Many predicted an ethical storm brewing in the lead-up to the explosion of for-profit interest in psychedelic pharmaceuticals. But, were their efforts to mitigate the damage enough to make a difference?

Our statement on a recent Chacruna article by Dr. Bia Labate.

Shlomi Raz, CEO of Eleusis Benefit Corporation, made false claims about psychedelics. We asked multiple ethnobotanists, a medical anthropologist, and a chemist if they could help us set the record straight.

My destination was the International Drug Policy Reform Conference (Reform 2017). Judging by the throng of young college students crowding the lobby, I knew we were in the right place.

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.

With the recent creation of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, we must remember that, while industrialized medicine has never attempted to serve all people, institutional histories vary from one organization to the next.

What's going on with the MAPS narratives? How is it possible that Mel, Leah, and Meaghan's experiences have been so at odds with the "standard story" we've heard about psychedelic clinical trials? Why can't we seem to get straight answers to simple questions? The Psymposia team drills down into the questions raised by the revelations in "Political Science" in an attempt to highlight some of the dynamics at the heart of psychedelic science.