The Moral Right to Try: Why Cancer Patients Deserve Access to Psychedelic Medicine
I don't have a bit of hair on my head because chemo took it all out.
This is the reality of living with cancer for almost twenty years. This is the reality of being institutionalized in the medical system, of weighing impossible choices between cure and poison, between hope and harm.
Chemo is difficult medicine. If you focus only on the risks—the nausea that leaves you unable to eat for weeks, the fatigue that makes climbing stairs feel like summiting Everest, the way it strips away not just cancer cells but everything that makes you feel human—chemo becomes hard to justify.
But when you balance those risks against the benefits... when you weigh that discomfort against the possibility of more birthdays and more sunsets and more time with the people you love... the benefit becomes worth the risk.
This is the lens we need for psychedelic medicine.
The Tradeoff We Already Make Every Day
During my recent podcast conversation with Matt Zemon, author and advocate in the psychedelic space, we explored this exact parallel. The research on psilocybin consistently shows it to be non-toxic and non-addictive, with minimal reported fatalities compared to many over-the-counter medications we use routinely.
Yet here I am, someone who has willingly undergone chemotherapy for decades, being told I cannot legally access a naturally occurring medicine that has been used safely for thousands of years. Here I am, someone who has navigated the side effects of radiation and surgery and countless pharmaceuticals, being told the government knows better than I do about what risks are worth taking with my own body and my own life.
This deserves reconsideration.
The Science of Calculated Risk
The research on psilocybin for end-of-life distress shows promising results. In clinical trials at institutions like NYU and Johns Hopkins, significant percentages of participants report immediate and sustained reductions in depression and anxiety feelings. These improvements often persist for years after a single treatment session.
Compare this to the SSRI antidepressants we routinely prescribe to cancer patients—medications that take weeks or months to determine efficacy, require careful monitoring if they don't work, and can carry side effects including weight changes, fatigue, and other complications, as Matt noted during our conversation.
Yet we often start with conventional antidepressants rather than exploring alternatives with potentially better safety profiles. Why? Because SSRI are familiar within our current medical framework.
Beyond Medical Gatekeeping
The comparison goes deeper than individual risk assessment. It goes to the heart of who gets to make decisions about our own bodies and our own healing.
I get to choose whether I take chemo. I get to choose whether I undergo radiation. I get to choose whether I go into surgery. These are conversations between me and my medical team, weighing risks and benefits specific to my situation and my values and my tolerance for different kinds of intervention.
But with psilocybin? There's another entity making that decision for me—preventing access even when both patient and physician agree it might be beneficial.
The US government’s Schedule I status for psychedelic medicines raises important questions about patient autonomy and the right to make informed medical decisions.
As Matt put it in our conversation: "No one is arguing that psilocybin should be mandated for people in end of life distress. But the relative risk and the ability to control that risk appears to be well-established in the research."
The Moral Mathematics
There are laws, yes. But there are also ethical principles that deserve consideration. When someone is suffering and there exists a medicine that could alleviate that suffering, and that medicine has research supporting its safety and efficacy, we should carefully examine barriers to access.
It seems problematic to force people into unregulated markets where quality and safety cannot be guaranteed. It raises ethical concerns when we criminalize the relationship between healers and patients who are seeking relief from documented distress.
I believe—deeply and without qualification—that I have a right to try. Not just experimental cancer therapies, but any intervention that might offer healing or comfort in the face of this disease.
Cancer patients understand risk in ways that healthy people cannot fully grasp. We are capable of making informed decisions about our own bodies and our own lives.
The Path Forward
This isn't about abandoning medical oversight or safety protocols. Resources like Dr. Ben Malcolm's Spirit Pharmacist practice show us how to approach psychedelic medicine with careful risk assessment, similar to what we do with any medical intervention. We can have both safety and expanded access.
What we need is a system that supports rigorous research while respecting patient autonomy. A system that acknowledges the potential benefits of these medicines while maintaining appropriate safeguards. A system that treats adults as capable of making informed medical decisions. A system that provides scientific guidance without dictating our treatment.
The risk-benefit analysis for some cancer patients dealing with depression, anxiety and distress may favor access to psychedelic medicine. The question is whether our legal and medical systems will evolve to support that access in safe, regulated ways.
Because somewhere tonight, there's a cancer patient wondering if there might be something—anything—that could help them feel less afraid of what's coming. Someone hoping for a way to transform their relationship with their diagnosis and their deepest fears.
That person deserves options. That person deserves hope. That person deserves the right to try, working with qualified professionals who can help them navigate the risks and benefits.
We all do.
Let's journey together.
For more resources on psychedelic medicine and cancer support, reach out to our community at community@healingcancerjourneys.org
