Community Driven Strategies to Prevent "Corporate Capture" of Psilocybin

Corporatizing Psychedelics: Community Driven Strategies to Prevent "Corporate Capture" of Psilocybin Mushrooms

The passage of Proposition 122 in November 2022 in Colorado helped to destigmatize natural plant medicines and fungi for personal, spiritual and medicinal purposes. Spaces have opened up for households and friend groups to publicly discuss opportunities and limitations of relatively free access to high quality and low-cost psychedelics. While these substances are not the panacea for trauma and other mental health conditions, individuals recognize that the decriminalization of psychedelics has added value to our diverse cultures as long as natural plant medicines stay out of the hands of corporate elites. More work is needed to increase accountability in the mostly white investor class that seeks to monopolize psychedelics. More work is needed to decenter the western approach to medicalizing natural plant medicines at the expense of indigenous science. This participatory breakout session is designed to explore strategies to prevent the corporatization of psilocybin mushrooms and other natural plant medicines.

Marty is an Associate Professor in the Anthropology Department, University of Colorado Denver. Some of his research and creative work areas are psilocybin use among people of color in Colorado, health and labor rights among cannabis workers in Colorado, and cannabis growing as an alternative to tobacco growing in Malawi, Africa. In fall 2024, he is analyzing over 95 recorded interviews with people of color and low-income people about use patterns and concerns about the decriminalization of psilocybin in Colorado as part of a research study to destigmatize and normalize psilocybin medicine. Marty and co-author Aaraon Diaz (Mexico City) published the first two volumes in a four-volume book series Breaking Stigmas: Art and Cannabis in North America (Center for Research on North America of the National Autonomous University of Mexico) in 2024. Marty is the organizer of the Perspectives on Psychedelics: BIPOC Speaker Series and producer of the community access television program Getting High on Anthropology. 

Host or Publisher Psychedelic Club of Denver