Charles B Shaw

Charles B. Shaw is an author, journalist, documentary filmmaker and plant medicine therapist. 

Charles B. Shaw is an author, journalist, documentary filmmaker and plant medicine therapist. 

For the bulk of his writing career, Charles has been an underground long-form journalist focusing on cultural and political movements for publications like Alternet, Conscious Choice, Common Ground, Grist, Huffington Post, openDemocracy, Reality Sandwich, and Scoop. For nearly 15 years he covered drug & prison policy, the psychedelic underground and plant medicine community, mental health and healing, and the movement for autonomous free zones.

In 2009 he was awarded a multi-year Fellowship from the Tedworth Trust of the Sainsbury Family Foundations of the UK which endowed an Editorship with the openDemocracy Foundation. Out of that Fellowship came the openDemocracy Drug Policy Forum, his first book, Exile Nation: Drugs, Prisons, Politics & Spirituality (2012. Counterpoint/Soft Skull Press), and four feature length documentaries including The Exile Nation Project: An Oral History of the War on Drugs, At Home in the Dark: 17 Chapters Exploring Trauma & PTSD, Soldiers of the Vine: Healing War Trauma with Plant Medicine and Exile Nation: The Plastic People which ran on Netflix from 2014-2017.

Charles has over 20 years of experience with psychedelic and entheogenic plant medicines, and over 8 years of applied training and experience in tryptamine-based therapy for a broad spectrum of mental health conditions including addiction interruption, PTSD and titrating psychopharmacology. He is a Harm Reductionist and a Peer Therapist with past employment at the Crossroads Treatment Center, Ibogaine Institute, and Baja Ibogaine Center where he learned clinical protocols for Ibogaine and other Tryptamine medicines, and served as Communications & Development Director, and Intake Coordinator. 


As a consultant, Charles designed operations and protocols for the Reset Treatment Center in La Mision, Mexico, and The Medicine Is You center in Punta Loma. Charles received additional training from Clare Wilkins of Pangea Biomedics and the Global Iboga Therapy Alliance, where he serves as staff writer & editor. 


Charles studied Ayahuasca (Metizto, Shipibo, Secoya) and Bufo in Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru and received his initial training in Psychedelic Emergency Therapy, Psychedelic Integration and Harm Reduction through the M.A.P.S. Zendo/Sanctuary Project, where he also spent years as a producer for the Boom and Burning Man festivals. He has worked in street-level Harm Reduction in Portland, Medford and in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. 


He holds a BA from Boston University where he studied English and Psychology.