Tadeusz Hawrot, Founder and Executive Director of the Psychedelic Access and Research European Alliance (PAREA), speaks to Psychedelic Health about how the organisation plans to campaign throughout 2023 for increased access to psychedelic therapies in Europe.
Launching in 2022, PAREA spent last year meeting and speaking with organisations in Europe to raise awareness of psychedelic therapies.
With limited knowledge among policymakers about psychedelic therapies, the organisation will be continuing to focus on the education of policymakers in Brussels and the Member States.
“I see one of the main roles of PAREA as continuous education in the field as awareness needs to be raised because there are many misconceptions and stigma around psychedelics from misinformation or from not being informed about the scientific progress in the field in the last few years,” said Hawrot.
“I think there is still a surprising amount of EU officials that have no idea about the recent progress, and I think that after last year, we left no stone unturned because we’ve been coming at decision-makers from so many different directions.
“It’s becoming now an established knowledge that that there is tremendous progress and these treatments are coming, and hopefully when politicians are aware of that this they will start asking themselves questions, what’s next? What we should be doing?
“We want to be proactive – it’s important that we don’t want wait until the last moment – we have this tremendous opportunity now.”
Cross-state co-operation
This year PAREA aims to make the case for co-operation at the EU level over the integration of psychedelics-assisted therapies. One route this may take could be the EU for Health programme, suggested Hawrot.
“We think it would be a waste of time and resources if every country started preparing for these therapies in isolation,” said Hawrot.
“There is a good case to be made for added value when it comes to co-operation at the level of health. Our big objective for 2023 is to drum up support for this central co-ordination, along with having a dedicated budget allocated from some of the EU funds that could make this possible.
“In this respect, the EU for Health programme is becoming an important funding instrument. Additionally, last year, the Commission launched the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) Initiative for Healthcare.
“NCDs are responsible for maybe 85% of the disease burden in Europe, bringing together premature mortality and morbidity. They prioritise mental health and neurology, meaning there is scope for psychedelics, but also instruments like joint actions, where there can be voluntary co-operation of Member States that come together to address a certain topic.
“We think the EU should step up its game and finally start providing financial opportunities to towards psychedelic science”
Hawrot says this would be a multifaceted approach through the allocation of funding, clinical trials, therapy modalities, developing protocols and looking at topics for research.
PAREA will be submitting ideas for a consultation that is ongoing until February on future EU funding opportunities, and will be mapping psychedelic research priorities it feels should be addressed in Europe.
The organisation will also be working to engage further with the European Parliament through the creation of an interest group of supportive MEPs, as well as engaging with different scientific events across the continent.
Hawrot concluded: “We achieved a great deal last year, so this year the ambition is to achieve as much as possible again.”
PAREA is currently open to hearing from interested parties regarding partnering or donating to support its activities in Europe. To find out more information please visit www.parea.eu.
