The Future of Business and Psychedelics

Notes From The California Psychedelic Conference

What does it feel like to be a pioneer in a highly disruptive industry that doesn’t technically exist yet?

I hosted the Future of Psychedelics and Business panel at the California Psychedelic Conference this past weekend and had a chance to gain perspective from a host of established psychedelic entrepreneurs with impressive track records - mostly underground, of course.

The emergent conversation around capital and psychedelics is generally dominated by affluent white men who are more interested in adding margin to their portfolios then investing in marginalized communities. Major conferences and high profile mainstream media coverage have shown us that venture capitalists and powerful interests like the U.S. military and the pharmaceutical industry are all elbowing for position in the race to monetize mind-altering molecules.

The California Psychedelic Conference flipped the old white money in psychedelics narrative via platforming a predominantly BIPOC and non-cis white male panel to address the issue.

The panel included:

 Ophelia Chong, cannabis industry veteran and founder of StockPot images

Soma Phoenix of Psilly Girls, a psychedelic research and integration outfit

Cassandra Posey of Cognitive Function medicinal mushroom supplements

Benjamin Daniel of Pacific Substrates, one of North America’s leafing growth media and substrate providers

Robert Johnson of Mycroboost, a custom capsule consultant operation

and Reggie Harris, founder of Oakland Hyphae and numerous other ventures in the psychedelic space

In addition to actionable insights on how to launch and sustain a psychedelic business (tip: start growing your own mushrooms and find a lane that you’re naturally good at, then stay in your lane and build around that),  topics such as reciprocity, lobbying, and policy reform anchored the discourse before an audience of several hundred people.

The million dollar question - or zero dollar question depending on how you look at it - posed to the panelists was whether psychedelics and capitalism can co-exist in any meaningful and future-proof capacity.

The consensus between the panel was that psychedelics and capitalism can absolutely co-exist, but that we should qualify our understanding of capitalism and it’s true definition before we get carried away. At it’s core, capitalism is about the free exchange of ideas and the opportunity to create and distribute value in communities. It’s possible to be profitable and philanthropic at the same time, and our society can redefine how we create and sustain thriving business models, workplace environments, and community collaboration via leaning into the lessons that psychedelics can teach us - that we need each other, and that when we address and repair the most damaged and marginalized individuals and communities in society, everybody wins as a result.

While numerous corporate interests involved in the roll out of psychedelics as a legitimate and regulated industry have been accused of tokenizing people of color to check the diversity and equity boxes that social pressure has deemed necessary for their organizations to survive in this era, the California Psychedelic Conference and the Oakland Hyphae team behind it are black-owned and BIPOC dominated.

In addition to hosting dozens of panels and workshops that don’t fit the “mainstream psychedelic industry” model as defined by organizations like MAPS and MindMed, etc., The California Psychedelic Conference was the worlds largest gathering of psilocybin mushroom cultivators, many of whom had never seen each others faces.

The cultivators in attendance represented some of the highest-profile psilocybin mushroom cultivation operations and mushroom genetic conservation projects on the planet. Notable examples are She.Grows.Fungi, a mushroom cultivator and genetics researcher credited with stabilizing the hillbilly strain of psilocybin mushrooms, and who’s videos of the strain have been viewed more than 30 million times across social media platforms. Also in attendance was MycoCowboy, a veteran psilocybin mushroom cultivator who recently traveled to the jungles of Chitwan, Nepal, to source mushroom genetics from wild rhino dung - almost getting trampled by a rhino in the process.

The Future of Business and Psychedelics is shaping up to be a wild ride with numerous competing stakeholders and ideologies pitted against each other - but the California Psychedelic Conference proved that the roll out of what could potentially be the world’s most disruptive industry doesn’t have to be charted by old white money and cis-white men in board rooms.

There is a very pressing and immediate alternative that exists, and it’s a far more formidable force than the traditional gatekeepers of power are equipped to contend with; the power of a well-organized, highly-educated, and organically diverse psychedelic community.