Some Reflections on Psychedelic Science 2025...

...and the State of the Psychedelic Field More Generally

The summer doldrums have finally given me space to reflect on my time at MAPS’ Psychedelic Science 2025 conference extravaganza.

This was my fourth MAPS conference, and wow—each one has been wildly different. PS13 was a quaint little affair, with fewer than a thousand psychonauts and researchers from a still-fringe movement shuffling through the Oakland Convention Center among giants like Sasha and Ann Shulgin, Ralph Metzner, and Stan Grof. By PS17, excitement had mushroomed (lol) as MDMA continued to chug through clinical trials with what looked like promising preliminary results. That excitement reached a fever pitch by 2023. In that seven-year interstitial period, a psychedelic industry had been born, a philanthropic ecosystem had sprouted, FDA approval of MDMA seemed imminent and assured, and a care delivery and training infrastructure was beginning to take root, with the ketamine industry leading the way.

And then it all came crashing down.

The FDA said no to MDMA.

Massachusetts voters said no to psilocybin, as did the California legislature.

Psilocybin service centers in Oregon were too expensive—partly due to high licensing fees (needed to fund the OHA’s regulatory infrastructure), and partly because of a thriving gray market.

Sure, there have been some flickers of hope: Texas allocating $50 million for ibogaine research; the New Mexico legislature adopting a psilocybin bill; Colorado’s regulated program going into effect; promising 5-MeO-DMT results out of Beckley Psytech; and the launch of the University Psychedelic Education Program.

Against this backdrop, 8,000 or so eager psychedelic souls converged on the Colorado Convention Center and surrounding venues for another conference blowout.

Here are my very high-level takeaways. Candidly, I hardly attended any talks, and spent my time floating from one meeting and conversation to another, so my perspective has its limits.

Zeal for psychedelics is still through the roof. To my mind, this remains the field’s greatest source of hope. More people than ever—from all walks of life, across the political spectrum, from every corner of the globe—are growing more excited about psychedelics’ potential for healing, transformation, and beyond. Over ten million people per year report using psychedelics, according to SAMHSA data. The psychedelic community is thriving. Heeding Timothy Leary’s exhortation, a growing number of people have “found the others.” Perhaps because of the field’s recent struggles, it felt particularly sweet and nourishing to be in the non-Zoom presence of so many friends, colleagues, and fellow travelers, united by our shared love and awe for these substances and their radical potential.

The psychedelic industry is still pretty shell-shocked. A generally bedraggled industry stands in contrast to a thriving community. The central thesis from 2020 to 2024 was that MDMA would be the field’s flagship, with state ecosystems drafting off its success and regulatory scrutiny.

That all failed. And no replacement thesis has yet emerged.

Maybe I’m projecting, but questions like these seemed to be hanging in the air of that vast conference center:

• What will the models for delivery of care actually look like? What should they look like? And how can we close what seem certain to be obvious gaps, especially related to less-than-sufficient preparation and integration?

• Given the FDA’s apparent befuddlement with therapy as an adjunct to psychedelics, what does the path to approval look like? What counts as proper “psychological support,” who will provide it, who will train them, and how can that training be delivered effectively, uniformly, and at scale?

• Can above-ground regulated programs be profitable in the face of a booming gray market?

• With no accrediting bodies, widespread regulatory uncertainty, and a lack of profitable businesses, what should the training landscape consist of, and why would a therapist pay thousands for a training that doesn’t entitle them to do anything they couldn’t already do?

• In light of the field’s ongoing financial woes, what if anything will inspire new capital to flow in, as well as new philanthropic dollars?

My view is that we remain a field still in search of the right models and in search of a vision of how public enthusiasm can be parlayed into equitable, effective, and safe systems of care.

Lots of “wait and see.” Some potentially big developments are on the horizon, and the field awaits them with bated breath. Many promising words have been spoken, X’d, and Truth’d by federal officials. Say what you will about the annihilation of our democracy, the evisceration of the Constitution, the unwinding of women’s rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, electoral integrity, public health, the global order, the environment, and the administrative state—but at least a few people in this fascist administration seem to be bullish on psychedelics.

Still, it’s been mostly just words so far. And in our current dystopian hellscape, what really matters is what one malignant, orange narcissist thinks. Personally, I don’t think Trump gives a shit about psychedelics—but perhaps the frauds, grifters, and charlatans in his orbit will convince him to hasten MDMA approval, push other compounds through, or otherwise breathe life—and capital—into our little corner of this soon-to-be-former democracy.

The name of the conference—“The Integration”—notwithstanding, there were almost no panels on integration. In fact, I’m pretty sure my panel was the only one explicitly about it. This isn’t surprising. In a field overly focused on “the medicine,” the core of healing—which in my view happens during preparation and integration—gets short shrift. Integration isn’t sexy. It’s often boring. It’s not scalable. And it’s certainly not patentable. Still, the field neglects integration at its peril.

But it’s not all bad. I don’t mean to come off as overly grim. A lot of cool stuff is happening, and many reasons for optimism were on display at PS25.

Many nonprofits have managed to stay afloat in an incredibly challenging fundraising environment and are delivering foundational services to the field. Want real examples of success and impact? Look no further than my friends at VETS, Inc., Heroic Hearts, Zendo Project, Fireside Project, Chacruna, DanceSafe, Psychedelic Support, Urban Indigenous Collective, and the Psychedelic Mental Health Alliance, to name a few.

Ibogaine is having a moment, and seems to be nearing a tipping point. On the heels of Texas allocating $50 million to ibogaine research, psychedelic warrior Rick Perry, and soon thereafter Kyrsten Sinema (yes, really) spoke in support of its powerful healing potential for PTSD, TBI, and opioid use disorder. Now, other states seem poised to follow Texas’ lead.

Another bright spot: the launch of U-PEP—the University Psychedelic Education Program. This is a beautiful initiative that trains college professors to teach psychedelic courses at their home institutions. The content is all open-source and available through the Sabba Collective’s platform, making it easier, faster, and cheaper for professors to build out curricula. This will likely catalyze a boom in the number of psychedelically informed nurses, social workers, and—eventually—other professions. U-PEP is a vital contribution to the field.

The role of psychedelics in religion was another bright spot of the conference. In part thanks to a groundbreaking Hopkins study, we seem to have reached mainstream acceptance of the truth that that psychedelics really can deepen religious practice and infuse religion with Spirit. We’re seeing an explosion of psychedelic religions, which are taking advantage of a federal law—the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA—that precludes the government from substantially burdening religious practices absent a compelling state interest. For bona fide religions with psychedelics at their core, this is becoming an ever-higher hurdle for the government to surmount. To the extent there is any salvation for psychedelics from the capitalist machine, I think it may well be in the form of small, community focused religious organizations that create safe, ethical containers for these experiences.

A highlight of PS25 for me was a psychedelic Shabbat gathering on Friday evening. It was such a joy to be in community with so many psychedelic Jews and Jewish-adjacent friends. Without questions, psychedelics have helped me feel far more Jewish than I ever have, and, sitting in that beautiful art gallery listening to the Rabbi’s exquisite voice, I felt in my DNA that Judaism doesn’t just tolerate psychedelic experiences, but embraces them and even springs from them.

So where does the field go from here? I really don’t know. I used to think psychedelics might actually make the world a more loving, interconnected place. I still believe they have the potential—but I’m far less convinced than I was in 2020 that they’ll fulfill it.

What I do know is this: I love so many people and organizations in this field, and I’m proud of the work that they—and I—have done to try to bend the arc of the psychedelic universe toward justice.

Candidly, I was dreading PS25. I feared it would be like PS23—too frenetic, too overwhelming, too brutal for my poor nervous system. But I came away from PS25 with so much gratitude: that I get to spend my life doing what I love, with people I love, in support of a cause I still believe in deeply.

What I do know is this:

These medicines are worth fighting for.

And I intend to keep fighting.