Through The Looking-Glass: Zappy's Observations From A Very Psychedelic Wonderland 2022 Conference

It was truly an honor to be the opening speaker at the Wonderland Conference this year, an event that brought together thousands of stakeholders with a common goal: supporting - and growing - the psychedelics industry. 

My goal on day one was to set the tone from the outset about how excited we should all be about this unique moment, where psychedelics for mental health and addiction are virtually the ONLY positive story in society. My key takeaway was simple: I wanted attendees to realize that they are at the beginning of a $1 trillion industry.

Indeed, merely being an attendee at Wonderland or participating in myriad ways from the live stream or perusing this article means you’re one of the lucky ones... In other words, you're very early to this trillion-dollar trend. 

I believe that the moves we make today could position ourselves to fund entire retirements- individually and for our families - with just a few good investments in the space. Like those fortunate people who were there when the automobile, computer, and the internet emerged, just being present was an easy opportunity to secure generations of wealth. 

I thoroughly believe that investing in psychedelic medicine today is the equivalent of investing in the pharmaceutical companies in the 1920s, or in the booming biotech companies in the 1990s. From today's levels, investors stand to make 100 years of stock market returns in the next few years. 

The Wonderland conference was a huge momentum event for the industry, bringing cutting-edge science together with serious money, all under one roof. 

For example, as industry-leading scientist Robin Carhart-Harris discussed the extremely positive clinical results expected to be released soon, sitting in the audience, I felt like we were almost getting the equivalent of legal insider information.  

* The Benzinga Psychedelics Capital Conference is returning to Miami on April 13, 2023. Secure your tickets now by following this link.

Celebrity mycologist Paul Stamets blew the audience away by showing large-scale data from clinical trials on micro-dosing that showed that psilocybin mushrooms along with Niacin and Lions Mane mushrooms were exponentially more effective than just psilocybin mushrooms by themselves. I heard someone say right after his talk, “I can’t believe I’ve been micro-dosing for three years, and the whole time I’ve been doing it wrong.” These "aha" moments were par for the course...

Godfather of the psychedelic industry, Rick Doblin, wowed the crowd with late-stage clinical results from MAPS’ MDMA study for treating PTSD. Research shows that subjects had significant sustained improvement after two months, but even more impressive, when they were scored one year later they were doing even better. 

The Panel I moderated was called “The Future of Psychedelic Medicine: Safe, Efficient Scalability,” my panelists were Kevin Harrington, an original Shark from Shark Tank, NBA legend and psychedelic advocate Lamar Odom, Doug Drysdale, CEO of Cybin, and Daniel Herrera of Braxia Scientific (I sold my start-up KetaMD to Braxia earlier this year.) 

The key takeaway from the panel was that designing psychedelics in the format of a pharmaceutical is an important - and critical - step to have the medical establishment join the plant-based medicine renaissance. 

On his end, Kevin Harrington stated that he invested in the psychedelic industry to help bring forward new opportunities to solve the mental health and addiction crises. He chose Psycheceutical, a company I’m also involved with, that has patented a novel drug-delivery technology that works in the pharma space, and that the company has licenses for psychedelics to help solve the current problem of (in)accurate dosing.

Further, as the entrepreneur behind breakout performing energy drink Celsius, Kevin knows how to spot a trend and scale it. After all, he grew Celsius from the drawing room table to a $7 billion dollar market cap colossus. The good news is, he plans to bring that same level of scale to this space. 

Lamar Odom touched the audience’s heart when he talked about how psychedelics had changed him, and allowed him to deal with the trauma and death of family members, especially his friend and former teammate Kobe Bryant. Odom stated that when Kobe passed away, the addict in him knew that he could use drugs that day, and get a pass from everyone, but he just didn’t have the burning desire from the past. Something had truly changed after his Ibogaine treatment in Mexico in 2018.

The full consensus across the board was that when Compass Pathways commercializes psilocybin in 2024, it will set off the next level of investment from major institutions, bringing in a fresh wave of capital. 

My personal highlight happened backstage when I was able to have a one-on-one conversation with psychedelic TV host Hamilton Morris. I let him know that as a filmmaker and psychedelic advocate, when I’m shooting my own psychedelic experiences and I’m trying to figure out how much to dose myself with, I always say to myself, “How much would Hamilton take?” and then I go even bigger than I otherwise would. He told me that is the highest compliment he could hope to receive for his work…

As I reflect on this year's show, and the journey I've been on espousing the benefits of plant-based medicine, I must say, I'm more encouraged, optimistic, and bullish than ever. 

I can’t wait for next year.

Peace. Zappy 

PS - I hope to see anyone reading this at the next industry event... just look out for the guy with bright white glasses. And in the meantime, follow along with my films, work, and travels at www.zappytimes.com. Peace.