PSA's Psychedelic State(s) of The Union: December 30th, 2025

There's a peculiar moment happening in wellness right now. On one hand, we have NASA-grade biofeedback devices and FDA-approved digital therapeutics. On the other, we have people lying on vibrating beds claiming to access "non-ordinary states of consciousness." And, both might be onto something.

Let's start with the science that's actually holding up. Your nervous system has been doing an intricate dance your entire life between arousal and calm, between focused attention and diffuse awareness. Recent neuroscience has given us better language for this.

Relaxed brain states are what you'd expect: alpha waves dominant, parasympathetic nervous system engaged, the kind of calm alertness you get after a good meditation session or while watching waves. Your default mode network is humming along, but not frantically. You're present, but not rigidly focused. This is restorative. This is where learning consolidates and your nervous system catches its breath.

Entropic brain states are messier and more interesting. The term comes from Robin Carhart-Harris' research on psychedelics, describing brain states with higher entropy: more disorder, less predictable neural firing patterns, decreased activity in the default mode network that usually keeps your sense of self intact. It's your brain with the guard rails temporarily removed.

The key insight: relaxed states help you recover from stress. Entropic states help you escape rigid patterns entirely.

CONCLUSION

An Instructive but Incomplete View

The previous sections comprehensively, albeit not exhaustively, detail the major contributors to Yes on 4’s defeat that Jamie Morey and I have knowledge of—through direct observation, credible second-hand reports, and documentation. As repeatedly alluded to, there was much we were not informed of, and we have numerous outstanding questions about why and how the campaign was organized. These questions include, but are not limited to:

Considering what is still unknown to Morey and me, this postmortem provides only a partial view of what went wrong with Yes on 4, and I welcome those with clarifying information to come forward. Any factual errors that may have inadvertently been included in this analysis will be promptly rectified if and when I discover them. To date, I have not received any requests for correction or complaints. 

What Morey and I have been able to establish is that the campaign was undermined by compounding shortcomings—such as advancing a low-polling policy against the recommendations of local experts from Dewey Square Group and the Massachusetts ACLU, and chasing a partnership with a divisive local activist despite forewarning—enabled by a leadership structure that allowed everyone and no one to take responsibility for failures. To this day, not one of the senior local consultants employed by the ballot committee has gone on record to defend the campaign’s performance and compliance with the law. In July 2025, Yes on 4’s ballot committee chair Danielle McCourt—an attorney and former finance director of then attorney general Maura Healey’s successful 2018 re-election campaign—had “no comment” for the Boston Globe in response to allegations of campaign finance violations, despite being paid over $160,000 to co-manage the campaign. 

Practically the day after the election, the “campaign director” vanished. Grassroots campaign director Emily Oneschuk went dark—abruptly taking down her LinkedIn profile and no longer acting as a spokesperson. As for Yes on 4 campaign director Jared Moffat, he started referring to himself publicly as anything but Yes on 4’s campaign director, and he was quoted by the Boston Globe in July 2025 as “former policy director for New Approach Advocacy Fund.”

An Unraveling Organization

Conveniently for those seeking distance from the loss, Jamie Morey and I voluntarily became the official faces of the ballot committee as co-executive directors in November 2024. In this role, we directed a push to file psychedelics legislation to keep the issue alive—ultimately achieving a record number of bills filed despite significant obstacles. We had been assured support from senior consultants for legislative outreach, but that assistance failed to materialize without notice until early January 2025, forcing a last-minute scramble. Moreover, media requests were not forwarded to us, costing opportunities like a Newsweek interview. The lack of collaboration and transparency in this transition mirrored the campaign’s broader patterns, irreparably eroding trust and highlighting the absence of an honest internal review.

Despite the opposition having less than 2% of Yes on 4’s nearly $7,000,000 official budget, a representative statewide poll after election day suggested more voters recalled hearing messaging opposed to Question 4 than for it. The same poll showed Question 4 lost every educational demographic and suggested that up to one in five voters were not aware of the proposal until they saw it on the ballot while voting.

Considering the campaign war chest and the absence of a public scandal, this was not a scale of loss plausibly explained as primarily due to external factors. But Danielle McCourt, Lynda Tocci, and Jared Moffat bristled at any suggestion of serious culpability, and one of the first concerns Moffat expressed to Morey and me after election day was the importance of avoiding “a circular firing squad.” New Approach’s executive director Graham Boyd did not communicate with us after November 5, 2024, and Moffat brushed off a request from Morey to share constructive feedback directly with Boyd. 

As I noted earlier, I personally had only positive interactions with Boyd and someone whose integrity I trust attributed Yes on 4’s shortcomings primarily to Boyd not being closely involved. It is possible Boyd was not provided accurate information about how the ballot committee was run—or how Morey and I comported ourselves—from his subordinates. Once Morey and I became alerted to possible major financial impropriety by the ballot committee, however, we did not feel comfortable going directly to Boyd in light of our heightened wariness of his lieutenant Moffat.

An Urgent Appeal

Jamie Morey did repeatedly try to warn Jesse Gould, on the other hand, prior to complaints being filed with the OCPF. Morey—the spouse of an Iraq War combat veteran with severe, treatment-resistant mental health conditions—had immense respect for Gould and his organization Heroic Hearts Project, dedicated to helping veterans heal through psychedelic therapy. And Gould had stood out to Morey and me, during our infrequent interactions on the campaign trail, as someone who shared our deep loyalty to the cause of making psychedelic healing broadly accessible, including to those beyond the veteran community. It was for this reason that Morey confided to Gould just three days after the election about her misgivings regarding the campaign’s conduct, writing:

Hey Jesse, I’d love to schedule some time to talk when you have the time. There are some important things I think you need to know about the MA campaign before Heroic Hearts decides to fund future New Approach efforts. I’m trying to be careful and not make too many enemies here but my allegiance is to Heroic Hearts, truth/justice and the good of the psychedelic movement as a whole. 

Morey spoke to Gould shortly after sending this email, and, in response to the information she shared, he hinted concern with the way Heroic Hearts Project money appeared to have been spent by Open Circle Alliance, and he agreed to be in touch while keeping Morey’s confidence. However, Morey was spooked when Moffat called her less than an hour after she got off the phone with Gould, so she did not follow up with additional information.  

Months later, when Morey became aware of heightened jeopardy for Heroic Hearts Project in particular, she emailed Gould on March 12 and March 28, 2025. After not hearing back earlier in the month, her second email carried more urgency: “Hi Jesse, do you have a few minutes to chat today? I wanted to give you the head’s up on some things brewing with Open Circle and New Approach in regards to Q4 campaign finance, transparency and donors before they become more widely known.”

Gould still did not respond, and, on April 23, 2025, Morey sent a longer message, giving voice to a fear of retaliation for coming forward while urging Gould again to hear her out:

I know I had said that I would forward you the campaign finance info, but admittedly got a little spooked after when Jared randomly called me less than an hour after we spoke. I’m trying to straddle a fine line between desperately wanting the truth to get out about the campaign mismanagement that led to the failure of this ballot question, which I think is important for ethical and political reasons, and not wanting to have New Approach and Dewey Square target me personally for raising concerns. Dewey Square group [sic] already came straight out and said they would discredit us if we said anything publicly that made them look bad, and Jared has implied as much. If you really want to know the ins and outs of what went wrong, how money was spent/misspent, I’m happy to share if you can be discrete about sources, but would really love to just put you in touch with the journalist who is working on this directly. The failure of the ballot question has been devastating for us in MA, and seems to have had national ramifications, in particular among donors. […] I don’t want to see state and national legalization efforts impeded and the money from generous donors, and good organizations like Heroic Hearts, to again be wasted. 

Morey did not hear back from Gould in April either. Finally on June 16, 2025, the day before Lucid News broke the story of the OCPF complaints concerning Yes on 4 and Heroic Hearts Project, Morey tried one last time, sending Gould a text that he read that night but did not reply to:

Hi Jesse, please let me know if there’s a time we can connect so that you hear the full story and maybe realize who the real enemy is here. I hoped Heroic Hearts would take a stand for moral and ethical advocacy and against veteran individuals and organizations being used as pawns—not to mention donor dollars that could have saved lives be so mishandled. There is extensive documentation of much wrongdoing by New Approach on this campaign that goes beyond the finances that I think you should know about before deciding to align with and/or cover for them. I’m happy to connect with you, your PR team and anyone else who is weighing in on your response strategy but really beg you to think long and hard about trusting New Approach without the full picture of what has transpired here.

Ultimately, New Approach, Open Circle Alliance, and Dewey Square Group all declined to comment in defense of themselves or the campaign for the June 17 article, leaving the only veterans charity implicated in the campaign finance scandal, Heroic Hearts Project, to shoulder responsibility as the sole organization under fire to make a statement: a timid non-denial denial. 

This continued a pattern on the part of certain Yes on 4 organizers—extending from the beginning of the campaign through beyond the transition—of hiding behind, rather than shielding, the vulnerable.

Until next time,

The Psychedelic State(s) of America Team