Dr Bronner’s Donate $US150K To OR 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative

Here’s the release in full.

 

Dr. Bronner’s Announces Donation of $150,000 in
Matching Funds to the 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative
of Oregon Signature Drive
Top-Selling Brand Also Shutters Websites Globally in Solidarity with
Global Climate Strike
PORTLAND, OR– David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, family-owned maker of the top-selling natural brand of soap in North America, is in Portland today to join Tom and Sheri Eckert, local therapists and chief-petitioners of Oregon’s statewide ballot initiative to legalize psilocybin assisted therapy, as they welcome famed mycologist Paul Stamets and special guests for an event at the Newmark Theatre at 7:30 PM. At this sold-out event, The Oregon Psilocybin Service Initiative will announce the beginning of the signature drive for the campaign and David Bronner will announce his company’s matching contribution of $150,000 to the initiative.  Psilocybin therapy has the potential to offer relief for the increasing number of Oregonians struggling with depression, anxiety, and addiction who have found no relief from pharmaceuticals. For more information, go to: http://psi-2020.org.

“The intent of the 2020 Psilocybin Service Initiative of Oregon is to pass the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act and advance a breakthrough therapeutic model currently being perfected in research settings at top universities around the world. The service model involves a sequence of facilitated sessions, including assessment and preparation, psilocybin administration, and post-therapy integration. We envision a community-based framework, where licensed providers, along with licensed producers of psilocybin mushrooms, blaze trails in Oregon in accordance with evolving practice standards,” explains Sheri Eckert, co-founder of the Oregon Psilocybin Society.

Highlights of the Oregon Psilocybin Services Act include:

  • Safety, practice, and ethical standards for trained and competent facilitators
  • Services open to anyone who is not medically contraindicated
  • An affordable framework outside the medical / pharmaceutical system
  • Establishment of an advisory board to work with state and federal officials 
  • An extended development period so the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) can successfully roll out the program
  • Prohibition of cannabis-style branding and marketing of psilocybin products

“The Bronner family is no stranger to severe depression and anxiety. We share the frustration of most Americans that current treatments don’t work and that pharmaceutical drugs are a mere band-aid, often with terrible side effects. We yearn for better solutions, and we firmly believe that the integration of psilocybin therapy, to which the FDA recently granted a special “breakthrough designation,” is crucial to healing epidemic rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction,” says David Bronner, Cosmic Engagement Officer (CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s. “This therapy enables people to process difficult and traumatic emotions and experiences, break destructive patterns of thought and behavior, and love, integrate and forgive themselves and each other. People connect to the deeper spiritual ground of their being and to the miraculous living natural world we are one with.  This therapy can also help people wake up to and grapple with the massive social and environmental problems we are facing,” continues Bronner.

Synchronistically, today September 20, 2019, is also the beginning of the Global Climate Strike, which has been organized to increase pressure on governments around the world to enact policy to stop burning fossil fuels.  In addition to fossil fuels, other major contributors to climate change include industrial agriculture and the consumption of factory farmed meat. Dr. Bronner’s, in solidarity with strikers and the #digitalclimatestrike, is shuttering its websites globally (on September 20) and will support employees who join local protests. The company’s volunteer Green Team will also host a “Buy-Nothing” pop-up free store at Dr. Bronner’s headquarters to encourage the reuse and upcycling of clothing and other goods among staff from September 23-27.

Dr. Bronner’s primary climate action initiatives include partnering with Patagonia, Rodale, Compassion in World Farming, and the Fair World Project to found the Regenerative Organic Alliance, and sources major raw materials from regenerative organic projects that sequester carbon in soil through regenerative agricultural practices.  Dr. Bronner’s also funds organizations dedicated to promoting plant-based diets (over $2 million in donations since 2013) and advocates for omnivores to eat less and better meat from pastured animals raised according to high-welfare standards, that is not such a climate and ethical catastrophe as meat from Confined Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). Dr. Bronner’s manufacturing facility in Vista, CA is 100% powered from renewable sources.

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