Giulio Sica - Colonising the Sacred: The Biopolitics of Psychedelic Healing and how to respond

Psychedelic healing movements face a risk of colonial appropriation where sacred practices are treated as objects to be managed and industrialized. Current institutional approaches often deprioritize cultural wisdom in favor of reductionist, capitalist-driven medical frameworks that struggle to integrate spiritual dimensions. Giulio Sica highlights how biopolitical control and colonial mentalities shape current psychedelic scholarship and clinical medicine. He argues that by prioritizing standardized protocols above all else, clinical approaches risk erasing the historical and sacred roots of these medicinal plants. Sica calls for a decolonization of psychedelic healing that puts decriminalization and Indigenous knowledge at the center of the ongoing dialogue.