NSAG · Module M3 · Healthcare & Clinical

Psychedelic Harm Reduction

Standalone deployment retired

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is moving from research to clinical and community practice faster than governance frameworks are being built. The evidence is clear on what makes these services safe. Most institutions are not implementing them.

What this address is

This hostname served a standalone copy of NSAG module M3. That copy was retired on 15 August 2026, and the page you are reading replaced it. The deployment stays online so that links already published against it keep resolving, and so that anyone arriving here is sent to the material that is still maintained.

The module's current scope, its evidence base, and its release status are published on the NSAG hub at nsag-site.vercel.app/m3. Where this page and the hub disagree, the hub is correct.

What the module examines

FDA Breakthrough Therapy designations for psilocybin (2018, 2019), the NEJM psilocybin trial, and the JAMA Psychiatry RCT establish clinical legitimacy for psychedelic-assisted therapy. Johnson, Richards and Griffiths (2008) established the foundational governance principle: adverse events in clinical psychedelic contexts are shaped more by the quality of set, setting, and supervision than by the pharmacological properties of the compounds. The governance infrastructure of the session determines the safety profile of the intervention.

M3 sits in the Healthcare & Clinical group of the framework.

What the assessment measured

The module organised a structured self-assessment across six governance dimensions:

  1. 1Participant Screening Protocols
  2. 2Preparation & Informed Consent
  3. 3Physical & Interpersonal Setting Standards
  4. 4Facilitator Training & Scope of Practice
  5. 5Adverse Event Classification & Response
  6. 6Integration Support

Each dimension was described against tiers running from early stage up to the fully implemented tier the framework calls PIONEERING, with observable criteria written for each level, so that an institution could locate its own arrangements rather than receive a score. It was a self-assessment framework for institutional reflection, and never a validated instrument, an audit, an accreditation, or a compliance determination.

Who it was written for

Psychedelic therapy programs · Retreat centers · Harm reduction organizations · Indigenous ceremony facilitators (with M13 governance) · Festival medical teams · Mental health clinics expanding into psychedelic-assisted therapy

And anyone entering a session. Participants, clients, and their families — the set, setting, and supervision this governs are what separate a safe experience from a harmful one for you.

Why the standalone deployment was retired

The fifteen modules were first published as fifteen separate deployments. Scope, evidence, and release status then had to be maintained in fifteen places, and they drifted apart. The hub now holds one canonical page per module, and these fifteen addresses point at it.

Assessment collection is paused across all fifteen modules. The published operations matrix records the same position for every one of them: the canonical route is reachable, collection is paused, and advisory work is delivered by a person rather than by automated scoring. This page is a static record. It carries no forms and collects nothing.

Where to go instead

Read the M3 module scope See the M1–M15 operations matrix