Psychedelic Outlaws: The Movement Revolutionizing Modern Medicine

By Joanna Kempner

Book Overview

Award-winning sociologist Joanna Kempner unearths how a group of ordinary people debilitated by excruciating pain developed their own medicine from home-grown psilocybin mushrooms--crafting near-clinical grade dosing protocols--and fought for recognition in a broken medical system.

Cluster headache, a diagnosis sometimes referred to as a 'suicide headache, ' is widely considered the most severe pain disorder that humans experience. There is no cure, and little funding available for research into developing treatments.

When Joanna Kempner met Bob Wold in 2012, she was introduced to a world beyond most people's comprehension--a clandestine network determined to find relief using magic mushrooms. These 'Clusterbusters, ' a group united only by the internet and a desire to survive, decided to do the research that medicine left unfinished. They produced their own psychedelic treatment protocols and managed to get academics at Harvard and Yale to test their results. Along the way, Kempner explores not only the fascinating history and exploding popularity of psychedelic science, but also a regulatory system so repressive that the sick are forced to find their own homegrown remedies, and corporate America and university professors stand to profit from their transgressions.

From the windswept shores of the North Sea through the verdant jungle of Peruvian Amazon to a kitschy underground palace built in a missile silo in Kansas, Psychedelic Outlaws chronicles the rise of psychedelic medicine amid a healthcare system in turmoil. Kempner's gripping tale of community and resilience brings readers on a eye-opening journey through the politics of pain, through the stories of people desperate enough to defy the law for a moment of relief.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306828944
• ISBN13: 9780306828942
• Release Date: June 2024
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Giving Patients a Voice!

Joanna Kempner is an amazing writer and sociologist who has created a masterpiece - piecing together how the history of psychedelics, healthcare, and government created a system where patients had few options to treat their devastatingly painful disease even though there was science showing there was something that could help take away the pain for most patients. She captures the community, the dedication, the blood-sweat-and tears that have created a community that has strong and deep bonds. Being a member of the Clusterbusters community since 2018 (I've had cluster headache since 2012, but was misdiagnosed with migraine) has saved my life. Finding people like me, who struggle with the worst pain known to man every single day, multiple times a day- I have chronic cluster headache...it was devastating. As a single mom, I hit a point I just didn't know how to keep going. But I had people cheering me on. Anyway- I diverge...the way she has captured not only the history but the personalities of the community and how we have come together is beyond amazing. Whether you have cluster headache, migraine or other chronic pain conditions, you can relate to the stigma and lack of healthcare expertise needed to manage life. As patients, all we ask for is a better quality of life- and being able to access medications to help us do that is all we ask for. I appreciate all the work put into this book and all those who shared their stories. Clusterbusters.org is holding a book club this month! Starting June 9, 2024.