Jaden Smith is praising the power of psychedelics ― and says he has his mom, Jada Pinkett Smith, to thank.
The 24-year-old Icon rapper spoke at the Psychedelic Science conference in Denver last week, where he described reaping a therapeutic benefit from drugs including psilocybin and MDMA, aka magic mushrooms and ecstasy.
“I think it was my mom, actually, that was really the first one to make that step for the family,” Jaden Smith said, according to USA Today. “It was just her for a really, really long time and then eventually it just trickled and evolved, and everybody found it in their own ways.”
While the American Psychiatric Association has yet to endorse psychedelic treatment, the Food and Drug Administration has designated both psilocybin and MDMA as “breakthrough therapies” — a label meant to speed their review for treating conditions like PTSD and depression.
The Smith family has certainly had its own share of stressful ups and downs, including matriarch Jada Pinkett Smith admitting to an “entanglement” outside her marriage to Will Smith — and his infamous Oscars slap bringing even more drama into the household.
Jaden Smith, who said he fought with his family often, claimed psychedelics have helped.
“Me and my siblings have done so much of that in the past,” he said in Denver. “But the level of love and empathy that I can feel for them inside of the experiences and outside of the experiences has been something that’s profound and beautiful.”
Jaden Smith previously said on his mother’s show Red Table Talk that feeling his ego dissolve “was the moment that really changed” him, according to ET. He said he found psychedelics to be “a way to tear down that wall” of “trauma or your emotions or ego” to “see what is beyond it.”
While the rapper’s personal account was rather philosophical — and followed years of cryptic tweets — his mum has been more practical in her public statements about psychedelics.
“Plant medicine completely rehabilitated me from debilitating depression and has changed my life for the better,” Jada Pinkett Smith said in 2021, per Newsweek. “I came home, I am home. I am really hoping we find a way that African Americans can have access to these plant medicines safely.”
“You have to really want to do it, this is not for play,” she continued. “You have to be willing to confront some hard stuff. It is very healing and it has changed my life.”
The legality of psychedelics in the US is in flux, and may even have a backer in the highest office in the land. Frank Biden, Joe Biden’s youngest sibling, claimed on Wednesday that the president “is very open-minded” about psychedelic treatment.
Oregon became the first US state to legalise psilocybin in 2020, while Colorado voted in 2022 to decriminalise it. Even Republican-led states like Utah and Missouri are considering studies of the drug, largely due to its documented help for veterans with PTSD.