT protonmail DOT ch).