As the psychedelic pharmaceutical industry increasingly prioritizes personal data extraction through mobile apps, wearables, and so-called “targeted” medicine, a recent data breach by former MAPS Canada Executive Director Mark Haden provides a warning about some of the possible consequences to the financial incentives of datafication.

In this episode we explore the myriad of problems that result from media outlets treating corporate press releases as though they're legitimate news sources, rather than advertisements. We examine "science by press release" cases ranging from psychedelic pharmaceutical firms who claim their barely-studied compounds are superior to (and safer than) psilocybin (one of the safest psychoactive compounds in the human pharmacopoeia), to students who claimed Oreos were as addictive as cocaine, to pineal DMT, cold fusion, and more.

When the media republishes statements from psychedelic pharmaceutical startups and their executives with little-to-no vetting, it functions as a corporate megaphone and damages the field of psychedelic science.

American policing is a white supremacist institution that has repeatedly demonstrated the degree to which it values property over human life. Our struggles against the police are inseparably entwined with similar struggles around the world, and they cannot be disconnected from larger struggles for human rights.

Jamon A. Rahn, CEO of psychedelic pharmaceutical startup MindMed, offered a glimpse of the future of psychedelic science, including proprietary data and hints of an “LSD neutralizer.”

Extractive industry is highly speculative by nature and firms are risk tolerant—they either “strike gold” or they don’t. When their gambles fail, psychedelic startups can take over their corporate shells to quickly go public with minimal regulatory scrutiny.

Brian Normand and David Nickles are joined by Psymposia Senior Writer Russell Hausfeld to discuss MindMed's CEO, Jamon Rahn's, recent claims that his company "may be creating effectively the Tesla of mental health,” and that the company is now a "$1B+ Unicorn.”

On January 6th, 2021 at least two psychedelic heads stormed the United States Capitol. Strange as it may seem, those adhering to right-wing politics haven’t just established a beachhead in the psychedelic renaissance—they’re maneuvering to own it.

News that COMPASS Pathways is attempting to patent psychedelic therapy room specifications and therapist behaviors started an online firestorm about the company’s “monopolistic and shady behaviors,” but so far the debates have missed the biggest threats lurking in COMPASS’s international patent applications.

We discuss Brian Pace and Neşe Devenot's recently published paper: "Right-Wing Psychedelia: Case Studies in Cultural Plasticity and Political Pluripotency"