Google Search Gets Psychotherapist Banned from the United States

Andrew Feldmar, a well-known Vancouver psychotherapist, drove up to the Blaine border crossing last summer just as he had done hundreds of times before. The 66 year-old man hardly looked threatening- his gray hair, neat beard, and rimless glasses gave him the look of a seasoned intellectual. Feldmar's two children live in the United States, and he visited them at their homes several times a year, never running into any problems with border police. On this particular trip south, he was headed to see a colleague in Seattle. Feldmar has made at least five trips to the states annually, not only for his kids but also for work related purposes. He has worked for the United Nations, in Sarajevo, and in Minsk with Chernobyl victims. He handed the border police his passport, not expecting anything but the usual "go-ahead" from the patrolmen. This time, however, things would be very different for Feldmar.

Things began normally enough, as the border guard explained that Feldmar was being pulled aside for a random screening. The guard took the doctor's keys and passport and his car was emptied. Making small talk while awaiting the completion of the search, the guard asked Feldmar what he did for a living. Feldmar told him that he was a psychologist. The official walked away and typed Feldmar's name into the Google search engine, and before long the border patrolman was reading an article Feldman published in spring 2001 in the online scientific journal Janus Head. In the article, Feldmar details a couple of acid trips he experienced when doing research with psychoactive drugs almost 40 years ago. It also alluded to the fact that he had used hallucinogenics as a "path" to understanding self and that in certain cases, it could "be preferable to psychiatry." Because of a Google search, an ordinary day at the Canadian border was about to become much less ordinary.

Feldmar was detained by the guards and was forced to wait for several hours seated on a folding chair in a small room with an American flag. After three hours, the doctor began to wonder what could possibly be going on. An official came to him and notified Feldmar that under the Homeland Security Act, he was being denied entry to the United States due to "narcotics" use (LSD is not a narcotic, it is an entheogen). The guard instructed Feldmar to sign a statement that admitted to LSD use, then the doctor was fingerprinted for a dossier with the FBI. Then Feldmar was told that he would never be allowed to enter the United States again, and he was walked back to his car and followed by border police until he had made a U-turn and was back in Canada.

The journal in question was about using LSD as therapy for patients with psychological diseases. Feldmar and fellow doctors Abram Hoffer and Duncan Blewett participated in some of the first experiments with LSD-25, and recalled their experiences in the Janus Head piece.

"I traveled to many regions many times with the help of many different substances. I took peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, cannabis, MDMA, DMT, ketamine, nitrous oxide 5-MEO-DMT, but I kept coming back to LSD. Acid seemed my most spacious, most helpful ally. While on it, I explored my past, regressed to the womb, to my conception. I remembered, grieved, and mourned many painful events. I saw how my parents would have liked to love me, and how they didn't because they didn't know how. I learned, on acid, to endure troubling and frightening states of mind. This enabled me, as meditation has done, to identify with being the witness of the workings of my mind, observing whatever was going on, while knowing that I was simply captivated by the forms produced by my own psyche."

The only way for Feldmar to regain access to the United States was to fill out an application for a waiver from Homeland Security. He was very adamant about being able to get into the states, considering the fact that because he was banned he could not visit his children in their homes. After contacting attorneys, Feldmar learned that the only way to get his waiver reviewed was to pay $3,500 (plus incidentals) to Homeland Security, in which case he had about a 90% chance of securing access to the states. But the waivers are only generally issued for a year, and once it expired the doctor would be forced to pay the $3,500 again and re-apply. Each time, he would have to produce a statement saying that he had been "rehabilitated." He looked into filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government, but it would cost him his life savings to pursue the case (one that he had very little chance of winning).

"Admitted drug use is admitted drug use," says Mike Milne, spokesman for U.S. border and protection. Milne quoted from the U.S. Immigration Law Handbook section which refers to "general classes of aliens ineligible to receive visas and ineligible for admissions" to help shed light on the clauses that may have ensnared the Vancouver psychotherapist. "Persons with AIDS, tuberculosis, infectious diseases are inadmissible. Anyone who is determined to be a drug abuser or user is inadmissible. A crime involving moral turpitude is inadmissible and one of those areas is a violation of controlled substances."

Even though Feldmar had no criminal record and hadn't used the substances in question for almost 40 years, he was still banned from the United States. Feldmar did not choose to fight for the waiver, and he is still currently banned from the country. Recollecting on the incident, Feldmar said "The experience of being treated as undesirable was shocking. The helplessness, the utter uselessness of trying to be seen as I know myself and as I am known generally by those I care about and who care about me, the reduction of me to an undesirable offender, was truly frightening. I became aware of the fragility of my identity, the brittleness of a way of life."

He went on to say "I have been seen and labeled as a Jew, as a Communist, as a D. P. (Displaced Person), as a student, as a patient, a man, a Hungarian, a refugee, an émigré, an immigrant.... Now I am being seen as one of those drug users, perhaps an addict, perhaps a dealer, one can't be sure. In the matter of a second, I became powerless, whatever I said wasn't going to be taken seriously. I was labeled, sorted and disposed of. Dismissed."

Source: thetyee.ca/news