5 Ways Michael Pollan Destigmatized Psychedelics
Last reviewed and updated: June 19, 2026.
Key Takeaways
| “How to Change Your Mind” (2018) | #1 NYT bestseller; combined personal experience with scientific reporting; widely credited with catalyzing mainstream public awareness of psychedelic research |
| Netflix series (2022) | Four-part documentary (LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, mescaline); reached substantially larger audience than the book; launched as Oregon’s psilocybin program was beginning |
| “This Is Your Mind on Plants” (2021) | Follow-up examining opium, caffeine, and mescaline; extended conversation into Indigenous rights and psychedelic ethics |
| Measurable impact | Correlated with surge in philanthropic investment, mainstream media coverage, and psychedelic therapy patient demand — impact primarily on the demand/awareness side |
The author and journalist Michael Pollan has become renowned for writing on the subject of food and agriculture, in books like The Botany of Desire (2001), The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006), In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008), Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2009), and Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (2013).
So when he published a book on psychedelics, this was considered a huge deviation in his interests, although he was in a sense still writing about what we consume: the plants and mushrooms that alter our consciousness.
This book, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence (2018), became a No. 1 New York Times best-seller. Pollan’s book has also been credited with helping to mainstream and destigmatize psychedelics as therapy. But while he highlights the benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy, he is certainly not an evangelist. Instead, he is honest about the downsides, too.
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How Michael Pollan Has Helped To Destigmatize Psychedelics
Pollan has helped to play a crucial role in challenging the negative perceptions of psychedelics.
1. Pollan Was Already Trusted As A Legitimate Source Of Information
First, it’s worth noting that Pollan was already a well-established journalist and author before using and writing about psychedelics. Well, he did experiment with psychedelics in his 20s. But it wasn’t until his early 60s that he decided to seriously explore the psychedelic experience.
Furthermore, it’s not as if he jumped into the experience throwing caution to the wind. As he said, “I was a very reluctant psychonaut.”
Pollan’s role as a legitimate, trusted, popular, and much-loved writer allowed many people to take him seriously when he turned to the subject of psychedelics. He took the same approach he did as when writing his other books: in-depth research combined with first-hand experience.
How to Change Your Mind includes up-to-date scientific research on the therapeutic use of psychedelics and honest accounts of his experiences, some of which were deeply meaningful and transformative.
Therefore, the book might have encouraged some readers to challenge their suspicion of people who use psychedelics and instead see them as a promising option for people who are suffering, or who lack a spiritual dimension in their life.
2. In-Depth Research On Psychedelics
Following on the last point, Pollan’s work has made many people realize that psychedelics can be highly effective in the treatment of a range of conditions. He describes the growing pool of research suggesting that psychedelics may be a useful tool in the treatment of cancer-related anxiety, depression, alcoholism, and smoking addiction.
Millions of people worldwide struggle with these conditions. The problem with current treatments is that they often don’t work for people. People with terminal illnesses don’t find the relief from anxiety they’re looking for.
A lot of depression is treatment-resistant, meaning that traditional approaches have not helped. Struggling alcoholics may get sober, only to relapse later on. And a smoking habit can be especially hard to kick.
However, Pollan highlights research showing impressive improvements in symptoms and recovery rates following psychedelic therapy, as well as sustained changes.
Moreover, these results come from reputable, placebo-controlled trials, with participants not suffering any adverse long-term effects from the treatment. This helps people to see that psychedelic therapy is not a highly risky option with limited benefits.
Apart from his book, Pollan has published information on his website about the risks of psychedelics. His aspects include the following.
- General safety
- Emergency room visits
- Toxicity and overdose
- Physical harms caused by changes in perception/judgment
- Serious mental health issues
- Bad trips
- So-called “flashbacks” (now known as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, or HPPD).
Based on the overall picture of the data, the risk of suffering any serious or long-term negative effects from psychedelics is low. This is especially true in comparison with other drugs.
The most common adverse reaction to psychedelics is a bad trip. But studies have still shown that a large percentage of people find these experiences meaningful and spiritually significant.
RELATED: The Stigma Of Psychedelics – Why ‘Illegal’ Doesn’t Always Mean ‘Dangerous’
3. Sharing Positive Experiences
Michael Pollan appeared on a number of popular podcasts, such as The Tim Ferriss Show, The Kevin Rose Show, and The Joe Rogan Experience, as well as mainstream shows like ITV News and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
During these interviews, he didn’t just talk about psychedelic research. He also shared his personal experiences with compounds like psilocybin, LSD, and 5-MeO-DMT. For his trips, he had underground psychedelic guides or therapists present with him.
When appearing on The Late Show, Pollan said the following about a powerful trip he had with psilocybin mushrooms:
“I had this experience of ego dissolution. My sense of self fell apart. It was like a bunch of post-its being blown in the wind. And then I saw myself out on the landscape like paint. But I was still seeing it. I was experiencing it from a new vantage that wasn’t my usual self… We assume we’re identical to our ego, this chattering voice in our heads… it defends us against fresh experience, against emotion, against other people… That dissolved in such a way that I felt like, oh, I’m not identical to my ego. There’s another ground on which to stand.
… It’s really the idea that these defenses you’ve built up over your whole life, you don’t need them… you can lower them and not face complete annihilation.”
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4. Michael Pollan’s Experience With Ego Dissolution
This experience of ego dissolution was positive for Pollan, as it ultimately tends to be for patients undergoing psychedelic therapy. Some people might think it’s scary to lose their sense of self — and it certainly can be. But many researchers believe this kind of experience is partly what is driving the benefits of treatment.
Michael Pollan has described listening to Bach’s Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor during a psilocybin experience. He has done so before many times, mostly at funerals.
But in his altered state, he remarks that this piece of music “had the unmistakable effect of reconciling me to death — to the deaths of the people now present to me, Bob’s and Ruthellen’s and Roy’s, Judith’s father’s, and so many others, but also to the deaths to come and to my own, no longer so far off.”
This echoes research showing that psychedelics — and the music you listen to while on them — can have profound effects. This is why set and setting is so important.
5. Michael Pollan Is Honest About The Downsides Of Psychedelics
The issue of psychedelic stigma does need to be addressed, but there’s a danger in going to the other extreme. This includes only looking at the positives of psychedelic therapy, and none of the potential downsides or risks.
Challenging Experiences
Not all of Michael Pollan’s psychedelic journeys were wholly positive.
After smoking 5-MeO-DMT, which comes from the dry venom of the Sonoran Desert toad, Pollan reports feeling terror, as if a violent storm blasts him away. He watched reality collapse around him, leaving him in an unfamiliar and horrible nothingness. Eventually, reality and his sense of self returned. When the experience was over, he felt immense relief.
It’s important that Pollan is willing to speak about the negative and overwhelming side of psychedelics as well. People should avoid thinking that psychedelic therapy is going to be easy, calm, and full of joy and euphoria throughout.
When using potent psychedelics like 5-MeO-DMT and DMT (which may have therapeutic applications), as well as psilocybin and ayahuasca, people should know that the experiences may be challenging, at least during part of them.
Mental Health Issues That Don’t Mix Well With Psychedelics
It’s important to avoid thinking that psychedelic therapy is a mental health panacea, as these substances may worsen some mental health issues.
As Pollan has stated, “If you are at risk of schizophrenia or it’s in your family or [you] have some kind of personality disorder, they will not let you in a drug trial. They screen pretty carefully.”
In rare instances, a psychedelic trip can set off a psychotic break.
What Happened After “How to Change Your Mind” — Pollan’s Ongoing Influence
When Michael Pollan published How to Change Your Mind in 2018, its cultural impact was significant but still largely limited to book-readers, public radio listeners, and the circles that pay attention to literary nonfiction. Since then, the reach of his ideas has expanded substantially — and the psychedelic field he helped catalyze has moved faster than perhaps even he anticipated.
The Netflix documentary series (2022). Pollan’s book became a four-part Netflix documentary series in 2022, bringing his accessible introduction to psychedelics to a substantially larger audience than the book alone. Each episode focused on a different substance — LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and mescaline — using a similar format to the book: personal experience combined with scientific reporting and historical context. The Netflix series is widely credited with accelerating mainstream familiarity with the basic safety and research findings in the field at a critical moment when Oregon’s Measure 109 was already law and Colorado’s Prop 122 was on the ballot. The visual medium also allowed for more evocative presentation of the phenomenological experience in ways a book cannot replicate.
“This Is Your Mind on Plants” (2021). Pollan followed up How to Change Your Mind with This Is Your Mind on Plants in 2021, examining three plant-derived psychoactive substances: opium, caffeine, and mescaline. The mescaline section in particular — which traces the history of peyote among Native American religious practitioners and the Native American Church, alongside the drug’s legal status and cultural meaning — extended his work into Indigenous rights and psychedelic ethics, areas the field has increasingly engaged with as it grows. This book received less mainstream attention than its predecessor but expanded the conversation in important directions.
The field has exceeded even Pollan’s 2018 projections. When How to Change Your Mind was published, FDA approval for psilocybin or MDMA within 5 years seemed plausible. That timeline has proven optimistic — the FDA rejected MDMA-AT in 2024 citing methodological concerns, and psilocybin has not yet entered Phase 3 trials with an FDA submission in sight. But in other dimensions, the field has moved faster than Pollan’s 2018 reporting implied: Oregon began operating licensed psilocybin service centers in 2023; Colorado legalized personal possession and is building a healing center framework; dozens of U.S. cities have decriminalized personal possession; Johns Hopkins, NYU, and UCSF have established significant clinical research programs. The cultural destigmatization Pollan helped accelerate has been real and consequential, even if the regulatory path has been slower than anticipated.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Michael Pollan’s book “How to Change Your Mind” about?
How to Change Your Mind (2018) is a work of narrative nonfiction combining Pollan’s personal experiences with psychedelics (psilocybin, LSD, ayahuasca, and 5-MeO-DMT) with reporting on the history of psychedelic research, the science of how these compounds work in the brain, and the cultural factors that led to their suppression in the late 1960s and subsequent research renaissance. It became a #1 New York Times bestseller and is widely credited with making the basic case for psychedelic research accessible to a mainstream general audience — including policymakers, investors, and journalists who had not previously engaged with the topic. The book did not advocate for recreational use; it focused on the therapeutic and existential applications of these compounds.
Did Netflix make a documentary based on “How to Change Your Mind”?
Yes. Netflix released a four-part documentary series based on Pollan’s book in 2022. Each episode covers a different substance: LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and mescaline. The series uses a similar approach to the book — personal experience combined with scientific context, historical reporting, and interviews with researchers and participants. It is among the most widely viewed introductions to psychedelic research available to general audiences. For many viewers, the Netflix series was their first substantive encounter with the clinical evidence base for psychedelic therapy, coming at a moment when Oregon’s licensed psilocybin program was beginning to operate and Colorado was voting on Prop 122.
How accurate is Pollan’s reporting on psychedelic science?
Generally well-regarded by researchers as responsible and accurate popular science journalism. Pollan spoke with many of the field’s leading researchers — including Roland Griffiths, Robin Carhart-Harris, Rick Doblin, and others — and his representation of the science is generally considered fair and appropriately hedged. The main criticism researchers sometimes raise is the inevitable oversimplification that comes with translating complex pharmacological and clinical research for a general audience, and the fact that his personal experience narrative may have led some readers to focus on recreational or self-guided use more than the researchers intended. His 2018 book does not cover some developments that have since emerged (including the FDA review challenges for MDMA-AT), but this is a function of publication date rather than accuracy.
Has Pollan’s work had measurable impact on the psychedelic field?
Yes, by multiple measures. Researchers, funders, and policy advocates regularly cite How to Change Your Mind as a turning point in public awareness. The book’s publication coincided with a significant increase in philanthropic investment in psychedelic research and a wave of mainstream media coverage that was previously absent. The Usona Institute, Beckley Foundation, and multiple university research programs expanded substantially in the years following publication. In surveys of psychedelic therapy patients and retreat participants, Pollan’s book is among the most commonly cited reasons for first seriously considering psychedelic therapy. His impact has been on the demand side — creating an informed, motivated public interested in accessing these therapies — rather than directly on the clinical research itself.
Kanani Wolf
March 11, 2022 at 5:16 amI enjoy all your articles.
Sam Woolfe
March 16, 2022 at 6:05 pmThanks, Kanani. Appreciate it!
Nichole Youngstrom
July 2, 2022 at 2:55 amSam!! Your articles are so awesome!! I truly believe that psychedelic treatment and experiences can change our world for the better. YOU ARE MAKING THE WORLD A BETTER PLACE 🍄✨🙏