Underground Activism and Corporate Sponsorship

“In the BDSM community, one framework for engagement is to consider three things - Want, Willing, and Won’t” says Ryan Miller, US Marine Core veteran and psychedelic activist.

“As in what you want to do, what you’re willing to do, and what you won’t do.”

“I absolutely won’t take money from anyone profiting off of the military industrial complex. From there, we can negotiate”

The citing of BDSM values to frame moral imperative aptly characterizes the uniqueness of the 2nd Annual Oakland Psychedelic Conference, where I’m moderating the Activism and Organizing In The Sacred Medicine Community panel.

The question posed to panelists, who represent a range of largely underserved demographics in the psychedelic community, cuts to the heart of the radical activism dilemma -

“Would you take money from a large for-profit psychedelic company if it was offered to you?”

The question elicits a wave of knee-jerk reaction body language from the people on stage.

Beyond Miller’s invocation of the BDSM community code, other panelists state their openness to potential corporate sponsorship and collaboration with companies who’s values may largely differ than their own - but which may also temporarily align with theirs under particular circumstances.

“There’s a lot of nuance to that question, and it deserves a nuanced answer” says Colin Wells, founder of Veterans Walk and Talk.

“We would have to look at whether a company offering us money was able to do so in a way that aligns with our core values as an organization, which serve to empower veterans to take control of their own healing journeys - And if this money could genuinely help us to do something that we’re not currently able to do on our own already.”

“Never leave money on the table” says Luna Stower, psychedelic activist and Community Impact Officer for Ispire.

Beyond any lingering hesitation floating around the panelists, audience, and the general spirit of the event, the largely dormant potential for corporate sponsorship of grass roots community activism is an important consideration for those in both camps.

As a panelist on stage at a different, far more corporate psychedelic conference said last year,

“Be profitable, but don’t lose your altruism.”

The prospect of corporate sponsorship is tremendously appealing for many people trying to keep their activism and community-driven initiatives afloat. Many activists and organizers are operating on a shoe-string budget, and their ability to serve may be largely dependent upon donations and good will.

But for most activists on this particular stage, and for many in the room, large for- profit psychedelic organizations typically stand in direct opposition to the priorities of the marginalized communities the panelists serve - and to perceived right relationship between people and planet.

In the last few years, the psychedelics industry has ballooned from its pariah state into a major emerging market with billions of dollars up for grabs.

To keep up with the explosion of interest in these long-stigmatized molecules and medicines, psychedelic Industry conferences have sprouted up all over the country in the last two years.

From Wonderland in Miami to Meet Delic in Las Vegas, to the Rising Consciousness Conference in Salt Lake City and the launch of Horizons West in Portland - psychedelic industry conferences are big business, and bring together thousands of researchers, practitioners, investors, entrepreneurs, activists, and those looking for an entree into the field - to celebrate and debate the future of psychedelics as a viable legal industry.

But whereas many of the larger industry conferences cater to serial entrepreneurs and venture capitalists looking for the inside track to market share -

The Oakland Psychedelic Conference is a fiercely independent, people-first, and unapologetically disruptive black-owned and BIPOC driven response to the blind spots of the emergent mainstream psychedelics ecosystem.

And where certain industry spokespeople embrace traditional corporate values and 11 figure projections of the psychedelic market as their raison d'être, the activists onstage are generally more concerned with seeing their long-beleaguered communities given safe access to psychedelic medicines and mutual aid sufficient to cover the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that they often go without.

People over profits.

The disconnect between roots level community psychedelic organizations and vertically-integrated for profit psychedelic companies is often painfully pronounced and complicated by lack of communication between the two camps.

Decontextualized headlines and quotes, indirect communication, and lack of a meaningful connection between large players in the psychedelic space and underserved demographics - coupled with the historic harm perpetuated upon marginalized communities by the establishment -

have led to growing pains along the roll out of psychedelics on the world stage.

And yet, it’s my perception that better communication and cooperation is the necessary channel for right relationship between for-profit psychedelic companies and the underground psychedelic activist community - and that the right strategic partnerships between these two groups can yield a net positive experience for everyone involved.

Recent examples of this type of corporate benefaction can be seen in the collaborative sponsorship between Dr. Bronners and several smaller psychedelic activism ventures. 

Even if “You can’t keep all the people happy all the time”, there’s still a tremendous amount of room to keep a lot of people happy.

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What about the corporate sponsorship enabling the Oakland Psychedelic Conference to thrive? The possibility of ’no-strings attached’ community support, where profitable businesses help platform open discussions about the role of capitalism and for-profit initiatives in the future psychedelic ecosystem.

What about Maps and Paul Stamets championing and driving psychedelic research when no one in the mainstream wanted to touch it, and now being written off as sell outs?

What about open debate and direct communication, instead of earl grey and keyboard warriors?

Sometimes, a powerful driving question is more important than any of the potential answers it might yield -

So why can’t big money and community activism be compatible?

As a trusted friend and peer of mine in the psychedelic ecosystem says -

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

And as long as we’re on the subject, my safe word is “Boomer$” with an $.