Leadership

Thomas Buonomo served as Executive Director and Board President of Decriminalize Nature from January-December 2024 and before that as Board Treasurer from February-December 2023.  

He is an independent consultant focused on strategic communications and the peace-building potential of entheogens/psychedelics, from the community to the international level.  He began organizing with the Decriminalize Nature Philadelphia campaign in late 2020 after much research into the potential of these natural medicines to treat people suffering from post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression, and other psychosomatic ailments.  After two years, he helped establish the chapter as a registered 501(c)4 lobbying organization as a founding member of the board of directors.

Thomas has worked in a range of capacities over the last 18 years, from the military to grassroots organizing in support of US foreign policy reform, veterans, human rights, and environmental issues; to energy security policy lobbying and advocacy to energy market and country/geopolitical risk analysis; to conflict analysis, prevention, and resolution.  

He has experienced firsthand the benefits of these medicines in his struggles with depression and they have profoundly influenced his spiritual explorations and growth. He has also read more than 50 books on the subject, in addition to numerous scientific reports, essays, articles, etc. by psychiatrists, psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists, ethnopharmacologists, philosophers; Indigenous, Western, and Eastern spiritual leaders; et al. as part of his years-long integration process and path of psychological, philosophical, and spiritual inquiry.