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Humboldt

MMA on Four Corners tonight

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I'd have to watch it again to pick up on the ABC calling out MMA as vexatious litigants. I don't know anyone personally involved in the story. I don't know what WTGH-WTAF? stands for either. But I think I know what journalism is (or at least, used to be).

 

I'd like to hear more about MMA and its "chilling effect" on discussion here.  Any legal documentation to that effect? 

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On 31/7/2022 at 7:10 AM, folias said:

Obviously, I was ambushed. They even imply that very strongly in the piece. my fb post from 5 years ago is me ruminating on metoo and some unfair accusations and me explaining that. I didn't need to do that. The producer hadn't even read that post, I doubt the reporter did either. The whole thing is truly embarrasing for this country, I felt really ashamed such ignorance was being pushed out of the national broadcaster and I think a lot of sensible and intelligent people agree.

I'm not sure people are buying this at all, as it just comes through as a hatchet job, even my enemies are unsure it seems to me. I haven't gotten so much clear hate, because what is being levelled against me is so murky and unclear and in an unfair manner.

 

It is not cool when you are accused of being a "bad guy" on national television. The really bad people are the moreons who went and cried wolf four corners. I know who they are, and they are not even people who believe in the power of psychedelic medicine, and grinding their ax against me is the most important thing for them.

I'm making a response video which I'll post here when it is done.

What do they say? any publicity is good publicity, that appears to be true in this it appears to me.


 

has it occurred to you that there might be factors other than the #metoo “conversation” and whatever happened between you and the three women (AFAIK), which some people are trying to engage in discourse with you? 

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https://www.madinamerica.com/2021/09/ending-silence-psychedelic-therapy-abuse/

 

I think this article strikes the right balance (except that "therapy abuse" obviously precedes the discovery of LSD). Psychedelics aren't responsible per se for the phenomenon of abuse; though perhaps they facilitate it in certain therapeutic contexts. I think this distinction needs to be kept in mind. Otherwise we get the simplistic reduction, psychedelics = drugs = harm. I think that's the potential downside of Elise Worthington's report. 

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That’s why there are fairly rigorous codes of ethics and legal obligations. It’s an inherantly tricky subject to navigate. Where there are humans there are human frailties. And in a setting of therapy/healing of ANY kind, there’s going to be a level of imbalance and therefore trust and responsibility. That’s to protect both parties as well. I’d guarantee that there would be plenty of cases throughout the ages where a tribe’s Shaman/Medicine Person/Healer/etc took their position for granted and abused that power - as I said human frailty. I’ve no doubt that in the vast majority of cases it would be terrible consequences for the victim. 
 

I’ve always thought the way to aiming for perfection (even if not actually achievable) is to build on the mistakes of the past with current knowledge. That is to say neither ignore or glorify the past. Use ALL tools available.

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On 15/08/2022 at 10:50 AM, FancyPants said:


 

has it occurred to you that there might be factors other than the #metoo “conversation” and whatever happened between you and the three women (AFAIK), which some people are trying to engage in discourse with you? 


If anyone is "trying" to engage with me about anything else, they are not doing a very good job. I haven't heard anything about anything else, not a whisper of any other communication.

If you would like to communicate to me something else or whatever the present communication/rumour is, please do let me know.

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There is some harsh buzzkill going on in Australia’s fledgling psychedelic therapeutic industry where, despite apparently liberal use of Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, there has evidently been little associated ego death.

 

Strangely enough, the latest narc to crush the vibes is investment banker Peter Hunt, who founded Caliburn Partnership (later acquired by US firm Greenhill & Co) following stints at Macquarie, Bankers Trust and ABN Amro.

 

Tania de Jong and Peter Hunt, researchers and advocates in the field of psychedelic drugs in the treatment of mental illness. 

 

More recently, Hunt has swung his attention to Mind Medicine Australia, which runs a training institute and lobbies for legalised psychedelics for clinical use. No doubt an admirable cause.

 

But late last week, Mind Medicine Australia, along with chairman Hunt and his wife Tania de Jong, an MMA executive director and opera singer, applied to the Federal Court for the noble deed of, er, unmasking anonymous Twitter accounts.

 

We hear it’s all the rage, given the recent outing of Australia’s dumbest Twitter profile, the Daniel Andrews flunky @PRGuy17, who revealed himself to be just a “regular Aussie guy” following a court application by the equally daft far-right polemicist Avi Yemini. Though if there was anything regular about user Jeremy Maluta, it was not to be found on his obsequious Twitter account.

 

MMA’s application to expose Twitter handles with an infinitesimally smaller following, @CaapiTime and @CaapiVerdad, comes after the psychedelic charity’s recent appearance on ABC’s Four Corners, which in July accused the organisation of bullying and intimidating employees and operating a questionable for-profit training institute linked to its charitable functions.

 

MMA’s board includes investment banker Nicholas Smedley, son of Peter “Pacman” Smedley, head of the Ethics Centre Simon Longstaff and former trade minister Andrew Robb.

 

While Hunt fessed up that MMA was “imperfect and have made mistakes”, as any organisation would, he also noted the “factually inaccurate” claims made by the ABC he said were “designed to harm our charitable mission to support the millions who are suffering”.

 

Yet, Hunt’s action in the Federal Court is not concerned with the 90-year-old Aunty, but with a Twitter user with the avatar of a green hummingbird-bearing woman drawn as a tribute to ayahuasca (an Amazonian hallucinate) psychonauts. Everyone’s got their priorities, we guess.

 

The Caapi Twitter accounts (named after one half of the ayahuasca decoction) appear to have given MMA significant grief in recent months, prompting Hunt to call on the services of the defamation boiler room led by Mark O’Brien.

 

Along with mundane tweets criticising Joe Rogan and supporting Mary-Louise McLaws, Caapi has been notably preoccupied with alleging MMA’s “harmful” and “toxic” working environment.

 

But it was a barb thrown at Hunt’s wife that led to the MMA’s own Twitter account accusing Caapi of “harassing and defaming one of our employees”.

 

“We have reported this matter to Federal Police. It is now a criminal matter. The Police have coercive powers to identify you and you risk criminal prosecution,” MMA wrote in January.

 

A few days after this social media missive, Hunt published an open letter to the MMA website: “Social Media Attacks and Ethical Issues in the Psychedelic Sector – Why can’t we all get on together for the greater good?”

 

Here, Hunt decried the “small group of people from the psychedelic community that feel threatened by our drive for change ... making nasty social media attacks on our organisation and highly personal and defamatory attacks on Tania and myself”.

 

“They justify hiding their identity with the assertion that we would legally attack them if they publicly identified themselves, but ignore the fact that we would have no basis for a legal challenge if their public statements weren’t defamatory and they weren’t engaged in harassment, victimisation and bullying.”

 

Sounds like everyone needs to up their dose!

Edited by False Peyote
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On 17/8/2022 at 11:18 AM, folias said:


If anyone is "trying" to engage with me about anything else, they are not doing a very good job. I haven't heard anything about anything else, not a whisper of any other communication.

If you would like to communicate to me something else or whatever the present communication/rumour is, please do let me know.


I have been. On FB. You’ve engaged in some - possibly most? - of what I put to you to your credit. But my lines of questioning were less about the “#metoo” comments and associated subject matter, and more about other things which you seemed to gloss over. Things like your responsibility to participants, the image of the underground scene as shown to media, and a couple of other things which I honestly can’t be bothered trying to remember right now. I don’t know whether your deflection was even conscious let alone deliberate. 
 

But it’s *my* opinion that if you’re going to be a proponent of plant medicine and utilise the title of “inventor of Changa” (any variation thereof) then I believe that should come with some responsibilities. 
 

 

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Last night's episode of 7:30 presented MDMA and even (Peruvian-shamanic) ayahuasca as prospective treatments for PTSD. No psychedelic sensationalism, accusations of sexual misconduct, or financial misappropriation. I think Rick Doblin even featured for a few seconds. But no mention of MMA or the earlier 7:30 report. 

 

 

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