Educational Media Reviews Online

Dosed is a Canadian documentary about a heroin addict named Adrianne. The film follows her through her long-term addictive behaviors, her family background and her attempts to break away from her addiction through methadone and long acting morphine. The medical industry and pharmacies are seen as complicit in getting opioid addicts to move to more acceptable versions of street drugs. Adrianne was a heroin user, Fentanyl user, cocaine user and came from a middle-class home in Vancouver, BC.

The attempts that Adrianne makes to get off drugs are initially unsuccessful. She engages in lying to herself, the film crew, her parents about her continued drug use before considering the use of microdosing Psilocybin and in a last-ditch effort, another psychedelic called Iboga, sourced in Africa. The dramatic journey to Adrianne's getting off drugs takes several stages. Ultimately, by the end of the film she will have been sober for a year. However, getting to that point involves stints in rehab across her adult life.

The star of this documentary is psychedelics. Their capacity to increase brain connections and the therapeutic administration of them to addicts has been shown to be effective. However, they remain illegal so finding underground therapists is a significant part of the journey to sobriety, as it helps with curbing relapses. The three aspects of taking psychedelics is Set, Setting, and Dose. Adrianne goes to a MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) conference and is able to find therapists to work with her using Ibogain/Iboga. The latter third of the film is taken up with her iboga treatment and her second try at using Iboga, therapeutically. Ultimately, she takes what is called a "heroic dose” or macrodose of Psilocybin mushrooms therapeutically and has a breakthrough, beginning her successful attempt to become sober. Ultimately, she maintains her sobriety and works as a volunteer wildlife rescue and helping people recover from addiction.

The efficacy of Psilocybin and Ibgoa to treat addiction has been demonstrated. Psilocybin itself is not addictive, rather it is anti-addictive. At the end of the film there is a research bibliography regarding the therapeutic interventions for Psilocybin, MDMA, Iboga. There are also clinical trials found on the MAPS website.

Awards:
Atlanta DocuFest 2019 (Audience Award); Knoxville Film Festival (Nominee Best Documentary Feature Film); Melbourne Documentary Film Festival (Audience Award; Nominee for the Jury Award); Santa Cruz Film Festival (Winner Audience Award); Syracuse International Film Festival (Winner Judges Citation)

Published and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Anyone can use these reviews, so long as they comply with the terms of the license.