EXCLUSIVE: Lessons From Psychedelics Markets Through Business, Legal And Reciprocity Lenses

This year’s edition of Benzinga’s Psychedelics Capital Conference hosted some of the most knowledgeable panelists and hot-button discussions currently in the space.

One of them was a conversation between all-time psychedelics advocate and businessman Psycheceutical’s BWVI Zappy Zapolin, cannabis-specialized lawyer Nadav Aschner (Rodman Law Group LLC) and reciprocity defendor Joseph Mays (Chacruna Institute), with moderator Farrell Miller (Benzinga), on the takeaways from legal markets of federally controlled substances.

Fighting For The Right To Pursue Happiness

Zappy Zapolin says all psychedelic advocates and enthusiasts believe it is one's inalienable right to go inside our own minds for answers and healing.

"So for me, I've taken the approach that since doctors don't really even know about nutrition, which is 80% of the problem, why would I listen to them about psychedelics that they don't know about?,” he said, adding the need to step forward and say ‘Okay, I trust Johns Hopkins, I trust Rick Doblin from MAPS more than I trust my local internal medicine doctor.’

He sees cannabis as having laid the foundational work in toning down the War on Drugs mindset. He pointed to interesting moves around psychedelics such as the development of alternative drug delivery technologies to mold the encounter with the substance in a way that best fits the specific needs of different populations.

In terms access to psilocybin, Zapolin noted a group about to release a magical butter machine tailored for growing magic mushrooms out of spores (which are legal to give out). He calls it “the pharmacy of the future.” 

To ensure equitable access to psilocybin, Zapolin sees Native Americans and indigenous communities as natural space holders for psychedelic experiences given their longtime work with the substances, and also guarding against setting regulations that end up making the therapy extremely costly. 

He calls on people to be vigilant and appreciate the fact that neither doctors nor politicians really know about these medicines, and that upcoming events would likely be  disruptive to them, for instance, frequency medicine and digital psychedelics. 

Lessons From Cannabis, Working Around Business Models

Nadav Aschner’s background in criminal defense has made him encounter the topic originally from the law enforcement side. 

But now, current legal mechanisms to cultivate, transfer and deliver psychedelic mushrooms in places like Oregon, Colorado and Quebec have enabled groups to get in on the ground floor. His law firm is helping them on lawful activities and business models. 

In terms of access, he says measures like those in Colorado create a legal gray area, as personal cultivation and gifting is allowed though not commercialization; people might end up relying on the kindness of strangers or their network to either obtain the substance or have a safe psychedelic experience with a bonafide space holder.

“Over time, the legislation does provide for healing centers to sell psilocybin and eventually other substances as well. But we're not going to see a traditional dispensary model like we see in cannabis anytime soon,” Aschner predicts. 

Having issued the first-ever psilocybin-related licenses recently, Oregon’s case is more advanced. And yet there is actually no precedent anywhere else in the world that might show how it will roll out, says Aschner.

He sees the current moment as the start of a movement and believes cannabis over the last decade has proven the sky neither has neither is falling, having proliferated across the U.S. and the world with no increase in underage use, or uptick in vehicle deaths or homicides, Aschner said.

“We're in a position now to take what we've learned and build on it and create true sensible drug policy reform. To clients and entrepreneurs, I'd say let's be on the cutting edge together, let's do this responsibly. To regulators and regulatory agencies I would say, educate yourselves: Schedule I is an atrocity and we need sensible drug policy reform and you are in a position to do it,” he said.

Partnering With Indigenous Communities: Reciprocity Is A Must

An anthropologist and botanist by trade, Joseph Mays’ primary role is to partner Chacruna with indigenous communities on their terms and to “try to get some of the investment and interest heading to the psychedelics industry back into the communities” and really support these medicines’ origins. 

Mays says that even synthetic psilocybin owes to the indigenous communities, as the field as a whole would not exist without them. 

“Aldous Huxley and Abram Hoffer were sitting in a Native American church ceremony when they coined the term psychedelic. And so it’s pretty clear, there’s really no escaping that continuity,” Mays said.

His experience has shown him that most indigenous leaders and groups are not really interested in talking about psychedelics ”or at least not the Western idea of psychedelics” but rather primarily focused on having their land and their human rights respected first.

“It's really about listening, listening to the concerns and priorities that they as they've been identified by communities on the ground at the foundation level, to whom so much is owed and from so much has been taken, you know, what are their concerns and priorities and what are the projects that they're working on?”  

As such, he sees reciprocity as integral to the whole experience and the healing potential of psychedelics themselves. 

“I think there's an emphasis on individual healing on the one-to-one therapy model. It's very different from the context where many psychedelics (and certainly psilocybin) come from,” said Mays. “The healing and illness itself are both things that are social and communal, not only dealing with personal trauma but also relationships with other people, communities and non-human beings, trying to really identify where you exist within that network of relationships and then how can you use your energy and your life in a way that serves.”

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• Photo: Benzinga edit with photo by Curiosity and Andrei Verner on Shutterstock.