Louis Belleau’s lifelong dedication to studying psychedelics is not fueled purely by his enjoyable experimentation with drugs — it’s also driven by the “wake-up call” he had following a dangerous experience which almost ended his life.
“I started exploring psychedelics when I was about 17 years old,” he said, recalling the initial years of his journey. “I was just very curious.”
For the next few years, Belleau said his psychedelic experiences were pleasant, but he eventually became attached to those sensations.
“I ended up taking too much and having a very dangerous psychotic experience that almost ended my life,” he said. “That was a wake-up call for me.”
Belleau is now the founder of Psygaia, a non-profit organization aiming to educate people on the safe consumption of psychedelics.
The lack of education around how to safely experiment with psychedelics — especially as a young person — is also the motivation driving Belleau’s pursuit of his master’s in psychedelics.
Belleau is part of the first cohort of the University of Ottawa’s psychedelics and consciousness studies master’s program. It launched in September 2024, enroling 11 part-time and four full-time students.
The inaugural one-year program is halfway finished, with the first cohort of students set to graduate this spring.
Along with its practical learning component, which allows students to travel to various psychedelic retreats, the program offers mental health, harm reduction, spirituality and psychology courses that complement an interdisciplinary understanding of psychedelics.
Professors and students alike are rethinking the historical narratives around psychedelics, challenging Eurocentric perspectives and working to decolonize psychedelic discourse by recognizing historical and current Indigenous knowledge.
Created in collaboration between the university’s faculty of social sciences and faculty of arts, the psychedelics and consciousness studies master’s program was launched to advance research in the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. It’s said to be the first of its kind in Canada.
Monnica Williams, co-director of the program, said its launch has been “fantastic” so far.
“The students are wonderful, they’re amazing and it’s really just been delightful teaching them,” she said.
The creation of a new program doesn’t come without its challenges. Since its conception in 2020, Williams said the financial aspect has been an ongoing difficulty as it strives to continue operating sustainably.
“It’s a new program, so it was bumpy to get started because we didn’t really have the funding to launch the program until the first students enroled and paid their tuition,” she said.
To fund the program, Williams said “there’s been some philanthropic donations for [student] scholarships,” but more funds are needed as the program enters its next few years.
“It’s a professionally priced program, which means it’s not affordable for a lot of people,” she said. “We’re looking to get more scholarship money so that we can make [it] more accessible for everyone.”
Adam Guarisco, lead co-ordinator for the master’s program, said in an email to the Charlatan that the tuition for a full-time student is $30,000, while part-time students pay $3,250 per course. There is no variation in cost for international students.
‘Clash in knowledge systems’
Despite educational efforts to shed light on psychedelics, Canadian law has not yet caught up. Psychedelics remain illegal in Canada unless authorized by Health Canada — whether through insurance, license, exemption or under regulations.
Ariel Fuenzalida, a professor in the master’s of psychedelics and consciousness studies program, said the university isn’t intending to push a legalization agenda.
“Our agenda is simply to educate people around psychedelics and turn [it] into a legitimate academic field whether those substances remain illegal or not,” he said.
However, Fuenzalida said the appropriation of psychedelic substances by Western societies is “on some level, making nature illegal.” He said that’s an ideological battle the program is aiming to fight.
Psychedelic substances are “naturally occurring substances that naturally grow in forests and have historically been used by various Indigenous communities,” Fuenzalida said. “There has been a really long history of using various types of plants and fungi for religious purposes, primarily in the Amazon region, where mushrooms grow abundantly.”
There has been a movement toward a cultural appropriation of psychedelics, Fuenzalida said, with the Western perspective taking an ideological precedent.
“Western doctors and scientists become figures of authority that then proclaim whether these drugs work or not, while at the same time, these particular plants have been ritualized by religious experts and healers,” he said.
Fuenzalida described this tension as a “clash in knowledge systems.”
“There is a colonial aspect to the suppression of naturally occurring psychedelic substances,” he said. “Now we see a different type of colonization, which is a colonization around knowledge claims — as in, who has the authority to say what these types of plants can actually do?”
Belleau shared the same sentiments, adding psychedelics “don’t exist in a vacuum” without cultural context.
“They exist as part of the planetary system and they help us realize that we are part of that planetary system. We are part of the web of life,” he said. “We can use them in ways that help us live in harmony with that web of life.”
Belleau said a culturally sensitive approach is paramount to recognizing and acknowledging the historical and cultural context in which psychedelics exist today.
Williams, whose research focuses on the accessibility of psychedelics for marginalized communities, said the use of psychedelics within traditional and Indigenous communities as medicines was widely considered “evil” during the colonial period.
“But of course, Western clinicians started to learn about the benefits of psychedelics and they appropriated them largely from Indigenous communities and then repackaged them for Western news,” Williams said.
The lack of historical knowledge in Western practice on how to safely use psychedelics has led to problems like dangerous overuse, she added.
“We’ve had a difficult relationship with psychedelics in [Western] culture because I think in a lot of ways they aren’t properly respected for their healing powers,” she said. “Indigenous communities consider them sacred, and we consider them party drugs. That’s a big problem.”
Indigenous scholar Georgina Martin said there is a reluctance to share communal knowledge “due to the uncooperative history we have with Canada.” Martin originates from the Secwépemc Nation and is a member of Lake Babine Nation, located in British Columbia, and the co-lead of the Naut sa mawt Centre for Psychedelic Research.
In an email to the Charlatan, Martin said Indigenous scholars are currently fielding many questions around the types of psychedelic practices present in Indigenous communities.
“Part of the challenge is the vast diversity that exists across Canada and all nations handle things differently,” she said.
Despite most plant medicines originating in Indigenous, Latin American and African cultures, positions of power within psychedelic organizations, events and research are predominantly filled by white people, according to a 2020 release by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies Canada.
“This does not accurately reflect the racial diversity that exists within North America and the rich cultural history of plant medicine use,” the release reads.
Practical learning
Williams said the master’s of psychedelics and consciousness program not only hopes to teach students about the historical context of psychedelics in Indigenous communities, but also that these communities are still using them in healing practices today.
“We owe a debt of gratitude to these communities for sharing them with us and we want to try not to make some of the same mistakes,” she said. “That being said, we have to also adapt these medicines for Western culture if they’re gonna be useful for those of us who are in Western culture.”
Fuenzalida said the transformation of sacred plants into pharmaceutical medicines, without acknowledging their origin, is part of the colonial process.
“There is no reciprocity,” he said. “We steal [Indigenous] knowledge and then there’s all of these pharmaceutical companies that are buying to make incredible sums of money.”
This tension is where the psychedelics and consciousness studies program comes into play, according to Fuenzalida. He said the practical learning component gives students the opportunity to travel to various retreats around the world — including Ecuador, Jamaica and Montreal — where psychedelics are legal.
This practical component is required to graduate from the program. Williams said the hope is for students to experience psychedelics for themselves during those retreats. However, students aren’t required to have a psychedelic experience during those retreats if they wish not to.
“If you haven’t had a psychedelic experience before, it’s really hard to understand or explain what happens, so personal experience is really important,” she said. “Obviously we’re not going to require everybody to have that [experience].”
One of the retreats is in Jamaica, where Williams said students can participate in a psilocybin mushroom ceremony. Students also have the option to participate in an ayahuasca ceremony in Ecuador, or for those who don’t want to travel far, attend an ayahuasca church in Montreal.
This winter, Belleau is travelling to Ecuador. Although psychedelic experiences won’t be new for him, Belleau said he’s excited to go on the retreat as part of an institution.
“It’s so important to have this kind of program. Hats off to the University of Ottawa for being progressive and taking the necessary steps to make this happen,” he said.
Ashley Parsons, who is also pursuing her master’s degree in the psychedelics and consciousness studies program, said she is looking forward to attending a retreat as she moves into her last semester of the program.
“This is actually, as far as we know, a groundbreaking program because it’s not a normal thing for students to go to another country and work with psychedelics.”
‘A nod of approval from the establishment’
Parsons said psychedelics in the medical context could be a useful pathway in helping people tackle treatment-resistant mental health issues like depression and PTSD.
With her background as a psychotherapist and yoga instructor, Parsons said she’s realized there are different levels of trauma that can’t always be accessed through talk therapy.
“In my work in psychotherapy and having worked with veterans and people with really serious addictions, I saw just how highly defended they were because of everything they had been through,” she said.
“Psychedelics reframe what happened to you and give a person meaning, which actually helps them to get through those layers of defence that you can’t access through your regular everyday state of consciousness.”
Parsons said psychedelics can be a very powerful tool for healing — a topic she is studying in her master’s research paper.
“There are studies that link psychedelics with nature connectedness, and in that way psychedelics could actually play a very important role in people’s consciousness when it comes to climate or being able to have a deeper relationship with nature,” Parsons said.
Moving forward, Williams said the program seeks to hire more professors and build a French stream, as the program is currently only taught in English. Another priority, she said, is to move ahead with a certificate for clinicians who wish to be certified in psychedelic therapy.
Belleau said he would like to dive deeper into specific Indigenous cultures and their perspectives on psychedelics.
“I think that’s an important frontier that is only starting to be explored,” he said.
In the broader legal context, Belleau said it’s affirming that a government-funded institution developed a program in psychedelics.
“For a long time, psychedelics have been symbols of anti-establishment and of revolution and I think they still are in a sense,” he said. “But it’s like a nod of approval from the establishment and it’s a beautiful thing to see.”
Featured graphic by Alisha Velji/the Charlatan.
