The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is one of the foremost organizations working to develop medical, legal and cultural contexts for people using psychedelics and marijuana. It funds more research on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics than almost any other nonprofit.
And this month, from June 19 to 23, MAPS is coming to Denver to host a historic gathering of the global psychedelic community: the fourth Psychedelic Science Conference.
MAPS is calling it “the biggest week in the psychedelic renaissance.” There will be speakers, workshops and a lot of time to mingle with some of the biggest names in the world of psychedelic science, culture and community. (And this event is far from annual. So if it sparks your interest, you should register sooner rather than later.)
The first psychedelic conference was in 2010 at the Holiday Inn Hotel in San Jose, California, co-hosted by MAPS, the Heffter Research Institute, the Beckley Foundation, and the Council on Spiritual Practices. Some 800 attendees showed up from around the world to take accredited courses for physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and social workers.
Then there was the second Psychedelic Science Conference in 2013, which drew around 2,000 attendees. And the third, in 2017, drew 3,000.
Interest in this sphere of research and exploration is clearly growing. And while COVID may have extended the break between the 2017 Psychedelic Science Conference and this year’s event in Denver, it couldn’t stop the momentum behind this movement. This year’s conference at the Colorado Convention Center is anticipating well over 10,000 attendees.
And it is a veritable who’s-who of the psychedelic world. Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind and founder of the Berkeley Center for Science of Psychedelics, will be there, along with renowned mycologist Paul Stamets, NFL quarterback and psychedelic proponent Aaron Rodgers, Columbia University professor of psychology Carl Hart and many other recognizable names.
More than 300 speakers will present at the conference on the convention center’s seven stages. They range in backgrounds from professors and researchers to authors, activists, artists, law enforcement, therapists, Olympic athletes, lawyers, journalists, educators and more.
The event’s statement on diversity notes that “this population skews white and male due to reasons rooted in systemic and institutional bias in our society at large, academia and the psychedelic community, including historic and ongoing gender, racial and ethnic discrimination.”
Organizers are committed to discussing this lack of diversity at the conference, and are offering a scholarship program to include more women and people of color.
The conference is also hosting two days of intensive workshops that offer accreditation, educational and community-building opportunities. They will be facilitated by many of the leading experts in the clinical, academic, business and cultural fields, addressing the topics of psychedelic progress and potential from different angles. Many of these workshops, however, are already sold out.
There are even after-parties featuring DJs like Bonobo, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Boreta, plus artists like The Flaming Lips and others.
There are three different tiers of access for different prices: The Community Pass for the general public ($805), the Practitioner Pass for health, medicine and science practitioners ($1,095), and the Business Pass for entrepreneurs ($1,795). Each pass includes different levels of access and benefits.
The Psychedelic Science Conference 2023 will be more than twelve times the size of the first conference held in 2010. A new psychedelic era is blossoming. Oregon and Colorado have decriminalized all natural psychedelic substances. And on municipal levels, psychedelics have been decriminalized in Oakland and Santa Cruz, California, Washington D.C., Somerville, Northampton and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
The cracks are beginning to show in prohibition.
