To get a vision of the future of psychedelics from a legal and regulatory perspective, the most useful thing to do might be to see what's happening already in the realm of weed.

It’s been 50 years since the last one. The original idea was to hold followups every 10 years. But the war on drugs came along, and they were never held. It’s time to take another look at the current state of the art.

Through EmpathBio, ATAI Life Sciences says it will develop “safer” MDMA derivatives for patients with PTSD and calls the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies' (MAPS) approach "MDMA 1.0." MAPS' executive director, Rick Doblin, says that if that's the case, ATAI is "MDMA 0.5."

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it spotlights a number of psychedelic pharmaceutical companies and executives with ties to extractive industry.

The team shares their personal stories and talk about how and why they became involved in psychedelic advocacy and drug policy reform. Happy New Year y’alls.

Brian and Dave are joined by Psymposia writer Russell Hausfeld to discuss capitalist logic in psychedelia, the principles of open science, and the increasing eagerness of extractive industry players (including gold and lithium mining outfits and traders) looking to capitalize on psychedelics.

Terence McKenna once mused, “Conspiracy theory is a kind of epistemological cartoon about reality.” Looking around at the world, things appear awfully cartoonish at the moment. We're joined by Psymposia Senior Writer, Russell Hausfeld, to discuss the propagation of coronavirus conspiracies, recent revelations about QAnon, and the likelihood that some "conspiracy" claims are simply warped articulations of systemic critique. 5G won't give you COVID-19, but it sure will help you download this episode faster.

Psymposia advisory board member and psychedelic researcher, Jae Sevelius, joins us to talk about queer theory, psychedelic research with transgender and gender diverse people, and what happens when political assumptions go unexamined in both research contexts and the world at large. Drawing on the work of Dr. Sevelius, as well as Dr. Devenot and Dr. Ross, we discuss some of the ways that research and social relations reproduce the logic of mainstream culture, and how queering acts as barrier to and disruption of that reproduction.

Psymposia sits down with Thought Slime to chat about carving out a leftist space in psychedelia.

The Psymposia crew deconstructs a conversation between two self-described entrepreneurs who recently discussed psychedelics and medicalization during an event called Psychedelic Capitalism with Alexander Beiner [Rebel Wisdom] and Lars Wilde [COMPASS Pathways, Atai Life Sciences]— while studiously avoiding a debate of capitalism altogether.