I am an anthropologist, and I’m studying psychedelic culture and the users of psychedelics. Feel free to check out my first article by downloading it here: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6GW56YCO. Please accept my apologies for this form letter as I need to make sure everyone I contact gets the same info.
I’m contacting you to ask that you help with my new article. Psychedelics are often mentioned in the context of medicine or healing. I am very interested in this aspect of the use of psychedelics and think it is one aspect that deserves a wider audience which I hope to provide with my article.
I’m doing this research on my own time and with my own funds as I think it is important and waiting for funding agencies to see its value would unnecessarily delay the work. If I’m able to get a core of 3-4 articles it would underscore the value of this study, making it more likely that myself and others interested in this culture will be supported to get the word out that psychedelics are often good for us, and that the good can outweigh the bad. In other words, I do not work under the rubric of harm minimization, but rather benefit maximization.
To this end I have created this short survey that I hope you will be happy to fill in and send back to me. Before you accept this, I would like to make a few things clear. I am committed to maintaining the privacy and safety of anyone who participates in my research. In order to keep material straight I will only use your pseudonym with any information that could be traced back to you; I will erase all e-mails, etc. from my computer and the server after transferring the responses to a database with your TGR handle. For the purposes of the article itself, even your pseudonym will be removed. Only basic demographics will be present, such as age, sex, general region, etc., and only if they are pertinent to the article. For example, “a 23 year old female in the Northeastern US…”
If you have any questions about participating, feel free to e-mail me and ask. I am asking you for a favor, I have no problem addressing any and all concerns for you.
If you have made it this far, thank you very much.
I would like to ask you to respond to this in an e-mail to C.L.Adams@kent.ac.uk or smokejaguar@hushmail.com . As I have mentioned before, I am fully committed to your confidentiality so those e-mails will be erased as soon as I transfer the material to a database.
Without further ado, here is the survey.
I have used the fairly neutral term ‘psychedelic’ throughout this survey. Feel free to make any clarification as to terms you prefer (eg. entheogen, entactogen, etc.). Please respond as thoroughly as you can; the more information the better. Feel free to take your time to answer these questions as I would prefer thoughtful over spur of the moment responses. Also, feel free to pass this on to any friends who may be interested in participating in this study.
•What is your Grow Report handle? If you are not on the Grow Report forums (and you should be 
) please use a name that I can use to identify you, that does not put your confidentiality at risk.
How old are you? Male or female? Where, roughly, do you live (region or state is fine)?
•What psychedelic substances, and how many times each, have you personally used?
•When you mention psychedelic substances as medicine, what do you mean by medicine?
•Which psychedelics can be used as medicine? In what way are they medicine? How do they work? Please be as specific as you can including any specifics by substance.
•When you mention psychedelics as healing, what do you mean by healing?
•What can psychedelics heal? What can’t they heal? How do they heal? Please be as specific by substance as you can be.
•Have you used any of these substances specifically as medicine and if so what did you use for what condition? How has it worked? For how long did the results last?
•Have you been healed by psychedelics unexpectedly? If so what was healed by what substance? For how long did the results last?
•With regard to the previous two questions, if repeat dosing has proven useful or necessary, what has been the optimal schedule?
•Would you please give a trip report or two where psychedelics acted as medicine or healed you? Please be as detailed as you can.
Thank you very much for participating. You may never know how much I appreciate your help. When I get the article published, I will send you a pdf. However, the biggest prize will be getting your voice heard by academics and policy makers around the world. Let’s make them understand that this can be good stuff.
Thanks again,
Cameron Adams
School of Anthropology and Conservation
University of Kent